diy solar

diy solar

Truth behind Chins batteries

Battleborn = $900 or more

Chins or whoever = $250 or so.

3 chins or whoever cost less than 1 battleborn.....

For that kind of money I'd buy a server rack battery before battleborn's stuff.

Not happening with my wallet.

But to each their own.
 
Battleborn = $900 or more

Chins or whoever = $250 or so.

3 chins or whoever cost less than 1 battleborn.....

For that kind of money I'd buy a server rack battery before battleborn's stuff.

Not happening with my wallet.

But to each their own.
While I do somewhat agree with you for a DIY setup but even being a chins this latest failed one was $1350 for the single battery. Way more than $250 like your example.
 
If the bms failed and you are forced to fix the problem and not a warranty solution then the cost isn't but $200 or so for a bms to fix it. That's still heck of a lot cheaper than the battle born.

But again if that's what you want to do its your money.

Just not something I'm will to spend towards personally.
 
If the bms failed and you are forced to fix the problem and not a warranty solution then the cost isn't but $200 or so for a bms to fix it. That's still heck of a lot cheaper than the battle born.

But again if that's what you want to do its your money.

Just not something I'm will to spend towards personally.
The problem on this one is so far chins has denied the warranty claim (saying it just needs to be charged, it’s at 97% already lol) and the battery is 2,000 miles away from me in a commercial application ???‍♂️
 
I’ll try to keep this short while getting all the info out there. I’ll start with a little background. I’m a solar/battery enthusiast and mobile offgrid installer. Over the last 2years or so I’ve installed over $20k worth of lithium batteries, many of which are Chins.

The early ones had 0 issues from my experience. The newer ones, most specifically the ones with the heater and Bluetooth BMS are the most problematic.

Issue #1, they are shipping these batteries without the cells being top balanced. The issues this creates is the battery shuts off well before reaching 14.4 volts. They even spec 14.4-14.6 as charged voltage. The first time I encountered this was with a 24v victron system. On charge one battery would shut down at 13.8v, once one shut down it would cause the victron Quattro to shut down completely stopping all power from getting to the trailer even with the generator running. Chins did agree to swap the one battery but also told me to charge it at a very low rate for 24hrs to allow the BMS to do the balancing. I charged both batteries in parallel at about 1amp for a few days. This did help, I was able to achieve about 28v once in series before shutting down but this still below the well known and common 14.4 per 12v battery.

Another job came up with another 300ah smart chins, I ran into the same issue. The EPEVER tracer charge controller was set to 14.4v peak but the battery was shutting down around 13.7-13.8 once again. Same story as the previous install, one cell far out of balance hitting its 3.65v disconnect. After about a full day charging it had gone up about a tenth of a volt before shutting down.

I’d like to hear your guys opinions on this issue? Sure seems to me like cutting corners by not balancing cells. Literally telling me to let the BMS do the balancing, I feel this should be a required step at the factory. Will?

Issue #2. One of the installations I did using these batteries is a commercial install. The trailer has a lot of equipment that can pull a pretty heavy load from the batteries. The 2 300ah chins batteries are spec’d at 200amps continuous. Issue is after 20-30minutes at 160-180amps the BMS shuts down. All cells nearly perfectly balanced so my only guess is overtemp protection. One interesting thing is about 1-2 minutes before shut down the voltage starts dropping quickly, while the Bluetooth app still shows much higher voltage than actually voltage output. Guessing this is from something getting hot and increasing resistance.
Once again seems like shitty quality causing this issue, they can’t actually meet the specified output. I’d like to hear your guys opinions.

Just to clarify, I’m not saying they all are terrible. I have many functioning just fine and pulling full capacity without issue but like I said the newer ones seem far more problematic. I’d love to hear your guys opinions.


