Sailboat batteries: EVE/CALB or Fortune/Winston?

[wholybee]

Digikey is great and I buy a lot of stuff there. Just never considered wire and lugs.

 

[Marinepower]

I also have fortune 100Ah cells in my sailboat, 1200 Ah worth. I am trying to find where to get the red 18-22awg connectors that will fit over the 10mm posts on the batteries. I can’t seem to find them or the 7/16 ring terminal size anywhere.

Does anyone know where I can get 20 of them?

john

I have 16 Frey batteries that I have been testing for 6 months and are destined for my sailboat. I think these are the same manufacturer as "Fortune". See spec sheet attached.

John, I would like to configure these 16 cells as 4P4S (as i have a lot of legacy 12 volt systems and a very small inverter). Are you running your batteries in paralle packs? If so, any issues?

 

[Marinepower]

I'm partial to the Fortune cells. They aren't the cheapest or lightest, but they have a design that permits constructing a solid battery in pretty much any configuration you choose using ss threaded rods and nuts.Just my two cents. YMMV

Greygoast, are you running a bow thruster through a FET based BMS?

I'm surprised it can handle the surge load. If so, good to know that the Fet BMS' can handle big inductive loads.

 

[TimE]

no he seemed pretty full of himself to me as well.

?

 

[Daddy Tanuki]

?

you know you yachting types argue more than any normal women right? just saying, i hung out on a few back in the day to get ideas about lithium battery packs prior to finding this forum and if one boater said the water was a sickly green color somebody else would immediately argue that it was chartreuse

 

[Joo]

Also consider whether the battery can withstand high-rate discharge. What I like about Winston is that it can withstand 10C instantaneous discharge

 

[Marinepower]

Also consider whether the battery can withstand high-rate discharge. What I like about Winston is that it can withstand 10C instantaneous discharge

Winston are the 'gold standard' but are very hard to source and are pricey.

 

[Marinepower]

you know you yachting types argue more than any normal women right? just saying, i hung out on a few back in the day to get ideas about lithium battery packs prior to finding this forum and if one boater said the water was a sickly green color somebody else would immediately argue that it was chartreuse

What are you talking about. Sea Captians are the best

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[Daddy Tanuki]

Winston are the 'gold standard' but are very hard to source and are pricey.

well pricey yes, hard to source not. once I was convinced i was talking with Winston directly it was easy. just took some investigating. the bottom photo is of one of the terminals as I was measuring it to find out what size stud to use. its nto the normal 8mm stud type you would see on EVE CATL etc. this thing is 12mm

 

[Marinepower]

well pricey yes, hard to source not. once I was convinced i was talking with Winston directly it was easy. just took some investigating. the bottom photo is of one of the terminals as I was measuring it to find out what size stud to use. its nto the normal 8mm stud type you would see on EVE CATL etc. this thing is 12mm

View attachment 192937View attachment 192938

That's a lot of Winstons. Very nice. How many AH are the cells you choose? I did not think direct from manufacture would be cost effective for the 4 cells (400ah) I was seeking....

Winston terminals are 1st class.

Terminal quality is my main complaint with my existing EVEs.

The Frey terminals are zinc coated cooper (not aluminium) , and come with M10 nylock nuts with a 20nm torque spec.

 

[Daddy Tanuki]

That's a lot of Winstons. Very nice. How many AH are the cells you choose? I did not think direct from manufacture would be cost effective for the 4 cells (400ah) I was seeking....

Winston terminals are 1st class.

Terminal quality is my main complaint with my existing EVEs.

The Frey terminals are zinc coated cooper (not aluminium) , and come with M10 nylock nuts with a 20nm torque spec.

for four cells the shipping is where it will hurt. they crated these things up and ship them as lithium batteries with all the requirements that entails. i orderd 32 cells so the shipping cost is spread across that many and was reasonable 350ish to japan form china.

I ordered the 400 amp hour units so I can make two 48 volt 400 aH (22kw) banks with separate BMS and fusing for redundancy and ability to work on one bank at a time. oh and my bust, they are 14mm 2.0 threads so they are some pretty chunky monkey's. There is enough meat there to drill and tap out several times if you screw up.

 

[Marinepower]

for four cells the shipping is where it will hurt. they crated these things up and ship them as lithium batteries with all the requirements that entails. i orderd 32 cells so the shipping cost is spread across that many and was reasonable 350ish to japan form china.

