getting ready to purchase any thoughts?

[hjohnson]

One other thing, reading through your list, the Lynx BMS won’t do you any good if you don’t buy Victron batteries. It’s designed exclusively to communicate with Victron batteries through the serial links.

[jt11791]

Originally Posted by sailingharry

I fully understand the theoretical reasoning for this. But has anyone actually documented just how important this is in real life?


* In modest (say under 100A) total load, the voltage drop difference between a 10" 2/0 cable and a 20" 2/0 cable is unmeasurable, but the one with the longer cable will still provide some slightly reduced amount of power compared to the one with the longer cable.
* On the flip side, in modest charge, the one with the shortest cable (remember, it provided a few small percentages more power under load) will get some unmeasurably larger charge rate -- mitigating the larger discharge rate.
* But most importantly, for huge percentages of the day, the batteries are under extremely low load/charge rates (under 10A). In this situation, the batteries are "balancing" -- any battery that has a slightly lower voltage (ie, lower SOC) will be sucking power off the one with the slightly higher voltage.


We've heard this mantra for decades, from back in the days of FLA and then AGM and then LFP. And a rule like this has a nasty habit of forming and then never being validated.


Has anyone actually provided real world studies/data to support the importance of this? Or even provided real-world calculations (ie, the difference in voltage between 10" and 20" is 13, millivolts, so the amp difference is .25A, so when one battery is at 50% SOC, the other is at 50.5% SOC, but on recharge it doesn't equal out and one gets to 99.8% SOC and never balances out).

I have four ReLion 300Ah batteries for the house loads. Due to space constraints, they are located in two different places, so two banks of two batteries, and the cable lengths to each bank are different. This results in bank one charging and discharing faster than bank two. So what? Other than possibly wearing out one before two, what is the downside? I've been running this way three years now and I haven't found any problems. I suppose after 1000 cycles I can swap the batteries and let the lazy pair do the harder work for awhile, but is that even necessary? Thus far, I've seen zero decrease in capacity for any of the batteries.

[NapaSojourner]

ok wow the epoch 300amp hour Batteries are listed at $1199... that is what about 60% the price of the other options. they look like a relatively new company and there warranty information is a little light... how well received have they been? its a pretty large amount to spend on a maybe thing, I would hate to have $4000 in orphaned tech... or 3 years out have to replace theme because of poor warranty support.

[The Yacht Rigger]

Originally Posted by NapaSojourner

ok wow the epoch 300amp hour Batteries are listed at $1199... that is what about 60% the price of the other options. they look like a relatively new company and there warranty information is a little light... how well received have they been? its a pretty large amount to spend on a maybe thing, I would hate to have $4000 in orphaned tech... or 3 years out have to replace theme because of poor warranty support.

So far we've heard very good things about Epoch.
Just did an install with them last week, but obviously short term doesn't help you.
IMO most Lifepo4 battery warranties are a bit of a joke, most of them are the same in that they primarily guarantee against manufacturing defects - and those will show up in the first few years or more likely days or weeks - once you've had your batteries a few years there is usually all kinds of small print regarding charge rates, cycles, etc. that I imagine they would use against any claims. Anecdotally, we've been installing Lifepo4 since 2018 and have never had a single claim on any units that we have been made aware of - across many brands.