Building a big 280AH 24V Battery - Whats the best supplier for cells right now?, also, sanity check for my numbers.

[Sgt Raven]

Ahhh, I'm thinking of something completely different. My Victron MultiPlus has a temp sensor that I had to fit to the battery - all it does is reduce the charge current if the battery gets to hot. Conflated these two different products. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

It could be using the same probe and just a change in the firmware/programing....

 

[tictag]

It could be using the same probe and just a change in the firmware/programing...

No, the one I was thinking of is literally just a thermocouple - no smarts.

 

[mrdavvv]

Already purchase 16 x 280AH cells from Amy (Shenzen Xuba).

- Amy is very good and attentive, i recommend her!
- She send photos and video of the cells as promised.
- Mentioned that i found her trough the forum, so she attached some bus terminals.
- Delivery was fast.

Price:
16 x 280AH Cell = 1322.72 USD
Shipment by FedEx = 1668USD
Total: $2990.72 USD

As you can ship the shipment its very expensive, unfortunately it was the only option for my country, the good part is that they should arrive very fast (Less than a week).

Ill let you know when i receive them and test them!

 

[tictag]

Eye-watering shipping costs! Surely it would have been cheaper to buy your own aircraft and fly them back yourself!?

Good luck with it all.

 

[mrdavvv]

Yeah it was hard to swallow, it was 1200 before covid and sure i could have used boat shipment, but need them asap, so the wallet needed to bleed

 

[Steve_S]

Price:
16 x 280AH Cell = 1322.72 USD
Shipment by FedEx = 1668USD
Total: $2990.72 USD

Yeah it was hard to swallow, it was 1200 before covid and sure i could have used boat shipment, but need them asap, so the wallet needed to bleed

Don't feel so bad. That cursed ShunBin pack cost me, $3000 USD, another $500 to fix it and NOW it will cost me yet one more BMS & replacement of 3 FUBAR 175AH cells to get everything up to snuff. Was supposed to be 24v/400AH turned out to be 24v/350AH (with used cells), 16 Cells with the bad cells ghosted by paralleling a good cell to the bad. YOU are getting 560AH of New Grade A for 3K USD. Lucky for some folks that these lessons were learned & shared by those of us who got duped.

 

[mrdavvv]

Don't feel so bad. That cursed ShunBin pack cost me, $3000 USD, another $500 to fix it and NOW it will cost me yet one more BMS & replacement of 3 FUBAR 175AH cells to get everything up to snuff. Was supposed to be 24v/400AH turned out to be 24v/350AH (with used cells), 16 Cells with the bad cells ghosted by paralleling a good cell to the bad. YOU are getting 560AH of New Grade A for 3K USD. Lucky for some folks that these lessons were learned & shared by those of us who got duped.

Yeah for sure, it would be interesting to calculate all the money and headaches saved by this comunity.

And im exited for my 560pack, never dream about having that much energy!

 

[Steve_S]

Yeah for sure, it would be interesting to calculate all the money and headaches saved by this comunity.

And im exited for my 560pack, never dream about having that much energy!

hehehe I Know the feeling !
I only wish that when I was 1st building my system that LFP would have been cheaper but alas in those days they weren't. I'm ending up with 910AH of useabe LFP for just a bit more (about $300) than the cost as my 956Ahr's of FLA of which only half is useable. Timing is everything isn't it. At least the FLA is designated to go to Greenhouse Duties later when spring has actually sprung and I can get to building the Greenhouse, wish I had been able to last year, would be REALLY handy to have now with the Covid crisis going on.

 

[mrdavvv]

Oh man, I was about to get stuck FLA / AGM and by some dumb luck found about this Forum, otherwise i would be filling water and smelling fumes right now .

Indeed, good timing at least for me .

But for a greenhouse FLA's might be an ideal application, good luck!

 

[Steve_S]

Oh man, I was about to get stuck FLA / AGM and by some dumb luck found about this Forum, otherwise i would be filling water and smelling fumes right now .

