Battery Hookup new listing “Case 100x 3.3v 2200mah - 200x 18650 Lifepo4” for $100.00 + shipping

[sam_sam_sam]

So, did I get ripped off?

Sent: Friday, May 9, 2025 9:01:16 PM
To: Battery Hookup Inc. <sales@batteryhookup.com>
Subject: Re: ZKETech EBC-A20 Capacity Tester 30v 5a Charge 20a Discharge Need to be very careful about testing battery packs with BMS protection boards

I put this on my Facebook page about your refusal to reply to emails about issues with products that you have and are currently offering

“I do not understand why Battery Hookup does not answer there emails and I have wondered if they care about there customers satisfaction with the products that sell I have sent several about certain products and no response whatsoever I would like to know why because I recommend someone to buy from your company and they have an issue with one of the battery packs that they received from you and they sent you several emails and no response back from you so what is the issue that you are having no responding to emails this is an ongoing issue with your company and for the life of me I do understand this business concept that you are trying to follow”

One note this only part of the email that I sent but I was piss at them just not responding to emails that you send about product issues


I did get a response back from them and I will respond to them what battery packs this issue happened on

You might get a response from about your issue

[eccerr0r]

Ah they finally responded...they said it got stuck in their spam folder. Hmm interesting.

Well I'll have to respond to it, haven't done so yet. But yeah I sent a few emails to them including for other issues, and it just felt something was off since they didn't reply to those either. Then I called them once which they did respond...but after that I got forwarded to email which of course apparently got ignored. Because of this, well, had to make some conclusions and of course it would have to be negative...

Now let's see what happens now.

I hope none of the others are rusted because I'll need a good one that I can trace the circuit so I can properly make mods...

[eccerr0r]

Well the bad pack, three cells were 3.2V, once cell was 0.7V, and the others were zilch. I tried charging up the 0.7V cell and put in about just about 1Ah of charge(circa 3Wh) with a LiFePO4 universal cell charger and stopped it early, assuming 3Wh of fire is a lot better than 18Wh of fire (if it still can store that much which I doubt). It got up to 3.25V which is not a great sign, going to see how much it maintains -- though yeah historically cells discharged below 2.5V probably will leak like a sieve.

I disconnected the balancing/protection board assuming it's still leaking energy due to the extensive damage.

I'm still kind of surprised of all the dead space in the pack...

[sam_sam_sam]

I hope none of the others are rusted because I'll need a good one that I can trace the circuit so I can properly make mods...

I personally would take the heat shrink off of each one if you are going to reconfigure some anyway

I would think that if you have good voltage around 24 volts or higher I would not think you should have any issues with them it when you get very low voltage reading and you try to charge the battery pack and the voltage dose not increase in about 3 to 5 minutes you know something is wrong with the battery pack or the BMS board

I have to do something about a charger for these 24 volt battery packs what I am wanting to do is control the charging rate at about 3.5 amperage to maybe 5 amperage maximum but once it gets to around 27,0 volt go to a very low current rate so that when the BMS turns off it basically stays off

[sam_sam_sam]

I disconnected the balancing/protection board assuming it's still leaking energy due to the extensive damage...

Are you sure that it was water damage or was that the battery cell leaked and caused the damage because I have seen this before and it from the battery cell leaking and most of the time it is where the battery is joined together and it is around the crimped area is where you see it the most

One note on this size of battery cell there is no seem from what I can see but it would have a CDI release device on it and if the internal pressure for some reason activated it then this would probably be reason you would see all this damage as well

One note about charging battery cells below 1.00 volts is not a good practice to follow and here is why sometimes it act like it taking a charge until it gets to where in normal conditions the voltage curve would go into a straight line for a while and then starts climbing again but in damaged battery cells it does this to a certain extent but instead of the voltage curve climbing again it starts heating up the battery cell and if you are not paying attention to it this is where you can thermal runaway situation that happen to me when I first started playing around with these types of battery cells

This is the reason I bought a SkyRc battery tester because it has an option for a temperature sensor that actually works if the parameters are set correctly I will attempt to charge a battery cell below 1.00 volt but I only will do this if I use that battery tester

The temperature set point I use is no higher than 100*F

Then a year or so later I got some of medical battery packs that have 18650 battery cells ( 21 of them ) in it and some of these battery packs did not even work the battery fuel gauge but the battery voltage was around 1.8 or maybe a little higher than on each battery cell rail that so I put one battery cell rail on charge one at a time and some of those battery cells were getting really warm to the touch and wouldn't you know it that the battery cell that I chose this battery cell was one that was not getting very warm at all so I do not charge battery cell rails that way anymore I separate the battery cells completely and test each battery cell

[eccerr0r]

Sorry about the ambiguity, when I say 'leaking' I meant electrical leak versus chemical leak, but then again I don't know. There is no water in Li-ion cells, and the electrolyte is noncorrosive to metals, not to mention volatile. The fact that I don't smell anything in these packs might actually be a good sign that the cells have not been breached, just some steel is corroded, but then again cylindrical cells use steel cases and the cases can only be so thick before it rusts all the way through.

