Do you know what problems they had? Just curious. I have always been suspicious that the newer NIFE cells have not been built well like the originals due to cost.
Hi Im looking for Nickel Iron batteries..
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I would really like to see more details on how they rate the 30k cycle life. Are they talking 80%, 60% DOD? Cost will come down.
LTO Technology - Best Lithium Titanate Battery Manufacturer
www.lithium-titanate-battery.com
I would really like to see more details on how they rate the 30k cycle life. Are they talking 80%, 60% DOD? Cost will come down.
".....The ultra-long cycles is currently only a theoretical value......."LTO Technology - Best Lithium Titanate Battery Manufacturer
but we have measured our lithium titanate cells more than 10,000 cycles long life in our laboratory
YET, no mention of the actual numbers from the test. I can cycle a SLA 10k cycles in a "lab". It may be 95% dead but hey, it cycles right? Still looking for data.....
I have half of my 40 cells that are 11 years old on the original electrolyte, with one cell that is having trouble keeping a charge under load. The other 20 cells are 5 years old and are behaving fine. These are 20 beutility free cells (oldest) and 20 iron edison cells.
I purchased these used about 1.5 years ago for . .30 cents on the dollar and thought I would give them a try.
At least you got them cheap.
I have always wanted to do a LED light setup using NiFe cells. Could go lots of ways. 3 cells direct to white LEDs and a 10 cell solar panel direct wired?? Something like that or go 12v etc... Purpose would be super simple and just enough lights incase other lights are out for what ever reason. Basically an emergency backup lights that are always on in the background. They could double as night lights in the house.
The NiFe cells are ideal for direct wire from panels since they take an over charge well. They also do well with slow drains so good for LEDs. Likely, I will build it with LiFePo4 though. A single LiFePo4 cell is perfect for white LED drive voltage.
Iron Edison Support
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The opinions expressed here are my own: not necessarily that of the company. That's important to note.
To be honest with you all, I agree with MurphyGuy on most of his points (the exception being his opinion on LTO, possibly for lack of research on my part into that chemistry). We sell Nickel because there's a market for them, and if there are any other companies in the states that support them it'd be news to me. For my money, I'm a LiFePO4 guy. 10 years ago that wouldn't have been the case. But between mass manufacture bringing the price of tried and true LiFePO4 cells down radically in that time, and the cost of logistics and dropoff in manufacture of NiFe cells over the same period, the cost has largely equalized.
Murphy points out the noise, which is a little hyperbolic. A bank of nickel in charge isn't any louder than the charge control and inverter system used to charge them if they're contained in a battery box, which they always should be.
He also points out the inefficiency. This is really hard to pin down reliably. A slough of variables: internal and termination resistance, bussing efficiencies, ambient temperature, inverter/charge control efficiency, etc. are all factors that contribute to wide swings in round trip efficiency. When treated correctly they can achieve much higher than 70%. That said, it's certainly true that they don't achieve what LiFe can.
Then it gets real. The maintenance. And that's where my defense of Nickel ends. Aside from the watering, which is not typically more or less intrusive than any flooded chemistry in my experience, but still a pain. It's the electrolyte replacement where you lose me. When you look at it from a lifespan angle, it's just a no-brainer. If you baby a well sized Nickel bank with perfect operation, you'll only have to flush and replace the electrolyte every 10 years. So if by some miracle this isn't a cruel gift you're leaving to your kids, (say you buy them when you're 6 years old and live to be 106), by the time they're dead you've done this 10 times. Before you buy these things, do yourself a favor and read the instructions in our manual or others for electrolyte replacement. It's a long, heavy, full hazmat gear kind of mess.
Now compare that with LiFePO4. Similarly babied (which in LiFe's case only means operating in a temperature controlled environment, and dialing your voltage windows in a little), there's no reason it won't retain some 85% of it's capacity into it's twenty-thousandth cycle. That's like 50 years. Realistically, if I'm alive in 50 years AND I haven't sold my house AND my load profile hasn't changed such that I've had to reorganize my system, AND I've found the motivation to radically improve my diet and exercise routine so I'm not laid up in hospice, AND that condition can be expected to last another 10 years into my 100s... Then I'm not really in the mood to don my hazmat suit and mix caustic chemicals slowly into a plastic drum and pour hundreds of liters of electrolyte through a battery vent hole anyway.
