CloudEnergy 12.8v 300ah cl12-300 Battery Tear Down. Look any good?

[Cerbix]

So I've been a long time browser, but this is my first post.
I saw these CloudEnergy Batteries on Amazon and the price seemed good for a 300AH battery.

I looked on this forum for more details, and nobody seemed to have any information about them at all.
But there did seem to be a lot of "If you get one, let us know how it goes." messages.
So that's what this message is, I'd show you what I received and maybe you can teach me what I'm looking at or give me an idea if these are any good.


Little back story, I currently have two PowerQueen 12.8V 300Ah batteries, and needed two more batteries as I'm upgrading to a 48v Growatt system.
I would have preferred to get two more matching PowerQueen batteries to put in series, but the 300ah PowerQueens seem very hard to get right now, and have come up a bit in price when you do find them.

So that is what led me down this rabbit hole of trying to find an alternative with similar specs at a good price.

As far as ordering them, I got them off of Amazon, and CloudEnergy was very communicative.
I messaged them prior to purchasing to ask if I could return them if they didn't test to spec, and they said they had a 90 day return policy, and a 5 year manufacture warranty beyond that.

So I figured I'd bite the bullet and make the purchase, they messaged me within an hour of ordering to make sure my contact information was correct.
And then once the item shipped, they messaged me again to tell me the item was waiting for Fedex pickup, and if I had any questions just let them know.

Shipping was very fast, they came from City of Industry, California, via Fedex and took only 3 days to arrive.

To my novice eye, at first glance they seem nicely made.
Nice metal case, battery indicator, few more features than my PowerQueens. (Nothing crazy tho.)
Weight feels decent compared to my PowerQueens. (They weigh 66 lbs compared to my PowerQueens 64 lbs.)

I will include some pics from my tear-down attached.

The BMS is a: JBD-ZP04S014-S (is it unusual to use a 4s BMS in this configuration?)
They appear to have high temp protection. (Little weird that it's on top of the battery shield plating isn't it?)
Do not appear to have low temp charge protection.

Seems to be 8x 150ah cells, (2 parallel sets of 4 cells in Series.)

I was trying to identify the cells. Any idea what manufacture these are from?
Some of them the barcodes are fully intact, and others have little scratches lasered through them. (Perhaps indicating that some are Grade B cells?)
Again from my novice eye they seem okay, there doesn't seem to be any sort of swelling or anything like that.

I am getting my EBC-A20 Battery Capacity Tester tomorrow, and after I run a capacity test on the batteries I will report back with results.

So first impressions? The good, the bad, the ugly?
Should I keep them? Should I return them?
Let me know.
Thanks again.

 

[Cerbix]

This is how everything comes installed.
They use no rivets or warranty stickers, so they don't seem to be trying to stop you from looking inside at all.
The BMS appears to be firmly mounted under the strap. They have two heavy metal straps holding the batteries down.
And the batteries seem very snug fit in their case.

You can also see where the temp sensor that I mentioned before is attached to the right of the BMS?
Seems like possibly not the most ideal spot.

 

[Alkaline]

Post more close up of the cells and the QR code then check on gobel power website:

LiFePO4 Cells QR Codes Decoder : GobelPower.com

GobelPower.com : LiFePO4 Cells QR Codes Decoder - China Lithium Battery Distributor and manufacturer, Offers LiFePO4 Battery, 18650 Battery, 12V/24V/48V/72V Rechargable Lithium Battery for Home Solar Energy Storage, Electric Bikes, Scooters, Forklifts, Sweepers, Mowers and Boats.

www.gobelpower.com

 

[Cerbix]

Post more close up of the cells and the QR code then check on gobel power website:

LiFePO4 Cells QR Codes Decoder : GobelPower.com

GobelPower.com : LiFePO4 Cells QR Codes Decoder - China Lithium Battery Distributor and manufacturer, Offers LiFePO4 Battery, 18650 Battery, 12V/24V/48V/72V Rechargable Lithium Battery for Home Solar Energy Storage, Electric Bikes, Scooters, Forklifts, Sweepers, Mowers and Boats.

www.gobelpower.com

Thanks for the info, I did find a manual QR decoder on the forum.
The link you provided is much less work to use though, thanks!

So in my research I could not find any info on the Vendor Code: 00P
The Factory Address is H which seems to point to: Huizhou (Might be of use?)
I did find out that all the cells were manufactured between August 2021 and January 2022.
So they don't seem to be too old.

