This guy claims lead acid is superior to Lithium Iron Phosphate in solar applications

[Steve_S]

YW-3.2V-280AH, YW-3.2V-280AH direct from Shenzhen Luyuan Technology Co., Ltd. in CN (alibaba.com) <--- Amy Wan's company, formerly of XUBA.
This price point WILL NOT LAST, the remaining 600 or so will sell at this price, the next batch is more $ (for everyone).

How do you deal with -30C and LiFePo?

My Powerhouse / Pumphouse (14'x6') is highly insulated on a Frost Protected Concrete Slab. Because it is also my Pumphouse and has te 50Gal pressure tank in it, I heat it. I use a recovered Suburban-NT20S RV Furnace ($300 out of a 2 year old wreck, including all hookups, regulator & thermostat) with 2 30LB LPG tanks for fuel. Furnace is only 12V, direct vent and has it's own 12V battery & Solar Panel just for it. I keep the powerhouse at 10C/50F or a little higher but not much.

The Slab also has PEX in it for Solar Radiant Heating provision. Was intending to install a Solar Heating system based on the projects here: Solar Water Heating Projects and Plans (builditsolar.com) It does work up here if you do it right.

 

[hankcurt]

I remember watching this guy's videos a long time ago when I blew up my first Xantrex 2000w Hi-Freq inverter and trying to learn a thing or two. I saw this video come across my subscription feed and only watched about a minute before realizing it's probably not worth my time. Felt more like a preaching video as compared to much of an educational one.

@HighTechLab, I re-watched your videos on the testing and addition of the CALB cells to your system, and its obvious that you must have made a significant investment in lead acid cells at some point in the past but I couldn't find anything other than a few comments about them in the video on the trailer conversion. It would be great if you could give a breakdown of your experiences running the system on lead acid. Perhaps cost / benefit if you have that information, or a narrative on the ownership experience and performance of the batteries.

The technology probably catches your interest more than the bean counting, but I think you would have direct experience that would go a long way to answering the original poster's question.

 

[Trukinbear]

All kinds of wrong there in my book - but then my life depends on my battery.
1)Nothing in my system is made in China, I can pick up a phone and call Kevin, the owner of the long-established battery company here in California who personally extended my battery's warranty to 10 years.
2)Free shipping to where? Not here I'd bet as 90% of all US carriers can't/won't even deliver west of the Trinity Alps.
3)Alibaba - nothing my charity ordered from Alibaba, or Aliexpress ever arrived. Half we got notice that they were stuck in customs, the rest never came - fun fact your credit card (or PayPal) protections don't apply when you try to ship from China.
4)Parts, service, warranty? I have had 4 Chinese junque diesel generators come thru my shop - three seemed to be the same generator with different labels glued on - all the US contacts were fake, and none of the companies even trade on Alibaba anymore even though all these generators had been purchased in 2019 - parts are unobtanium. One of those generators lasted a whopping 70 hours - sure, they were half the price of an Onan, Cummins, Kubota etc... so what, they are expensive boat anchors.
5)You can have somebody import a Happy Funtime A37 (automobile) but unless GM starts importing them you are totally on your own, and even then if you bought before. Hell, I imported an Alfa Romeo from Italy while they weren't being sold here and do you know what the guy at the Fiat Chrysler Alfa Romeo parts counter tells me? I bet you can guess...
You guys can be cutting edge... I'm going to keep the lights on.

PS: I guess a year makes a difference - in 2019 I was quoted $38,499 plus tax ($3079) and shipping ($2800) for 1000Ah @ 48V LiFePO4 (with a warranty and support) which made my decision to go FLA a no brainer.

 

[Trukinbear]

All kinds of wrong there in my book - but then my life depends on my battery.
1)Nothing in my system is made in China, I can pick up a phone and call Kevin, the owner of the long-established battery company here in California who personally extended my battery's warranty to 10 years.
2)Free shipping to where? Not here I'd bet as 90% of all US carriers can't/won't even deliver west of the Trinity Alps.
3)Alibaba - nothing my charity ordered from Alibaba, or Aliexpress ever arrived. Half we got notice that they were stuck in customs, the rest never came - fun fact your credit card (or PayPal) protections don't apply when you try to ship from China.
4)Parts, service, warranty? I have had 4 Chinese junque diesel generators come thru my shop - three seemed to be the same generator with different labels glued on - all the US contacts were fake, and none of the companies even trade on Alibaba anymore even though all these generators had been purchased in 2019 - parts are unobtanium. One of those generators lasted a whopping 70 hours - sure, they were half the price of an Onan, Cummins, Kubota etc... so what, they are expensive boat anchors.
5)You can have somebody import a Happy Funtime A37 (automobile) but unless GM starts importing them you are totally on your own, and even then if you bought before. Hell, I imported an Alfa Romeo from Italy while they weren't being sold here and do you know what the guy at the Fiat Chrysler Alfa Romeo parts counter tells me? I bet you can guess...
You guys can be cutting edge... I'm going to keep the lights on.

