Hi from Australia. Any opinions on Humsienk 100Ah

[DanUnder]

I'm looking at installing a battery system and then hooking up some solar panels to it. I've switched off my gas connection and am converting everything to electric. One important thing is I want to add a continuous hot water shower which is a very high draw (60-70A) application. Seeing as the heating elements for these are simple resistors, they dont care if they are supplied with AC or DC. So by directly powering them with 230V DC it saves having a massive inverter for something that is used for less than an hour a day (and is technicaly more efficient). The same applies to kilns and forges. Most of the systems are 3 phase due to the limited current the grid and meter will supply (here it can be 63A, 80A, or 100A) but single phase systems are available.

Rather than pay $1000's to upgrade to 3-phase I figured I'm better off going straight to batteries as I wanted to go solar eventually anyway. For simplicity I want to set up the system at ~230V (i.e. 18x 12.8V 100Ah batteries) to match the ratings of the resistance elements.

Unfortunately that would be 4.5 server rack batteries so I'm guessing I'll go for a 12V battery in series array. I have seen there are distributors for Ecoworthy, WattCycle and Humsienk here.

The Humsienk are noticeably cheaper. From the reviews I have seen they use EVE cells and mostly have a solid build quality, but I don't know if these were paid. Apparently the cold cutoff switch is no good, but that isn't an issue in my climate. Anyone have any experience with these?

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[paulgrenga]

Dan, we just ordered 3 -which should be in the week of 11/24/25. I'll let you know how they perform.

BTW, I returned two LiTime 48v 100ah "solid" ("mute") batteries and bought 3 of these 16S batteries (with comms) for less money.

It turned out the LiTime "solid" edition batteries are 15s (which is not disclosed anywhere on LiTime's web-site nor in the battery documentation).

Kept getting weird nominal voltage readings and struggled to get a smart shunt to correctly report SoC. We found out about the (15s specs) only after being frustrated with numerous e-mail exchanges with LiTime with little help. LiTime would not acknowledge how many cells there are - only to "figure it out" by happening across a single sentence in one YouTube "comment" which gave the accurate specs. Particularly problematic is that we're using 2 split phase LiTime 5000w solar inverter charges to get 120/240v (in the US). In all those emails LiTime did not tell me to switch the inverter default parameters to 15S batteries. Strange.

In any case, I'll have the Humsienk batteries next week and I'll report back.

Good luck with your project!!

Paul

 

[Movingyou]

I'm waiting on one to be delivered this week. I'll give a report after I charge it and test it. I've seen several people on the forum have already received theirs and have given favorable comments.

 

[paulgrenga]

My 3 Humseink batteries arrived and are wired in parallel to one LiTime 5000w inverter/charger. Everything seems fine and for right now are running my office, big PC, radient heater, air cleaner, routers etc. Not sure what specifics anyone would want to know, but if someone tells me how to test for what's relevent, I'm happy to do so and report back.

 

[rodrick]

Running 18 12 volt batteries in series just seems wrong in so many ways I see nothing but issues with the system

 

[JoeHam]

Running 18 12 volt batteries in series just seems wrong in so many ways I see nothing but issues with the system

I only see the 16s 48V nominal Humsienk batteries discussed in this thread .

Who would be running 18s12V nominal for a 216V system anyway?

 

[rodrick]

I only see the 16s 48V nominal Humsienk batteries discussed in this thread .

Who would be running 18s12V nominal for a 216V system anyway?

Rather than pay $1000's to upgrade to 3-phase I figured I'm better off going straight to batteries as I wanted to go solar eventually anyway. For simplicity I want to set up the system at ~230V (i.e. 18x 12.8V 100Ah batteries) to match the ratings of the resistance elements.

 

[JoeHam]

Oops, I needed to read the whole paragraph .

However, I doubt that the 12V nominal BMS’s will tolerate 18s 200V+ and that will be an issue.

 

[paulgrenga]

Well, so far the Humsienk's (48v (51.2v) 100ah rack mount batteries are working fine. You cannot change any of the parameters in the Humsienk Bluetooth app, so I'm using the BMS Meta app which is great. You change the battery RS485 BMS protocol (language) to match almost any inverter made.

I am somewhat disappointed that I cannot get them to charge to 58v. I'm using 2x 48v LifePO4-18amp chargers wired to 3 parallel batteries (I have a 4th on the way). I'll deplete them (by charging an EV) and try charging again with the 5000w inverter/chargers and see if that will get them to 58v.

Here's screen shots from the Bluetooth app.

 

[Wolfpack7483]

Well, so far the Humsienk's (48v (51.2v) 100ah rack mount batteries are working fine. You cannot change any of the parameters in the Humsienk Bluetooth app, so I'm using the BMS Meta app which is great. You change the battery RS485 BMS protocol (language) to match almost any inverter made.

I am somewhat disappointed that I cannot get them to charge to 58v. I'm using 2x 48v LifePO4-18amp chargers wired to 3 parallel batteries (I have a 4th on the way). I'll deplete them (by charging an EV) and try charging again with the 5000w inverter/chargers and see if that will get them to 58v.

Here's screen shots from the Bluetooth app.

I had the same issue on initial charge. Cell voltages were over 200mv apart at the top. I did a capacity test and charged back up. Same issue, cell voltages over 250mv difference. I let it sit overnight at the top. Next morning I slowly charged it up using a bench power supply. I was able to get over 58 v with all cells around 3.63v & 5mv difference between top & bottom. I paralleled with my other batteries & it's been doing fine.

 

[paulgrenga]

Thank you Wolfpack,
May I ask what settings you used on your bench ps? Did you charge a single battery at a time? And, do you like your bench power supply? I'm not sure which one to buy. There's 100's on amazon. (I used to have some really high-end ones for ham radios - now we can't figure out where my wife stashed the darn things. Ugh). Retired now, & on a budget, high-end power supplies are probably out of range for me. Anyway, thank you for your response.
Paul

 

[Wolfpack7483]

It was a manual process. I initially set the power supply to 58.4v and current to 3.5a. As the voltage of the highest cell approached 3.57, I'd turn the current down until it stopped rising and started falling. It was just observe and repeat from that point. It quickly got to where the current was down to .3a. At that point I raised the threshold for lowering the current to 3.64v for top cell. Eventually at around .12a, it was pretty much stable. I let it sit there for about an hour and a half. At that point I considered it pretty well balanced. I discharged it into my bank of 4 batteries until voltages were similar, turned all batteries off and paralleled. They've been running together nicely ever since.

The power supply I used is similar to this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B7739SMN

 

[paulgrenga]

Thank you Wolfpack! ...Just purchased it.
By the way, how long did that process take?
My readings are much different. My MaxV is only 3.410, MinV is 3.399, AvgV is 3.304 with a DiffV of 0.011. It would nice to get mine to 3.6v. with less than a 11mv difference.
Supposedly, the Humsienk uses "Top-grade A+ LiFePO4 cells" (whatever that means). Maybe I can get there using your advice. I'll try it.
Thank you again,
Paul

 

[Wolfpack7483]

Thank you again Wolfpack! Just purchased it. How long did that process take?
Paul

It might have taken an hour or a little longer to get to where it was pretty much stable. You get a feel for how quickly the cells are rising and how much to adjust the current down. I didn't sit there the whole time monitoring, but would check it every few minutes until it got to the final stage where it was mostly stable.

 

[fuzzmunky415]

My routine is similar, I call it speed balance. My difference is I manually toggle the PS on and off as the winner approaches OVP, then wait for recovery a bit and back on. Much the same result. Less than 1A...longer power applied, more balance.