LifePo4 280ah 16S1P - Charger recommendation 50amp 48v AC (grid) to DC chargers?

[lycaki]

Hi Everyone,

Doing a search for this provides mixed results. I'm after a cheap low cost 50amp (or more) AC-DC charger for a 48v 16S1P LifePo4 batteries.
In the UK, we have 4 hours of cheap rate electricity at night (literally 3-4 times cheaper during this time).

At the moment I can't find an AC-DC charger that is less than 300-400 dollars or even higher ... I've turned to AliExpress and found a couple of chargers for 100-200 but have such long delivery times. It'll be summer before they arrive and I'll have solar amps power then... right now in the UK, I have almost zero sunshine hitting my panels in garden!

The perfect solution would be a 48v variable amp charger 10-60amps, I'd be able to make it come on for 4 hours at night and top the battery up to 70-80 percent.
I currently have a 24v 8s1P system and it wasn't enough for my daily electricity usage (about 10-12kwh) and I'm adding another 8 and creating a 48v 16s (all on a JK-BMS). 50amps would only be about 0.25C charge so well within tolerance of charging profiles.

50amps is about 2400 watts at 48v which is not that much.

Currently I only have an inverter that provides 15amps of charge which obviously isn't enough to recharge in the 4 hours by some margin!

Once the summer comes, it can trickle charge through the whole day (if we ever have sun here).

Any help would be appreciated, thanks

 

[OzSolar]

You are looking for a Unicorn. I know because I'm looking for one as well. I'm watching in hopes that someone has found that unicorn.

If you had lead acid you'd about have your choice of used industrial ones.

 

[lycaki]

Haha thats rcactly what it feels like...

I found this on AliExpress, not sure if any good but sounds like a Unicorn



Adjustable Charger 0V to 120V 0A to 50A for Li-ion Lifepo4 LTO lead acid Battery 48V 60V 72V 84V 96V 108.8V 20A 30A 40A charger if link doesn't work

 

[OzSolar]

What's the 0-60V 50A price? That's the one I think you need.

Here's the best I found. I can get it surprisingly quicky though.

 

[lycaki]

It's only £230 (That's the one I thought I'd clicked.) Here's the link

Your one, much better than I've seen people talking about but I'd still need two of them to refill and that's in the £500 dollars.

I was exploring these Boost converters - since you can connect them to potentially dirt cheap server PSUs and make a 12/24/36 by just adding the PSUs in series.

I tried with one onto a 12v PSU and blew two sets of fuses on it... they are temperamental as sh!t. I had it at 12v input 24v output and 5 amps output.

Theoretically you could get up to 4x12 in series PSUs and 48v and then output nearly 10-15 amps. Server PSUs are almost nothing (thrown away from old servers). Total price less than 50 dollars (if you can find 12v server PSUs on ebay/scrap).
You could add a couple and get up to 45 watts for less than the price of 3 of these (and PSUs)

However it's not something you'd want to leave and forget... but I thought it might be an idea to test. Plus all those server PSUs running are going to make the neighbours think your mining bitcoin!

 

[OzSolar]

I'm not smart enough to be that risky. ha. I did just bump into this 50 Amp "battery charger" although it sure looks like a power supply to me. Still more money than you want to spend I know.

 

[lycaki]

That one is not bad though, thanks! The shipping fee is free (for me in UK) usually they vary from free to 30-50 dollars. That effects the price!
With the free shipping on that is nearly middle of Feb to UK! Price is definitely the best I've seen... 50 amps for 178 dollars and variable!

Those boost converters are not something you'd want to leave unattended - so I don't recommend, it's more experimental (and if I couldn't have found anything!)

 

[DJSmiley]

Have a look at Ebay. I've seen some Eltek Flatpacks for cheap, and those are 2000-3000W at 48V

Keep in mind 48V / 60A is 2880W excluding losses, so like 12.5A. Not recommended when using a regular UK 13A socket..

Serie-connecting 12V PSU's can be done, but you need to replace capacitors, since those are not suitable for 50V, so that will be quite a challenge.

