Chinese batterys plus other expensive bits needs ordering.

I was planning on making some temporary links this weekend. Fortunately the hydraulic crimper, crimp terminals and wire turned up today. Going home early I picked up some flange nuts, so in the morning I’ll bolt it up and try giving it a charge. Hopefully there shouldn’t be to much imbalance.

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All good, that looks lovely.
I wanted my front teeth for Christmas once ! I now want Chinese batteries.
Are you compression or free standing ?
 
1 Cup said:
All good, that looks lovely.
I wanted my front teeth for Christmas once ! I now want Chinese batteries.
Are you compression or free standing ?
Click to expand...
I’ve decided life is to short and I’m not prepared to mess around to much. I’m just going to make a simple pocketed box lined with high density foam. No top or bottoming balancing. Even the idea of heating them seems overkill. Just a small duct from your plumbed air heating should be enough for them if they are inside. An idea Wildebus mentioned.
Today I put a 12 amp charger on the pack for a couple of hours. I would have liked to have run it for longer, but the table was required for another job.
Observations.
Very little voltage drift so that is good.
Using a 12 amp charger is like urinating to put a house fire out.
I think Betty’s solar array will be like using a tea spoon to top up a bath tub.
Also the battery charger gets hot enough to cook an egg. Don’t forget to ventilate them.

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500 amps will ron van for five days min. In south england we only have cold snaps. Most vans are just parked / stored ! At that time. I think its overkill but mine are inside van , near heat duct pipe
30 amp charger is the min needed I think. A 50amp should warm batteries cells while at charge.
 
I do only have a baby motorbike but.....
With my 200 ah battery I am so pleased that my victron li ct charges off the alternator/starter battery at 40 to 60 amps. I estimate 60 amp at first and 40 amp as the batteries near full. With my use I could be in a Scottish winter for 5 days and recharge in about 4 hours of driving. That is so much better than a 30 amp b2b and my old 80ah AGM . That never charged at 30 amp for more than 10 minutes before dropping finally to single figures.
Extrapolating to your capacity I would go for at least 50 amp or even more.
 
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Ill have to grow into my van as all the stuff is so expensive for what they are ! As I have no buget, but want the most robust system. I know very little about best item for the job ! So bits and pieces are added as needed, after reading up on the experiences from others. So victron is the most talked about , with 5 years guarantee.
I chosen them for van and by the summer I should have the batteries I want to.

Now have 30ah solar controller, b2b 30ah and a smart shunt, 100 ah battery. 200w solar the only over kill I want is the Chinese batteries. But I'm getting brave, £500 in 3 months is good going in my world.



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Buy wisely and you can resell items when you change :)

You do get occasional bargains popping up on eBay for Victron kit where an organisation is revamping their install.
 
Derekoak said:
I do only have a baby motorbike but.....
With my 200 ah battery I am so pleased that my victron li ct charges off the alternator/starter battery at 40 to 60 amps. I estimate 60 amp at first and 40 amp as the batteries near full. With my use I could be in a Scottish winter for 5 days and recharge in about 4 hours of driving. That is so much better than a 30 amp b2b and my old 80ah AGM . That never charged at 30 amp for more than 10 minutes before dropping finally to single figures.
Extrapolating to your capacity I would go for at least 50 amp or even more.
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I'm not doing any electric cooking in Betty. So my demands for the Betty build are humble. Even though Murky is very efficient, I'm hoping the 24 volt system on Betty will be better. What I'm planning is being able to smile during a week or so of rain with out having to use the generator.
The idea of making the local lights go dim whilst charging is not good.
 
First an apology for my predictive text obviously it wanted motorbike when I wrote motorhome.
Yes charging on hookup is another matter. There are obviously restrictions. We always wildcamp and do not have a hookup cable. My only alternative to solar, is charging whilst driving. So it has been a revelation to get 60 to 40 amps of that as opposed to 30 amps for 10 minutes dscending to lower values for the rest of our sometimes short journeys. We are in Valencia in December, maybe getting 10 ah daily from solar and may only drive for 20 minutes to the next day's walk or even stay in place for another day. Now our leisure battery is no worry.
 