PS: I guess a year makes a difference - in 2019 I was quoted $38,499 plus tax ($3079) and shipping ($2800) for 1000Ah @ 48V LiFePO4 (with a warranty and support) which made my decision to go FLA a no brainer.

Down to $37,960 (Battleborn) I see! Wow! I'll never live (4th cancer at stage 4) to see the price in my range.

 

[fisherus]

Take it from someone who started their 48V off-grid system with LAB and now is using LTO SCiB batteries instead. From least expensive to most expensive for one reason. I leave for 3-4 months each winter and don't have any way to monitor heating of my batteries, especially when it gets to -20F or lower. So I opted to use these batteries. With their high C rate, they work excellently although lipo batteries are better with capacity. LAD requires constant refilling of water from the evaporation each month, so can't use and lithium requires charging above 32F

 

[hankcurt]

@Trukinbear,
Wow! I didn't realize that Battleborn prices were sliding that fast. If that keeps up, I'll be able to build a system out of them when I'm ... about 125 years old, I guess. Better pencil that in on my calendar cause I'm certain to forget to check on them if I don't.

Realistically, they weren't ever an option. If I go lithium its going to have to be home brew DIY project with a DIY warranty to match.

I did look up the battery you chose, and I can see why it works for your use case. It is certainly more suited for solar than the one the guy in the video was promoting. Yours maintains 70% of its capacity even at a C6 discharge rate, and is allowed to be recharged from 30% to 100% in 6 hours as long as it doesn't go over temperature. And I'm sure your normal rates are much less than that. It goes to show the truth in some earlier posts that not all lead acid is equal.

However, I have also come to the conclusion that all batteries have some weaknesses that can ruin them, not just lithium. (OK, I'm looking forward to hearing all about Edison batteries now. ) For instance, looking at the warranty disclaimers on the 24-125-11 Monterey Industrial 'Big Sur' 986Ah 48V battery, it says that it is limited to one cycle per day, no more than 80% discharged, full recharge before a subsequent discharge, charged only with a charger with the appropriate limits for the battery, electrolyte dissolved solids less than 50 ppm, never run low on water, and average electrolyte temperature between 50° F and 115° F. I'm not saying that this is better or worse than lithium, just that you kind of pick your poison when you pick your battery storage. Sounds like you were able to negotiate a better warranty, which is terrific.

Certainly wish you the best.

 

[Trukinbear]

My first two systems were 12V, and my next two were 48V. With nearly nine years left of warranty, I'm not looking to replace my battery anytime soon. Watering my one 24-125-11 battery's 24 cells is a piece of cake compared to the 96 cells of my previous battery bank. I spend roughly 30 minutes twice a month watering them - I spend more time maintaining my generators. Two new diesel generators I might add were purchased, along with my solar panels, and inverter/charger with the $35,000 I saved by not going LiFEPo4. As I said... if I was rich I might have made different decisions, but being an elderly, handicapped cancer patient living on $700/mo as I say it was a no-brainer. All the LiFePo4 batteries in the world wouldn't have made up for not having anything (solar/generator) to charge them, or anything (inverter/charger) to use the power from. We are talking an extraordinary amount of difference in the price. Sure maybe a Rolls Royce is a better car than my Prius, and it might even last 4x as long (I doubt it) but my Prius still gets me where I'm going and lets me have a house too.

 

[Trukinbear]

Yeah, I need better than a DIY warranty as this system is my legacy to my bedridden mother on a ventalator, and my special needs son who I'm leaving behind once the cancer gets me. Neither really understands that we aren't on the grid, or what that means - they'll need all the warranty and support they can get.

 

[Samsonite801]

Wo WHO paid him for this ? I mean, seriously ? There is a sponsor lurking or maybe he is sponsor shopping.

The 'big lead' industry has hidden agenda...

 

[Trukinbear]

The 'big lead' industry has hidden agenda...

LOL, well yeah! First plumbing, then paint, then shot, then fishing weights... batteries are about all they have left, I think.

 

[HighTechLab]

@HighTechLab, I re-watched your videos on the testing and addition of the CALB cells to your system, and its obvious that you must have made a significant investment in lead acid cells at some point in the past but I couldn't find anything other than a few comments about them in the video on the trailer conversion. It would be great if you could give a breakdown of your experiences running the system on lead acid. Perhaps cost / benefit if you have that information, or a narrative on the ownership experience and performance of the batteries.

The technology probably catches your interest more than the bean counting, but I think you would have direct experience that would go a long way to answering the original poster's question.

