Thingol
New Member
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2020
- Messages
- 49
I wanted to share my experience here, mostly for the benefit of others to ensure nobody else goes through the horrible experience I had with Sunpal Power Co., Ltd, Hefei, Anhui, China, a seller I found on the Alibaba platform (see link to supplier profile). If this sounds like one of those "do not touch seller X, they are a fraud/ they are cons", it is exactly that.
I had initially posted for advice about the setup and offer from them prior to the purchase in this other post here. The full purchase is detailed in the attached invoice but the subject of this post is the are the 5pcs LifePo4 batteries that I bought as part of the installation. The batteries alone cost me some USD 2550/- plust at least USD 500 towards the overall freight and tax charges, so USD 3000/- for what turned out to be essentailly, trash.
I paid for this in July/2021 and the goods were dispatched and made it fine to my project site in Nairobi. By October/2021 everything was set up and seemingly running well. The setup was fairly simple, we had 4 of the batteries wired in series (the 5th set aside as a spare) and connected to a Victron inverter-charger and then of course to the solar arrays.
Problems began just a few weeks in. The battery voltage became extremely erratic: one or more of the batteries would suddenly go to over 16V while another would be at 11V. At first, we did not suspsect foulplay since the batteries were supposedly new, so we installed a balancer. That did not help.
Every hour, our Easysolar unit would throw DC voltage ripper alerts while on the battery side then red low DC voltage alerts before shurring down completely. Some of the battery units would be reading over 18V while another was reading 11V and erratically turning on and going off. The bank will not sustain any load above 400W and even under 200W load, the voltage will often dip and cause a total system shutdown. The same goes for charging- over a few weeks that I monitored this, I found that the cells were not taking up charge as they should: everyday- 15kwh going into a max 10kwh bank- the extra being taken up by the internal resistance of the delapidated cells.
After going through the entire setup and making sure everything was in order as per the technical document for the batteries, we decided to open up the units to see what exactly had been packed inside.
To my shock, we had been sold old, end of life BYD cells packed in a new-looking metal box and branded as new "SUNPAL" cells. To be absolutely sure that the cells were the problem, we got the individual cells out of the battery units (where they were packed in 4 X 3.2V nominal configuration) and wired them in series into a 48V bank of 16 cells with a JK BMS. Now we could see individual cell charge/discharge behaviour and voltage differences, balancing cycles and cell failures for each cell in real time. Of course, the physical condition of the cells told the whole story- we had been conned, duped, cheated out of a cool 3000 USD.
But I wanted to be sure, and sure enough, the erratic cell voltage, erratic charge/discharge behaviour is consistent across all cells. No surprise there. These batteries had been ripped some electric vehicle that was written off years prior.
I confronted the seller about this- they asked for a ton of "evidence" and tried to frustrate my effort to get them to accept responsibility for the fraud. They even tried that "we will send you new units for free with the next order" nonsense. I refused and insisted on a refund- at least 50% of the cost of the batteries.
Every small step in this ordeal cost weeks and weeks of pushing and demanding for answers- it took days and often weeks to get any word from them. I had asked them to refund at least half the cost of the battery hardware alone (excluding freight, taxes, handling etc- which was a major contributor to the overall project cost). Despite accepting that this was their mistake, they blatantly refused to honour the 5 year warranty advertised with the item. This is all in the chat history with them. offered USD 300/- refund and stuck with it. US$300/- for junk they sold me for over 10 times as much accounting for all costs. In the end, I accepted this rather than use many precious hours of my life pursuing a company in China from Europe.
Lesson learnt:
1) With Sunpal and likely with other such outfits on Alibaba, honesty is non-exisistent and their warranty means nothing.
2) When buying hardware, always go with a seller that has got a legit reputation and reviews either here on diysolar, on Will's channel, Andy's channel or similar. The sparkling review and all those other ratings on the seller's Alibaba profile mean nothing. Those in the US are lucky to even have suppliers with local warehouses so they can get stuff shipped in locally- get warranty replacements easy and so on.
3) Prefer buying individual EVE or similar cells from sellers with a reputaiton here as opposed to "closed box" type of deals, then get a good BMS and build your own bank yourself. I know there are a few reputable brands out there but still, I will always prefer cell level guarantees over everything else.
4) Alibaba Trade Assurance might help- but from what I read of experiences of others, it too means nothing. If you must buy from a seller without a record here, use it but in case of trouble, you are on your own.
5) When paying for solar hardware on Alibaba, you can opt for certain protections like with Paypal or some other kind of insurance but remember: When you claim warranty, if they ever admit responsibility, they will still ask you to ship the faulty items back to them in China and that is the end of that (unless of course they have local suppliers in your country/region)..
The old link to the battery is still active, but they have revised the pictures - I believe one would still get the same junk I got so again, the product description and all the technical details and datasheets mean nothing. Same would go for their inverters, BMSs etc etc.
