PaulRainbow
Well-known member
As i said in post #36 "Those are B grade Envision cells."
£450 is not a good price, IMO
Lithium battery conversion
- Thread starter kevsbox
- Start date
£450 is not a good price, IMO
PaulRainbow
Well-known member
Thanks for confirming. Yes, i have the twin fixings, mine all lined up perfectly.
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geem
Well-known member
The issue of grade A and B is interesting. From living aboard with lithium for the last 18 months, I think Grade B should be perfectly acceptable for domestic battery use on a boat. I built my first battery with 8x 280Ah CATL grade A cells. These are excellent cells. I use a jk 200A bms with 2A active balancer. Although the battery runs some fairly large loads, the cells stay in good balance. The balancer has little to do.
If you use cells that need some balancing, then that's OK. That's what the active balancer is for. As an experiment, I have just built another 280Ah battery that I will run in parallel with my CATL cell battery. The second battery uses Envision grade B cells. So far, the cells have balanced up perfectly but the battery has not yet had a thorough test. Hopefully over the winter when I have it installed in parallel, I will be able to report back on how good these cells are and how they compare to high quality grade A cells in daily use
jac
Well-known member
Re the Battery you linked to - I had also spotted the EcoWOrthy. There are a few reviews of it from RV sites and the like. Not seen any complaints from anyone and someone did a tear down review of the 100Ah battery and said some favourable things re components.
Not seen anything re marine use though.
Not seen anything re marine use though.
geem
Well-known member
No Bluetooth so not suitable for marine use in my opinion
gaylord694
Active member
99% of batteries are made in China... I tried to buy Battle born from USA which are actually made there and the shipping costs were obscene.. Take a look at Will Prowse on YouTube as he puts most of the Chinese batteries through there paces... Ducon batteries come out very well with each battery cell very even regarding voltage and absolutely no bulging........
geem
Well-known member
Battleborn are nothing special and seriously over priced.
The cells are still Chinese.
Will Prowse never tests batteries specifically for marine use. He doesn't understand the importance of redundancy and the value of Bluetooth for marine applications.
On a boat, you never want the battery to do a shutdown. Cell balance is super important. If you cannot see this via Bluetooth, you have the wrong battery on your boat
gaylord694
Active member
That's why I said make sure you do your homework on buying , most now apart from the super cheap come with very good BMS so you can monitor cell balance
gaylord694
Active member
Oh and the battle born cells are made in Reno, Nevada under strict regulations and are only a handful of non-Chinese made cells
geem
Well-known member
Watch Will Prowse review of Battleborn. He says he does know why anybody would buy them
geem
Well-known member
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Trident
Well-known member
The older 280ah EVE cells had the single post - the newer ones have the twin post
I think the current 100AH cells also have the single post and are often used in ads for the larger ones
Trident
Well-known member
To me its a moot point - the Grade A cells are only £10 more than Grade B so why worry - even on a big pack the price difference is so low as to make savings pretty pointless.
geem
Well-known member
Maybe, but I can now test it and let you know. Two identical batteries side by side.
Trident
Well-known member
It's interesting - 3 years ago Will Prowse (who does a lot online and is certainly knowledgable but is at the end of the day a You Tube star and not the final word ) did a tear down test and rated Battleborn the best with Renogy second , but much cheaper , which convinced me to use Renogy for years . These had no bluetooth but a good monitoring display and never caused issues in years of daily use on many boats I fitted them to including my own. I assume you have seen something else he has done that is less favourable to Battleborn? Either way they are way to expensive and hard to come by in the UK (though they were certainly sold under a different name here)
However, cost and the better BMS systems available have now made EVE and JKS my go to - better and cheaper so what's not to like.
I find I look often at the JK Bluetooth which gives me more information than ever before - but I am not sure I benefit from it. My Renogy monitor acted like the smart shunt but also displayed warnings etc - never once in 4 years of heavy use with cooking etc did my Renogy shut down though or have a warning other than low temp which came in at 5 degrees so a bit early .
With the JK I can see individual cell balance and be warned if they get too far out, but of course that should never happen with the active balance which works perfectly. Mine are all the same to 3 decimal places except under heavy load where they lose the third decimal place and the BMS soon sorts that out. I guess what you are saying is that if one cel ever develops a fault I will see it sooner than perhaps the automatic protections might cut in? Certainly more information is good but I'm not certain that Bluetooth is essential compared to a wired monitor . I get what you are trying to say though.