1 Cup said:
Ill have to grow into my van as all the stuff is so expensive for what they are ! As I have no buget, but want the most robust system. I know very little about best item for the job ! So bits and pieces are added as needed, after reading up on the experiences from others. So victron is the most talked about , with 5 years guarantee.
I chosen them for van and by the summer I should have the batteries I want to.

Now have 30ah solar controller, b2b 30ah and a smart shunt, 100 ah battery. 200w solar the only over kill I want is the Chinese batteries. But I'm getting brave, £500 in 3 months is good going in my world.



.
Click to expand...
Exactly the same for me and that’s the way I did it, buying something as I hit a bottleneck. I am not sure that I didn’t make a mistake buying the 2xVictron 30amp chargers rather than a second hand 50/60amp Votronic but I wanted to rule out kit being faulty. Certainly silly money when you look over 30amp chargers, even at 30amp it is bad enough. My current bottle neck is my genny will only run one charger at once, it’s never ending 😳
 
i store my motorhome at a local farm only about a mile from the house because i have solar panels on the roof the farmers son decided i was obviously an expert (if he only knew) and has been explaining his plans to power his stables etc by solar he was very excitedly showing me this printout of an e bay advert for modules from ex car batteries, though apparently he has now moved on to buying a new full replacement pack for a nissan leaf at a subsidised price of £4500 for 40kwh to replace the earlier models with a 30kwh or i think that’s what he said , i just wondered whether these repurposed veh batteries might be a way to go in the future,
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Interesting.

Doing some maths ....
7.6V battery with 410Wh Capacity - converting to numbers people like to think of for Leisure Batteries, that is 53Ah@7.6V
For a typical 12V system, you would need a pair of them in series (to double the voltage) and drop the voltage through a converter to make it suitable for a 12V system, giving you maybe 12V @85Ah (minimal losses in conversion and no power wasted - a big if)
And you then need a Charging system which will run at 16.8V (8.4V is quoted as the fully charged voltage and you are in series so doubling up). That would be a challenge I think.

A typical 12V 100Ah Lead acid battery is quoted as having 1200Wh (12V 100Ah Lithium is 1280Wh), so ignoring any voltage complications, they are a third of the power. To get in the realm of 1200Wh, you need 3 of them, which would be £225.
Not bad if they were lithium batteries pre-packaged, but for what would be a DIY build, more expensive I think than brand new cells that would be a lot easier to configure, use and recharge.

I think there a few people who have repurposed Leaf Batteries in the US, but I don't know if they would do so now and doubt it at that kind of price.
 
wildebus said:
Interesting.

Doing some maths ....
7.6V battery with 410Wh Capacity - converting to numbers people like to think of for Leisure Batteries, that is 53Ah@7.6V
For a typical 12V system, you would need a pair of them in series (to double the voltage) and drop the voltage through a converter to make it suitable for a 12V system, giving you maybe 12V @85Ah (minimal losses in conversion and no power wasted - a big if)
And you then need a Charging system which will run at 16.8V (8.4V is quoted as the fully charged voltage and you are in series so doubling up). That would be a challenge I think.

A typical 12V 100Ah Lead acid battery is quoted as having 1200Wh (12V 100Ah Lithium is 1280Wh), so ignoring any voltage complications, they are a third of the power. To get in the realm of 1200Wh, you need 3 of them, which would be £225.
Not bad if they were lithium batteries pre-packaged, but for what would be a DIY build, more expensive I think than brand new cells that would be a lot easier to configure, use and recharge.

I think there a few people who have repurposed Leaf Batteries in the US, but I don't know if they would do so now and doubt it at that kind of price.
Click to expand...

I wonder if splitting the modules (2 parallel, then 2 series) into individual cells is an option? Then join them up series to make 12V
 
You'd be better off getting the Chinese, than taking that chance and trouble. 896 watts per cell as supplied. 280ah @3.2 volts
 
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