[FIXED] Careful if you ordered Apexium DIY Box (melted fuse cover)

[Daddy Tanuki]

I didnt read this entire post, so forgive me if you covered it... those breakers you have in there are trash, and not rated for near the voltage you are running.
Get rated breakers, disconnects, or just some ClassT fuses.

One thing I would love to see is some simple LARGE blade type interupts vice all of these low amperage marine style bank switch’s…. Something beefy and reasonable priced. That coupled with a class T fuse would take care of 99% of everyone’s issue.

You could even clean any arc damage w/ sandpaper if you actually had to use it while under load
. Sometimes simple is best

 

[robbob2112]

Yes I was just tired of trying to sort through who the liars and crooks were Winston gave me contact data to prove who their legitimate sales POC’s were. Costs more but expectations are high. I just got 32 cells two weeks ago, sourcing 14mm studs and ring terminals has been interesting to say the least. Got some
uestions if you have time will take it to PM if you are willling

I would be interested in being a fly on the wall to your conversation if you don't mind. Right now I live in the cold mountains at 9000ft colorado, but will be moving to new mexico where heat might be an issue.

 

[Daddy Tanuki]

I would be interested in being a fly on the wall to your conversation if you don't mind. Right now I live in the cold mountains at 9000ft colorado, but will be moving to new mexico where heat might be an issue.

Currently in a nutshell we’re discussing charging voltage is as the Winston are not LiFePo4 but LiYFePo? So Charging is slightly different. I bought them to get guaranteed fresh from the factory no BS Cells. the fact that they handle high and low temp better than the Current offerings from other makers was just icing on the cake

 

[robbob2112]

I know the mfg assured you the enclosures could be used on their sides, but do the battery spec sheets allow for that. They would trumph the enclosure vendor.

Seems like from all my reading you can orient batteries where the are on flat on the long side but shouldn't put the on the narrow edge side? This would mean standing the enclosures on their back or putting them flat

Maybe someone with more knowledge will weigh in.

And I am curious what you goal for the system is? Awful lot of money for the middle of nowhere so I assume you have a plan in mind for that much power?

 

[houseofancients]

Agreed and the enclosure has the typical made in China problems. Garbage for instructions. Granted a full blown EE would probably know what to avoid while assembling it, but this is a DIY thing and as such deserves a little better destruction manual

hence why I don't have doubts about the hardware, but I do about the reseller.
Both cheaping out on manuals, showing proof they a clueless about electrical engineering and given their past discrepancy's in relasering cells.

I will stick to the original, both in hardware and instructions / instructional video's

I would urge everyone that bought one of these boxes, to closely review the seplos videos and compair that to their own build, and correct asap

 

[JWLV]

Seems kind of pointless to have a 400 amp fuse on a 280Ah battery.

If the battery failed in some catastrophic way and the BMS got welded closed the fuse is your last defense. A fuse is your last line of defense when everything else has gone wrong.

 

[DJSmiley]

If anyone can help me understand what went wrong, and any mistakes that I am personally made can you please chime in. I built this system off grid and spent four+ months designing.

I’ve taught myself by watching videos from Will and others on YouTube. This forum has been a tremendous help. I consider myself a cautious intermediate though. Therefore I meticulously spent hundreds of hours planning and to be at this point is disappointing.

I’m not sure exactly what I did wrong or if this was an issue related to following the Apex assembly manual. It seems like many others are having fine experiences with these batteries. The SOC was at 140Ah I discovered. When building the system, Docan had told me that I couldn’t modify the BMS. Perhaps it was a misunderstanding. This time I have the app. I’ve been out in the desert for the last 10 days trying to fix this and I’m going home tomorrow defeated.

To be honest, my fist assumption was you did something wrong. It wasn't untill I found the crappy Apexium manual to find out the mistakes you made were based on wrong information, and I don't think you can blame yourself for following a mfg manual. It's reasonable to assume a manual is correct...

So don't blame yourself in this, DIY is a matter of try and learn, and sometimes fail. And there is a huge difference between failing because you f*cked up, or failing because you trusted information which only at a later stage seemed to be false.

