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

[eccerr0r]

I actually have a decent idea of how efficient my solar panels are... which is pretty bad. I have current/voltage meters on solar input and a kill-a-watt on the grid tie output. It's pretty darn bad considering the ratings of the panels to what I see on the kill-a-watt. It's just a hair above 50% efficiency from nominal panel design point to power recorded on the kill-a-watt on hot summer days. The GTI by itself is only 85% efficient. Heat and the hack I did for the amorphous panels I have contribute to their inefficiencies. Water cooling the panels makes a significant increase in efficiency alas this costs water and pumping electricity...

I think heat (up to 25% loss on hot days, it's much better on cool days when it only goes down 10-15%) + wire loss (~1%) + inverter (15% loss) is the conversion rate of my panels to what I see at the output.


However, back to BH, I wonder how many full drain/charge cycles I'll get out of these before they drop below 22Ah ...

https://batteryhookup.com/collection...12v-40ah-512wh

[sam_sam_sam]

I However, back to BH, I wonder how many full drain/charge cycles I'll get out of these before they drop below 22Ah ...

https://batteryhookup.com/collection...12v-40ah-512wh

If you had a battery testing machine that you could see the charging and discharging curves graphs you could maybe tell by how steep the curves are and long one cycle takes but you have to run this test several times to get an educated guess but what you also need to know is what temperature of the battery case ( this where a thermal camera would be very useful for this particular purpose ) is and is it consistent if so you could have quite a few cycles but this also depends on how old these battery packs are as well

Now that you are only paying $29.00 the cost of them are lot more than this new

You should be okay with this purchase because they have been tested
However keep two things in mind

One the way these battery packs are designed is they are individually battery cells that are tightly packed together and on top of each other when loaded they will generate heat the more current you draw from them

This battery pack they do not show the brand of battery cells used and what size they could be 18650 to 32700 now I am pretty sure that would be Lipo 4 type battery cells which is not a bad thing

I would highly recommend that you keep the maximum current limit should be followed and not exceed for best results

I would also recommend that if you plan on doing the maximum current load unit they are depleted that you monitor the battery pack temperature and do not let them get to the extreme temperature this will degrade the battery cells if this happens to many times

I would also recommend that you do not extremely fast charge them this also affects there longevity more so than maximum discharging them at maximum current also depending on the BMS protection board when you do extreme fast charging them this also effects the individual battery cells do not get fully charged and you are more likely to get an unbalanced battery battery pack

Now if the BMS protection board has the balancing feature depending on how well it does this function will also reflect how long your battery pack will last and you would still get a 22 amp hour results

Now if you are asking me would I purchase one doing what you have in mind doing probably but this is a situation where a rack mount battery enclosure would be the best option if you were to implement the concept for longevity

These are used battery cells for $20.00 each

https://batteryhookup.com/products/c...prismatic-cell

Or something like this which is brand new never used for $15.00 each

https://batteryhookup.com/collection...rismatic-cells

But I would probably use a different type of battery cell that is made for extreme current dumping in a short amount of time and there extreme fast charging is more tolerable than smaller battery cells are but unfortunately this type of battery cells are more expensive now Battery Hookup does sell used ones but you have to pay attention to several things one big one is the battery cell swollen if so do not consider buying they have been damaged by something and there longevity will be compromised greatly also do not choose any battery cell that is below the recommended discharge voltage limit

If the battery cell has been load tested you should be alright

But if it only been voltage tested and it is around 3.0 or higher you might be alright but this would be a crapshoot of a purchase the lower the cost the better in the long run now you might get lucky and they still have 80% life left in them but you would the one that has to test them and determine what there health is and choose battery cells that closely match each other for best results

Now here is one that I would consider purchasing for what you have in mind doing these are used $20.00 each they have only been voltage tested but because of the cost of them the risk might tolerable but if can have a good method of testing your battery cells then you could ask for a refund if you have extremely low preference out of a particular battery cell I have done this myself several times in the past but nothing recently

[eccerr0r]

I was staring at the bare cells but the $/kWh is not very appealing due to not including BMS. I also want to keep my options open: I'm not sure I can stick with 24V so being able to pivot to 12V would be nice -- so it all depends on the BMS. So it would be nice to keep with 12V increments if I can for now. I also have some lawn equipment and scooter that could use 24V so would be nice to be able to switch between 12V and 24V.