Ps: My ordeal with this Sunpal company was just horrendous- time, energy, money lost- makes my head ache to think of it all. I would strongly advise anyone considering dealings with them even for non-battery items to absolutely avoid them. There are far better suppliers many users here have returned positive feedback on up here.
....
I had initially posted for advice about the setup and offer from them prior to the purchase in this other post here. The full purchase is detailed in the attached invoice but the subject of this post is the are the 5pcs LifePo4 batteries that I bought as part of the installation. The batteries alone cost me some USD 2550/- plust at least USD 500 towards the overall freight and tax charges, so USD 3000/- for what turned out to be essentailly, trash.
I paid for this in July/2021 and the goods were dispatched and made it fine to my project site in Nairobi. By October/2021 everything was set up and seemingly running well. The setup was fairly simple, we had 4 of the batteries wired in series (the 5th set aside as a spare) and connected to a Victron inverter-charger and then of course to the solar arrays.
Problems began just a few weeks in. The battery voltage became extremely erratic: one or more of the batteries would suddenly go to over 16V while another would be at 11V. At first, we did not suspsect foulplay since the batteries were supposedly new, so we installed a balancer. That did not help.
Every hour, our Easysolar unit would throw DC voltage ripper alerts while on the battery side then red low DC voltage alerts before shurring down completely. Some of the battery units would be reading over 18V while another was reading 11V and erratically turning on and going off. The bank will not sustain any load above 400W and even under 200W load, the voltage will often dip and cause a total system shutdown. The same goes for charging- over a few weeks that I monitored this, I found that the cells were not taking up charge as they should: everyday- 15kwh going into a max 10kwh bank- the extra being taken up by the internal resistance of the delapidated cells.
After going through the entire setup and making sure everything was in order as per the technical document for the batteries, we decided to open up the units to see what exactly had been packed inside.
To my shock, we had been sold old, end of life BYD cells packed in a new-looking metal box and branded as new "SUNPAL" cells. To be absolutely sure that the cells were the problem, we got the individual cells out of the battery units (where they were packed in 4 X 3.2V nominal configuration) and wired them in series into a 48V bank of 16 cells with a JK BMS. Now we could see individual cell charge/discharge behaviour and voltage differences, balancing cycles and cell failures for each cell in real time. Of course, the physical condition of the cells told the whole story- we had been conned, duped, cheated out of a cool 3000 USD.
But I wanted to be sure, and sure enough, the erratic cell voltage, erratic charge/discharge behaviour is consistent across all cells. No surprise there. These batteries had been ripped some electric vehicle that was written off years prior.
I confronted the seller about this- they asked for a ton of "evidence" and tried to frustrate my effort to get them to accept responsibility for the fraud. They even tried that "we will send you new units for free with the next order" nonsense. I refused and insisted on a refund- at least 50% of the cost of the batteries.
Every small step in this ordeal cost weeks and weeks of pushing and demanding for answers- it took days and often weeks to get any word from them. I had asked them to refund at least half the cost of the battery hardware alone (excluding freight, taxes, handling etc- which was a major contributor to the overall project cost). Despite accepting that this was their mistake, they blatantly refused to honour the 5 year warranty advertised with the item. This is all in the chat history with them. offered USD 300/- refund and stuck with it. US$300/- for junk they sold me for over 10 times as much accounting for all costs. In the end, I accepted this rather than use many precious hours of my life pursuing a company in China from Europe.
Lesson learnt:
1) With Sunpal and likely with other such outfits on Alibaba, honesty is non-exisistent and their warranty means nothing.
2) When buying hardware, always go with a seller that has got a legit reputation and reviews either here on diysolar, on Will's channel, Andy's channel or similar. The sparkling review and all those other ratings on the seller's Alibaba profile mean nothing. Those in the US are lucky to even have suppliers with local warehouses so they can get stuff shipped in locally- get warranty replacements easy and so on.
3) Prefer buying individual EVE or similar cells from sellers with a reputaiton here as opposed to "closed box" type of deals, then get a good BMS and build your own bank yourself. I know there are a few reputable brands out there but still, I will always prefer cell level guarantees over everything else.
4) Alibaba Trade Assurance might help- but from what I read of experiences of others, it too means nothing. If you must buy from a seller without a record here, use it but in case of trouble, you are on your own.
5) When paying for solar hardware on Alibaba, you can opt for certain protections like with Paypal or some other kind of insurance but remember: When you claim warranty, if they ever admit responsibility, they will still ask you to ship the faulty items back to them in China and that is the end of that (unless of course they have local suppliers in your country/region)..
The old link to the battery is still active, but they have revised the pictures - I believe one would still get the same junk I got so again, the product description and all the technical details and datasheets mean nothing. Same would go for their inverters, BMSs etc etc.
Ps: My ordeal with this Sunpal company was just horrendous- time, energy, money lost- makes my head ache to think of it all. I would strongly advise anyone considering dealings with them even for non-battery items to absolutely avoid them. There are far better suppliers many users here have returned positive feedback on up here.
....
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