A simple flatpack psu for 40 GBP is a lot easier: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/285091421841

I have salvaged some old PSU's from our old routers. Those are 2800W / piece and have 3 in a single rack, providing 150A.. but it does require 3-phase

(Example)

Used APC 1MS28CT 2800W 54V 27V DC power supply | eBay

WITHOUT ANY TECHNICAL SUPPORTING. Used conition ï¼what you see is what you will reeceive.

www.ebay.com

I don't need all three of them, if you're interested in one let me know. Those also have adjustable float and absorbtion voltages.

 

[lycaki]

Have a look at Ebay. I've seen some Eltek Flatpacks for cheap, and those are 2000-3000W at 48V

Keep in mind 48V / 60A is 2880W excluding losses, so like 12.5A. Not recommended when using a regular UK 13A socket..

Serie-connecting 12V PSU's can be done, but you need to replace capacitors, since those are not suitable for 50V, so that will be quite a challenge.

A simple flatpack psu for 40 GBP is a lot easier: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/285091421841

I have salvaged some old PSU's from our old routers. Those are 2800W / piece and have 3 in a single rack, providing 150A.. but it does require 3-phase

Used APC 1MS28CT 2800W 54V 27V DC power supply | eBay

WITHOUT ANY TECHNICAL SUPPORTING. Used conition ï¼what you see is what you will reeceive.

www.ebay.com

DJSmiley,

That looks perfect thanks! I'm not familiar with those Eltek flatpacks though, what's the power output at the front, is it fairly easy to modify that connector?

Appreciate the warning over the AC amperage side, good advice! My garage all on a 32amp circuit and all the cabling/plugs inside is over engineered for just such experiments.

Yeah you're right, I was watching a youtube video of a guy building a 12v PSU for the boost converters and putting them in series, he was showing how you could modify. I'm not sure I was going to attempt but I work in IT and and I often dispose of servers and their PSUs... so that was free!

Great idea though... adding to basket

 

[lycaki]

Have a look at Ebay. I've seen some Eltek Flatpacks for cheap, and those are 2000-3000W at 48V

Keep in mind 48V / 60A is 2880W excluding losses, so like 12.5A. Not recommended when using a regular UK 13A socket..

Serie-connecting 12V PSU's can be done, but you need to replace capacitors, since those are not suitable for 50V, so that will be quite a challenge.

A simple flatpack psu for 40 GBP is a lot easier: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/285091421841

I have salvaged some old PSU's from our old routers. Those are 2800W / piece and have 3 in a single rack, providing 150A.. but it does require 3-phase

(Example)

Used APC 1MS28CT 2800W 54V 27V DC power supply | eBay

WITHOUT ANY TECHNICAL SUPPORTING. Used conition ï¼what you see is what you will reeceive.

www.ebay.com

I don't need all three of them, if you're interested in one let me know. Those also have adjustable float and absorbtion voltages.

I'd be interested, you have any pics of your setup, I'd be interested to learn how you are doing that. Although I think 3-Phase setups might be outside of my current knowledge base .

Using one would be interesting with the float and absorption additions!

 

[Quattrohead]

Is this not something your inverter can do for you?

 

[lycaki]

Is this not something your inverter can do for you?

Inverters absolutely can ... some don't, I was currently using a smaller one that doesn't have DC charging higher than 10 amps.

I was just looking at an alternative independent AC-DC charger options and if you check out what's available - they cost a lot!

 

[Caesium]

I'm in a similar boat looking for something to get a bit more juice into my 28kWh DIY LF280K pack.

I've no solar, but do have a 5 hour cheap rate charge window overnight (also in the UK, so this is Octopus Go Faster). I use a Luxpower ACS3600 to charge them during this window (3kW, give or take) then discharge during the day (the price difference per unit is pretty large). This can push in 15kWh so a high usage day can leave me a bit short of 100%.

Something like the chargers/PSUs linked above look ideal. My main concern is build quality of these. At £150 for a 50A 60V charger, I'd worry about that. Given that the Victron Skylla 48/50 is literally 10 times the price, and I expect there's a good reason for that price beyond just the brand.

Or is this an unnecessary worry? Has anyone used the above and had good results?

 

[lycaki]

I'm in a similar boat looking for something to get a bit more juice into my 28kWh DIY LF280K pack.

I've no solar, but do have a 5 hour cheap rate charge window overnight (also in the UK, so this is Octopus Go Faster). I use a Luxpower ACS3600 to charge them during this window (3kW, give or take) then discharge during the day (the price difference per unit is pretty large). This can push in 15kWh so a high usage day can leave me a bit short of 100%.

