Leaking Electrolyte from Bigbattery Powerblock

[Just John]

So I've had the 3 units hooked in and running for a bit. I know someone will say don't use gel duh! but coming from the 7.2kW nominal (3.6kW usable) gel (@12v) battery bank to the ~13kW (@24v) has been a major upgrade! Both in useable battery / runtime and the ability to charge. Call me a fool but I ordered a 4th one over the weekend. I installed them on their backs so I'm hopeful that the biggest risk for me was during shipping.

Edit: to be clear the 4th hasn't shipped yet so I guess there is still some risk.

Just my opinion (and worth what you paid for it, nothing), if they aren't leaking, and you have them where the cells are upright, they will likely last as long as you expect without problems. If they get over charged and bloated, then of course you'll have a problem (just like any battery). I think something in the cell production process is just not getting as strong a seal as they expect, and rough handling during shipping and the orientation springs a leak. I would think the majority of the cells don't leak, or Lishen would have identified the problem and fixed their process already.

 

[SethRR]

Well .... if we haven't gotten any feedback from Mr Green about what they found with Seth's unit by now .... we probably won't.

I can somewhat understand not wanting to get back into a hostile thread, but if he wasn't going to provide feedback on the units shipped back he shouldn't have made the commitment.

I agree @Bob B, Today marks 3 full weeks that they have had it in hand. ANOTHER blatant lie from @MrGreen stating that he would post the results after receiving my unit.

 

[Bob B]

I'm a little hyper sensitive about customer service and business honesty. The older I get, the less willing I am to accept poor service or being lied to.
I was always honest with my customers no matter what ... and even my own management often couldn't understand why the customers liked my work so much ... and do everything possible to get things right the first time. If you do it right ... people will come back for more.
Too many places still trying to sell people crap they don't need and doing a poor job of it.

I will drive 3 times as far and pay a premium to support that business that is doing their best to providing great customer service ... and I have a pretty long list of places I will never frequent again.
I believe if everyone did this we would get be treated better by business in general. I treat the good ones like gold to try to help keep them successful.

I'm just not willing to "settle" for poor customer service or being lied to.

 

[Bob B]

Oh .... and it also turns out that doing it right the first time is more efficient and cost effective. It took me a while to "train" a new project manager to put a few more hours in the initial job and have less hours in the end ... once their spreadsheets proved this worked, they would be totally on board.
I was the only one in our branch who ever did a major job and had no punch list .... most would have pages and pages of items that were a LOT harder to fix after the fact than to do it right the first time.

At the end of our jobs, most of them would have an independent quality control group come in and go thru everything with a fine toothed comb ... make you demonstrate things worked per spec .... oh .... don't get me started on spec's LOL. Most people hated these people .... I liked them .... I wasn't trying to sneak by with half a&&ed work.

By doing this, I slowly changed the culture of our branch .... hope they haven't forgotten now that I retired.

Sorry for tooting my own horn a little, but sure wish the world would wake up to this way of doing things.

 

[solarbot]

I can somewhat understand not wanting to get back into a hostile thread...

Hmm, I would not call the thread hostile. Justifiably skeptical perhaps. There is the matter of living down the white grease claim. I can understand some discomfort there. As things stand I will forevermore associate Big Battery with "white grease eats your battery".

Then there is the claim that Big Battery discovered 11 leaking cells at the factory by inspection. Please excuse me, but given the circumstances I can't help thinking that when they say they found 11 then the real truth must be "way more" and "it happened to customers".

 

[Bob B]

Hmm, I would not call the thread hostile. Justifiably skeptical perhaps. There is the matter of living down the white grease claim. I can understand some discomfort there. As things stand I will forevermore associate Big Battery with "white grease eats your battery".

Then there is the claim that Big Battery discovered 11 leaking cells at the factory by inspection. Please excuse me, but given the circumstances I can't help thinking that when they say they found 11 then the real truth must be "way more" and "it happened to customers".

Sorry ... that post was hostile .... LOL Just kidding

I am on board with your "skepticism".

 

[Gazoo]

Hmm, I would not call the thread hostile. Justifiably skeptical perhaps. There is the matter of living down the white grease claim. I can understand some discomfort there. As things stand I will forevermore associate Big Battery with "white grease eats your battery".

Then there is the claim that Big Battery discovered 11 leaking cells at the factory by inspection. Please excuse me, but given the circumstances I can't help thinking that when they say they found 11 then the real truth must be "way more" and "it happened to customers".

I believe the reason Mr. Green never gave anyone any updates is because he found cell(s) in Seth's battery leaking. There is no way he could spin Seth's photos. He already tried spinning with the grease thing even though the photos showed something much worse than white grease. White grease is not going to cause the corrosion we saw either.

They claimed they found 11 out of 10,000. It doesn't make sense. If it doesn't make sense then it is a lie. That's what Judge Judy says...lol.

 

[solarbot]

I think something in the cell production process is just not getting as strong a seal as they expect, and rough handling during shipping and the orientation springs a leak.

You may be getting close to the truth. It might not take much of a bump. As I recall, Will's leaky cell was second from the bottom, so the two cells lying above are a hefty 7kg. Set the assembly down on its end with even slight momentum and bang, pop, squirt. Maybe.

Each cell is fixed to the circuit board at the electrode end but is free to move at the other end, however slightly. I seriously doubt Will's handling in any way amounted to rough, but with that mechanical configuration a rather small shock load could translate to a big hydraulic pressure spike. If the cell is full of fluid with no gas then it's incompressible and nothing can give way except the valve. After the valve first breaks free then maybe it can seep.

