Cheap China lifepo batteries

[barnab]

I've been considering new batteries for a while now and have basically ruled out building myself from cells. I prefer a battery that's been engineered by someone who knows what he's doing.


Looking at the prices I'm a bit surprised to find Victron 300ah to be around 3300 Euros while I can get a 300ah from China for like 600 Euros (both without shipping). So I'm wondering what are the differences between the two batteries? Has anyone ordered batteries from China?

[tkeithlu]

There's a current post on this somewhere around here. Apparently the failure rate on the chinese cheapos is high, so you have to be willing to allow for that.

That said, do you really need Li-ion batteries? They are lighter for the amp-hours, but many times as expensive per amp-hour as flooded or AGM. A 300 Amp hour flooded or AGM is about $150 US. EUR 125.

[dkenny64]

Originally Posted by tkeithlu

There's a current post on this somewhere around here. Apparently the failure rate on the chinese cheapos is high, so you have to be willing to allow for that.

That said, do you really need Li-ion batteries? They are lighter for the amp-hours, but many times as expensive per amp-hour as flooded or AGM. A 300 Amp hour flooded or AGM is about $150 US. EUR 125.

just wondering if you have a link of where to get AGM or FLA for $150 for 300ah?


thanks
-dkenny64

[tkeithlu]

dKenny, I thought you might have caught me, because I looked at an online price without checking the fine print. But, digging a little deeper, here's a Duracell AGM deep cycle with 92 hours at 20 amps. The Duracells from Sam's Club have gotten good reviews on the forum.

https://www.samsclub.com/p/marine-27...=plp_product_2

[dkenny64]

Originally Posted by tkeithlu

dKenny, I thought you might have caught me, because I looked at an online price without checking the fine print. But, digging a little deeper, here's a Duracell AGM deep cycle with 92 hours at 20 amps. The Duracells from Sam's Club have gotten good reviews on the forum.

https://www.samsclub.com/p/marine-27...=plp_product_2

those are 92ah batteries not 300ah.. big difference. just wondering because
I'm looking to going to lifepo4.. not lithium-ion.


-dkenny64

[codingparadox]

I just installed 6 of these two weeks ago: https://www.electriccarpartscompany....m-battery-pack

So far, working great. And ECPC covers the warranty in the states, don't have to deal with China. Seems to be the best hybrid of not quite as cheap as the cheapest scary bottom of the Chinese barrel, but still great form factor and performance. And way way cheaper than any of the "US-made" (i.e. imported, tested, and reassembled Chinese cells) units.

[chrisr]

in my experience chinese can produce quality stuff but then the price is similar to other sources.

irrespective of the origin or the product : if something is less than 20% of the competition price i'd be very suspicious !

btw : we use SLA batteries which here in Oz are abt A$250 for 140ah v Lithium say A$1000 for 200ah. it's getting pretty close to worth changing nest time...

cheers,

[Scubaseas]

I've been shopping around as I need a new bank also and found very roughly.
FLA $1.50/AH
AGM $2.25 to 3.35/AH
Firefly (carbon foam AGM) $4.68/AH
Battleborn LFP $9/AH (10 year warrantee) "drop in"
Dakota Lithium LFP $8.14/AH (11 year warrantee) "drop in"
Electric car CALB or Fortune grade A well rated LFP prismatic cells $5 to $5/75/AH but add a BMS to that. You can get cheapy "drop ins" that have a BMS for around $6.50 to $8/AH.

Grade B no Q code Alibaba no return, might be used, pig in a poke as cheap as $1.54/AH for bare cells. Add a BMS and hope they work.

Seems if you want a warrantee or a US based reputable supplier you are going to pay for it. Grade A LFP seem to be around $5 to $6.5/AH for bare prismatic cells and more for name brand like Winston, CALB, Fortune. Add for a BMS.

Then remember you may need disconnects, charge regulators, B2B chargers etc. to change from a FLA or AGM to LFP.

[codingparadox]

ECPC is 2000$/400Ah@12V for the BestGo Preferred packs, and you can get slight discounts if you buy more than 2 or so. So that gets you to 5$/Ah with a full BMS and weatherproof case. And they're wayyyy denser than the Dakota/Battleborns. The "drop-in" replacements are full of foam because Lithium cells have so much more energy density. So if you really want to get more capacity, give a different form factor a try.