I do agree with a commend about those breakers not suitable for the voltages, but that's not the main issue here, and I would condider replacing those as a later point of improvement.

As for the inverters: Technically, I can't make up my mind how a single battery failure would cause the inverters to fail. Since you have multiple batteries, DC ripple is limited since not all connections/batteries were crap. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with those inverters.


Language / translation is always an issue, especially if English isn't your native language. It's mine neither. Imho a lot of translation errors can occur with automated translations. Sometimes they do a good job, other times the f*ckup massivly. And with some more sensitive topics like a DIY battery, a tiny translation error can have huge effects.
I never use google translate (hence some errors in my posts)

In this case it wasn't just a translation error, but lack of QC. Some idiot made the pictures and no-one cared/bothered/had sufficient knowledge to spot the errors and they just released the manual.

 

[Norwasian]

If anyone can help me understand what went wrong, and any mistakes that I am personally made can you please chime in. I built this system off grid and spent four+ months designing.

It's stories like yours that cause me to wonder if my efforts are yet destined to failure. I'm into my third month designing a system, and it's not even for me! I have hoped to build something stable and durable, knowing that many in the area who have installed solar systems have found them to fail within a year or two for one reason or another, and most often the installer will not back any supposed warranty (keep in mind that some of these installations are in difficult-to-access places, especially during rainy season which is when failures might come from reduced panel output). Often, the charge controller goes bad (which could be a sign of improper matching to the panels and/or insufficient knowledge of how to install the system), and perhaps the batteries themselves fail to take a charge well before they are expected to fail. In some cases, it may be as simple as a dust layer over the panels preventing them from giving a good charge to the batteries. In other cases, the problem involves poorly engineered electronics. Having spent all this time researching, I think I'm settled on the panels, the wire, and the batteries--and everything else is uncertain. But then a thread like this emerges that causes me to doubt the batteries!

Locals don't trust the LiFePO4 batteries and recommend the AGM ones. I begin to realize that the AGM batteries have their attractive features, mainly simplicity without the complications of a BMS that can potentially upset the entire rest of the system. If only the AGM batteries lasted longer.

 

[Quattrohead]

3 months in and still don't have a plan and they are going to fight you about the battery, don't waste your time anymore.

 

[robbob2112]

It's stories like yours that cause me to wonder if my efforts are yet destined to failure. I'm into my third month designing a system, and it's not even for me! I have hoped to build something stable and durable, knowing that many in the area who have installed solar systems have found them to fail within a year or two for one reason or another, and most often the installer will not back any supposed warranty (keep in mind that some of these installations are in difficult-to-access places, especially during rainy season which is when failures might come from reduced panel output). Often, the charge controller goes bad (which could be a sign of improper matching to the panels and/or insufficient knowledge of how to install the system), and perhaps the batteries themselves fail to take a charge well before they are expected to fail. In some cases, it may be as simple as a dust layer over the panels preventing them from giving a good charge to the batteries. In other cases, the problem involves poorly engineered electronics. Having spent all this time researching, I think I'm settled on the panels, the wire, and the batteries--and everything else is uncertain. But then a thread like this emerges that causes me to doubt the batteries!

Locals don't trust the LiFePO4 batteries and recommend the AGM ones. I begin to realize that the AGM batteries have their attractive features, mainly simplicity without the complications of a BMS that can potentially upset the entire rest of the system. If only the AGM batteries lasted longer.

I have been researching all of this, deep diving various aspects and types of hardware. I started research in October and I have only built a new lifepo4 based UPS. Over built the thing. I think I am months and more from designing a full system. And probably a year or more from building. So many aspects that can make a difference in longevity trouble free running. The number one thing that seems to carry through the discussion is people saving a few bucks tend to spend it on fixing issues or have taken enough time to study the whole subject.

 

[Bop]

Many people still see 'lithiums' as being A: new B: all the same, C: explode into flames at the drop of a hat...

Widespread you tube videos of abused mobile phone cells and 18650 cells exploding violently and the like don't help...

What most people don't realise is just because it has 'lithium' in the name, doesn't mean they are anything alike- the LYP's I use have been on sale and in use in Australia since 2008, and they were on sale elsewhere from 2002- not exactly 'new'- there are kids in Australia who can now legally drive and get married that were born when the first LYPs were sold in Oz...