Indeed, good timing at least for me .

But for a greenhouse FLA's might be an ideal application, good luck!

Well Greenhouse yes but it's not what you picture, year round semi buried based off Mike Oehler's book, but I am also borrowing a couple of Walipini ideas as well to make it more suitable for my particular climate zone. Walipini is great in more southern regions with less or no fluffy rain issues.

Refs:
http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/articles/earth-shelteredgreenhouse.htm

The Earth Sheltered Solar Greenhouse Book: Mike Oehler, Mike Oehler, Ross, Anita Bedard, Katie Purviance, Cassie Eisenhower, Chandel Oyharsabal, Sarah Tye, David Fairall: 8601400860021: Amazon.com: Books

The Earth Sheltered Solar Greenhouse Book [Mike Oehler, Mike Oehler, Ross, Anita Bedard, Katie Purviance, Cassie Eisenhower, Chandel Oyharsabal, Sarah Tye, David Fairall] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Earth Sheltered Solar Greenhouse Book

www.amazon.com

Tips for Walipini Construction – Mother Earth News

Learn tips and customize your walipini construction to ensure a durable, long-lasting, and productive walipini style greenhouse.

www.motherearthnews.com

 

[mrdavvv]

Very interesting, i spend my good share of time looking at all those specials designs from greenhouse's while i was obsessed with aquaponics, wanted to build a geodesic one... unfortunately in the city i dont have the time / space to do those projects... so enjoy!

Would be interesting to see your project sometime when you think its presentable

 

[mrdavvv]

Yesterday i received my batteries from Xuba.

• Have a lot of issues in the past wich chinese vendors & bad packaging. Not this time, everything arrived in perfect condition and the packaging was ABUNDANT, very good job from the supplier and i must also thank the members of the Forum that gave Amy feedback (Think Steve?), probably saved a lot of cells with this.
• Havent test the cells but i will do some measurements and take photos to the final assembly, i have some interesing ideas about the assembly.

So here they are!:

 

[tictag]

Wow, that is a big battery. Can I borrow some capacity?

 

[suabientan]

wow! that's look good!

 

[BiduleOhm]

Wow, that is a big battery. Can I borrow some capacity?

Sure, with a very sharp knife you can cut slices, just chose the size you want... ?

 

[ghostwriter66]

Thank you for taking the time to respond and I respect your opinion greatly and one of your posts is the reason I am jumping into making my own batteries instead of buying the Battleborns, thus saving me a ton of $$.

As far as doing my own research - that is what I did and led me to the video posted previously and the quote directly from Will's website. I'll post it again; Bottom Balancing the Cells: This is REQUIRED when first building a LiFePO4 battery. It is also repeated in the previously posted video. What is your comment about this statement? Is it false? Is it old and outdated information? Is it a difference of opinion? Do you have some other research I could read or look at that would contradict this? The fact that he capitalized the word "REQUIRED" leaps out to me as something I should be doing.
View attachment 8585


I see no mention of emergency equipment or vehicular use "ONLY" in the video posted or the website link from above? Is this just common knowledge and Will is not clued in on the subject? Is he giving out old and outdated information?


Because I have no idea what I am doing and it was written in giant white letters on the screen from the previously posted video and discussed at around 4:27. Screen shot below from said video (Did you watch this?). To be fair, he did say maybe he wrote 20%-90% on his website. I checked his website and found him saying 10%-90% to be on the safe side, so you are both in agreement there. I will be over panel'd and bought more than enough battery capacity for my needs (thanks to you saving me so much $ on building my own) so I would like to keep the batteries around as long as possible and that seems to me why he was recommending those settings.
View attachment 8549

Thank you again for all of your help, and I truly mean no disrespect with this post as I am just trying to hash this all out and understand why there is conflicting information. I have a first grader knowledge of solar and battery building and that is why I am spending 5+ hours a day on this forum reading everything and watching every video on the topic that I can.

