Inside a Victron LiFePO4 Battery

[Steve_S]

My apologies to Solar Rat, New Mexico will and everyone else, I misread and went off. I had a stupid moment at 4am, sorry about that.

 

[SolarRat]

No worries, I have thick skin. And I have many many stupid moments myself at 4am!

 

[John Frum]

I'll play the game even though I don't like the rules. ?

I used the battery I've been using on my boats for a long time. It's a true deep cycle made by East Penn and sold under many different brands like Duracell (Sears, some Walmarts), Superstart (O'reilly) and others. I paid $95 each at O'reilly for my latest bank. Some stores/brands call them 105ah, others say 115ah. They test somewhere close to either for me, depending on temp.

6v golf cart batteries would probably compare better though, I just don't use them much myself.

You have changed my mind.
Where can I buy that battery for $100.00USD?
The best price I could find was $165.95USD.

 

[Bob B]

THIS ONE is 105 AH

 

[John Frum]

THIS ONE is 105 AH

How many cycles is it rated for?

 

[Bob B]

How many cycles is it rated for?

No idea .... Duracell can probably provide a spec sheet

 

[SolarRat]

That's the one. Edit: those reviews are from a group 27 DP battery though...it's a group 31 DC. Here is the same battery with different label: https://www.oreillyauto.com/detail/...-group-size-31-top-post-battery/31dcm/4742403

Any questions, contact the manufacturer here: https://www.eastpennmanufacturing.com/contact

 

[John Frum]

That's the one. Edit: those reviews are from a group 27 DP battery though...it's a group 31 DC. Here is the same battery with different label: https://www.oreillyauto.com/detail/...-group-size-31-top-post-battery/31dcm/4742403

Any questions, contact the manufacturer here: https://www.eastpennmanufacturing.com/contact

I emailed back and forth this morning with Jim Decoste Eastpenn national sales manager for Canada.
Jim and Eastpenn were good to deal with IME.
He gave me 80/20 numbers for the Eastpenn 31DCM.
I included 2 rows for Battleborn because they rate there batteries between 3000-5000 cycles.
Here is the revised table.

battery	dod	nominal voltage	ah	price	rated cycles	lifetime wh	lifetime wh per $
Battleborn	.8	12.8	100	$949.00	3000	3072000	3237.09
Battleborn	.8	12.8	100	$949.00	5000	5120000	5395.15
Eastpenn 31dcm	.8	12.6	100	$100.00	200	211680	2116.80
Eastpenn 31dcm	.2	12.6	100	$100.00	800	211680	2480.63

 

[SolarRat]

Looks like he gave you both ends of the spectrum (min and max projected cycles ). The sweet spot for your parameters would probably be right in the middle...500 cycles at 50% DOD. At only $100, to reduce DOD just add another battery. But like I said, max cycles is not what LA's are all about..if that's your main concern buy lithium. If you only needed two cycles per week, the cost of ownership per 5 or ten years would make that chart look very different....

 

[sajjen]

Cables to connect all those lead batteries wouldn't be an insignificant cost.

 

[Rider]

Looks like he gave you both ends of the spectrum (min and max projected cycles ). The sweet spot for your parameters would probably be right in the middle...500 cycles at 50% DOD. At only $100, to reduce DOD just add another battery. But like I said, max cycles is not what LA's are all about..if that's your main concern buy lithium. If you only needed two cycles per week, the cost of ownership per 5 or ten years would make that chart look very different....

Seems you and I are in the minority, that LA have a place here. I've said the same thing in other threads. I paid $400 for 2 100Ah AGM. At the rate I use it, they will last for 10 years, cycle-wise. Why on earth would I spend $800 or more for the same capacity in a Lithium? My AGMs can be easily recycled and replaced anywhere, but there was a post recently that someone could not find a home for a used Lithium. Between that, the continued issues that keep getting reposted about BMS issues, bad cells, cheap China crap, frustration...... Some of us just don't want to build our own. I want install-and-forget, and you just do not get that with Lithium right now. LA batteries are a good, solid tech that has been around for a long time. Just imagine if the mutitude of cars and trucks and airplanes were using Lithium with as many issues that have been talked about here. We'd never go anywhere.

If and when the tech gets to the point where I can pick a Lithium off the shelf at WallyMart at a competitive price, then I might use it. By that time, newer, better tech may be available. Until then, my AGMs work just fine, were not expensive and require no maintenance.