I have seen far more L/A (of all types) starting fires and causing damage than I have seen LFP/LYP ones (the importer of the ones I use has had exactly two failures since 2008- both likely manufacturing defects, and neither 'caught fire'- they did swell, and cracked the case and simply stopped working- both were replaced under warantee, no questions asked

Especially the flooded L/A- the number of fires they caused from gas release causing corroded joints in the interconnects urgh... AGM solved that, but introduced its own issues- poor efficiency in both the charge cycle and discharge cycle meant you got way less storage available from the same panel output, and expensive to boot so really needing more panel capacity to do the same job as flooded- and all L/A have a limited service life unless 'extremely' lightly loaded- 3000 charge cycles 'could' be achieved, but only at the expense of massively oversizing the battery bank in relationship to the actual demand required...by a factor of ten...

LFP is far safer, far more service life, much lighter, and only marginally more expensive initially 'Ah to Ah' than any L/A- economically they make far more sense, giving 30% or more storage for the same 'label' Ah, cheaper to transport (my current 20kwh bank came home in the back seat of a Mazda 3, a L/A of the equivalent Ah specced to last would need a 4 tonne truck to carry it... and still only last half as long...

Simply no comparison...

 

[robbob2112]

One of the scariest things I have seen is the guy on youtube that takes a bunch of scooter style Lithium ion batteries plugged all together to make a 48v 5kwr pack. Bare wires, to small wires, no bms, only a single fuse, a case way to small, no ventilation. Just a fire waiting to happen.

 

[JWLV]

One of the scariest things I have seen is the guy on youtube that takes a bunch of scooter style Lithium ion batteries plugged all together to make a 48v 5kwr pack. Bare wires, to small wires, no bms, only a single fuse, a case way to small, no ventilation. Just a fire waiting to happen.

If you got a link to that Youtube video, I'd like to see!

 

[robbob2112]

If you got a link to that Youtube video, I'd like to see!

This is a horrible way to do a battery and is a fire waiting to happen. And by bad, it is a 36vdc pack in the end... which presents all sorts of problems to use.

 

[Brucey]

This is a horrible way to do a battery and is a fire waiting to happen. And by bad, it is a 36vdc pack in the end... which presents all sorts of problems to use.

He does mention at the end that "the catch" is inverter selection is more limited due to it being 36V.

 

[robbob2112]

He does mention at the end that "the catch" is inverter selection is more limited due to it being 36V.

I suppose the main thing that gets me is how a lot of the wires have a bare section near the board, how much the board flexes as he closes the front.... and there is no way to inspect any of that once the cover is on. No fuse, no BMS to keep all the individual batteries balanced and no way to tell if any of the stick BMS trip off and drop out. That and the XT connectors, I've seen a lot of that type fail in 3d printers.

 

[MartyByrde]

I didnt read this entire post, so forgive me if you covered it... those breakers you have in there are trash, and not rated for near the voltage you are running.
Get rated breakers, disconnects, or just some ClassT fuses.

any brands you recommend?

 

[houseofancients]

any brands you recommend?

the box itself is just fine, if one builds it correct

 

[Supervstech]

any brands you recommend?

Blue sea systems.

And 60+V rated are critical.

SquareD makes a nice set in the QO line, magnum offers a great line of them.
But make sure the type you choose are dc rated, and for ABOVE the voltage you will be using.

 

[MartyByrde]

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to drop an update about the APEX DIY battery box issue I shared a while back. After reaching out, I’ve been working with Daisy from Docan to sort everything out over the last few months.

They ended up reimbursing me some money for the damage to my inverters and sent over a replacement APEX DIY box. They’ve also updated the manual to fix the issues I ran into, so double check your boxes .

Honestly, I’m satisfied with how they handled things—quick to fix their mistakes and went above and beyond to make sure I was taken care of. Big thanks to Daisy and the Docan team for stepping up. I will continue to work with them in the future.

Thought you’d all want to know, especially if you’re using the same setup or thinking about it.

I got to learn some new skills too - swapping out mainboards and improvising the batteries.