Speaking of these packs, there seems to be multiple temperature sensors, one connected to the BMS and other sensor (I think) is connected to the connector. Weird.

I was hoping to not ever have to dispose of these cells so that's why I chose LiFePO4 so they shouldn't wear out too quickly. Alas I don't know what I'll do with the rusted cells.

And here they are. Tell me that's not one heck of a lot of water. That used to be there, at least.

Oh... and yeah, was able to wipe up the rust particles fairly readily with HCl. Not sure I want to use it on the battery or circuit board itself yet, just got the "case".

[eccerr0r]

These lithium ion FePO4 cells are weird. They always show up at the same voltage seemingly regardless of SoC??! I drained some a bit and the voltage went down... but then after disconnecting it for a while they go back up in voltage... not sure what the SoC is! Perhaps I do have to fully charge and drain it an estimate half way to know what the SoC is.

On another note, charging with this linear 60% efficient PSU after the 85% efficient GTI seems redundant. If I just tapped off the 36V solar input with a 5 ohm resistor to charge the ~26V packs, it would pass about 2 amps, burn up 20 watts, charge 52 watts, and be 72% efficient... HAH... Except I still need to deal with the 40V spikes from the panels which would occasionally send many more amps into the batteries which may not be safe.

[sam_sam_sam]

You need to find a way to have a continuous current and constant this is where a decent charging controller is a must you can not get around this if you want the battery cells to last discharging is not as a big deal but charging needs to be followed for me I am conservative about this most times I do not go over 1 amp when charging battery cells most of the time unless I am torcher testing the battery cells because I want to see one if they can handle it and if they are abused to a certain extent now if they high current capacity which these battery cells are not really in this category but they are decent for a 10 amp load I personally would not go any higher than that if I want the battery cells to last for a long time

I have been working on a switching power supply that is 48 volts at 20 amps continuous output that has adjustable voltage and current in a power supply enclosure so there is no chance of being electrocuted because the mains are in the same area as the voltage and current pot controls

I have shown a picture of in the past from Electronic Goldmine I need to buy a couple more of them but I waiting for them to put them on sale again so I can buy a couple more of them at the price I want to pay for them

What you are seeing when you are discharging a battery pack and you remove the load it is perfectly normal for the voltage to climb back up to a certain voltage point I would be very concerned if I did not see these results this especially happens the higher the current load level is plus this is also the reason in the data sheet for these battery cells has what your amp hours should be at certain current level ( one note not all manufacturers have this data available in there data sheet )

This is the reason why some time I will run two test one a 1 amp load and then run a test 10 amps and see how much difference there is between the both current levels especially when you want to match amp current output levels so that all of your battery packs that are in parallel run down about the same time for best results

I am having a very hard time finding a decent MPPT controller I not happy with the specs that I have seen on a lot of them
some have it where you can adjust the voltage to a certain extent but adjusting the current is a hole another issue this does not seem to be an option for some reason and you seem to limited to 12 , 24 .36 , 48 volts

I am looking for something with more current control from what I have seen so far is this to much to ask for yes you can find MPPT controllers that go up to 60 amps continuous output and up to 160 volt input but what is the deal with not giving you much control over the voltage and current I do not understand this concept

I know that what ever your solar panel current output is the amount of current available to use but if you have a 10 amp solar panel system you do not necessarily want ten amp to go to one battery pack so dose mean that you have to design the battery pack around the solar panels current output for the battery packs that you want to use because if this is the approach that you need to use then you have to do different type of battery pack testing and I am not sure what the parameters should be for having the best way to have longevity in battery pack cell life

Am I going to have to build on and put in the parameters that I want really

Now I have a question about solar panels do they need to be matched for voltage and current output for best possible results my thoughts are that they should be matched as close as possible for best possible efficiency and reliability I could be completely wrong in this assumption

[sam_sam_sam]

Except I still need to deal with the 40V spikes from the panels which would occasionally send many more amps into the batteries which may not be safe.