I wouldn't say Nickel is 'ridiculously expensive' when they're comparable in price per kWh to most chemistries... just don't count up your hours in maintenance and apply an hourly wage.
The place that Nickel really shines, and where I'd consider it as a solution, is in extremely cold environments. The low-temperature operation of Nickel is second to none: a whole 20°c swath of operation below where LiFe can be expected to perform. They veritably hum in the cold. If I was far enough out as to reach sub-zero on a regular basis, and temperature control wasn't guaranteed, then they'd be on my list of serious considerations.
For my money, it's LiFePO4 all the way. They're affordable (as long as you stay away from the 400v crap), cell balance methods of most BMS make sense now. Some manufacturers (self-promotion omitted) have even dialed in coulomb counting SOC reporting. I've dealt with a lot of chemistries, lived off-grid and on, and heard the feedback of countless hundreds (thousands maybe?) of customers operating a wide variety of battery systems. I daresay I know a little of what I speak, and I buy LiFePO4 in 2023.
To be honest with you all, I agree with MurphyGuy on most of his points (the exception being his opinion on LTO, possibly for lack of research on my part into that chemistry). We sell Nickel because there's a market for them, and if there are any other companies in the states that support them it'd be news to me. For my money, I'm a LiFePO4 guy. 10 years ago that wouldn't have been the case. But between mass manufacture bringing the price of tried and true LiFePO4 cells down radically in that time, and the cost of logistics and dropoff in manufacture of NiFe cells over the same period, the cost has largely equalized.
Murphy points out the noise, which is a little hyperbolic. A bank of nickel in charge isn't any louder than the charge control and inverter system used to charge them if they're contained in a battery box, which they always should be.
He also points out the inefficiency. This is really hard to pin down reliably. A slough of variables: internal and termination resistance, bussing efficiencies, ambient temperature, inverter/charge control efficiency, etc. are all factors that contribute to wide swings in round trip efficiency. When treated correctly they can achieve much higher than 70%. That said, it's certainly true that they don't achieve what LiFe can.
Then it gets real. The maintenance. And that's where my defense of Nickel ends. Aside from the watering, which is not typically more or less intrusive than any flooded chemistry in my experience, but still a pain. It's the electrolyte replacement where you lose me. When you look at it from a lifespan angle, it's just a no-brainer. If you baby a well sized Nickel bank with perfect operation, you'll only have to flush and replace the electrolyte every 10 years. So if by some miracle this isn't a cruel gift you're leaving to your kids, (say you buy them when you're 6 years old and live to be 106), by the time they're dead you've done this 10 times. Before you buy these things, do yourself a favor and read the instructions in our manual or others for electrolyte replacement. It's a long, heavy, full hazmat gear kind of mess.
Now compare that with LiFePO4. Similarly babied (which in LiFe's case only means operating in a temperature controlled environment, and dialing your voltage windows in a little), there's no reason it won't retain some 85% of it's capacity into it's twenty-thousandth cycle. That's like 50 years. Realistically, if I'm alive in 50 years AND I haven't sold my house AND my load profile hasn't changed such that I've had to reorganize my system, AND I've found the motivation to radically improve my diet and exercise routine so I'm not laid up in hospice, AND that condition can be expected to last another 10 years into my 100s... Then I'm not really in the mood to don my hazmat suit and mix caustic chemicals slowly into a plastic drum and pour hundreds of liters of electrolyte through a battery vent hole anyway.
I wouldn't say Nickel is 'ridiculously expensive' when they're comparable in price per kWh to most chemistries... just don't count up your hours in maintenance and apply an hourly wage.
The place that Nickel really shines, and where I'd consider it as a solution, is in extremely cold environments. The low-temperature operation of Nickel is second to none: a whole 20°c swath of operation below where LiFe can be expected to perform. They veritably hum in the cold. If I was far enough out as to reach sub-zero on a regular basis, and temperature control wasn't guaranteed, then they'd be on my list of serious considerations.
For my money, it's LiFePO4 all the way. They're affordable (as long as you stay away from the 400v crap), cell balance methods of most BMS make sense now. Some manufacturers (self-promotion omitted) have even dialed in coulomb counting SOC reporting. I've dealt with a lot of chemistries, lived off-grid and on, and heard the feedback of countless hundreds (thousands maybe?) of customers operating a wide variety of battery systems. I daresay I know a little of what I speak, and I buy LiFePO4 in 2023.