I know its been a month since you posted this -- but thought that i would just jump on for a second ... Will has NEVER touted himself as being the end-all-of-end-all of LFP knowledge .. in fact he is the first to say that he, like the rest of us, is learning new things everyday... there has been times that he (once again like the rest of us) has found the so called "perfect" BMS - got all excited - shared it with the world -- and then 2 weeks later found out that it actually could not do this or that ... OR touted a battery for being the second miracle in the history of man - to cut it open and find out that its pure junk inside ...

Its all a big learning curve for all of us ... I have a degree in EE from one of the Top 5 EE schools in the world, work for a major oil corporation and specialize in RF communications and POWER systems. The Lithium Power systems I work on are the size of fricking 20 foot conex containers and I can literally run a small town if needed 24 hours from just one of these systems ... and we have sophisticated ($$$) computer systems that measure a 100 times a seconds every cell, volt, ohm, current, heat, yada yada - BUT with that said -- once you go from Commercial to Hobby or Home - things change ... so everything i knew about commercial systems went out the window when i started playing with 280ah and below... and i quickly found out that I literally knew NOTHING about the art of the smaller system and if you ask 5 experts in the LFP field about a 200aH battery you get 8 opinions - and often times they are all wrong ...

SO - and I think that even @Will Prowse would agree with me - that although his videos are 90% educational, 8% entertaining, and 2% safety-cringe worthy, he would be the first to tell you that everyone has to do their own investigative research and do whats right for their particular setup. There are several ppl here on this board that are my go to SME's -- @Steve_S and @tictag and @upnorthandpersonal and @Supervstech and several others have helped me out immensely not to make costly mistakes and to help me tweak my own personal system and that's why this www.diysolarforum.com is important to me ...

I guess i am saying all of that to say - TRUTH changes - you have to do your own research -- battery companies that I swore by 6 months ago I wouldn't now recommend to my worse enemy --- BMS's that I swore by 3 months ago find themselves mostly in the dumpster -- and now i have a new set I swear by ... Ground TRUTH changes daily ...

Anyway - as my boss always says "GOOD LUCK RANGER!!" ...

 

[Sgt Raven]

@ghostwriter66 , with all the changes that have happened so fast in the LFP world, could the top people in it, keep up to date on all of it?
I bet some of them say WOW some times, too.

 

[ghostwriter66]

@ghostwriter66 , with all the changes that have happened so fast in the LFP world, could the top people in it, keep up to date on all of it?
I bet some of them say WOW some times, too.

Totally .. like right now ... we have so much damn fuel coming out of the ground we are actually trying to find places to put it ... between us and Russia and Saudi Arabia AND that the use of fuel has dropped 40% in less than 3 weeks ... we will probably be looking at 0.95 cents in a matter of a week ... BAD for America .. BAD for my employer .. BUT great for drivers ... and YES .. allot of the senior guys in these meetings just sit there and go WOW - NO ONE SAW THIS COMING AT ALL ...

 

[Steve_S]

Totally .. like right now ... we have so much damn fuel coming out of the ground we are actually trying to find places to put it ... between us and Russia and Saudi Arabia AND that the use of fuel has dropped 40% in less than 3 weeks ... we will probably be looking at 0.95 cents in a matter of a week ... BAD for America .. BAD for my employer .. BUT great for drivers ... and YES .. allot of the senior guys in these meetings just sit there and go WOW - NO ONE SAW THIS COMING AT ALL ...

Maybe you should start looking into working within the Renewable Energy / Solar Industry instead. Trade the dying old horse for a fresh young Stallion. Psst, the writing is on the wall.

 

[heirloom hamlet]

With all the price drops recently -- The $1738 you're looking at for 8 280aH seems high ... when you can get 8 200aH for $880 ...