Do you have any idea what is causing this situation to happen how many battery packs do you have on your so
system at one time

One possibly is that your battery packs are charging up completely at different times and that could cause voltage spikes to happen I am not sure how you would effectively deal with that because unless you have other battery packs going on line to keep the load constant you will experience this issue unfortunately unless you waist a little bit power to keep it from spiking up the voltage

What about using a high current buck converter to drop down the voltage to the level that you need instead of a current limiting/ limiting resistor to do this function or even a PWM controller for battery charging purposes might be a little bit better efficiency wise than a resistor would be is my guess or just bigger battery bank made of more battery packs

I could be completely wrong about this though but my thinking is that you maximize the amount of current that your solar panels can handle in a 8 hour period of time and build a battery pack that at certain amount of time 8 hours would probably at 90% charged then power your inverter at night or during the day time but then you would have to have two battery pack banks one on charge and using the other one now I could be completely wrong about this approach

A very big question is how do you simulate a real world scenario test that would tell you what you need to know about what strategy would work the best in the real world scenario and be something that you can work from

[eccerr0r]

The spikes are due to the GTI from MPPT. Currently I'm using 4 until I get started on the scooter/mower projects...The panels can do quite a bit of current, and more when it's cold out.

Of course having a real charger would be better, but again, need to find a cheap cheap cheap solution until I can get/make a cheap charger. I don't expect the batteries to be completely full, just need to charge them somewhat so that they have something in them while the panels are overproducing.

The ideal situation is charge when the panels are overproducing and discharge only when electric rate goes up and panels are not overproducing... that would be best...

As for panels, if you mix them, you match for voltage when running in parallel and match for current when running in series. If this results in a voltage or current you can't use, you're f**ked. Otherwise, having identical panels is always best.

[sam_sam_sam]

The spikes are due to the GTI from MPPT. Currently I'm using 4 until I get started on the scooter/mower projects...The panels can do quite a bit of current, and more when it's cold out.

Of course having a real charger would be better, but again, need to find a cheap cheap cheap solution until I can get/make a cheap charger. I don't expect the batteries to be completely full, just need to charge them somewhat so that they have something in them while the panels are overproducing.

The ideal situation is charge when the panels are overproducing and discharge only when electric rate goes up and panels are not overproducing... that would be best...

As for panels, if you mix them, you match for voltage when running in parallel and match for current when running in series. If this results in a voltage or current you can't use, you're f**ked. Otherwise, having identical panels is always best.

That is what I thought that matching them would be the best approach I am lucky that when I was buying solar panels I either bought two of them and if I got a really good deal price wise I bought more than that so matching them is not the problem finding the right charging controller is my main concern at the moment and yes I will be doing a lot of research and testing on equipment that I plan on using I want to know that it functions correctly and it is efficient enough to make it worthwhile doing this project because I have a lot of battery cells I would like to use for this project

I have a way to test battery cells and battery packs and it seems to very accurate
I found a way to test BMS balancing boards and protection board functionally for charging and discharging them
I have a way to put together battery packs
I have several different types of solar panels that I want to use for this project

Here what I do not have but need
A solar charging controller that charges battery cells correctly and not have to rely on the BMS protection board for these functions
A decent sign wave inverter that is at least big enough to run my desk top computer or a way to keep my laptop computer battery charged up continuously for data logging I might change my mind about this when it comes time to consider implementing it

And most importantly that I charge my tool battery packs fully charged and ready to go when I need to used them this another consideration for finding the right MPPT controller or do I have built something myself because what I am after dose not exist no I do not want to reinvent the wheel but at the same time I want something that actually works the way that I expect it to work

This might mean to take one of my switching power supplies that has the voltage and current control that are adjustable and see if can run off of battery power safely or not I throwing this idea around in my head and yes I have asked this question before and from what I understand it might be possible to do it but the question in the end is how efficient is this approach and can it be done safely

When you make this charger please share it I would really be interested in what you come up with

[sam_sam_sam]

Here is some pictures of what I was working on earlier today on my switching power supply that has voltage and current control that is adjustable

I have not tried to push it yet but I plan on seeing on just how much current I can pull out of it before it shuts down
I thought about changing more than one pack at a time but I am not sure if this is feasible or not but I would think that the battery packs need in the same state charger but what concerns me about doing this is that one pack pulling more current than the other battery pack and not being able to control the current in battery pack

But I have pushed the 80 volt one to its highest current level and it does it with on issue and they are made by the same manufacturer the board lay out is very similar with some differences but not many of them I would be very surprised if it can not come very close to it but the bigger issue is does it over heating this would be a big issue with me if it does yes it does have a cooling fan on it

It use the same switching regulator ic chip that a lot of computer switching power supplies and the interesting thing about these switching power supply is it stays very cool with very little current being pulled so I really do not know if this is a issue to worry about now how hot does the switching transformer gets when pushed hard that is another question and would be a concern if gets extremely hot while pushing a lot of current

The only issue that these switching power supplies have is that at very low current setting it is not very stable current below 100 milliamperes at 200 milliamperes it is more stable according to the battery testing machines

The voltage and current meters are decent for a 3 digit meter module but the 0.100th digit is not very accurate below 0.300 is not accurate at all for the current the voltage one is a lot more accurate I can deal with it but I know its limitations I probably need use a LM317 in current mode if I want something more stable than what this is

[eccerr0r]

Interesting, that definitely can't do 500W, can it?