Here's an example of one of the QR codes:
00PCBA6N01L02HB8C0001676

 

[Cerbix]

So I got my EBC-A20 Battery Charge/Discharge Tester and I have been slowly charging/graphing them.
And I did discover something tonight that was a little concerning.

Which was the battery would charge up to 13.8v, then spike to 18v, and then the tester meeting the 14v parameter would immediately shut off during the spike.
After some research this appears to be the BMS high voltage cut off.

13.8v ain't bad, except after the battery settles for half an hour it is sitting at around 13.3v. Or only around 90% capacity, which seems no bueno.

I did some more research on this, and recalled Prowse stated in one of his videos, that improper top balanced cells could cause this kind of charging issue.

So I pulled the BMS charge balance leads off, and tested each set of cells.
And sure enough:

3.61v Cell set #1.
3.42v Cell set #2.
3.33v Cell set #3.
3.38v Cell set #4.

So they're clearly either very poorly top balanced, or not top balanced at all before install.
So right now I'm attempting to top balance them.

I found a video from Off-Grid Garage using a JBD BMS, and he stated if the BMS has "charge balancing", it only worked if a small amount of amps were being applied to the batteries.

So right now I'm charging them to 14v at 0.40 amps.


I can't really pull them out and charge them individually, since they are welded bus bars.
But is it possible to isolate the charge leads positioned on parts of the bus bars, and then just provide 3.65 volts to those sections?

Or should I just continue to rely on the BMS's very slow method of self balancing?

Thanks for any information on this.

 

[Alkaline]

Thanks for the info, I did find a manual QR decoder on the forum.
The link you provided is much less work to use though, thanks!

So in my research I could not find any info on the Vendor Code: 00P
The Factory Address is H which seems to point to: Huizhou (Might be of use?)
I did find out that all the cells were manufactured between August 2021 and January 2022.
So they don't seem to be too old.

Here's an example of one of the QR codes:
00PCBA6N01L02HB8C0001676

Post close up pictures of the qr codes if you can so we can find what type of cells are these.

 

[Cerbix]

Post close up pictures of the qr codes if you can so we can find what type of cells are these.

Here's some decent photo's I was able to get of three of the cells.
As you can see, some have the scratches on the QR code, others do not.

 

[Alkaline]

Did you scratch that QR code? I would be worried about that cell is that the one that is low?

 

[Cerbix]

Did you scratch that QR code? I would be worried about that cell is that the one that is low?

No, 3 out of these 8 cells arrived with the scratches on the QR codes. otherwise the cells look flawless.
Making me assume possibly Grade B cells marked by the manufacture.

I will note however, that is actually the highest tested cell, voltage wise. (3.61v not that voltage means much.)
I may break down my capacity testing into each set of two in series, to see if the scratched ones test better or worse than the clean QR codes.

 

[Alkaline]

Well they are pobably grade B cells but at this price its to be expected, however I saw on the listing they are advertising grade A clearly not true. You could hold them over a barrel and demand a discount with your pics.

Another thing you can do is buy an active balancer to help you balance your cells, this will be faster than slow charging:

https://www.amazon.com/Heltec-Equalizer-Balancer-Equalization-Capacitor/dp/B08CKPZ7PH/

 

[Cerbix]

Waiting for the BMS to top balance all the cells was taking way too long.

Looking at the BMS's spec sheet, it can only balance at up to 250mA.
Which honestly for a 300ah power bank, potentially containing inconsistent Grade B cells.
I'm thinking maybe the BMS is a little under powered for the job.

So what I ended up doing was completely disconnecting the BMS.
And then manually top balancing each of the 4 parallel sets of cells with my EBC-A20.
Since when the BMS is disconnected, each set of bus bars is only completing the circuit on 2 cells I was able to charge/discharge them in sets of 2.

Through trial and error, I was able to balance each of the 4 parallel sets to within 1mA of one another.
I would just charge and discharge them at 1-2amps. Let the cells rest for 15 minutes, then take my reading.

So I was able to successfully top balance them manually.
I will include my final balance tests in an attachment.

Note: you can ignore the graph itself, I am just using my EB Tester Software to record all of my individual cell tests onto one file.
The only part of the graph that matters is the peaks as I'm moving my tester/meter between cells.

Now I will reassemble the BMS, do a final charge to 14.6v and then do a capacity test on the whole battery.
Which will probably take most of an entire day to complete at my testers max 20ah discharge limit.

 

[Cerbix]

Well they are pobably grade B cells but at this price its to be expected, however I saw on the listing they are advertising grade A clearly not true. You could hold them over a barrel and demand a discount with your pics.

