Cheap 4kwh LiFePO4 batteries from Batteryclearancewarehouse

[batteryclearinghouse]

HMR... No one has come back to us "yet" with a capacity issue on these and if it did happen we would work to sort it out. You gotta take a close look at the source and models types people are seeing the issues with. All I can do is stand behind the batteries we shipped.

so... if you have time, swing by and we can run around the warehouse.

 

[HMR]

HMR... No one has come back to us "yet" with a capacity issue on these and if it did happen we would work to sort it out. You gotta take a close look at the source and models types people are seeing the issues with. All I can do is stand behind the batteries we shipped.

so... if you have time, swing by and we can run around the warehouse.

Thank you so much for your gracious reply and invitation to come visit. I am currently on vacation in Ecuador and will return at end of February. In March I will make an appointment with you to come and visit and talk about buying two more of these BYD batteries. Best wishes until then.

 

[batteryclearinghouse]

ok... there different grades of batteries and cells. It can BYD, LG, EVE, Samsung, etc

New cells in commercial applications use to fall in the 100% to 80% capacity range. Now, it seems like the trend is 100-70%. Those then go into the recycle network. $$$$$$$$

Next you have the reuse/DIY/builder market. That's traditionally the next step down. 80% and now creeping toward 70% capacity range. Lets say that's $$$$

Next step down is the 60%-40% capacity range... Those don't go to a landfill, they go to Asia to be remanufactured/reused/tested/etc... A 100 Watts of new battery might be 2 lbs. 100 watts of a recycled battery at 50% is basically 4 lbs. It's all wrapped up in plastic or put in a plastic case. Those big battery backup packs you buy at the truck stop with a no name brand would be a prime example. They are heavy, they don't seem to hold a charge long and they last half as long as the ones you buy at Best Buy. $$

The last step is recycled for scrap value.. copper, cobalt, etc... That's when they go in a shredder and get recycled. The only value they have is what the material recovery is after processing. $

I am looking at buying a Chevy Spark EV or a BMW I3... A new one costs a ton, a 2 year old one coming of lease is a lot less.. they hold their value for a few years then they are slowly worth less and less over time until they go the scrap yard.

Some of the postings on the thread are pointing to batteries sold by others and in some cases are part of a rebuilt battery unit. For me, that a no brainer... yeah.. there are all types of grades out there. If you buy a bunch of used up LG 18650 cells that came out of scooter batteries, we don't say that all used LG 18650 cells are junk.

The single greatest challenge with these large cells is that it take a lot of effort to cycle them. Each individual one can be tested, but the cost to cover the time and labor to do that goes up quickly. On the large cells.. we voltage test, visually inspect, look at where they are coming from and then try to price them according while disclosing that they are not new cells.

As far as the false marketing comments on this particular thread. There are really great battery cells out there and there are some really piss poor ones. Different people have different cut offs on what is sent out to customers. If you run into an issue and the person your working with guaranteed something, then just reach out to them. Often times they didn't catch the issue themselves before they went out.

 

[SolarRat]

If these second life re-sellers tested every single pack before selling that would cost a lot of money in man hours, electricity and equipment, and would surely raise the cost to the end user beyond what would be reasonable.

I'm fine with them only testing a few out of each batch, as long as they honestly report their findings and sell the rest as-is WITH as-is pricing (cheap enough to take the chance on). I'd rather get them at the cheapest possible price from a reputable company that will/may exchange/refund any that are completely unusable.

70% is still useable and fine as long as that was within your expectations. But if you have a problem a year later I wouldn't expect any of these re-sellers to be responsible. Ya wanna play the game, ya gotta expect to take ya chances. That goes for used batteries or Ali-X "new" batteries.

Keep the cheap deals coming and I'll decide whether to take my chances or not. Add 40% to the price for testing and I'll probably take my chances with new Ali-X "crap" instead.

 

[Super Fly]

This is not looking good for the market, but one thing is certain. Some resellers will sell you even if they are at 50%. I guess they may say, they had to buty them without testing so they have to recover their money.

I just ordered some of these from batteryclearinghouse and I will say, its been nice talking to Guy, a real people person.

I hope these are from different sources.

As was said earlier, all grades will be sold, it's just a matter of who does it honestly.

Honesty is the best policy, simple as that.

 

[JJthegreat]

test

 

[orangeminnie]

where is battery clearing house?

 

[davissd]

HMR... No one has come back to us "yet" with a capacity issue on these and if it did happen we would work to sort it out. You gotta take a close look at the source and models types people are seeing the issues with. All I can do is stand behind the batteries we shipped.

so... if you have time, swing by and we can run around the warehouse.

I received mine on 2/14/2020 and just finished 3 capacity tests. 2.79Kwh, 2.86Kwh, and 2.84Kwh. Not the "Single BYD LiFePO4 24 volts 4 kwh 220 Ah Battery Pack EV" I paid for. How do I go about obtaining a RAM?

