Yes. Low temp charge cutoff works.
New Battery on Amazon and Ebay - Global Power 12V100AH LIFEPO4 - $399! Has anybody actually bought one yet? Torn it down yet?
- Thread starter Indepthdude
- Start date
Kcdaniels
New Member
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2019
- Messages
- 263
Any update on a replacement ?
so far so good I bought 4 of these for a 48v system .....they all came pretty well balanced .....hooked them up in series and balanced them to my existing rack mounted pack which I also had bought a year ago from global power. No problems they seem to be holding up just fine. My first pack I had to set the charge voltage down to 56.4 on the MPPT controller due to the fact it was fighting with shutting my invertor down since then I have had no problems running it this way. Global power seems to be a good company from what I have seen
What do you mean by 'they all came pretty well balanced'? Were you able to charge them up to 14.4 or 14.6 without the BMS cutting out?
didn't go there they all came in at 13.6 brought them all up to 14.1 ....brought my original pack up to 56.4 kicked the breaker on and they have been in service working fine since I got them 2 weeks ago ....individual battery voltage on each battery has been the same on all 4 batterys since I put them online ....didn't do any other extensive testing just plug and play and we will see what happens
Haven't shipped yet, contacted me today, apologized for delay(blamed holidays) and said he would get them right out. Will continue to update.
Well my 2 replacement batteries have shipped, but he wants me to return the two bad ones, so I won't be able to conduct a post mortem. I retested them today and they will discharge, but won't charge and the discharge voltage seems low. (On battery meter reads 13.1 but I only get 12.6 at the posts)
I have 4 of the later version of this battery. https://www.ebay.com/itm/373490407212
I believe the batteries discussed at the beginning of this thread are a different battery as evidenced by the strap instead of a handle and prismatic cells instead of cylindrical cells. I have the same trouble with not being able to charge the batteries to the stated voltage. I have my batteries in series 48 volts. I can charge up to 56.1 volts before one of the batteries cuts out. I have reduced my charge profile voltage avoid this. Even with this anomaly I guesstimate that the cool weather performance of these batteries is roughly 4 times better than what I had with my previous 100 ah fla battery bank. For now I have decided to live with the oddities of these batteries. I have purchased most of what I will need to top balance these batteries without cutting power to my travel trailer for days.
I believe the batteries discussed at the beginning of this thread are a different battery as evidenced by the strap instead of a handle and prismatic cells instead of cylindrical cells. I have the same trouble with not being able to charge the batteries to the stated voltage. I have my batteries in series 48 volts. I can charge up to 56.1 volts before one of the batteries cuts out. I have reduced my charge profile voltage avoid this. Even with this anomaly I guesstimate that the cool weather performance of these batteries is roughly 4 times better than what I had with my previous 100 ah fla battery bank. For now I have decided to live with the oddities of these batteries. I have purchased most of what I will need to top balance these batteries without cutting power to my travel trailer for days.
Purchased 2 of these off Ebay in early December at $287.50 ea plus tax. Received in 4 days, Played with them a little, charging individually. They cut off at 14.1 and settled at 13.8 according to the built in voltage meter. Connected in series to a cheap Eco-worthy 3000W 24v aio .Did a very informal discharge test, running a 500W load for about 4.5 hours befor manually stopping. Then allowed the AIO to recharge until it cutoff. Discharged partially, then let them sit until a couple of days ago. Charged individually, one charged to 14.1 and settled at 13.8, the other kept cutting of at about 13.9 and settling at 13.6.
Over the weekend, put back in service, attached to the AIO with a shunt based battery meter installed. Voltage settled at 27.1 and never went higher. Finally set the AIO to battery priority today and ran the 500W until AIO switched to AC. Meter recorded 2336 wH, about 90% of stated 100ah capacity.
Documentation on the AIO charge/discharge profile and low voltage cutoff is almost non-existent. Intend to rinse/repeat about 4 more cycles, since the battery documentation says to run 5 cycles.
Have 4 180W panels I'll eventually hook up 2S2P to see if the PV charging can top it off and take it to a higher SOC.
Over the weekend, put back in service, attached to the AIO with a shunt based battery meter installed. Voltage settled at 27.1 and never went higher. Finally set the AIO to battery priority today and ran the 500W until AIO switched to AC. Meter recorded 2336 wH, about 90% of stated 100ah capacity.
Documentation on the AIO charge/discharge profile and low voltage cutoff is almost non-existent. Intend to rinse/repeat about 4 more cycles, since the battery documentation says to run 5 cycles.
Have 4 180W panels I'll eventually hook up 2S2P to see if the PV charging can top it off and take it to a higher SOC.
Richard Lee
New Member
I purchased a BtrPower ($309) lifepo4 12V 100Ah to replace using a heavy car LA battery. I used old car batteries for Ham radio, Telescope control etc. But, recently got interested in Chinese Diesel heaters. My new BtrPower has found a home with my new emergency back-up diesel heater.
Since back-up heating might be needed at any time, during this very cold weather, I'm keeping the new battery changed up most of the time.
If I use 30 or 40Wh to warm up my basement shop, I charge it back up, right away. This week, I mostly I just use a 12V 10A AC PSU with the heater.