This theory seems to fit the evidence in Will's (ahem) case, but SethRR's is problematic because it apparently occured in transit, where the foam we saw in Colemab's photos should have been enough to damp any reasonable shock. However, the unit could easily have been set down heavily at the factory, after assembly and before shipping.

 

[sshibly]

As a small business owner myself, I feel BB's pain.
We might never know what caused the cells to leak, it really does not matter.
As a customer myself, I would want to be made whole. I understand bleep happens. I would get a replacement and use it.

I am not sure if we are expecting BB to go live on youtube and perform a "Yubitsume" ritual.

We certainly have a bunch of smart people here, who can definitely help understand the possible causes of failure. Really cool for everyone to come together to figure this one out.

I hope the BB will make the buyer of the leaking cells whole promptly.

My dealings with XUBA and left a rotten road killz taste in my mouth

 

[MrNatural22]

Customer service is what makes or breaks a business. Especially if it’s in the USA.

 

[colemab]

Just my opinion (and worth what you paid for it, nothing), if they aren't leaking, and you have them where the cells are upright, they will likely last as long as you expect without problems. If they get over charged and bloated, then of course you'll have a problem (just like any battery). I think something in the cell production process is just not getting as strong a seal as they expect, and rough handling during shipping and the orientation springs a leak. I would think the majority of the cells don't leak, or Lishen would have identified the problem and fixed their process already.

Yea, I have the same thoughts as you. I'll keep them on their back and hope for a long life given that they will almost never be charged to full - better yet over charged. (numbers indicate a 25% to 75% charge cycle for long term life of these batteries).

The fourth is in transit and should be here Monday. Fingers crossed!

On a side note the display just went out on my 100A Renogy charge controller so time to investigate their customer service . . .

 

[colemab]

4th unit came in today just fine. I hooked it up and then realized I lied about not charging the battery to full, I have to do that at least one more time to calibrate the BMV-712 shunt. I now have 17.5 kW (nominal) of big battery, watch the sun stay out for a month now. LOL

 

[colemab]

So the 4th unit doesn't have the green "QC Passed" button to the right of the front volt meter and doesn't have the red notice button above the power button. Also, it has white nylon handles vs the black handles on the other units. Wish BB would tell us about the differences. Like how do I know that the unit has the fire extinguisher without opening it up?

Anyway, I noticed that while looking at the batteries. I've been watching them since install because their voltage (4 wired in parallel) never seem to equal out. The original 3 almost always match but the 4th doesn't. I even tried charging them to 100% to balance but no good. Right now they are 3 units @ 26.5 v and the 4th at 29.8.

I'm starting to wonder if the 4th is working at all or is a bum unit because when I hit the power button on the other three, my inverter starts to die from low voltage - even though the 4th unit reports high volts. Crazy thing is that 4th unit had to have charged, it came in from shipping originally at 26.2 volts.

Any advice from the experts here before I contact BB? Thanks!

 

[Bud Martin]

So the 4th unit doesn't have the green "QC Passed" button to the right of the front volt meter and doesn't have the red notice button above the power button. Also, it has white nylon handles vs the black handles on the other units. Wish BB would tell us about the differences. Like how do I know that the unit has the fire extinguisher without opening it up?

Anyway, I noticed that while looking at the batteries. I've been watching them since install because their voltage (4 wired in parallel) never seem to equal out. The original 3 almost always match but the 4th doesn't. I even tried charging them to 100% to balance but no good. Right now they are 3 units @ 26.5 v and the 4th at 29.8.

I'm starting to wonder if the 4th is working at all or is a bum unit because when I hit the power button on the other three, my inverter starts to die from low voltage - even though the 4th unit reports high volts. Crazy thing is that 4th unit had to have charged, it came in from shipping originally at 26.2 volts.

Any advice from the experts here before I contact BB? Thanks!

I would ask BB to see what they will say. 29.8V that will be 3.725V/Cell. What happen if you try running the inverter on just the 4th pack, and verify the capacity?

 

[Just John]

I would ask BB to see what they will say. 29.8V that will be 3.725V/Cell. What happen if you try running the inverter on just the 4th pack, and verify the capacity?

I agree, you need quantifiable data to give them. If it doesn't work to specification, they should exchange it.

 

[colemab]

So I reduced the load (600w->15w) then cycled off the 3 units with the power button on each. Leaving just the 4th unit online. No problems other than the volt meter. Then I ramped up the load back to 600w and again no problems other than the volt meter. So I was likely triggering the low voltage alarm by staying under decent load while cycling the batteries.

So at this point I'm wondering if the volt meter is off or if the BMS is messed up. I'm going to phone them tomorrow when they open and see what they say.

 

[Bud Martin]

So when you say the Volt meter shows 29.8V on the battery pack built-in Volt meter, did you verify it with your own Volt meter?

 

[colemab]

Using the built in volt meter. Here is a photo of the 3 units in order. The 1st unit is out of the picture and the 4th unit is on the left in the photo.

 

[Bud Martin]

Using the built in volt meter. Here is a photo of the 3 units in order. The 1st unit is out of the picture and the 4th unit is on the left in the photo.

What does you Volt meter as?

 

[colemab]

I know it is hard to see but in the photo the readings are 26.2v from the display on the 4th unit, 22.93v from the meterk volt meter that is probed to the y adapter that is connected to units 3 and 4 but disconnected for this test. Unit 3 is powered off but as soon as unit 4 was powered on, it displayed 22.8v in the second photo.

So I'm thinking the volt meter just wasn't properly calibrated. I'm hoping it is independent of the BMS and thus decorative only.