Here is the datasheet of a Toshiba SCiB lithium titanium oxide battery.
"The capacity remains at 70% or more even after 20,000 times of charging/discharging."
The range was 0%-100% capacity, as stated here:
Toshiba Batteries Main Features and Optimization (Part II of III) - Hybris
Click here if you missed the previous parts of this article: part I Battery Lifetime Data Toshiba’s SCiB™ battery has undergone significant amount of testing that assures its performance and capability over the entire lifetime. The SCiB™ provides a capacity recovery rate of over 80% after 10,000...
hybris-project.eu
They all dropped capacity to around 50% inside 5 years. None of them returned to original capacity when electrolyte was replaced, the proper electrolyte is super expensive- and cheaper alternatives result in cell failure. There were plenty of cracked cases, and that also causes cell failure.
A decade ago there wasn’t as much experience with LiFePO4, and for most of the NiFe people by the time they got to the point of needing an electrolyte change and realising that the correct electrolyte was the same price as a set of LiFePO4 cells they gave up on them.
Now that it is well proven that LiFePO4 can literally go untouched for over a decade i’m surprised that anyone would consider NiFe.
These were all “newer” type NiFe. I gather the old glass case type can be properly rejuvenated many times, but haven’t ever been in contact with someone that is using them to power an off-grid house.
Thanks! Some good late night reading material for tonight.Here is the datasheet of a Toshiba SCiB lithium titanium oxide battery.
"The capacity remains at 70% or more even after 20,000 times of charging/discharging."
The range was 0%-100% capacity, as stated here:
Toshiba Batteries Main Features and Optimization (Part II of III) - Hybris
Click here if you missed the previous parts of this article: part I Battery Lifetime Data Toshiba’s SCiB™ battery has undergone significant amount of testing that assures its performance and capability over the entire lifetime. The SCiB™ provides a capacity recovery rate of over 80% after 10,000...
I have some minor cracks on a couple of the 11 year old jars, will be interesting how they hold up during an electrolyte change. May wrap some duct tape around them before I begin.
tonyp6
New Member
If you are using them everyday you will never know you are loosing juice. I have some nickel iron batteries for sale. 1200 amp hr. 48 volts.
tonyp6
New Member
Warpspeed
Solar Wizard
Murphy Guy is quite right. Nickel iron makes a very low performance battery in every respect, but a hundred years ago they were pretty much all there was.
Battery technology is moving incredibly quickly. Try building a drone using lead acid batteries.
A hundred years ago, some farmers were still using steam traction engines, and some of those 100+ year old machines are still running today.
Does that make steam engined traction engines better than the latest John Deer with all the whiz bang electronics ?
Maybe farmers should return to steam ?
Why are there no companies in the US building and advertising steam powered farm tractors ?
Its pretty much the same with nickel iron batteries.
Its obsolete low performance technology few people want.
The age of steam gave way to the internal combustion engine.
Nickel gave way to lead acid, then for a short time nickle cadmium, today lithium is the technology of choice. Who knows what comes next ?
There is nothing stopping anyone from building and selling nickel iron batteries.
If it were profitable in the US to do so, there would be pretty keen competition, and plenty of market choice.
Battery technology is moving incredibly quickly. Try building a drone using lead acid batteries.
A hundred years ago, some farmers were still using steam traction engines, and some of those 100+ year old machines are still running today.
Does that make steam engined traction engines better than the latest John Deer with all the whiz bang electronics ?
Maybe farmers should return to steam ?
Why are there no companies in the US building and advertising steam powered farm tractors ?
Its pretty much the same with nickel iron batteries.
Its obsolete low performance technology few people want.
The age of steam gave way to the internal combustion engine.
Nickel gave way to lead acid, then for a short time nickle cadmium, today lithium is the technology of choice. Who knows what comes next ?
There is nothing stopping anyone from building and selling nickel iron batteries.
If it were profitable in the US to do so, there would be pretty keen competition, and plenty of market choice.
Last edited:
Iron Edison Support
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I did here https://diysolarforum.com/threads/hi-im-looking-for-nickel-iron-batteries.30851/post-676588
since iron edison closed, the former technical director started a consulting gig to answer all the former or would-be iron edison customers questions. he charges for troubleshooting or system design or whatever, but has a free quotes option to schedule a call with him if it's just a quick question. it's at terravolt.net/book-online
sunshine_eggo
Happy Breffast!
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