I'm about to bite the bullet on 16 x 202Ah cells from Luyuan (Amy, redirected from Xuba; have been quoted 72.90 ea. + 214 shipping to AU, total USD 1380). Amy has stated these are CATL cells.
I'd like to hear from anyone who has been operating a bank of these ubiquitous blue-shrink-wrapped Aluminium/Aluminum-cased cells for any significant period of time - a year or more?
If so, do you know with confidence the manufacturer of your cells? Unlike all the hard-plastic-cased cells (CALB, Sinopoly, etc) where those manufacturers have fairly distinct products and publish detailed datasheets/etc, and where there are myriad published records of people running these for years, it seems impossible to tell who made what when it comes to the Al-cased cells, with few long-term reports.
I'm guessing that in practice most of these Al-cased cells originate in a small number of manufacturers. CATL and EVE appear to be amongst the larger players - EVE has a market cap of USD 15B, CATL about USD 62B. CATL, Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited are apparently the world's third largest provider of EV, HEV and PHEV battery solutions. They are many orders of magnitude too big to be dealing with the likes of DIYers, and a simple Google search or three doesn't dig up any datasheet or hint of information on the range of cells they make. I have found reference to a CATL 201Ah Lithium LFP Battery Module (EVLithium), the specs on that battery match up with the specs Amy provided for the cells. I'm guessing - hoping - that these "CATL" cells are some sort of factory surplus / seconds with only superficial issues (e.g. cosmetic).
So if you have first-hand experience in operating any kind of Al-cased cell over time, or identifying same, I'd love to hear about it!
I'd like to hear from anyone who has been operating a bank of these ubiquitous blue-shrink-wrapped Aluminium/Aluminum-cased cells for any significant period of time - a year or more?
If so, do you know with confidence the manufacturer of your cells? Unlike all the hard-plastic-cased cells (CALB, Sinopoly, etc) where those manufacturers have fairly distinct products and publish detailed datasheets/etc, and where there are myriad published records of people running these for years, it seems impossible to tell who made what when it comes to the Al-cased cells, with few long-term reports.
I'm guessing that in practice most of these Al-cased cells originate in a small number of manufacturers. CATL and EVE appear to be amongst the larger players - EVE has a market cap of USD 15B, CATL about USD 62B. CATL, Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited are apparently the world's third largest provider of EV, HEV and PHEV battery solutions. They are many orders of magnitude too big to be dealing with the likes of DIYers, and a simple Google search or three doesn't dig up any datasheet or hint of information on the range of cells they make. I have found reference to a CATL 201Ah Lithium LFP Battery Module (EVLithium), the specs on that battery match up with the specs Amy provided for the cells. I'm guessing - hoping - that these "CATL" cells are some sort of factory surplus / seconds with only superficial issues (e.g. cosmetic).
So if you have first-hand experience in operating any kind of Al-cased cell over time, or identifying same, I'd love to hear about it!
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