Another thing you can do is buy an active balancer to help you balance your cells, this will be faster than slow charging:

https://www.amazon.com/Heltec-Equalizer-Balancer-Equalization-Capacitor/dp/B08CKPZ7PH/

Thanks for the idea.
I do think you're right, that an Active Balancer would probably do a much better job to keep these batteries balanced than the included BMS.

I was thinking of maybe ordering one of those Daly Smart Active Balancers from china.
They're only about 28 bucks shipped for a 4S model. There's plenty of room in the battery case.

And then I'll have the ability to monitor/balance the cells on a mobile app.
Which is one of the not so nice things about the cheap BMS that comes in these batteries.


On the BMS note, when I was looking up the spec sheet for the BMS model number, it appears that these originally came with High and Low Temp sensors.

But mine doesn't have the connector for the low temp sensor installed on the board.
Maybe CloudEnergy had it manufactured without it to reduce individual unit costs.

But it makes me wonder if since the PCB contains the mounting location for it, if it also contains the necessary logic for it on the BMS as well.
If so, we might be able to just buy and solder the low temp sensor to the board, and have low temp protection as well.
Could be worth investigating.

 

[Alkaline]

Many of these Chinese companies hand pick special cherry pick units for reviewers like WIll Prowse, while everyone else get rando mando quality. So just because they advertise something and 1 person gets it, doesn't mean everyone else will.

I have seen this before Ruxio would give our random BMS to people, some companies even swap between prismatic cells and pouch cells on the same model.

So could be some people got the BMs with low temp cut-off whiles others did not, which ever vendor happened to give them a deal at that time I guess.

 

[Cerbix]

I did have a look at the BMS to verify rather or not you could simply add a low temp Thermister to it.
But it appears not, the Low temp sensor location according to the data sheets is the NTC-100K location on the bottom of the board.
Which appears to be unpopulated by the necessary surface mount components.

Honestly, if you had a populated board to use as an example, it could probably be easily populated for just a couple bucks.
But I can't find many units running these, and probably more effort than it's worth.

 

[Quattrohead]

Did you ever figure out what cell's these are ? Mine have this code for example -

00PCBA6N0IL02H
BCN0005633

 

[Cerbix]

Finished Capacity testing the first CloudEnergy 300ah Battery.

Charged it to 14.4v and let it rest for about 12 hours.
It settled at 14.03v

The test was done at:
6.5A Constant Current.
10.40V Cutoff Voltage.

Ah Result = 297.30 Amp Hours.
Wh Result = 3859.79 Watt Hours.

The test took about 46 hours.
I was hoping I could discharge at 20A, but it appears the EBC-A20 can only discharge at 6.5 amps when around 14 volts.
After the first 1/4 of the test clearly holding at around 6.5 Amps I just locked it at that point so it wasn't fluctuating all the way down during the entire test.

The first battery is within +- 1% of its rated capacity.
Which honestly is better than I was expecting after seeing the marked cells, along with the cells being severely unbalanced.

My expectations were low to start. So I think I'm satisfied.

I will also note, that after the test I realized that the Battery Status Indicator/Light was on for at least most of the test.
I'm not sure what the constant current draw is from that thing, but it could have drawn quite a bit of mA's over the entire 46 hour test.

 

[Alkaline]

You tested to 3854 WH, what is the watt hour rating of the battery? Look at that as well as the AH.

 

[Cerbix]

You tested to 3854 WH, what is the watt hour rating of the battery? Look at that as well as the AH.

According to the ad on their website, it lists 3840Wh "Reted" Capacity. (Their spelling is good.)
I got 3859.79Wh out of it.

So it technically rated slightly over their advertised on that spec?
I will include the ad from the site below.

 

[aaroncgi]

Thanks for the detailed write up and pictures! I have also communicated several times with Cloud Energy, who were very responsive, although not always clearly understanding of my questions (believe it was the language barrier). I was considering the 25.6V 150AH battery. Had kind of decided against it as being too much of an unknown, but after this review, may consider them again. However, I am now leaning more towards a 48V system, and I think building that from their current offerings is only cost competitive if you need the extra 50AH capacity, which we don't.

 

[Cerbix]

So I have unboxed my second Cloud Energy 300ah battery to test.

Similar experience.
The cells were very poorly top balanced from the factory. (Possibly not balanced at all.)