Something like the chargers/PSUs linked above look ideal. My main concern is build quality of these. At £150 for a 50A 60V charger, I'd worry about that. Given that the Victron Skylla 48/50 is literally 10 times the price, and I expect there's a good reason for that price beyond just the brand.

Or is this an unnecessary worry? Has anyone used the above and had good results?

Yeah we're doing the same thing ... although you have a lot of kWh there. Same charge at night and use during the day, making a massive difference to my bills already! The payback ROI on this is getting to 1 year! That's at current prices and if the caps start lifting, it will be months!

I think it's a demand issue... it's like @OzSolar said above - if it was lead acid... there are loads of commercial chargers available at low costs (although the watts is obviously much lower). I think now, we might be a small crowd, so no real demand or competition.

You're right it's a bit of an unknown although these power-supplies usually have good thermal monitoring and shutdown as standard

@DJSmiley solutions are pretty safe (IMO) as these are industrial server rack/24h 7 days a week PSUs and are probably built at better fail-safes than most products.

It is an unknown ... - hopefully we can grow this to a known.

 

[OzSolar]

Is this not something your inverter can do for you?

It totally is but the inverter is already dedicated to another battery bank and need this for a 2nd battery bank. A customer is upgrading thier 18 year old Outback 3638 and 4 year FLA to a SolArk15 and LiFEP04. I'll spare you the clumsy description of the rube Goldberg of a plan I've hatched.

Keeping your eye on eBay for a used old Trace/Xantrex SW type of inverter could be an excellent way to go about it. I've been keeping my eye out for a used inverter on eBay but no luck.

Something like the chargers/PSUs linked above look ideal. My main concern is build quality of these. At £150 for a 50A 60V charger, I'd worry about that. Given that the Victron Skylla 48/50 is literally 10 times the price, and I expect there's a good reason for that price beyond just the brand.

I've wondered the same. I suspect the bulk of the price difference comes from the ability to get support and have decent documentation which can be worth a lot. EG: the US market is flooded with AIO inverters that are the fraction of the cost Tier 1 models. People are gobbling them up but you don't have to spend much time on this forum to learn that while they ~work~ for the most part there's often a lot or weirdness you need to be willing to deal with in exchange for that low price.

 

[Von Baron]

I found this thread because I too am looking for a way to possibly add extra charge into my system.
I am fully off-grid, so no grid connection.
Presently running on 8s LiFePO4, 400Amp/hr Winston cells, but have an identical set of 8 cells to add in to bring it up to 51.2Volts.
Have the Victron RS 48 | 6000 mounted and ready to wire when I do the change over.
Down here in Australia, it is summer, so the days are fine and long, but as we mover closer to the winter months, and for my case especially, the months from April until mid June are the more critical parts of the year. Once the rains start, then I have the micro-hydro turbine, so all is good.
But in those days where the days get shorter and possibly more cloudy days plus the fact I work from home, and have a few large projects to work on (industrial automation, so PLCs and HMI and computers are running) I want to ensure the battery system is replenished each day.
I found this thread because I was searching on ebay for a mains powered charger, just like you folks were doing and wanted something in the order of 40 - 50 Amps. I found a Eltek Flatpack and thought they look interesting, but was unsure if you need the smartrack or some other controller with it, so I thought I would see if anyone on the forum had tinkered with a Flatpack.
But then I saw the charger that OzSolar linked, the 58.4V 30A charger and thought this was looking like a nice solution.
So I looked and it is also possible to get a slightly lower voltage unit, which would suit better for a 16s LiFePO4 set up, that is a 54.75V charger.
This lower voltage is much better, it equates exactly to the top end of my charging on the existing 25.6V system, where I only go to 27.36Volts.
This will ensure the cells last longer, by not pushing them up into the last few percent of capacity and where they then tend to drift apart.

This is the unit I am looking at: Charger 54.75Volts

I have some time to organise it all, but thought it might be best if I settle on some form of charger sooner.
What thoughts might anyone have about using this type of charger, or is there other solutions ?

Next year I hope to get the 12 new Trina Vertex 395W panels up, but no time before this winter.