UPDATE 9/27/23:

A second battery of the same model that was purchased around the same time as the ones mentioned above has now completely failed. bluetooth app shows 30 cycles (been in use 8 months). App will show 97% charged and discharging at say 3amps, no issue. Add any larger load than LED lighting and it shuts off (voltage drops to 0) immediately but the app remains the same saying everything is on and functioning with 0 amps being output. only way to "turn it back on" is to have the solar jump start it if its day light or if a jumper pack is hooked up it will start discharging again at a low rate. Another failed BMS.
The Chins battery Will did the review on is NOT what you get if you buy one . A guy on youtube did a tear down and review of the same model Chins battery about a year later and it had pouch cells in it. NOT what you see in Will's video . This guy has alot less followers and Subs , so Will's video is what the vast majoroty of viewers are gona see ...and buy , thinking they're gona get what you see in his videos. How many other chi companies do this ? How many other places do they change things for cheaper parts ...and where it may not be as easy to see ?
 
The Chins battery Will did the review on is NOT what you get if you buy one . A guy on youtube did a tear down and review of the same model Chins battery about a year later and it had pouch cells in it. NOT what you see in Will's video . This guy has alot less followers and Subs , so Will's video is what the vast majoroty of viewers are gona see ...and buy , thinking they're gona get what you see in his videos. How many other chi companies do this ? How many other places do they change things for cheaper parts ...and where it may not be as easy to see ?
Ok before I post what I'm wanting post I want to point out that I am not happy with the companies changing stuff around. I bought my first weize batteries based on Will's video on them and his later video shows the changes. That said....


No where do they claim your getting pouch or prismatic cells. Chins also will tell you what you have based on the code and will swap them out from what I have seen others post if you want prismatic after getting a pouch cell battery. So I don't see them doing anything really wrong.

They make a battery that is supposed to do x ah at x volts and be a lifepo4 battery. What type of cells they use has nothing to do with providing a battery that lives up to that as long as they are lifepo4's and add up to the advertised ah. If they don't then bad on them. If they do they did what they were supposed to do.

I want prismatic. Will I send it back if it doesn't have those when I run the sku number after it arrives? Not sure yet.

But at least I have that option and that seems pretty fair for the most part.
 
My 12volt chins battery gets here tuesday from what the tracking number is showing. I will post my results with it when it arrives.

The 48 volt battery I bought recently has performed GREAT. Very happy with it so far. Time will tell and that's all I have to go on because I'm not cutting open an expensive battery just because I'm curious whats in it :)
 
The Chins battery Will did the review on is NOT what you get if you buy one . A guy on youtube did a tear down and review of the same model Chins battery about a year later and it had pouch cells in it. NOT what you see in Will's video . This guy has alot less followers and Subs , so Will's video is what the vast majoroty of viewers are gona see ...and buy , thinking they're gona get what you see in his videos. How many other chi companies do this ? How many other places do they change things for cheaper parts ...and where it may not be as easy to see ?

Pretty sure will roasted Chins, I mean literally ROASTED ? Chins.

Youtube search:

Yes the Chinese hand pick unit for reviewers and send random stuff out to the rest which is why SOK, EPOCH, SFK, VOLTA, AOLITHIUM should be the lowest any reasonable buyer should buy. Wieze, Redodo, Chins, Enjoybot, LiTime, PowerQueen, Varter, are bottom tier for a reason. If it lacks Bluetooth; its for a reason! They DON'T want you to see what is going on with the cells because they don't want you to ask pesky questions about balance and voltage drops and other issues and hence why a lot of these budget brands no longer offer a smart battery.
 
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Pretty sure will roasted Chins, I mean literally ROASTED ? Chins.

Youtube search:

Yes the Chinese hand pick unit for reviewers and send random stuff out to the rest which is why SOK, EPOCH, SFK, VOLTA, AOLITHIUM should be the lowest any reasonable buyer should go, Wieze, Redodo, Chins, Enjoybot, LiTime, PowerQueen, Varter, are bottom tier for a reason. If it lacks Bluetooth; its for a reason! They DON'T want you to see what is going on with the cells because they don't want you to ask pesky questions about balance and voltage drops and other issues and hence why a lot of these budget brands no longer offer a smart battery.
Thank you, what you just explained was what my gut has been telling me. Send a nice battery to be reviewed and then crank up the assembly line to give the people what they want, but may or may not get. The lower end is such a crapshoot. Not to say there aren’t deals to be had, but I’ll just pay a little extra for what Alkaline refers to as confident lower end options that seem pretty solid mid range picks to me.
 