Amy just gave me a quote for x4 24v 280aH battery sets (32 total cells), to my door, of 3631.44. That would be 907.86 per 24v 280aH battery (Bus and bolt included). Would that not be 3.24 per aH? Based on your figures from January, seems like a pretty good deal for me. Is my thinking and math right?

 

[Steve_S]

Amy just gave me a quote for x4 24v 280aH battery sets (32 total cells), to my door, of 3631.44. That would be 907.86 per 24v 280aH battery (Bus and bolt included). Would that not be 3.24 per aH? Based on your figures from January, seems like a pretty good deal for me. Is my thinking and math right?

3631÷32 = 113.468 per cell ÷ 280AH = $8.75

 

[heirloom hamlet]

3631÷32 = 113.468 per cell ÷ 280AH = $8.75

Ugh, thanks man. So there are better deals to be had. The search goes on.

 

[heirloom hamlet]

3631÷32 = 113.468 per cell ÷ 280AH = $8.75

Steve, I was just thinking...I don't want to get a bank that the rest of my system doesn't really support. Like if I had all this capacity but it would take a week of sun to charge up. That wouldn't be practical for a completely off-grid home.
Is it easy to do the math on how many sun hours it would take for an LV2424 (w/ 80a SCC) to charge between 10% and 90% of a 280aH battery bank? My 24v panel array right now is series/paralleled to be max 16.54a and 75.2v, 1500w.

 

[Steve_S]

Steve, I was just thinking...I don't want to get a bank that the rest of my system doesn't really support. Like if I had all this capacity but it would take a week of sun to charge up. That wouldn't be practical for a completely off-grid home.
Is it easy to do the math on how many sun hours it would take for an LV2424 (w/ 80a SCC) to charge between 10% and 90% of a 280aH battery bank? My 24v panel array right now is series/paralleled to be max 16.54a and 75.2v, 1500w.

The Xuba EVE Cells ARE the best deal to be had, you won't get a better price per Ahr. Remember I used the "whole" number with S&H etc all in.

I am running with 22kWh of Lead + 8.4kWh of LFP "right now" and soon to be 21.8kWh of LFP at which time the Leaf goes for the Greenhouse function. No issues with charging the banks and I am using 2000W of panel and one Midnite Classic 200 (takes 2kw of panel - to 200VDC and put's out up to 79A for 24V bank). I will be increasing # of Panels and adding another Midnite to add capacity for deep winter charging periods. Greenhouse will be a separate & independent system.

BTW, You "May" be able to find other LFP cheaper BUT I can pretty much guarantee that they'll be used & abused with limited capacity & lifecycle left. You would NOT be happy with them but that is the consequence. Remember the old saying "Penny Wise = Dollar Foolish".

 

[heirloom hamlet]

The Xuba EVE Cells ARE the best deal to be had, you won't get a better price per Ahr. Remember I used the "whole" number with S&H etc all in.

I am running with 22kWh of Lead + 8.4kWh of LFP "right now" and soon to be 21.8kWh of LFP at which time the Leaf goes for the Greenhouse function. No issues with charging the banks and I am using 2000W of panel and one Midnite Classic 200 (takes 2kw of panel - to 200VDC and put's out up to 79A for 24V bank). I will be increasing # of Panels and adding another Midnite to add capacity for deep winter charging periods. Greenhouse will be a separate & independent system.

BTW, You "May" be able to find other LFP cheaper BUT I can pretty much guarantee that they'll be used & abused with limited capacity & lifecycle left. You would NOT be happy with them but that is the consequence. Remember the old saying "Penny Wise = Dollar Foolish".

Thanks, Steve, super helpful. Now I am wondering if I should be on the safe side and order more cells to be on the safe side. Can't afford to be off and later want just a few more. It seems like if the shipping cost doesn't go up much with more cells, that's where the incredible affordability starts.

Of course, my little cabins will only be pulling 3 to 10 amps at any given time. A 280aH battery should give me lots of time, especially with the good consistent sun we get here in Savannah. It may be cheaper and wiser to just add a few more panels rather than storage.