Saft VL41M cells

[Don97038]

Hi Guys,
This is my first post here, but I'm a big fan of Wills YouTube channel. I am planning a solar system for a converted school bus and he's helped a lot with designing my system.

Has anyone had and experience with Saft VL41M cells. I have an opportunity to buy some for $10 each plus shipping which would be around $5 a cell depending on how many I buy. That works out to around $0.36 AH. I understand that I would need to have a bms and some sort of enclosure, etc and the issues dealing with cylindrical cells. I prepared for that. My question about these specific cells. I'm pretty sure the ones I can get are some sort of surplus from a military contract. The company Im getting them from is a electronic and battery recycler. He said that they've been tested and they are all in the 3.2v range.

https://www.custompower.com/documents/VL41M.pdf

Thanks!

 

[snoobler]

Welcome to the forum.

A better plan would be to set your head on fire and put it out with a hammer.

Seriously though....

"all in the 3.2V range" is an absolutely meaningless statement with regards to quality. It just means they're at a low state of charge, which is good for storage purposes. A better voltage would be near/slightly above nominal, 3.6-3.7. BTW, checking a cell voltage is not "testing" them.

This is the type of lithium chemistry that catches fire. Not the worst, but substantially more dangerous than LFP. Additionally, they have notably shorter cycle life.

3.6V * 41Ah = 0.1476kWh

$10/.1476 = $67/kWh

That's pretty good, but I just paid $120/kWh for brand new LFP cells with no risk of fire and a reasonable expectation that they will meet or nearly meet their datasheet... You're going to pay over half as much on a gamble for cells that will last half as long?

IMHO, DIY build your own LFP battery from 280Ah LFP cells.