Thank you, what you just explained was what my gut has been telling me. Send a nice battery to be reviewed and then crank up the assembly line to give the people what they want, but may or may not get. The lower end is such a crapshoot. Not to say there aren’t deals to be had, but I’ll just pay a little extra for what Alkaline refers to as confident lower end options that seem pretty solid mid range picks to me.
I think if you bought it around the time he reviewed it, you'd get what you saw in his YT video ...i don't know how long after that it was when they did the bait and switch . How many other companies do this ...and in areas or parts where it's not as obvious or easy to see . Be nice if ya could just buy stuff and trust it will last . YT videos on new stuff mean NOTHING ... You've gotta do a video on something you've rode hard and put away wet for a year or two ...and by that time, something new came out . These videos are not much more than entertainment. Maybe some value but i guess ...but not as much as most people think....and they know that most people won't open it up and look . If pouch was so great then they'd advertise their product as such ...and boast about it . Anyone boasting about pouch cells ? Why is that
 
I think if you bought it around the time he reviewed it, you'd get what you saw in his YT video ...i don't know how long after that it was when they did the bait and switch . How many other companies do this ...and in areas or parts where it's not as obvious or easy to see . Be nice if ya could just buy stuff and trust it will last . YT videos on new stuff mean NOTHING ... You've gotta do a video on something you've rode hard and put away wet for a year or two ...and by that time, something new came out . These videos are not much more than entertainment. Maybe some value but i guess ...but not as much as most people think....and they know that most people won't open it up and look . If pouch was so great then they'd advertise their product as such ...and boast about it . Anyone boasting about pouch cells ? Why is that
None of them are boast they have prismatic cells either. They don't mention what kind of cells they have in them at all on the batteries I have run across. Sometimes on the reviews people will ask but that's about all I see about it.

From what I can find there is no advantage to prismatic over pouch cells from a functional stand point. Prismatic cells are better if your doing your own battery build since they are easier to handle and not as fragile as pouch cells are. But if put in a sealed container and done properly there doesn't to be any difference. Since these are sealed batteries I see no advantage to prismatic cells except if you plan on cutting them open one day if the battery fails and replacing a bad cell and making a new battery from it.

Several articles that I read said pouch cells can be cycled more and last longer than the prismatic cells (I have no idea if this is true or not its just what I read). This is one article about it :

I would prefer prismatic but only because if it fails I'm going to open it up and use the cells to make another battery by replacing the bad cell and use a better bms than the cheap batteries come with.

But if I was just going to use the battery and throw it away if it failed the pouch cells seem like they would be fine for that.
 
Pretty sure will roasted Chins, I mean literally ROASTED ? Chins.

Youtube search:

Yes the Chinese hand pick unit for reviewers and send random stuff out to the rest which is why SOK, EPOCH, SFK, VOLTA, AOLITHIUM should be the lowest any reasonable buyer should buy. Wieze, Redodo, Chins, Enjoybot, LiTime, PowerQueen, Varter, are bottom tier for a reason. If it lacks Bluetooth; its for a reason! They DON'T want you to see what is going on with the cells because they don't want you to ask pesky questions about balance and voltage drops and other issues and hence why a lot of these budget brands no longer offer a smart battery.
S.S.
 
This is a common problem with any LFP that is mass produced and then sits in storage for extended periods.

When I get a new LFP I slow charge it to full using a 10amp charger or 200 watt solar panel.

Then discharge under load to about 50% and that usually rebalances the battery and BMS and you are good to go.

Same for power stations.
 
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