Timeline:
- 2024-01-09 start discussion about ordering a battery box
- 2024-01-16 pay invoice
- 2024-02-23 silence until now
- 2024-02-28 got the box itself
- 2024-03-06 got the BMS and balancer
Things are finally looking up! I now have tracking codes for both the battery box (shipped by DHL from Poland) and the balancer (shipped by express mail from China).
Howard said:
We only have the black stackable box in EU stock now.
or if you can wait,we can ship it to you from China.
This was apparently not true, they had to EU stock at the time. After I had paid the invoice on January 16th he said that:
Howard said:
Please notice that the battery box will arrive at our EU warehouse in 1-2 weeks.
I figured okay, would have been nice if he had told me that. In reality, I guess what happened is their "warehouse refill shipment" got massively delayed due to the Red Sea snafu, and they only got new stock last week. After that things started happening quickly, they apparently sent out everything on Friday last week.
tl;dr instead of going AWOL for six weeks they could have just said sorry but the stock situation is what it is, we'll contact you as soon as we know more.
Update 2024-02-28: picked up the battery box from the local post office today. Still waiting for the BMS and balancer which got sent separately. Sane people would have shipped those directly in January when I paid for the product, but EEL sent it out only after they sent the box itself from Poland. Also the website and Alibaba says only the balancer is shipped separately, but in reality it concerns the BMS as well it seems (at least for EU stock boxes).
Update 2024-03-08: got the BMS and balancer, took about two weeks to arrive. Everything is now connected and working nominally, but the NEEY balancer came with OEM cables, not the custom made super-easy-to-install flat cable that connects directly to the PCBs. I had to crimp my own connectors.