DOCAN POWER
Brand New High Quality LiFePO4 Battery Cells SupplierDocan is TOP10 battery and battery suppliers in China. We supply TOP1 service of Lifepo4 Prismatic Cell and Battery Pack for variouse area, 12 years+ focus on high capacity, high wattage, high voltage, high dicharge current battery cells and...
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Final price ends up being a little higher than quoted because purchase goes through Alibaba. (fees for currency conversion, and trade protection)
Shipping took a few days extra to start, maybe they really slip it accross border, I don't know, but was still reasonably fast, better than the normal from US or china type delays.
I am happy with all the details, was packed well. Was the cheapest and fastest option I could find.
I had just bought a 48v forklift with lead acid cells dead. So I pulled out each lead acid cell, then stuck in the lifepo4 cells. Cell balance board off amazon rather than full bms for now. (not sure what my max load will be, don't want to fry a bms if I exceed what it can handle) balance board is good enough for now as only use forlift for fraction of full battery capacity before it goes on charger again.
it would take 58v to fully charge them. I instead opted for 4amp scooter charger, 54v so they get almost full but last much longer.
I've bought a MPPT solar charger but not setup yet, will also adjust its max voltage to be 54 volt or less. It has to be hooked to batteries before solar panels, and forklift occasionally moves around doing forklift work, so have to get the setup right, with it living with the forklift with good vibration protection.
Planning on also adding an all in one hybrid solar charge controller/inverter combo, where I can tune the min and max voltages for battery, so it never is completely full or empty just like they do on electric cars.
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My opinion, if you can handle the technical stuff, probably better to buy cells rather than pre made batteries, because that way you know exactly what you are getting and can do better quality. Pre made ones sometimes skimp or even dishonest on the cells or bms.
BMS... if you use more power than the BMS can handle for a few secs it can get hot and start wearing out. I had 24V electric lawnmower with lead acid batteries. Replaced them with Ecoworthy 30 AH off amazon, that were same size, would fit in lawnmower. One of the bms died after using for a while, so I ordered some more powerful BMS, still have to finish soldering them in to replace the wimpier ones.
So far every premade 12v or 24v battery pack that I've bought and taken apart to look used inferior stuff to what I would buy and do myself. What they call in china "LTO battery" (titanium oxide, best cycling performance cells), are really the cheap 3.6V cells, 150 ah is really 125 ah, etc. Alibaba, DHGate you have protection in that seller doesn't get your money till you got correct goods (you should make sure correct), but its a bit of a gong show... you'll say it is fraud/not as good as supposed to be, seller will say accept it or ship it back, but will end up being no way to ship it back because shipping lithium cells "dangerous goods" is often gong show in canada, so he finally gives in and reduces price.
Ideal larger system is 48v, because reduces cost of MPPT controllers (half the amps to charge 48v rather than 24v), if you go for premade 12V batteries in series to get to 48v you can get 12v balance board that balances the 4 x 12v batteries off amazon. If you charge to less that 100% and actively balance cells all the time (rather than just when individul cell hits 100% charge) and don't discharge all the way empty your battery pack will likely last 2x+ longer. (GM with chevy volt and then all the other car manufacturers do this)
[I see most commonly bms balanced when an individual cell hits 100%, which means the weakest cell will be at 100% when charged, and likely stay at 100% much of time, which drastically shortens its life and when that one weakest cell dies, people tend to throw away the whole battery pack]
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