Thanks for any input - Paul (VK7KPA)

 

[lycaki]

I found this thread because I too am looking for a way to possibly add extra charge into my system.
I am fully off-grid, so no grid connection.
Presently running on 8s LiFePO4, 400Amp/hr Winston cells, but have an identical set of 8 cells to add in to bring it up to 51.2Volts.
Have the Victron RS 48 | 6000 mounted and ready to wire when I do the change over.
Down here in Australia, it is summer, so the days are fine and long, but as we mover closer to the winter months, and for my case especially, the months from April until mid June are the more critical parts of the year. Once the rains start, then I have the micro-hydro turbine, so all is good.
But in those days where the days get shorter and possibly more cloudy days plus the fact I work from home, and have a few large projects to work on (industrial automation, so PLCs and HMI and computers are running) I want to ensure the battery system is replenished each day.
I found this thread because I was searching on ebay for a mains powered charger, just like you folks were doing and wanted something in the order of 40 - 50 Amps. I found a Eltek Flatpack and thought they look interesting, but was unsure if you need the smartrack or some other controller with it, so I thought I would see if anyone on the forum had tinkered with a Flatpack.
But then I saw the charger that OzSolar linked, the 58.4V 30A charger and thought this was looking like a nice solution.
So I looked and it is also possible to get a slightly lower voltage unit, which would suit better for a 16s LiFePO4 set up, that is a 54.75V charger.
This lower voltage is much better, it equates exactly to the top end of my charging on the existing 25.6V system, where I only go to 27.36Volts.
This will ensure the cells last longer, by not pushing them up into the last few percent of capacity and where they then tend to drift apart.

This is the unit I am looking at: Charger 54.75Volts

I have some time to organise it all, but thought it might be best if I settle on some form of charger sooner.
What thoughts might anyone have about using this type of charger, or is there other solutions ?

Next year I hope to get the 12 new Trina Vertex 395W panels up, but no time before this winter.

Thanks for any input - Paul (VK7KPA)

Hey Paul,

I tried out a couple of Eltek Flatpack - they were 40 pounds here for a 48v 33 amp charger. I did buy version 1.5 of the system. When you turn it on, I think it's at 53.2v (roughly). If you buy v2 or higher, you can apparently easily just remove some small resistors and solder a potentiometer on it. Giving you a variety of voltages up to 60v (Known as the Thai mod)

For my one, the version 1.5 - I'm also currently looking into the CAN communication it has built in to all these models ... you can pick up these connector boards
Eltek front end power with can bus for example (lots of them about)

I think if you can connect with the CAN communication - you can alter the voltage from 48v-up to 60v by sending a command to it! I haven't fully explored this yet, looks interesting. Here's the github site exploring it a forum looking into it

Someone in your neck of the woods has done a nice customisation of them using the CAN BUS communication but they don't seem to offer it anymore (and obviously puts the price high if you include that) VK4GHZ.com

I'm just trying to keep the price down and I need about 50 amps in order to put all my charge in within 4 hours, so I'm probably a special case! That charger you have linked, seems reasonable.

 

[Von Baron]

Hi Iycaki for your ideas and information.
I see the link to VK4GHZ is a fellow radio amateur. The little CAN controller he built, I can see how he has done it and have most parts here to do something like that, but quite nice what he as done.
The Eltek units look to be well designed and really what I would go for, but I might at this stage go for a ready made power unit simply because I have no time for tinkering at the moment, its full on project work.

Thanks again, the info has been very useful for me - Paul (VK7KPA)

 

[lycaki]

No Problem Paul

Hi Iycaki for your ideas and information.
I see the link to VK4GHZ is a fellow radio amateur. The little CAN controller he built, I can see how he has done it and have most parts here to do something like that, but quite nice what he as done.
The Eltek units look to be well designed and really what I would go for, but I might at this stage go for a ready made power unit simply because I have no time for tinkering at the moment, its full on project work.

Thanks again, the info has been very useful for me - Paul (VK7KPA)

The Elteks are good but definitely for tinkering with!

I did end up getting this as well, I've been using for a couple of weeks now and can say, it works really well. Has Constant Current or Constant Voltage options you can set... Thermal management is good, build is solid - I did contact them on price, you can get it cheaper if you speak to them (as Aliexpress has to add TAX etc for UK on my price). I'm pulling 50 amps from it - charge cables that come with it are probably right on the limit for 50amps but easy to replace. Also worth checking the AC Power lead that comes with these devices are up to spec.

73

Here