LiFePO4 Batteries: Discussion Thread for Those Using Them as House Banks

[OTTCT]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"As soon as the first guy sues his condo board,"
The lawyers will go dine on the town and the condo boards will ROFL. There's no legal basis for a lawsuit, since condo (co-op, etc) parking spots are usually in lots or garages, which are governed by bylaws and leases and contracts, none of which require the boards to spend tens of thousands of dollars installing new utility fixtures and repaving the lot to get the cables installed. Sure, the unit owners might be able to sue for right to install their own power lines. Might. That's a long shot and it would require the owners to spend lots of money, because those are "commercial" installations not simply dropping a line in your home garage.


Any honest lawyer would charge you for two or ten hours, the time it can take to read a full set of condo governing contracts and bylaws, modified over the years, and then roll the dice as to whether there was a chance in hell. And then he'd probably tell you it would be cheaper, simpler and about five years faster to just MOVE. It would take three to five years just to have that get to court in many cities.


Contract doesn't place any obligation on the owner to "electrify" spots, pay added insurance, and all those other good things? Nope. Can't force them to do it, unless it goes all the way up to the US Supreme Court as a public policy matter first. Ten years?


Yeah, sure there's a snowball's chance in hell. I'd play the lottery first, if I was in the mood to gamble. Better payback too.

Hellosailor

20 years ago I sued my condo board over $6, they spent 3 years and $50,000 in lawyer fees & lost.

Calif just passed a law if you replace your house roof, you now must install R38 insulation they don't give a dam what it costs.

Other places if you sell your house, you gotta spend $10k for new sewer line to the street connection No choice.

The legislature does all kinds of black magic With special smoke & mirrors.

They don't believe in property rights like you & me , the calif 9 circuit is the most liberal court in the land, sup court only takes cases it wants to.

Welcome to California

[mcarling]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Of course with no way for many prime urban customers (short range trips) to recharge EVs, that market may just never materialize. (You know, just try to get condo boards to install "personal" charging stations, or get any type of landlord to allow "tenants" to install charging stations. Ain't gonna happen.)

Perhaps I'm lucky. I live in a 96 unit complex and my landlord is green-minded. I asked for a charging station in the garage and it was provided, at no cost to me (I did have to wait about two weeks). I even get a discount on the parking space, despite not having to pay for the electricity. My car will never drip oil.

[OTTCT]

Hellosailor

Here is current Calif condo law, as you see it gets changed all the time.

What You Need to Know: The New Davis-Stirling Act | Educational Community for Homeowners (ECHO)

Sorry to get off topic here.

[Arthur Garfield]

electrical energy storage is priced in $Kwh- $ per kilowatt hour.Tesla currently buys their batts from Panosonic for $186.00 for 1 Kilowatt hour batts.
Thinking in AH is incorrect within industry.
Additionally,the "watts per liter" metric is often used.Highest attained in working units is 1.2 KwH density per liter.
Projections are for $100 KwH batts by 2025 or sooner.10 years out.
This pricing will end 120 years of IC engines as we know them.

Next gen of Batts are called "flow storage" batts.Entirely different chemistry without possibility of fire nor explosion.


All the Best

[roetter]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

alctel-
You talk of chargers springing up, but I think you're mistaking visibility with penetration.


Consider, in the outer boroughs of NYC there can be 2000-5000 residents on each block. Approximately 200 (20 x 10) blocks to the square mile. Now, most rely on mass transit but many have cars. In fact, the streets are lined with parked cars--and none of those will be served by charging stations, because parking spots are hard to find, and unless there's a charging post AT every sport, every 20' down the street, they effectively won't exist for the car owners. Same thing for off-street garaged cars, the garages are owned by landlords or condos, etc. and if there are 50-100 cars in a garage? Again, EVERY spot must have a charger installed because the spots are not rotated, and on one will give up the income by creating a "charging spot" for rotating use. The cars "live" in one spot.


Same thing in DC, Boston...the highly visible chargers you see may make it more rational for EV owners to "come downtown and recharge while you're here" but they are still serving the suburban customers, not the urban residents who need one charger installed at every "permanent" parking spot before they become of any use.

You don't need a charger. Just an outlet and you are good to go. 240V would be good though. Met a guy in Florida with a Tesla. Lives in an appartment. Gets his juice for free in the underground parking - for now.

[OTTCT]

Originally Posted by Arthur Garfield

electrical energy storage is priced in $Kwh- $ per kilowatt hour.Tesla currently buys their batts from Panosonic for $186.00 for 1 Kilowatt hour batts.
Thinking in AH is incorrect within industry.
Additionally,the "watts per liter" metric is often used.Highest attained in working units is 1.2 KwH density per liter.
Projections are for $100 KwH batts by 2025 or sooner.10 years out.
This pricing will end 120 years of IC engines as we know them.

Next gen of Batts are called "flow storage" batts.Entirely different chemistry without possibility of fire nor explosion.


All the Best

Arthur

I hope your right, I'll be in line for one of those batteries.I just paid 65 cents for some older CALB 100 AH, so that's $260 for 1280 watts. So ballpark you hit the bullseye, I was estimating cells are costing 55 per ah to manufacture.

Just talked with some RV"S they are still 10 years away from LiFeP04.
They are still 99% flooded or AGM and whale oil , so boat guys are light years ahade.