I suppose I want the batteries to be able to do at least 2000 cycles at 1C (where C is the capacity at time of purchase, not original capacity) and still be total under ~ $70/kWh. I don't expect to draw more than 400W or so either, though may have short bursts that are higher.

Charging I don't expect to charge faster than 100W as that's about my surplus energy from solar at this point. It may go up if I solve my 60-cell issue and get a better solution for my amorphous panels. My MPPT grid tie inverter does not like working with the PSUs I'm using to convert the amorphous panel voltages -- a CV PSU does not behave well with a MPPT inverter that's dealing with other solar panels... (I have 240W worth of amorphous panels and these I'm getting just about 50% of their rated power due to severe losses from the preconverter PSU. 120W is still better than the 0W I get from the two 100W 30-cell panels in series.)

[sam_sam_sam]

You might be interested in this battery hookup offer

https://batteryhookup.com/products/2...enclosure-fans


They do not always have this particular one at this price

You can reconfigure it for 12 volt battery packs the only downside is that you will need a BMS board now you could use two for each bank but might need to go that route if the BMS board that you use has the balance feature but you might pay a little bit more the BMS board module but it would pay for itself in the long run

[eccerr0r]

not sure I need battery cooling... it's the solar panel cooling that's needed...

[sam_sam_sam]

not sure I need battery cooling... it's the solar panel cooling that's needed...

Probably not which in the description says that it is easily removed

I posted it because these units are not available very often for this price the ones that have had in the past for a very long time is the 36 volt version they have offered this one more often in the past

I giving it some thought to buy one before they are out of stock again but change its configuration to 12 volt battery pack but double the amp hour

Battery Hookup has had in the past a better set of pictures of what is inside of one of these units

[sam_sam_sam]

Take a look at this offer from Battery Hookup
48v 105ah 5kWh LiFePo4 Golf Cart Battery


https://batteryhookup.com/products/4...f-cart-battery

Yes I know that you wanted stay with battery packs that are 12 volts but if you were doing a 48 volt system

Unfortunately the shipping costs would kill you but this is the problem with high capacity amp hour battery packs are very heavy in nature

[eccerr0r]

Well I got my 24V power supply working, minus that issue with the transistor replacement, and fed my GTI with the PSU. Looks like 24V may be a no-go for me as well, the GTI refuses to start inverting until it got past 25V or so. That means batteries will need to exceed 25V, which I suppose is fine when they're fresh off charger but can't sustain it for long. hmm. Will need to rethink this, and even more reason to stick to 12V -- so I could go 36V...

[sam_sam_sam]

Well I got my 24V power supply working, minus that issue with the transistor replacement, and fed my GTI with the PSU. Looks like 24V may be a no-go for me as well, the GTI refuses to start inverting until it got past 25V or so. That means batteries will need to exceed 25V, which I suppose is fine when they're fresh off charger but can't sustain it for long. hmm. Will need to rethink this, and even more reason to stick to 12V -- so I could go 36V...

This is the reason I posted the one above because on some of the battery packs that Battery Hookup offers some of them are fairly easy to reconfigure them for your preference setup and the only thing is when you do this unfortunately you have to get the right BMS protection board for the voltage and current for the GTI that you are using

I personally do not see any reason to use a bunch of 12 volt BMS protection boards when your GTI requires the voltage above 24 volts I would agree with you to possibly to go to 36 volts now I would use BMS protection board at 36 battery cell rails for parallel 36 volt battery packs so they all will be up on charge roughly at the same time to me this makes more sense to me for better performance in the long run

Plus you have to be careful about putting BMS protection boards in series because of voltage limits on the transistors or mosfets that are used in some of them units

I just bought one of these

https://batteryhookup.com/products/2...enclosure-fans

and bought one these as well before they sell out of both of them

https://batteryhookup.com/products/f...bms-24v-74-kwh

This is a case that if I had made this one big order the shipping cost was more than just splitting it up into two separate orders instead of just one big order if I remember correctly it was about $ 10.00 difference in price