 

[Craig_a4]

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[181paul]

I'm converting a box van into a motorhome.
I have all Victron kit.
4 x 175w solar panels.
150/60 MPPT.
1600/70 Multiplus
Shunt
712 BMV
I'm getting close to the time to buy batteries. I was going to stick with Victron. Having seen this I'm now having second thoughts.
I'm now looking at a Winston 300ah cell kit. This comes with a 132 Smart BMS. Which looks to be inside the Victron battery.
I believe there could be connection/communication problems from Winston to Victron, don't know if this is true or not?
If Victron batteries contain Winston cells I would hope not, but am unsure.
Would I be able/need to use a Victron BMS that I already have?
I can buy the 300ah kit for £1500 or a 300ah Victron battery for £3250! (100ah Victron £1100 each). So you can see if it is possible I would be able to save a considerable amount of money.
I would be grateful for any views/ideas/input.
Thanks Paul

 

[EricBarbour]

THIS ONE is 105 AH

Those are the exact ones I bought for my solar setup, which is mostly for backup power. They are kept float-charged at night with a 600w battery charger so they don't deep-cycle unless the utility grid goes off. And even if one allows for the 50% derating commonly used for LA, these "105AH" batteries are actually delivering only about 40AH at best in the summer and more like 35AH in the winter. They are kept in an insulated enclosure with temp sensor. Never seen them come even close to freezing, never been above 30 deg C either. Enclosure is sheltered under a large awning behind the house. They are barely adequate to run my minimum power needs at night during an outage. Eight of them in series-parallel at 48v "should" be good for about 5 kWh. Realistic tests have given more like 3.5-4.0 kWh. I was measuring the DC output directly, not the inverter output.

Would anyone care to explain this? Please do.

 

[EricBarbour]

heh heh

 

[Dzl]

I'm planning a new battery bank, and every day I'm leaning more towards SLA, partly because of things like this. I think it is far more rampant than we even think, but we are fortunate enough to have Will exposing it.

I think you may be misunderstanding the implications of what Will 'exposed' opening up a Victron Battery. Its certainly useful/interesting info to have. Winston is a reputable manufacturer, and the cells in that battery are likely of a uniformly higher quality than what 90% of us here are buying through Alibaba.

I don't think the Victron batteries are a good value personally, but I don't think they are meant to be. I think they are meant to be a premium product for a high end customer/builder, and I think what you are paying for is Victron quality, support/warranty, and a battery/BMS that integrates well into their ecosystem of products. I agree with Joey, its not really their core competency or focus, but more likely a product designed to plug one of the last holes in their 'ecosystem.' To me its not even close to worth the steep markup (especially considering there are external costs as well), but I can imagine some high end boatbuilders and such that would not bat an eye at the price premium if it allowed them to stay within the Victron ecosystem and support framework.

Seems you and I are in the minority, that LA have a place here. I've said the same thing in other threads.

I think its not as small a minority as it seems. I would never consider LA for my use-case, and rarely if ever focus on the chemistry, but I definitely think there are-use cases where they still make the most sense. I bet many others here feel the same way. I do agree that there are some 'fanboys' of lifepo4 and of DIY in particular, and some who have a simplistic understanding of lithium = better. On the other hand, I think that there may be more acceptance of LA in some contexts than first meets the eye.

The more I learn (about everything not just battery chemistry) its all about context and trade-offs.

 

[Steve_S]

That certainly will explain part of the High Cost of Victron Batteries.
Crack open any of the Top Quality Batteries LFP from Rolls Surette, Trojan, SimpliPhi and so on, and you will NOT find commodity cells but premium Matched/Batched & Binned cells with a very tight spec. For the price, I would expect that.

 

[Bill Taylor]

Another angle

 

[Suijkerbuijk]

That certainly will explain part of the High Cost of Victron Batteries.
Crack open any of the Top Quality Batteries LFP from Rolls Surette, Trojan, SimpliPhi and so on, and you will NOT find commodity cells but premium Matched/Batched & Binned cells with a very tight spec. For the price, I would expect that.

I will tell how how victron and the rules of my country .
Victron is the netherlands company.
My self come from.that country.

The netherlands are a country in the Europa.

Europa has a minimum warranty of 2 years under european law.
But the Nederlandse have extra warranty in dutch law.
The name of that law is , life expectancy.
That means if a product has a life experctancy of 5 years , its is expected by law the product can last 5 years .
The parts that breakdown must be replaced at no cost.
The man hours and call-out cost may be paid. (Only the part is free)

Now you know wy victron cost a lot and the parts ar high grade .
This victron battery have in my country 5 years warranty .

 

[duncan.hall17@btinternet.]

I was interested as to how this would compare now that prices have changed.

I am in the UK a new victron 200AH Smart battery now costs about £1800.

Buying the Winston 200AH cells and a 123Smart BMS is abou £1300.

100AH Battlebourne in UK are about £1000

so perhaps value has got closer