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Anyone seen inside a LifeBlue?

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CarlN

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I'm considering LifeBlue and would love to know how well they are built. Have you or anyone else ever done a teardown? As far as I can tell, LifeBlue is the only US available drop in where the company makes the cells as well as the battery (LifeBlue is owned by Topband in China who is a medium size battery producer that's been around since 2006 http://www.topbandbattery.com). Since they design their own prismatic cells they aren't buying the pouch or cylinder cells that most companies buy. So the batteries might look really good inside - or not...
 
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Just purchased four 25aH Topband batteries to build. They look nice and it came with a Daly BMS. I will report back how they do.
 
I just purchased some LifeBlue 200Ah batteries for my house bank. LifeBlue sent along this picture of the BMS inside their new V3 battery. Thoughts?

LifeBlue V3 LB12200D-LT BMS.png
 
My thoughts are I wished I’d never bought them. I just purchased two 100ah batteries and already having issues with one. The battery is throwing a high voltage (3800mV) out of one cell during charging and shutting the battery down; it won’t reach 14.4v and go into float. I took it back to the dealer and they say the battery is fine (except it won’t charge like the other battery and it’s not fine). LifeBlue’s warranty specifically excludes repeated high voltage cycling from warranty coverage too.

After doing a little digging I found some interesting circumstances around LifeBlue. Larry Crutcher of Starlight Solar in Yuma is actually the importer of these batteries from Shenzhen Topband in Hong Kong. US Customs shows he just (Jan, 2021) imported 584 batteries from Hong Kong shipped to his warehouse (Starlight) in Yuma. Their website doesn’t list any address or contact other than a Wisconsin phone number. However, LifeBlue is an registered Montana LLC with an address to a rural farmhouse in Sula, MT without any named individual nor registered agent. So, that doesn’t inspire much confidence in me of long term warranty coverage. I can’t find any DBA for them in Wisconsin or Arizona either.
 
Vertigo said:
My thoughts are I wished I’d never bought them. I just purchased two 100ah batteries and already having issues with one. The battery is throwing a high voltage (3800mV) out of one cell during charging and shutting the battery down; it won’t reach 14.4v and go into float. I took it back to the dealer and they say the battery is fine (except it won’t charge like the other battery and it’s not fine). LifeBlue’s warranty specifically excludes repeated high voltage cycling from warranty coverage too.

After doing a little digging I found some interesting circumstances around LifeBlue. Larry Crutcher of Starlight Solar in Yuma is actually the importer of these batteries from Shenzhen Topband in Hong Kong. US Customs shows he just (Jan, 2021) imported 584 batteries from Hong Kong shipped to his warehouse (Starlight) in Yuma. Their website doesn’t list any address or contact other than a Wisconsin phone number. However, LifeBlue is an registered Montana LLC with an address to a rural farmhouse in Sula, MT without any named individual nor registered agent. So, that doesn’t inspire much confidence in me of long term warranty coverage. I can’t find any DBA for them in Wisconsin or Arizona either.
Click to expand...
Impressive digging
 
Correction: It appears LifeBlue is listed as an “Individual” with the Montana Sec of State and not an LLC. This picture shows the mailing address of LiFeBlue’s current Montana state business registration.
 

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I received a replacement battery and the second one has cells even more mismatched than the first. The battery is tripping the HV protection at 3.8V in one cell while the lowest cell is at 3.3V. Additionally, the batteries are only a few serial numbers apart but the date of manufacture is 6 months difference and already a year old. This is not looking good.
 
It does sound like some seriously mismatched cells. Here's what I would do... Get a reasonably high current balancer, open one battery up, and attach the balancer to the cells. Leave it attached until all cells have reached the same voltage. Then remove the balancer and begin charging. Observe the cells during this process. If all is well, they should come up to full charge together.

One could leave the balancer attached until fully charged and the bms shuts off the charging circuit. This would ensure top balance at full charge. (And you may need reapply the balancer and do this.) However, I would feel more comfortable observing how the internal bms alone manages once all the cells have reached the same voltage.

One idea for a balancer here:

Affordable Electric Vehicle Batteries & Components from Electric Car Parts Company

Electric Car Parts Company is your one-stop-shop for affordable electric vehicle parts and components including batteries. Shop our selection and order now!
www.electriccarpartscompany.com

Others may have their own favorites.

Cheers,
Doug
 
Vertigo said:
Yeah, I did that with the first battery and that went nowhere. The dealer tested it and said it was bad and replaced it with this one.
Click to expand...
I have 2 of the LiFeBlue 100 ah and one always gets full before the other. The HV is triggered each time I try to fully charge. I called LiFeBlue and they explained that this is normal for one cell to get full first. The way it was explained is one cell gets full before the others and this causes the voltage of that cell to rise quickly. If it reaches 3.8v, the bms blocks charge current and lights the HV led. During this process, the cell balancers are on and that lowers the cells with the highest voltage. this is the important part that you may be overlooking: this can happen with the battery voltage at anywhere from 13.8v up to 14.6v. The battery is fullly charged no matter what the voltage is Once this happens. They assure me that the battery has the full capacity.