It's all on video - We had a 200AH 4s8p bank of Group 8d FLA batteries...32 batteries at $200/each, so $6400 for them, and they really didn't last much more than a year of daily cyclic use. I'll be the first to admit that we use a lot of power, at first we replaced all of these FLAs with 16x CA100 cells in just a 16S configuration, and had BETTER RESULTS than we did with the remaining ~24 batteries that were starting to fail.

After running the CA100 cells for a year, PAST THEIR RATED CHARGE AND DISCHARGE VALUES, we then installed our bank of 64x CALB CA180s

On the first video, you can see the generator charge curve around 30 seconds in...Atrocious!! Why even have batteries!?!?!

We checked the water on these once a month. The cause of failure is that one cell within the battery would fall behind, and to equalize the ENTIRE ROOM not only took a TON of power, but also the amount of air we had to move through to remove the offgassing was INSANE...then to refill them all with water afterward...It was a nightmare.

At times, I would remove one battery from a shelf, and equalize it, one by one...For some reason, no matter how long I dumped power into a battery, one cell would have low specific gravity and the battery would get stuck at 10.5 volts, dragging down the entire system. Most batteries failed with this One cell dead, 10.5v failure. Continuing to equalize them to bring that cell up, which never came up, just degraded the positive plates of the rest of the cells. There is NO BMS OR BALANCING ON A 6 OR 12V BATTERY. LEAD ACID HAS CELL BALANCE JUST LIKE LiFePO4.

 

[HighTechLab]

Other post was starting to get long but - The topic of recycling. The video thumbnails show PALLETS of batteries that are toast. How easy do you think it is to recycle a battery this big?

We are located in CALIFORNIA, A state that literally lives for recycling. I damn near have to PAY TO RECYCLE these batteries, the lead recyclers don't even want to mess with them because they are so large. These piles of batteries have been sitting out back for the last 2 years or so by now...It's sad to see $6400 sitting there rotting in the sun and rain, with nowhere to go. Sad day.

 

[hankcurt]

We are located in CALIFORNIA, A state that literally lives for recycling. I damn near have to PAY TO RECYCLE these batteries, the lead recyclers don't even want to mess with them because they are so large. These piles of batteries have been sitting out back for the last 2 years or so by now...It's sad to see $6400 sitting there rotting in the sun and rain, with nowhere to go. Sad day.

Thanks for the reply. Somehow I missed the video where you were showing the pallets of non functional batteries. Its a shame they are so hard to recycle. I was in Sacramento a couple of years ago for a wedding and then went up to the lava tubes and hiked some of the forest. Beautiful area! But in little things, I noticed how they were trying to create an outcome through regulation but at the same time creating counter incentives to the behaviors that would create those same outcomes. Its all complicated, but at least if those alchemists ever figure out that lead to gold transformation, you're all set.

So the lesson that's reinforced from your experience is that if you have a high demand application that's going to drive your storage batteries hard, lead acid is not going to last as long. Many of the Group 8d specs that I looked at only promised 300 to 700 cycles if the batteries are taken to 50% depth of discharge, but I couldn't tell which model you actually had. The other thing I see is that under heavy use, the maintenance become much more of a headache. I assume that the batteries with weak cells had actually developed internal deposits that drained current between the plates, and that may be why equalization didn't recover them.

So with your high current charger, tons of panels, and large inverter you really have a use case that calls for lithium, which with a proper BMS should give you much better service life for the money. I look forward to future updates on how that system is performing.

Thanks.

 

[HighTechLab]

Thanks for the reply. Somehow I missed the video where you were showing the pallets of non functional batteries. Its a shame they are so hard to recycle. I was in Sacramento a couple of years ago for a wedding and then went up to the lava tubes and hiked some of the forest. Beautiful area! But in little things, I noticed how they were trying to create an outcome through regulation but at the same time creating counter incentives to the behaviors that would create those same outcomes. Its all complicated, but at least if those alchemists ever figure out that lead to gold transformation, you're all set.

So the lesson that's reinforced from your experience is that if you have a high demand application that's going to drive your storage batteries hard, lead acid is not going to last as long. Many of the Group 8d specs that I looked at only promised 300 to 700 cycles if the batteries are taken to 50% depth of discharge, but I couldn't tell which model you actually had. The other thing I see is that under heavy use, the maintenance become much more of a headache. I assume that the batteries with weak cells had actually developed internal deposits that drained current between the plates, and that may be why equalization didn't recover them.

So with your high current charger, tons of panels, and large inverter you really have a use case that calls for lithium, which with a proper BMS should give you much better service life for the money. I look forward to future updates on how that system is performing.

Thanks.

I continue to make videos regularly - I just upgraded my inverter to a Sol-Ark 12k that really has helped in increasing conversion efficiency and reduce idle draws. Our biggest issue is parasitic loads, and considering the old inverter we had was 180w draw at idle, and then you loose some in conversion, we certainly are much better off now.