In virtually the same exact space (the rectangle was ~1" wider) I went from 780Ah of AGM 4Ds to 1600Ah of LiFePO4 with these. That's almost 4x the useful capacity on anchor, because that's ~300Ah (50-85% charge cycles) of AGM vs ~1200Ah (20-95%) with the LiFePO4.

[sailingchiro]

Just recvd quote for 3.2v 280Ah prismatic cells with shipping included for about $100 each. I will be getting 16 total and about 1120 Ah at 12 volts. I have two banks, 12volt and 24 volts. My 24 volts is solar, refrigerations, and inverter. I used the BYD Lifepo4 5kw batteries x 2. They actually only store 7.6kw at 24 volt but were cheap but heavy.

Lifepo4's are coming down in price as well as growing in capacity. Personally, I will sit on hands until we get USA suppliers in the same price point as the China manufactures. I am guessing 3-6 months.

I didn't have any problems with hooking up the BMS.

Lifepo4 batteries are a game changer and prices are dropping very fast. Just a year ago, we couldn't find 100Ah cells for cheaper than $150. Now we have 280Ah for $100.

[Davidhoy]

If you're comparing prices of batteries, you have to take cycle life into account, you should not compare on Ah alone. On a $/cycle basis, lithium is *far* cheaper than all the others.

After much research and planning, I ordered twenty four CATL 310Ah cells (for $89 each, plus shipping/duties) and, once received, will be configuring them as six 12V nominal batteries, each with a dedicated 120A-capable medical-grade BMS. These batteries will be paralleled to create a 1860Ah bank, replacing three Deka 8D AGMs (I'm keeping a fourth one to dedicate to my thruster and windlass). I'm a firmware engineer, with extensive experience in marine electronics, so I'm creating a NMEA 2000 device that will monitor all six of the BMS's, reporting their status on the N2K network. The ability to monitor the status of your lithium batteries is a key provision in ABYC's relatively new recommendations for lithium installs - if you have access to the ABYC standards look at document TE-13 from July 2020.

Regards,
David

[tedowens]

I bought 2 x 200 Ah LiPO4 batteries from GSL-Energy in China about a year ago. I have been very happy with them. I didn't want to pay the high price of brand name batteries or have to build my own from scratch. Considering the big price difference, I decided to give the Chinese ones a try (I suspect that they are all built in China, but I don't really know). I have been very happy with them. They are much more robust than AGMs. They take high discharge rates (toaster, microwave) and they take high charge rates. The only change that I made to my system is to add a DC-DC charger to protect my alternator. My battery charger had a Gel Cell charging cycle that was close enough to what they need. And, my solar chargers had a Li setting.

[Nightsky]

Originally Posted by tkeithlu

There's a current post on this somewhere around here. Apparently the failure rate on the chinese cheapos is high, so you have to be willing to allow for that.

That said, do you really need Li-ion batteries? They are lighter for the amp-hours, but many times as expensive per amp-hour as flooded or AGM. A 300 Amp hour flooded or AGM is about $150 US. EUR 125.

Worth a watch.. This guy makes a lot of sense, and not just anecdotal stuff you usually hear. Granted, we aren't talking Battleborn's in this thread, but generically about liFePO's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy3hga_P5YY

[Nightsky]

One other thing to consider when discussing Li vs FLA's. I had a 12v nominal bank consisting of three 8D AGM of 245(?)Ah capacity each. To keep that bank healthy, I was running generator average 4 hrs per day. I switched to a 12v nominal LiFePO (900 Ah) bank. I upgraded my solar from a 735W bank to 3 banks totalling about 2100W. The Lithium bank will live happily, day after day, anywhere between 20-90% SOC. Since January 20th (my last oil change on Genny), I've run the generator for 23.4 hrs. Having to run the generator has become a rare event when it used to be a significant part of daily life. We have run the main engine for 113.5 hrs since Jan 25th. Last time we were at a marina was on Jan 3rd, when we cleared in to Bimini, and that was for 1 night only and we didn't hook up to shore power. Lithium batteries do NOT need to be charged to full to maintain their health. To me, this is the biggest difference we have observed. Further benefits will kick in with longer life, reduced weight, no maintenance on batteries, less generator maintenance, reduce fuel, oil and filter consumption, etc. You can't just compare published $/Ah. There is much more to the equation, including intangibles like peace and quiet.

[Valmika]

I like this guy. He's young but seems to be well researched and knowledgeable. Has a lot of different videos on chinese batteries and puts them through their paces.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCC_3LoLYuw&t=348s