I can’t tell any difference using the battery but I plan to do a discharge test to verify. I trust the explanation given, it makes sense. My many calls to LiFeBlue were always promptly answered So not sure why you got nowhere calling them. One more thing, they said that if I did not have the Bluetooth app, I would not know that this takes place. All lithium battery bms will turn off the charge current if they reach a certain voltage. But unless it has the Bluetooth app, you can’t tell. Other than that, I love my LiFeBlue batteries!
 
Ravingman said:
I have 2 of the LiFeBlue 100 ah and one always gets full before the other. The HV is triggered each time I try to fully charge. I called LiFeBlue and they explained that this is normal for one cell to get full first. The way it was explained is one cell gets full before the others and this causes the voltage of that cell to rise quickly. If it reaches 3.8v, the bms blocks charge current and lights the HV led. During this process, the cell balancers are on and that lowers the cells with the highest voltage. this is the important part that you may be overlooking: this can happen with the battery voltage at anywhere from 13.8v up to 14.6v. The battery is fullly charged no matter what the voltage is Once this happens. They assure me that the battery has the full capacity.

I can’t tell any difference using the battery but I plan to do a discharge test to verify. I trust the explanation given, it makes sense. My many calls to LiFeBlue were always promptly answered So not sure why you got nowhere calling them. One more thing, they said that if I did not have the Bluetooth app, I would not know that this takes place. All lithium battery bms will turn off the charge current if they reach a certain voltage. But unless it has the Bluetooth app, you can’t tell. Other than that, I love my LiFeBlue batteries!
Click to expand...
If that explanation were true then there wouldn’t ever be any need to top or bottom balance lithium batteries and Will could remove his YT videos. Moreover, I have one other LifeBlue battery that’s nearly perfectly balanced (+-10mV in adjacent cells) and behaves completely different than the other. I have to laugh at the notion that monitoring the BT app is the causation for concern of health status in the batteries. The dealer tested the battery and came to the same conclusion that it was defective and replaced it with another. I suppose I could disconnect the cylinder head temp sensor on my truck and eliminate that unnecessary worry also. On the other hand, you’re welcome to believe whatever you wish.
 
Vertigo said:
If that explanation were true then there wouldn’t ever be any need to top or bottom balance lithium batteries and Will could remove his YT videos. Moreover, I have one other LifeBlue battery that’s nearly perfectly balanced (+-10mV in adjacent cells) and behaves completely different than the other. I have to laugh at the notion that monitoring the BT app is the causation for concern of health status in the batteries. The dealer tested the battery and came to the same conclusion that it was defective and replaced it with another. I suppose I could disconnect the cylinder head temp sensor on my truck and eliminate that unnecessary worry also. On the other hand, you’re welcome to believe whatever you wish.
Click to expand...
Not true. Top balance happens in LiFeBlue if a cell reaches 3.5 volts. It doesn’t matter what the battery voltage is.
“ I have to laugh at the notion that monitoring the BT app is the causation for concern of health status in the batteries.” You lost me on that statement. The app has a state of health monitor. What are you getting at?

You sound dissatisfied but I think it’s because you don’t understand how the battery works. Over time the low cells will get charged more and that will let the battery voltage go higher before the HV turns on. Does it matter if they behave different as long as you get the same capacity and life?
 
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Update: I disassembled the battery and did a top balance and the cells are much better matched now. The build quality is actually pretty good and easily serviceable. The configuration is 4S/4P of 16 cells (3.2V 80Wh). Before and after photos show the difference post balancing to 3.65V in parallel.

BTW, the BMS in my battery is nothing like the one shown in a previous photo posted above.
25214C65-3A0A-45B0-808D-C85D1F8915DE.png50AE9E2B-58E1-49BB-BB65-F3B26191E6D8.png380DF3A3-98F7-4ACD-B50C-FCA3F6BD0F89.jpeg
 
greyghost said:
It does sound like some seriously mismatched cells. Here's what I would do... Get a reasonably high current balancer, open one battery up, and attach the balancer to the cells. Leave it attached until all cells have reached the same voltage. Then remove the balancer and begin charging. Observe the cells during this process. If all is well, they should come up to full charge together.

One could leave the balancer attached until fully charged and the bms shuts off the charging circuit. This would ensure top balance at full charge. (And you may need reapply the balancer and do this.) However, I would feel more comfortable observing how the internal bms alone manages once all the cells have reached the same voltage.

One idea for a balancer here:

Affordable Electric Vehicle Batteries & Components from Electric Car Parts Company

Electric Car Parts Company is your one-stop-shop for affordable electric vehicle parts and components including batteries. Shop our selection and order now!
www.electriccarpartscompany.com

Others may have their own favorites.

Cheers,
Doug
Click to expand...
Many thanks.
 
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