By doing this I have no more money for any projects for a while but that is fine this will give some time to find a GTI controller that will fit my needs for a small solar panel charging system station setup that I been giving it some thought about for last several months now and decided to buy what I think I can use for this project

I also have to research for full sign wave inverter that does not cost me an arm and leg for powering a computer and monitor setup
or make battery power supply that has the power supply rails that are needed they are available and not terribly expensive to buy I had research this several years ago so who knows what the cost of them are now

My setup will more than likely going to be a 24 volt system because of how easy it is for battery packs that are available from Battery Hookup

One thing I need to do before it becomes too hot to be outside is to finish organizing my sheds and work on building some battery packs that I very desperately need to put together and start using them

[eccerr0r]

Yeah this is unfortunate, all of the regular inverters that I have are 12V (including a 2.5KW inverter, also acquired for a song and needed repairs that are now completed) nevermind the smaller ones that I have (85, 110, 300, 400 watt). What would be nice if I could force the GTI to invert on its own without having to be hooked up to the grid, it supposedly can do 1KW so it's nice to have it to run off grid, but it's apparently 25-50V-ish, perfect for 72 cell solar panels...

[stj]

grid-tie invertors usually look for 50/60Hz - you could fake that

[eccerr0r]

I just bought one of these

and bought one these as well before they sell out of both of them

Damn...how do you have so much money and where do you have space to put these things... I guess the disposal problem is something you were still trying to solve :o

grid-tie invertors usually look for 50/60Hz - you could fake that

Yeah... was wondering if I could use a regular inverter as the base and the GTI as the sidekick...

Except I still don't have a 24V inverter... And all the inverters I have... well except for one small one... are MSW.

[sam_sam_sam]

Damn...how do you have so much money and where do you have space to put these things...

The majority of the time I use Affrim ( which Battery Hookup offers as a payment option ) four payment plan each payment is every two weeks and I can only do so many at one time and when I make the comment that I have run out project money it means that I have to many four payment plans which I need to finish paying off then I can start again

You do need to be careful about the plans that they offer there is one that is spend $35.00 and have only two payments I do not like this plan unless you only spend no more than $50.00 otherwise I wait until they offer the four payments plan and try to limit my purchases to less than $150.00 because then each payment is less than $50.00 ( most purchases are less than $100.00 or might be a little bit more than $100.00 ) They also offer one but this one I have only seen a couple of times is when you spend more than $200.00 but less than $300.00 you have three months to pay it off but it 3 equal payments one note on each of there plans that you have the option to have auto payments but there is an option to turn off auto payments which is the one I select
All these plans are interest free

One note the computer was from savings not on any four payment plan or credit card by me saying this I am not made of money it is that I chose to spend my extra money after bills being paid on projects that I want to do because when I decide to retire I will not be able to afford anything else so I am getting ready for this decision and I am facing reality that what I have will be what it is

The reason for this mentality is because the country landscape has drastically changed and I doubt that I would be able to have a part time job in this type of climate that we are in now with all the government layoffs and everything else

As long as you have a payment plan one of four payment every two weeks there is no interest but if they offer a payment plan that is every month then you have interest on those plan

As far where I keep all of these batteries the majority of them are in my new shed unless I am testing them then some of them are inside the house until I have tested enough of them to get an idea of what quality they are an then they go in the new shed on a shelf to used in a project

Yes I am going to have an issue with bad spent battery cells that why have the post about what to with these batteries cells that are not useable

[eccerr0r]

I am hoping I don't get any bad packs if I buy packs that include BMS... is this a risk?
I really don't want to be cutting packs to swap cells around to get good packs.

[sam_sam_sam]

I am hoping I don't get any bad packs if I buy packs that include BMS... is this a risk?
I really don't want to be cutting packs to swap cells around to get good packs.

