Matching Eco-Worthy All-in-One with other brand Lithium Battery

[llqh]

I bought an Eco-Worthy 48V All-in-One and it will be brought to me in Ecuador by a friend.

Eco-Worthy has no dealer in Ecuador, so I can't buy their batteries here. And they cannot be brought in on an airline.

A local Solar Dealer has RITAR lithium batteries, but apparently the Eco-Worthy will not communicate with it.

And, so the dealer here declines to sell me a lithium battery because he feels that without communication between the two that the battery could be damaged. It seems this is probably correct.

He only sells Victron equipment.

So, he offers to sell me gel batteries instead.

My first question is, is there some off the shelf component, say from Victron, that can sit between the All-in-One and the battery that can safely manage the battery charging?

My second question is...if I have to buy gel batteries, what would be the equivalent in gel batteries of a 48volt 100ah lithium battery? It seems I would need 200ah of gel for the same efficiency / discharge / safety margin?

Thanks

 

[sunshine_eggo]

My first question is, is there some off the shelf component, say from Victron, that can sit between the All-in-One and the battery that can safely manage the battery charging?

Comms are not required. Simply program the Victron chargers to the appropriate absorption and float voltages.

My second question is...if I have to buy gel batteries, what would be the equivalent in gel batteries of a 48volt 100ah lithium battery? It seems I would need 200ah of gel for the same efficiency / discharge / safety margin?

Don't. Running lead acid (GEL is lead acid) in parallel with LFP is not advisable unless you have no other choice.

You need to watch for "48V" batteries. With LFP, sometimes those are 15 cells and others, they are 16 cells. 15 cells is actually 48V nominal voltage, BUT 16 cells better matches the operating range of 48V lead acid, and that's 51.2V nominal.

Folks have made the mistake of trying to parallel 15S batteries with 16S batteries.

 

[llqh]

Oh, I guess I didn't write clearly....

1) yes, not to mix gel with lithium...if I cannot get the all-in-one to work with lithium my only choice would be to use gel, a bank of gel, and no lithium

(the All-in-One has settings for 15S and 16S)

2) I bought the Eco-Worthy all in one already. It is not a Victron...but I was wondering that IF the Eco-worthy will not work with the lithium batteries that are available here in Ecuador, to say, put a charge controller that could communicate with the lithium battery, say a Victron, between the All-in-One and the battery...but after I thought about it, I don't know how that could work unless I made a hack in the All-in-One and bypassed the built in charger.

 

[Rednecktek]

If the Eco-Worthy will work with Gel/lead batteries (where there is no comms) then it's basing its settings on voltage. If you set the voltage for your lithium batteries it will do the same thing and just run without comms like so many other setups out there.

Just get whatever lithium batteries are available and run without coms. No need to nerf your system by using lead.

 

[llqh]

I guess that is the basic question....will running with no comm, is there potential damage to a lithium battery, if the voltages are correct?

I was able to get a copy of the user manual, attached....

There are default settings for different types of lithium batteries. As well as user defined values for all the parameters.

Page 31.


There are com ports, but whether the battery and all-in-one share a common protocol and can communicate is in question.

Overall, from a newbie perspective, it looks like a good unit.

 

[llqh]

the pdf would not upload...here are the default and custom settings for Lithium

is it true that if these parameters match the BMS on the battery that there is no problem in running with no comm?

 

[Rednecktek]

As long as your voltages are set correctly and the unit respects the settings you should be fine. People have run AIO's for years all around the world and things have worked just fine.

Just make sure you use the correct settings as there are 15s and 16s batteries out there that take slightly different settings. Usually a proper 16s battery will be listed as a 52.8v battery and will use the L16 setting.

 

[BarracudaBob]

Put the Eco-Worthy 48V rack Battery on there