The cold here (North of Boston) is brutal on old folks.
Now, I'm thinking of buying another 12V 100AH for use to supply 12v to my Ham Radio gear & maybe the Telescope.
I don't necessarily need to do any sub 32F charging and I'm seeing a bunch of 12V 100Ah lifepo4 batteries for around $300 +/- $10.00
I've found a few reviews and strip-downs on YouTube, but new stuff is showing up on Amazon & Ebay every week it seems.
Does anyone have any recommendations of a good battery in that price range?
Thanks,
Rich
Since back-up heating might be needed at any time, during this very cold weather, I'm keeping the new battery changed up most of the time.
If I use 30 or 40Wh to warm up my basement shop, I charge it back up, right away. This week, I mostly I just use a 12V 10A AC PSU with the heater.
The cold here (North of Boston) is brutal on old folks.
Now, I'm thinking of buying another 12V 100AH for use to supply 12v to my Ham Radio gear & maybe the Telescope.
I don't necessarily need to do any sub 32F charging and I'm seeing a bunch of 12V 100Ah lifepo4 batteries for around $300 +/- $10.00
I've found a few reviews and strip-downs on YouTube, but new stuff is showing up on Amazon & Ebay every week it seems.
Does anyone have any recommendations of a good battery in that price range?
Thanks,
Rich
I just checked mine and it only charges to 13.8. The AC charger keeps cycling and tries to get it to 13.9 but it won't. Should I try and return it?
According to the document that comes with it, the BMS voltage cutoff is 14.6.
Thanks for the help. I did contact them earlier, we'll see what he says.
I have a very basic charger, no way to change settings.
You may need to get a programmable charger. There are some nice ones out there and not too much $$. The victron is good, aims power, or get an inverter/charger combo - depending on your installation.
There's no way I can charge my prismatic cells at 14.6V - one of the four cells will always reach full charge before the others and over-volt the bms. This gets bantered about all over this forum - charging parameters. The old lead-acid stuff is just too high for lifepo. If the bms is set to cut off at 14.6V and your charger charges to there, it's going to shut off. Imbalanced cells will cause over-volt and bms shutdown. And it's not a good idea to constantly shut down a bms - it should be the last line of defense should your system go haywire. Your charger should not bounce off the bms.
There's no way I can charge my prismatic cells at 14.6V - one of the four cells will always reach full charge before the others and over-volt the bms. This gets bantered about all over this forum - charging parameters. The old lead-acid stuff is just too high for lifepo. If the bms is set to cut off at 14.6V and your charger charges to there, it's going to shut off. Imbalanced cells will cause over-volt and bms shutdown. And it's not a good idea to constantly shut down a bms - it should be the last line of defense should your system go haywire. Your charger should not bounce off the bms.
I've been close to getting the AIMS 12/24v charger for a while. Will that help?
I haven't seen this with the same charger and my other 12v battery. So the BMS is causing the charger to shut off when it gets to 13.8, and then it starts up again because it's trying to charge to 14.6?
That would be my best guess.
I was doing it today - re-wired my pack, changed the bus bars and balance leads, replaced the main +/- leads that had copper lugs with tinned lugs, put it all together and charged it at 50A to 14.2V. Two of the cells reached full charge before the other two. Bms balancer tries, but can't keep one from running away, so I put a headlight bulb on it to bleed off energy, get them all to balance. I set my charger to 14.1A and turn it off when the current gets down to 3% tail current - for 230A that's about 6-7A. I bounced one cell out to 3.65V and shut off charging until I could bleed that one off - it did that 3 times. Now they all match at 3.55V/cell. Charger reaches zero current, fully charged.
I zero'd out my shunt meter at 100% so I can keep track of amps going out. Now I cross my fingers and hope they stay in balance. LOL
I'll do some load testing, but it takes a lot to run all that energy out. 70A discharge would take almost 3 hours.
I was doing it today - re-wired my pack, changed the bus bars and balance leads, replaced the main +/- leads that had copper lugs with tinned lugs, put it all together and charged it at 50A to 14.2V. Two of the cells reached full charge before the other two. Bms balancer tries, but can't keep one from running away, so I put a headlight bulb on it to bleed off energy, get them all to balance. I set my charger to 14.1A and turn it off when the current gets down to 3% tail current - for 230A that's about 6-7A. I bounced one cell out to 3.65V and shut off charging until I could bleed that one off - it did that 3 times. Now they all match at 3.55V/cell. Charger reaches zero current, fully charged.
I zero'd out my shunt meter at 100% so I can keep track of amps going out. Now I cross my fingers and hope they stay in balance. LOL
I'll do some load testing, but it takes a lot to run all that energy out. 70A discharge would take almost 3 hours.
Last edited:
Aims is really nice - we bantered about a bunch of them on my Powermax thread. The one I liked the best was the Means Well - various amps sizes and fully programmable. Decent price too.
MEAN WELL Battery Chargers | TRC Electronics Power Supplies
TRC stocks the finest selection of MEAN WELL Battery Chargers. We can ship your MEAN WELL battery charger today.
www.trcelectronics.com