Post the to the one you are currently interested in so can give you idea of what kind of risk that you might be taking

This depends on what the description says about the voltage on each battery cell rail and weather or not they check the voltage of the battery pack if they say that the voltage reading are not balanced or the voltages are all over the place even some at nearly “0” volts then this could mean that theses battery packs are near end of life syndrome but this could mean that if it has a BMS protection board that should work now if say that the voltage are balanced then this probably means that the BMS protection board is not functioning properly but this not tell you the health of the battery cells unfortunately it just tells you that more than likely the BMS is functioning properly but there is a chance it might work correctly but you would only know this by testing its functionality

[sam_sam_sam]

Battery Hookup has this new listing for this
battery

https://batteryhookup.com/collection...s-id=223976463

12.8v 34ah 435.2wh LifePo4 Battery with BMS - $66/kWh
For $29.00 each

I would trust the description that they give for this particular model because they say that they have
test 1000s of them in the past

Plus they have several pictures of the type of battery cells that are in this particular battery

[eccerr0r]

hmm... still trying to figure out what i want to get, and it would have to be a mixture I suspect... and how much I really can afford to burn on batteries...
Regardless of the 12V issue I still need to get some 24V packs though I might have to make all packs eventually able to feed into the grid to save money and thus have them pay for themselves...

Unfortunately it seems during the summer, batteries can save me only 25 cents per day maybe more, mainly because the sun is out for many hours that the 'high demand rate' is in effect. During the winter it's significantly more because it's dark out and solar panels are useless then... hmm need to redo the math, something doesn't seem right here... Still at $65/kWh it's a lot of days before they'll pay themselves off. And hope that they will pay themselves off before they become trash else it's all moot.

[sam_sam_sam]

The biggest thing you should worry about when you buy new or used ones is how are you going to treat them
when changing them and when discharging them this is one big determining factor another words

Do you charge them to 90% and do not let go below 40% you might get some real life out them but yes you would be sacrificing running time a little bit but is the trade off worth longevity

If you consider the price of the battery them self and get the most from your money sacrifice the amount of running time but do keep in mind that the manufacturers date dose play a role in how much degradation has taken place

If you are buying them for a lot less money for slightly used batteries and they are testing out from 100 to 90% to me it is worth the risk

You have to get educated about how much degradation happens by what the manufacturers dates are the one being unknown is how were they stored when in storage this a very big concern that I have yes I keep the majority of my battery cells in my new shed but I have a room air conditioner in my shed that is set for around 78* F in the summer time and so far this has worked fine for me

I am not convinced that battery cells that have been in storage for 5 years and keep from getting to hot or to cold might not have that much degradation happening to them but how have they been charged correctly and discharged correctly might make big impact to them instead of how long they have been in storage

One thing that I can tell you is storage does play very big role in Chinese made batteries but I think the bigger issue is how they were made in the first place

Here is a case in point I have some battery cells that have a date code of 2019 and they test very close to being new now how long will they will last using them every day who knows the answer to this question until I torture test them in the real world application

I have some real world experience with tool battery packs and I can tell you that I use to be hard on them when I use to work at the metal processing facility and I would use the hell out power tool battery keeping them in the back of my truck in sun because there was very little shade at this facility where I used to work

I was very surprised in how long they lasted with fast charging them discharging the hell out of them now keep in mind that these battery cells are from well known brands and manufacturers these were not Chinese made battery cells they were Japan made battery cells this is very important to keep in mind

Now it is very true that Battery Hookup does sell Chinese made battery cells they do not hide this from you which to me is very important to know it might be because what I seen so far they seem to know what brand from China are good and which ones are a waste of money in the long run can you be burn by this assumption yes you most definitely can and I would not lie about something like this this because quality of battery cells are very important to me when buying them for important projects that I plan on using for years

( now I can not tell you how long these batteries that I bought that were made in China are going to last but I going to be building a 12 volt battery pack with some of them and doing some real world testing them over a period of time and yes I will be using one of the BMS balancing protection boards that they sell and I will post the results as I get them from this battery pack one other note I am also building a 9.6 battery pack and a 6.4 volt battery pack for a flashlights that I have and will post the results from them as well and all of these are Chinese made battery cells these two battery packs will not have BMS balancing protection boards from Battery Hookup because they do not sell these lower voltage ones I had to buy them somewhere else )