Low voltages is a problem... must be running at fairly high switch rate to stay stable at low voltage or something...

On another note I do have radically different panels and need to have another mppt-ish system designed for my 60V 1A panels which are fundamentally different from my 36V/18V panels... currently have a really messed up system for the 60V panels to pump power into the GTI, which isn't a big deal since these panels are not in a great location, running out of prime real estate for panels...

[eccerr0r]

Dang ... playing with the bad pack rabbit hole. Four cells leak charge like a sieve (were 0v), three cells are still producing voltage, last one was dead but seems to be holding charge but charged too fast IMHO...

Now whether to start desoldering stuff... :o

BTW, seems like the four thin wires on the plug ...
Red: 2.7V-10VDC input
Black: signal ground
Green: pushbutton output, tied to gnd when depressed
Brown: temperature output (analog) LM60 . This is independent from the other white wire sensor.

[sam_sam_sam]

Dang ... playing with the bad pack rabbit hole.

This is not a good place to be just be careful

Now whether to start desoldering stuff... :o

BTW, seems like the four thin wires on the plug ...
Red: 2.7V-10VDC input
Black: signal ground
Green: pushbutton output, tied to gnd when depressed
Brown: temperature output (analog) LM60 . This is independent from the other white wire sensor.

I just removed all of this stuff that is not part of the battery pack cells or BMS balancing protection board I going to keep the switch and the LM60;temperature in my parts bin what would be the best way to use the LM60 temperature sensor

[eccerr0r]

I'd imagine knowing how hot your packs are getting is sometimes important too! Then again will it be enough notice that it doesn't shut down from the BMS sensor...

Incidentally does that BMS sensor ... is it a too cold or too hot sensor? That would be neat if it knew not to allow charge if it was cold, maybe more useful than shutting down when hot!

[sam_sam_sam]

Incidentally does that BMS sensor ... is it a too cold or too hot sensor? That would be neat if it knew not to allow charge if it was cold, maybe more useful than shutting down when hot!

I will also be testing its functionality very soon because I curious about what it actually does what i will do is while in charging cycle and see if it terminates the charging cycle or not

[eccerr0r]

The white sensor is a high temperature sensor as far as I can see. Sad.

Now how the heck does one separate the cells... appears to be glued together. Not sure what kind of glue... at least it looks like it's spot glued and not across the whole cell.

And hah. one of the interstitial wires corroded all the way through... no matter, it needs to be removed anyway along with the completely rusted cells.

Separated the really rusty dead and the fairly clean somewhat live cells, I guess the dead cells goto recycling. No charge (0V), no risk? The live cells are at 12.6V so these are the dangerous ones. Now... to get the BMS to work with just these remaining cells.

[sam_sam_sam]

One way to do this is to use plastic pry tool that you can get from Harbor Freight which I have and I found an enclosure that is made for this size battery cells that we have been talking about from AliExpress the website link below

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/32568...yAdapt=glo2usa

You will have to cut the tabbing between battery cells first before you use the plastic tool use the plastic piece that came with the battery pack to keep them apart while prying them apart or at least this is my plan for doing this undertaking

When I do this to separate them question is do I make a higher current battery pack by putting them together in a configuration 4s2s or 8s1p like they are now but use the battery holder spacer that comes with the battery enclosure this is the decision I need to make

I need to make one for my riding lawnmower which the battery pack that I have been buying only last one season gug I am tried of it but I need to incorporate a battery disconnect switch on the battery because I think there a slow drain in the lawnmower electrical system and they are very hard to troubleshoot what the exact issue is and not worth my time to figure this out because if you use it every week it just fine but if you let it sit for months this is the problem with it

So I will probably buy two of them and use one for jumping battery potable cart if and when I need to use or as portable 12 volt power supply

[eccerr0r]

Fortunately(?) the decision was already made for me 4s1p, I just need to get a working BMS... And yeah the splitting was not clean. The wrapper cracked where it may.
That box looks like 4s4p? hmm. no tab welding here so need to minimize breaks...