Testing the Eco-Worthy 100Ah 'smart mini' style 12V battery in Parallel

[WorldwideDave]

Hello, and thanks for reading! Today is the day I begin testing the Eco-Worthy 100Ah 12V LiFePO4 battery. I have four of them. All 4 have been tested individually, and I was able to get at or above 100Ah discharge from each battery. I am charging with Victron 12V/25A IP67 charger, which is properly fused at the bus bar. I am monitoring discharge with Victron SmartShunt. I did zero balance calibration. I set battery settings according to best practices. I am happy with the batteries individually.
With all the talk about batteries failing in parallel, thought it was time for me to do some bench testing of my own.
All 4 batteries have only had 5 discharge/charge cycles each. No problems so far. Topped off batteries individually with victron charger.
Fast forward three weeks.
For the parallel test, I reset the smart shunt, cleared all history, upgraded the firmware, and set it according to best practices, changing the Ah rating from 100 (default) to 400. I connected all 4 batteries with Blue Sea Systems 5/16 bus bar, added a T-class fuse, got all new welding cable with tinned lugs and solid crimps and shrink wrap, wired up the batteries to the bus bars, added the shunt, did zero calibration, and then connected with the same 12V/25A charger, which ran for a few minutes in bulk before hitting absorb and quickly into float. I cleared the history, SOC was set to 100% already, so unplugged the charger.
With charger unplugged I connected the inverter to the shunt and the t-class fuse.
Measurements taken with no inverter connected, inverter in standby idle consumption load, and when running a 1200W heat gun. Discharge is running now.
My math is as follows:
400Ah at 12V is abouth 4800W of energy.
1200W load at 90% efficiency of the inverter = 1333W my guess.
Runtime of 1333W through 4800W capacity is about 3.6 hours. 60 minutes per hour, so 216 minutes.
I think that the inverter is higher than 90% efficiency, but who cares.
The shunt will tell me Ah consumed, and I'll report back.
I will charge back up (long time - 16 hours my estimate at 25A).
Maths: 400Ah by 25A = 16 hours
but...because charger tapers off, heat losses, etc, probably 16.8 hours.
Once it is charged back up, I will report back the updated capacity. If it says <400Ah or >400Ah will let you all know.
Photos attached show:

• state of charge at 100% and battery voltage at 13.83 at start, and zero current, and zero power, and zero amp hours consumed.
• History tab page 1 and 2 showing brand new shunt with min/max battery voltage
• Trends tab showing nothing going on
• Inverter when first connected showing 112V, 60Hz, 0 W/Power being used
• How heat gun plugs into outlet on Giandel 2000W inverter
• heat gun specs
• Idle consumption of 9W / .67A at 13.80 volts and zero amp hours consumed yet
• Heat gun startup at 13.44 volts, 81.66A, 1097W, and .4Ah discharge
• Bricks safely holding heat gun handle incase of gust of wind blowing it into the nearby pool (that would suck)
• Inverter showing 1040W load (for a 1200W heat gun? it's old)
• The new ip67 500A victron shunt
• The T-Class fuse in a blue sea holder
• 4 eco-worthy 100Ah 12V batteries in parallel
• positive bus bar with 4 conductuors, charger, shunt positive, and a conductor going to the t-class fuse
• negative bus bar showing the 4 parallel conductors and the negative from the charger and negative going to the shunt

Let's see what happens in parallel! I'll monitor the BMSes through the apps like overkill etc.
I have fire extinguisher nearby.
Also recording on my camera in case of fire or a cat walks too close to heat gun. We don't have pets.

 

[Sweet Tatorman]

One confounding factor you might encounter is that some heat guns cycle the heating element on/off based on the temperature. I know that mine works that way.

 

[WorldwideDave]

One confounding factor you might encounter is that some heat guns cycle the heating element on/off based on the temperature. I know that mine works that way.

It’s outside. It’s what I have used for probably 20 times to discharge. Keeping it the same for now.

 

[WorldwideDave]

So far so good. Still going. All are at or near same state of charge but more importantly nothing hot and amps look the same so that’s good.

 

[WorldwideDave]

At 395.3 that’s 98.825 Ah per battery before inverter cut out.
9.70 volts was the lowest it read.

One cell hit 2.25 but inverter quit before low voltage cutoff did.

Plugged in charging for 17 hours.

When hits float or absorb I will set SOC to 100%

 

[WorldwideDave]

I will do another discharge and charge tomorrow. Realized I made one small mistake when wiring it all up. Should have put charger negative on the other side of the shunt by the inverter. It’s charging but I can’t see current in shunt so SOC doesn’t go up. So once charged up I’ll swap the wire over and repeat it all after resetting the shunt.

 

[WorldwideDave]

Batteries fully charged for round 2. Moved charger negative to its own bus bar with shunt lead and inverter so when charging I will see it flowing into battery on shunt.

Charged to float and reset SOC to 100%.

Running a 1300-1500w load. Batteries should be drained in 2.5 hours and I’ll report back.

This is the exact same test I tried with WattCycle that failed and working great with eco-worthy smart mini 100Ah. I’m doing it with 4 batteries and all are discharging in parallel as I expected for a second time.

I am hoping for greater discharge amp hours consumed than last time but we will see.

Already I’ve proven that the eco worthy have greater capacity than the Poeruni I bought on eBay for 405USD. Will test these 4 eco-worthy in series next. Either way happy with eco-worthy with past 5 tests. Two left.

Screen shots and more.

See you in about 3 hours for update. Happy Friday!

 

[Brucey]

With all the talk about batteries failing in parallel, thought it was time for me to do some bench testing of my own.

Most would advise avoiding running four 12V batteries in series for 48V. I personally have no issues with my four redodo 12V 100Ah in series, however I do have a litime 10A balancer to keep them from drifting.

Running multiple in parallel though, no real issues except potentially needing to protect each string from the others?

 

[WorldwideDave]

Most would advise avoiding running four 12V batteries in series for 48V. I personally have no issues with my four redodo 12V 100Ah in series, however I do have a litime 10A balancer to keep them from drifting.

Running multiple in parallel though, no real issues except potentially needing to protect each string from the others?

Not sure. Just testing for capacity in parallel. To compare to WattCycle fiasco.

Testing eco-worthy in series will be comparison to Poeruni. It will validate my 48v environment because the Poeruni is the only 48v I have right now.

If the eco worthy in series does 48v good which I feel like it will I may get balancer and keep it like that for a few weeks.

I have 2 other diy 12v batteries and want to do parallel test with the other 2 ecoworthy to see the 690Ah performance / shakedown test.

I’ll likely get a eco-worthy 48 or a Riuxu 48 100Ah battery to replace Poeruni.

 

[WorldwideDave]

Got 99.5 Ah out of the 4 eco-worthy 100Wh 12v during discharge test. More than last time. 398Ah for 400Ah and inverter cuts off.

Photos for evidence.

Charging back up and will call these batteries - in parallel - good.

Will do series discharge over the weekend or Monday, but even the wattcycles worked in series.

Thanks reading. Thoughts?

 

[RJ13]

Late to the party and a newb, but IIRC, there was mention that the SOC imbalances were more prominent with lower current discharging. Did you do any testing in that regard?

Thanks, too, for conducting and posting this, btw! I'm getting ready to switch from LA to a pair of LifePo4 in my camper and these are looking like what I'm going to purchase :D