I ordered the 400 amp hour units so I can make two 48 volt 400 aH (22kw) banks with separate BMS and fusing for redundancy and ability to work on one bank at a time. oh and my bust, they are 14mm 2.0 threads so they are some pretty chunky monkey's. There is enough meat there to drill and tap out several times if you screw up.

$350 is a great price. If that was an option for me, I would have gone that route for sure. M14 terminals is madness. But the C rate on these cells is very high so I assume the reason for the big contact area...

 

[Daddy Tanuki]

$350 is a great price. If that was an option for me, I would have gone that route for sure. M14 terminals is madness. But the C rate on these cells is very high so I assume the reason for the big contact area...

that shipping price (350 ish) was for 32 cells. but I do not see it getting any cheaper if you only ordered 4 cells. why? Less than container load shipping prices. they pretty much stabilize on the cost per pallet and they do not subdivide any lower than a pallet so for me one pallet easily held all 32 cells. for you it would be 4 cells and the price would still be the 350 ish.

now if you have some friends and you all trust each other... then ordering say 40 cells which would still fit on one pallet would be the way to go. the price per cell shipping would drop to 10.00 or less per cell. remember the cell itself is 400 USD. roughly 1$USD per amp hour. but you get what you pay for.

 

[Daddy Tanuki]

$350 is a great price. If that was an option for me, I would have gone that route for sure. M14 terminals is madness. But the C rate on these cells is very high so I assume the reason for the big contact area...

yepl, at best most I can do is 100 amps in the summer, so .25c to one bank... or in reality that spread across 2 banks of winston and a 500 a/h bank of calbs. so no way I am going to stress them. current plan is to work the calbs like the cheap whores there are (used units form china with about 85% capacity). use them to power everything into inverter A and pump it through inverter B so is the CALBS go dead the Winston's will take up the slack. float the Winston's at about 70% so they last forever. that's the plan as of now... which means my wife will figure out a new and inventive way to use the extra capacity... life is a give and take.

 

[Marinepower]

yepl, at best most I can do is 100 amps in the summer, so .25c to one bank... or in reality that spread across 2 banks of winston and a 500 a/h bank of calbs. so no way I am going to stress them. current plan is to work the calbs like the cheap whores there are (used units form china with about 85% capacity). use them to power everything into inverter A and pump it through inverter B so is the CALBS go dead the Winston's will take up the slack. float the Winston's at about 70% so they last forever. that's the plan as of now... which means my wife will figure out a new and inventive way to use the extra capacity... life is a give and take.

My system is all 12 volts and the inverter is tiny (1200va Victron). I pull the occasional big loads, as i run my 1000w windlass off the lithium house bank (with the engin running, so supported by the alt.). Otherwise it's all fridge /. freezer and instrument loads. We only use about 100ah a day.

The old plastic cased CALBs seem as good as the Winstons. They may last while.....

 

[Daddy Tanuki]

My system is all 12 volts and the inverter is tiny (1200va Victron). I pull the occasional big loads, as i run my 1000w windlass off the lithium house bank (with the engin running, so supported by the alt.). Otherwise it's all fridge /. freezer and instrument loads. We only use about 100ah a day.

The old plastic cased CALBs seem as good as the Winstons. They may last while.....

yeah my CALBS are running fine, I just want enough storage for the house to run for up to 10 days when I am not there with no solar input.

when not there only the fridge, freezer, and sewage air pump are running, that and the battery heater. in the summer its not an issue at all but in the winter the self heating for the batteries coupled with the other same loads and say the panels snowed over will have the batteries at LBCO in about three days. as i am there only on weekends that could be problematic in the winter as if the BMS trips and shuts off discharge then the batteries will drop to ambient over a couple of days.

the Winston's will give me enough storage so as not to present an issue for up to 10 days and if the BMS did shut down, for the CALB's due to temp it would not bother the Winston's as I plan on setting them up with a heater, but with the low temp cutoff at -10°c. the rep assured me they could charge at -45 or better yet at -25 but best for cycle life is 20°c so in an extreme event the Winston's could charge while cold which would then allow the heaters to get juice heating the packs as they charge until even the calbs are warm enough to charge. all about redundancy.