Cheers OTTCT

[OTTCT]

Originally Posted by Arthur Garfield

electrical energy storage is priced in $Kwh- $ per kilowatt hour.Tesla currently buys their batts from Panosonic for $186.00 for 1 Kilowatt hour batts.
Thinking in AH is incorrect within industry.
Additionally,the "watts per liter" metric is often used.Highest attained in working units is 1.2 KwH density per liter.
Projections are for $100 KwH batts by 2025 or sooner.10 years out.
This pricing will end 120 years of IC engines as we know them.

Next gen of Batts are called "flow storage" batts.Entirely different chemistry without possibility of fire nor explosion.


All the Best

Arthur

I was just doing some "sifern" if I spelled that right. Now I paid around $300 per KWH For my 1,250ah - 16kw Winston bank, lots of folks are paying $500 a KWH & your saying they are predicting that by 2025 the price would be down to $100 a KWH ?

If that were possible or true - then gov would have to find a way to tax it back up to $300 -$500 per KWH- those kinda dream prices for consumers would be a nightmare for the car and the oil & the utility industry and who knows what else would crash. The oil industry alone is worth over $20 trillion dollars. While I would love to see it, don't think it will happen in our lifetime.

At least not on the consumer level , industrial storage level maybe.

Cheers OTTCT

[offpist]

Testing out the fitment of the batteries.
I am making an custom battery case in aluminium for the two batteries located in the center of the boat.

Waiting for the 70MM2 connectors with M12 ring to arrive.

Here you can see the display provided by REC-BMS.
Its touch screen, so there are 6 different "sides" with information.

[hellosailor]

Aluminum case? Alloy resistant to salt corrosion, one hopes. Or heavily coated.

[offpist]

Yes it will be coated for protection.

If the battery case under the bed should become under water some day, that battery case will be the least of my problems

[Maine Sail]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Aluminum case? Alloy resistant to salt corrosion, one hopes. Or heavily coated.

????? If those batteries are getting salt water on them he has a lot more to worry about than the aluminum case... Sheesh, and I guess the tens of thousands of aluminum boats or aluminum spars or aluminum Fortress anchors, that ply the waters of the world, are going to corrode and fall apart at any minute too.....

[hellosailor]

I wasn't thinking of flooding, but rather we had a custom alternator pulley fabbed up some years ago and it was a question of "this is what I've got" and even in the dry closed engine space, the pulley was coated with white powder (oxide) in under two weeks. Ditto for an aluminum panel box, inside the companionway, that was used for some electronics.

Some of the alloys just don't like salt air. At all.


Maine-
"the tens of thousands of aluminum boats"
Are you being cute? Or having memory loss? Surely you've heard of "aluminum" yachts that sank after someone dropped a penny in the bilge and the aluminum protested being kept near a dissimilar metal and electrolyte. Aluminum alloys for HULLS, masts, and other boat parts are chosen very carefully for corrosion resistance. Aluminum plate, bought at a welding supply or scrapyard, often is "Alloy xxx", just sold as aluminum. On land, that's often quite good enough.

[OTTCT]

Originally Posted by offpist

Testing out the fitment of the batteries.
I am making an custom battery case in aluminium for the two batteries located in the center of the boat.

Waiting for the 70MM2 connectors with M12 ring to arrive.

Here you can see the display provided by REC-BMS.
Its touch screen, so there are 6 different "sides" with information.

it does look like a nice BMS , if one is inclined to get one ?



REC d.o.o.

[Maine Sail]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

I wasn't thinking of flooding, but rather we had a custom alternator pulley fabbed up some years ago and it was a question of "this is what I've got" and even in the dry closed engine space, the pulley was coated with white powder (oxide) in under two weeks. Ditto for an aluminum panel box, inside the companionway, that was used for some electronics.

Some of the alloys just don't like salt air. At all.


Maine-
"the tens of thousands of aluminum boats"
Are you being cute? Or having memory loss? Surely you've heard of "aluminum" yachts that sank after someone dropped a penny in the bilge and the aluminum protested being kept near a dissimilar metal and electrolyte. Aluminum alloys for HULLS, masts, and other boat parts are chosen very carefully for corrosion resistance. Aluminum plate, bought at a welding supply or scrapyard, often is "Alloy xxx", just sold as aluminum. On land, that's often quite good enough.

Sounds like what ever you got was found in a back alley in China.... Are you sure it was not high zinc alloy....

This Seafrost pulley, mounted to the crank pulleys, was milled by Cleave Horton approx 25 years ago. All that was done when the ribbed belt kit was added as that approx 1/8" was milled off the back side to accommodate for the thickness of the new pulley kit..

After 25 years the non-anodized aluminum pulley was simply wiped clean of belt dust and reinstalled. It continues to drive that SeaFrost compressor to this day. The boat winters in the BVI, currently in Soper's, where it is really, really humid.. Not too difficult to buy a decent alloy these days...

[offpist]

Originally Posted by OTTCT

it does look like a nice BMS , if one is inclined to get one ?
REC d.o.o.

Then one you have in the link will also work, but I recommend this one:
REC d.o.o.

Its ACTIVE, meaning it does not only drain the highest cell like passive BMS.

It will take power from the highest cell, and convert to the lowest. More efficient and produces almost no heat.

They are located in Slovenia, but are very quick to answer any questions and very service minded. Shipping to Norway was only 2-3 days.

I know they are working on an interface to NMEA2000. And then you can convert NMEA2000 to both Masterbus and Victron bus.

The CAN interface is already there, so all it needs is an FW update, and this you can do yourself.