Now I know not wanting to spend money is a very important concern and I have mentioned this before as long as you have a good and practical and a repeatable way of testing battery cells that you can reliably know the health of them this is the importance part of this process of buying slightly used or over stock from a battery project that got canceled or abandoned because of tab welding issues

I have had very good luck with buying from Battery Hookup in the past but it has taken me a while to get comfortable buying from them but I have had to learn how to read and understand the way they write there description this took me awhile to learn how not to be taken for a ride so a speak not that they are trying to pull a fast one but it sometimes is what they are not telling you is the hard part

They have gotten better about writing there descriptions for their products in general and more importantly the way they write battery cell and pack and spare parts

I hope this helps your understanding of how I go about buying batteries from them

One other project that I going build is a battery pack for my tablets with some IPad iPhone battery packs that Walmart sold at one time they are decent but they have a pouch battery cell that

I am not fond of and it running time is horrible at best because the battery pack controller basically dumps all of power in a very short time

I tried a proof of concept with this controller and was impressed with it performance but like all of these battery packs that are designed to work with iPhone and iPad they keep track of the amount of amp hours when basically using the battery fuel gauge so in this case it would have be no more than 5 amp hours

But because I bought quite a bit of them when they were discontinued

I going to put several of them in one enclosure which I have several of them as well and

I did not pay much for them the battery cell that are in them are very close to the end of there useful life

I first bought a couple of them and tested them and I was curious to why they were not costing more than what they were asking for and it was not until

I was testing them I found out what was the reason for them not costing very much money here was a case that the description was that the voltage was only tested and were above 3.00 volts which they were but this is the risk that you take when it is only says voltage tested only ——->

——>This one project that I going to make solar I have some solar panels that I bought from Electronic Goldmine a few years ago when they were discontinuing them I also bought several of them this is the one that I made the comment about hacking the output of one of them to see if was feasible to get more current capacity of it was however how do you reseal it water tight again was the issue

[eccerr0r]

Yeah this is why I'm so hesitant on buying batteries... plus if I can't discharge to 0 then the usable capacity is lower and I'd have to buy more batteries...
Just don't know how much i can spend on waste if it turns out to be such...

[sam_sam_sam]

Yeah this is why I'm so hesitant on buying batteries... plus if I can't discharge to 0 then the usable capacity is lower and I'd have to buy more batteries...
Just don't know how much i can spend on waste if it turns out to be such...

I can only tell you about the one that I have personally tested myself for any of the ones that they offer I can only give you an education guess about your risk but you have to know your tolerance level is and work with it but what I can tell you is if says new they are new and I have bought several different ones that said they were new and I have had very good results when they said slightly used battery cells now what not as certain is when they say that they have been in service for several years I have not been willing to buy any of them yet because first of all I think they want to much money for them or the weight of them make the shipping cost to much for something that you are not sure of right now they do not have any available right now for me to show you an example of what I am talking about


https://batteryhookup.com/collection...cents-per-cell

Here is one that unless you are willing to take a chance of having bad cells that are not healthy enough to be usable stay away from this offer unless you can use the battery holder and it's enclosure which are very durable and very easy to use for holding your battery cell 18650 cells

Because I tested several of them and the results were as follows two of them were at the end of life sin drum and also known for being heater battery cells this well known brand but it is this series of battery cells that were used in this battery pack and couple of them tested just fine but there is no way of knowing before you buy them what you are getting even though the battery gauge shows one bar out of four but on the ones that test bad they were the ones that the one light was blinking or was not light but was very low on charge and this is what Battery Hookup is going by is dose the battery fuel gauge show anything at all

The description says that the BMS board works it does however the buyer needs to be aware of two issues one being do not push more than one amp or so other wise you will fry the controller board and it requires a special connector unless you put your on and I would not load it more than a couple of amps at the most or it might stop working on you

Battery Hookup use to sell a slim 12 volt battery pack that is easily hacked but unfortunately it has issues as well the battery cells were decent for what you paid for but the BMS protection board was extremely picky about how to use it and it was very easily damaged no more than an amp charging and no more than two amp load output and some times with that amount of load it would lock up and refuse to turn back on until you charged for a couple of minutes then it would start working again but they have not offered it again