 

[batteryclearinghouse]

It would be very helpful when folks share their capacity numbers to share their top and bottom voltage ranges their testing. A lot chargers and inverters have a an ideal operational range dialed in.. Lifepo4 cells range from 2.5v on the bottom to 3.65v on the top.

When we bench test the batteries, it's going to be the full operations range and on a balanced cell.

We target these particular batteries to be between 3.3 kWh to 4.8 kWh. Hence the 4 kWa rating. They are reuse batteries and just going to have a range to them. They all do.

For us... every battery has a serial number and voltage reading marked on it. Below that voltage cut off is an indicator of a weak/bad cell that is going to pull the entire pack down. We have a cut off of 24.8v on these.

Most Solar chargers and inverters will be set at a much more conservative range. Which they should be because you never want to run a battery at full capacity in order to keep it healthy.

example.. if a battery starts with a 24.85v reading coming out of storage, that will be right at the cut line. This corelates to our bench testing results showing 3.2 kWa when measured between 20v and 29.2v (with balanced cells). That's the full capacity of this particular battery.

Now you take that exact same battery, do not do any cell balancing and run a capacity test between 24v ( 3v per cell ) and 28v ( 3.5v per cell )... then yeah your going to see 2.8 kWa out of that specific working range. ~10% of 3.2 kWa = 2.8 kWa. You might even see just 2.5 kWa

anyways... I seem to have this exact discussion with folks every few days. You have start off at 2.5 and run to 3.65 volts. That's the range.

well, I do need to check if the max is 3.6 or 3.65 on these cells.. I do not recall of the top of my head.

 

[Super Fly]

Hmm
This is not sounding good. I am getting very worried.

 

[batteryclearinghouse]

I didn't mean to overly confusing before, but this is a great topic that I just seem to cover with others all the time.

On straight batteries, no BMS
- Rated capacity is the difference between min low and max high for any given cell.
- Operating capacity is what range you choose to use on the bottom end and the top end of your cycles.
- sometimes operating capacity can also be referred to as DOD or Depth of Discharge

If you need 5 kWa for your project.. You don't really go out and buy a 5 kWa rated battery.

- at 90% Depth of Discharge, you need look at 5.5 kWa capacity
- at the 75% target usage you would need a 6.6 kWa capacity
- at the 50% target usage you would need a 10 kWa capacity

The reason why you genrally want to operate with the smaller possible DOD window is because it keeps the cells healthy and happy. This gives them a longer life.

Just attaching up a inverter and solar charger to your battery pack is going to get you 85%-90% of the rated capacity of raw battery packs from day one. Inverters generally cut off way before you get close to the bottom end of the range. Solar Chargers tend to tapper off before they hit the top end. To reduce your DOD, you would increase the cut off point on the inverter and decrease the top end on the solar charger.

Batteries with onboard BMS are different...For those you should be seeing the capacity range locked in by the BMS in the product.

In the recycle battery world... you will see a range of capacities over similar types of cells. Historically we have always gone with a 80% rated range over a large number of cells. There is like this bell curve that develops.. The cut off is basically 80% of the top of that bell curve.

This also ties into the important topic of cell matching when using individual cells make your own battery pack. The weakest link on a battery is the lowest cell in the series. If you need to build a 12S battery, you do not go out and buy 12 used recycled batteries. You really should get something like 15 of them. You set aside your weakest ones and use the best 12 of the 15 to build with.

When any battery has a single weak cell in them, their real world capacity takes a nose dive. It's not all the cells. It only just takes one in the series.

Hint... if you really want bargain basement recycled battery cells, look for crappy underperforming cell packs that are no longer usable for their original application. Two things generally happen. The cheap BMS inside is burnt out or a single cell has crapped the bucket. The end result is that the pack is no longer usable but 9 times our of 10 the vast majority of the cells are still health. Examples are laptop battery packs, tool packs, and 12v lithium battery packs that look like car batteries. That's when your build your own packs and installing a BMS from scratch.

 

[jasonhc73]

As balanced as my "cells" can possibly get.

But not at all the voltage they should be...

I didn't mean to overly confusing before, but this is a great topic that I just seem to cover with others all the time.

On straight batteries, no BMS
- Rated capacity is the difference between min low and max high for any given cell.
- Operating capacity is what range you choose to use on the bottom end and the top end of your cycles.
- sometimes operating capacity can also be referred to as DOD or Depth of Discharge

If you need 5 kWa for your project.. You don't really go out and buy a 5 kWa rated battery.

- at 90% Depth of Discharge, you need look at 5.5 kWa capacity
- at the 75% target usage you would need a 6.6 kWa capacity
- at the 50% target usage you would need a 10 kWa capacity

The reason why you genrally want to operate with the smaller possible DOD window is because it keeps the cells healthy and happy. This gives them a longer life.