After the initial charge, some of the cells were at only 3.3v (75% SOC) while others were at 3.6v (100% SOC)
Causing the BMS to sense the over voltage on the high charged cells, and go into over charge protection. (Shutting the BMS off.)

This of course prevents the Lower Charged cells from ever fully charging.
Which in turn keeps the overall battery from ever reaching 100% State Of Charge. (Just keeps shutting the BMS off at 75% SOC)

Again I think the BMS's Balancing function on the spec sheet, is just too insignificant to balance cells that are too far out of balance.
Being as it can only balance at a small fraction of an amp. It could take hundreds or even thousands of hours for it to accomplish such highly imbalanced cells on its own.

So I disconnected the BMS, and carefully balanced the 4 individual paralleled set of cells to 3.4v each.
Once the individual cells were all the same voltage, reconnected the BMS, and topped off the entire battery to 14.45v.

I then waited about 16 hours for the battery to rest.
its resting voltage stabilized around 14.18 volts.

I then began my Battery Capacity Test.

Discharge Test Settings:

6.50a Constant Current.
10.40V Cutoff Voltage.

And let the test run for about 2.5 days.

Ah Result = 300.30 Amp Hours.
Wh Result = 3891.44 Watt Hours.

So this one actually tested just ever so slightly over its rated capacity and watt hours.

I will attach the test results graph for review.

 

[Cerbix]

Did you ever figure out what cell's these are ? Mine have this code for example -

00PCBA6N0IL02H
BCN0005633

Unfortunately I still have not discovered who manufactures the 00P cells.
I was hoping somebody else on here would have ran across them before.

But so far my Capacity Tests on them have been pretty good IMO.
So I'm not as worried as I was about them previously.

 

[dog_house]

I ordered 4 of the 300ah Cloudenergy batteries. They claim to now have both high and low temp sensors and they removed the grade A claim from their Amazon listing. $3400 for 15kWh seems like a pretty good deal to me even if they are grade B. I plan on charging them to the high voltage cutoff and doing a capacity test on the batteries "out of the box". If they appear to be way out of balance I am going to parallel them and put them on a 1a charge for a week and see if the BMS can do anything with them on its own. It will be interesting to see if the components have changed now that they have been on the market for a bit. I am using these to run a 3kw inverter in an RV and like the metal case and form factor.

A question for those who already own these batteries, does the power switch on them turn off the BMS or just the meter and charger on the front panel?

 

[Gason]

I ordered 4 of the 300ah Cloudenergy batteries. They claim to now have both high and low temp sensors and they removed the grade A claim from their Amazon listing. $3400 for 15kWh seems like a pretty good deal to me even if they are grade B. I plan on charging them to the high voltage cutoff and doing a capacity test on the batteries "out of the box". If they appear to be way out of balance I am going to parallel them and put them on a 1a charge for a week and see if the BMS can do anything with them on its own. It will be interesting to see if the components have changed now that they have been on the market for a bit. I am using these to run a 3kw inverter in an RV and like the metal case and form factor.

A question for those who already own these batteries, does the power switch on them turn off the BMS or just the meter and charger on the front panel?

Turn off the meter and charger

 

[Bbbbrass]

Just helped a buddy install a CloudEnergy 100Ah golf Cart Battery. He had ordered it and tried installing it without talking to me. This one has a plastic case so I couldn't open it, but it connected the BMS to OverKill app via bluetooth right away and all the cells seemed balanced well. It doesn't have a heater and I wouldn't use it in a hilly area, but this is my new budget recommendation to people! Thanks for the teardown. Any updates after a little time?

 

[aKO]

I bought a 25.6 x 150 Ah and while i was charging it i decided i needed 2 so did a discharge test on the one i had whie waiting for the other to be delivered , i got 140 Ah out of it then had to stop once voltage was down to 21.65v i disconnected as recomended disconect is 21.6v load while discharging was between 4 and 7amps . Bit disappointed in ther results , my Redodo and TimeUs 100 Ah show around 104.5 Ah , all showed more than rated and voltages didnt go that low , undertand its normal to expect more than advertized . Most i can get out of the 2 is 275 Ah when i have to disconnect for low voltage again so it seems the one i didnt do on its own is at best also well short of Advertized capasity , going to use them for a lot more dicharges and see what i get . I followed instructions fully charged them with a quality charged to 100% then let them sit for 24 hours . They are only used once a week as there just for Backup for my main batteries should we have a bad day . I wonder if its possible that some manifactures are using second hand used Garde A cells , could stil claim Grade A . I know some manifactues such as TimeUBS do but they state they are used and reflected in a much lower price .