I would add and this is quite important NOT all BT batteries display more than charge in and out and status and not all BT BMS do either. MOST DON'T on cheaper batteries which qualifies your comment I think Geem - what I am trying to say is just choosing something with BT is not enough - the BMS must be good enough to display useful information that way . Novices to this may not be discerning enough
However, cost and the better BMS systems available have now made EVE and JKS my go to - better and cheaper so what's not to like.
I find I look often at the JK Bluetooth which gives me more information than ever before - but I am not sure I benefit from it. My Renogy monitor acted like the smart shunt but also displayed warnings etc - never once in 4 years of heavy use with cooking etc did my Renogy shut down though or have a warning other than low temp which came in at 5 degrees so a bit early .
With the JK I can see individual cell balance and be warned if they get too far out, but of course that should never happen with the active balance which works perfectly. Mine are all the same to 3 decimal places except under heavy load where they lose the third decimal place and the BMS soon sorts that out. I guess what you are saying is that if one cel ever develops a fault I will see it sooner than perhaps the automatic protections might cut in? Certainly more information is good but I'm not certain that Bluetooth is essential compared to a wired monitor . I get what you are trying to say though.
I would add and this is quite important NOT all BT batteries display more than charge in and out and status and not all BT BMS do either. MOST DON'T on cheaper batteries which qualifies your comment I think Geem - what I am trying to say is just choosing something with BT is not enough - the BMS must be good enough to display useful information that way . Novices to this may not be discerning enough
gaylord694
Active member
Exactly
Trident
Well-known member
Perhaps but the variables make it invalid - what standards do CATL and EVE use to decide grades - I'll bet its not universal. You know what you are doing and you monitor heavily - so I doubt you will have nay issues with the B cells - the JK may work harder to keep them balances but should do so and you'll notice any issues quickly before they become a problem . Not everyone is as diligent or knowledgable though so for the small cost difference I think my comment stands. Its the same with the BMS - the JD BMS are good and used by many but right now the JK are better and the price is almost the same so people may as well choose the best available
gaylord694
Active member
The main thing is to have a good BMS system whilst onboard.
Trident
Well-known member
One further point with regard to comment above on the use with a bow thruster - Paul makes very good points about the packs in parallel and wiring them equally and so forth . To add to this I want to note - I built a system with 3 packs in parallel using the best components. I do this professionally. I made all balance wires equal and the BMS shows identical resistance in each one - almost unheard of - showing all my crimp terminals etc are identical. I have a charge and discharge bus bar - from BEP , of high quality and I cut my tinned multi strand cables to the same length to the millimetre and crimped the same tube terminals on at the same distance on every one with high quality crimpers that make a perfect join every time (for £300!! they bloody well better) and yet... one of my packs is always a little lower than the others until fully charged and has slightly lower charge amps going in (by about .2A)
The cells are 304AH nominally but tests show that some may be as high as 315ah , others 309 ah etc - never lower than 304 is the guarantee . Even with total precision in the putting together minute differences in cells, in the high quality bus bar construction, the fuse bar etc etc will make small differences and thus as Paul Rainbow said, if one pack is slightly different and the BMS shuts it off then the others will do so immediately too. The technology is safe and mature but there is not enough real world data in this application yet to cut margins fine. If I had a maximum inrush current of 600a as mentioned above I'd want 300a BMS on three packs and preferably 4
As Geem says, on a boat you cannot have the battery cut out for even a second
The cells are 304AH nominally but tests show that some may be as high as 315ah , others 309 ah etc - never lower than 304 is the guarantee . Even with total precision in the putting together minute differences in cells, in the high quality bus bar construction, the fuse bar etc etc will make small differences and thus as Paul Rainbow said, if one pack is slightly different and the BMS shuts it off then the others will do so immediately too. The technology is safe and mature but there is not enough real world data in this application yet to cut margins fine. If I had a maximum inrush current of 600a as mentioned above I'd want 300a BMS on three packs and preferably 4
As Geem says, on a boat you cannot have the battery cut out for even a second
Sea Change
Well-known member
Depends on what it's used for.
I set my boat up so that the lithium was only powering domestic systems, and I kept my old lead acid bank to do navigation gear, a handful of interior lights, and one heads.
Funnily enough, the only time this redundancy was needed was when the lead acid system failed, due to corrosion in an isolator.