Just attaching up a inverter and solar charger to your battery pack is going to get you 85%-90% of the rated capacity of raw battery packs from day one. Inverters generally cut off way before you get close to the bottom end of the range. Solar Chargers tend to tapper off before they hit the top end. To reduce your DOD, you would increase the cut off point on the inverter and decrease the top end on the solar charger.

Batteries with onboard BMS are different...For those you should be seeing the capacity range locked in by the BMS in the product.

In the recycle battery world... you will see a range of capacities over similar types of cells. Historically we have always gone with a 80% rated range over a large number of cells. There is like this bell curve that develops.. The cut off is basically 80% of the top of that bell curve.

This also ties into the important topic of cell matching when using individual cells make your own battery pack. The weakest link on a battery is the lowest cell in the series. If you need to build a 12S battery, you do not go out and buy 12 used recycled batteries. You really should get something like 15 of them. You set aside your weakest ones and use the best 12 of the 15 to build with.

When any battery has a single weak cell in them, their real world capacity takes a nose dive. It's not all the cells. It only just takes one in the series.

Hint... if you really want bargain basement recycled battery cells, look for crappy underperforming cell packs that are no longer usable for their original application. Two things generally happen. The cheap BMS inside is burnt out or a single cell has crapped the bucket. The end result is that the pack is no longer usable but 9 times our of 10 the vast majority of the cells are still health. Examples are laptop battery packs, tool packs, and 12v lithium battery packs that look like car batteries. That's when your build your own packs and installing a BMS from scratch.

How about this for some detail?

 

[Darkstar]

It would be very helpful when folks share their capacity numbers to share their top and bottom voltage ranges their testing. A lot chargers and inverters have a an ideal operational range dialed in.. Lifepo4 cells range from 2.5v on the bottom to 3.65v on the top.

When we bench test the batteries, it's going to be the full operations range and on a balanced cell.

We target these particular batteries to be between 3.3 kWh to 4.8 kWh. Hence the 4 kWa rating. They are reuse batteries and just going to have a range to them. They all do.

For us... every battery has a serial number and voltage reading marked on it. Below that voltage cut off is an indicator of a weak/bad cell that is going to pull the entire pack down. We have a cut off of 24.8v on these.

Most Solar chargers and inverters will be set at a much more conservative range. Which they should be because you never want to run a battery at full capacity in order to keep it healthy.

example.. if a battery starts with a 24.85v reading coming out of storage, that will be right at the cut line. This corelates to our bench testing results showing 3.2 kWa when measured between 20v and 29.2v (with balanced cells). That's the full capacity of this particular battery.

Now you take that exact same battery, do not do any cell balancing and run a capacity test between 24v ( 3v per cell ) and 28v ( 3.5v per cell )... then yeah your going to see 2.8 kWa out of that specific working range. ~10% of 3.2 kWa = 2.8 kWa. You might even see just 2.5 kWa

anyways... I seem to have this exact discussion with folks every few days. You have start off at 2.5 and run to 3.65 volts. That's the range.

well, I do need to check if the max is 3.6 or 3.65 on these cells.. I do not recall of the top of my head.

So are you saying you do not sell packs that are under 24.8 volts?

 

[orangeminnie]

Good points. Will's tests appear to cut off the bottom at higher than 2.5/10v. Typical BMS bottoms appear to range from 2.0/8 to 2.625/10.5. There's not much % left below 2.625, but still.....

 

[JJthegreat]

Hey folks, not sure if this is the right spot. I had some issue with my pack and am in conversation with Guy from batteryclearninghouse about a replacement however haven't had a response in almost 2 weeks. No one is answering their phones either. Are they on vacation?

 

[Darkstar]

Hey folks, not sure if this is the right spot. I had some issue with my pack and am in conversation with Guy from batteryclearninghouse about a replacement however haven't had a response in almost 2 weeks. No one is answering their phones either. Are they on vacation?

Ruh-roh

 

[batteryclearinghouse]

FYI.. I have been closing out the 2019 accounting books for a few if the businesses this past week and have fallen behind on emails and returning phone calls.

It should have been 2 weeks, but I will go back and double check all the messages. I might also be missing followups in the catchup process.

Sorry for the delay..

 

[Darkstar]

FYI.. I have been closing out the 2019 accounting books for a few if the businesses this past week and have fallen behind on emails and returning phone calls.

It should have been 2 weeks, but I will go back and double check all the messages. I might also be missing followups in the catchup process.

Sorry for the delay..

Phew! Welcome back...

 

[JJthegreat]

.

 

[kpeters000]

Has anyone seen/done any comparative capacity tests on the BatteryHookup vs BatteryClearingHouse units?