 

[Trukinbear]

Other post was starting to get long but - The topic of recycling. The video thumbnails show PALLETS of batteries that are toast. How easy do you think it is to recycle a battery this big?

We are located in CALIFORNIA, A state that literally lives for recycling. I damn near have to PAY TO RECYCLE these batteries, the lead recyclers don't even want to mess with them because they are so large. These piles of batteries have been sitting out back for the last 2 years or so by now...It's sad to see $6400 sitting there rotting in the sun and rain, with nowhere to go. Sad day.

When I made the full conversion to the singular forklift battery (48V) after 3 systems that used individual batteries (trojan) I had no trouble selling the ones that still tested good, OR the ones that didn't! A guy drove 5 or 6 hours up from just above San Francisco to pick them up and give me $12ea for them - better than a poke in the eye with a sharpened stick. Somebody WANTS them, you just didn't try hard enough yet! He even told me that when the day comes the core for my 24-125-11 is worth several hundred dollars.

 

[HighTechLab]

When I made the full conversion to the singular forklift battery (48V) after 3 systems that used individual batteries (trojan) I had no trouble selling the ones that still tested good, OR the ones that didn't! A guy drove 5 or 6 hours up from just above San Francisco to pick them up and give me $12ea for them - better than a poke in the eye with a sharpened stick. Somebody WANTS them, you just didn't try hard enough yet! He even told me that when the day comes the core for my 24-125-11 is worth several hundred dollars.

Based on this, can you PM me his contact info? SF is about 2 hours away from us (without traffic).

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

Where things fell apart was on summer night use and winter recharging. In the summer when I know I'm way over paneled, I want to be able to run the air conditioner all night and use my appliances like I don't care and then have a full charge in 24 hours. While in the winter I'll have to be conservative, when I get that one sunny day during the week, I want to have a high enough charge rate to restore the system so that I'm ready for more clouds.

That's pretty much what I do. I currently have 32 280Ah cells, which makes something around 28kWh. My worst case general daily consumption sits around 5kWh, less when I'm not present (down to about 1 to 2 kWh for running some essentials). This gives me 5 days autonomy when I'm there, 12 days or thereabout when I'm not. I'm planning on doubling the capacity early next year once I am caught up with some outstanding work on the house.

Once the battery gets low because of no sun (winter, 63 degrees North), the generator starts and charges them back up - you only need to run the generator once a week worst case. The generator (which can run on reclaimed cooking oil, but I digress) is located inside my tech building with exhaust piped out (this way I recover the heat). Similar to @Steve_S, this place is very well insulated, has the water boiler (wood fired), and floor heating. The boiler can also be started remotely (pellets) to heat up the place. Both of these can make sure the batteries are warm before charging (but I have heating pads as well, which can be powered from the battery itself or the generator depending).

In summer, I'm very much overpaneled (10kW), and I use the excess to process wood for winter. I have an electric chain saw and wood splitter, essentially storing solar power for winter. In summer I cook on induction, in winter using gas and the masonry stove (integrated oven).

 

[Steve_S]

Similar to @Steve_S, this place is very well insulated,

Well... My place is hyper insulated with a rain screen method installed live edge cedar siding & Cool Roof system, sitting on a Frost Protected Slab Foundation with Radiant heat but the heat is provided by an LPG On-demand unit and hot water from a separate on-demand unit. This was done because of using BioGas in mind. My Power/Pump house a separate building also highly insulated & has FPSF Foundation & Pex plumbed for radiant but at this time is heated by a small RV Furnace (LGP & 12V) which only uses 40lbs a winter season, staying at 10C/50F.

* The trick in this, I cheated ! All of my insulation is foam sheet, 5.5" HD EPS-II , 4" & 3.5" PolyISO and for foundation 4" HD XPF. The sheathing is thermally broken from the studs, so there is no temperature creep. The Cool Roof system provides a 2" thermal break & the rain screen siding system provides 1.5" thermal break by allowing free air movement.

Sorry, off topic, but the "build" itself is also important as it provides deep energy conservation which over the long term provides a far better return on investment. 45.9° N here.

 

[Trukinbear]

Based on this, can you PM me his contact info? SF is about 2 hours away from us (without traffic).

Since the fire I've been overwhelmed with projects, I was just so happy to get rid of the last of the batteries. Since I wasn't planning in ever making those mistakes again I didn't really pay that much attention. I'll look back at email from that period of time and find it but I fear it was via Craigslist's email server. I placed an ad on Craigslist and got several replies. Try that, you might be very surprised - I always am.

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

@Steve_S Yes, I think we compared notes all the way at the beginning when I joined this forum (almost a year ago). LPG is not really an option here since it's too expensive and not common.