LifeBatt HPS battery purchase

M

miro13car

100 kW
Joined
Mar 26, 2007
Messages
1,905
Location
Calgary, Canada
Hi!
As few of you remember I purchased 36V10Ah battery from LifeBatt with 8A charger.
Cost $1050 including $35 duty and taxes.
$750 battery, $175 charger.
I was dealing with Don.
I ordered giving credit card info over tel.
Battery arrived by UPS from Taiwan exactely the day it was scheduled.
Because it was AIR UPS I didn't pay brokerage fee, it is pay by sender if goes by UPS air.
But if UPS ground it is collected from receiver and here great warning for Canadians:
always request US sender to use ALWAYS US post - USPS, not ANY courier.
Example:
for package valued $100 crossing US/Can border UPS collects $40 (!!!!) brokerage fee and USsender only pays $15.
Battery was nicely packed in sturdy carboard/not soft type/ box with like 5cm emty space all around box with foam inserts.
Battery was fully charged in voltage read 40.1V.
Charger very nice, the best I ever saw in metal enclosure with first class assembly turned out to be faulty one.
Orange light never came on, never turned to green , however charger charged battery to full voltage.
I chargerd battery more than 10 times without knowing when to turn off charger.
After consultation with tech support Don agreed to exchange it for exact the same type.
And he did it fast even before charger from me arrived to him.
He not only shipped replacement charger .
Don also refunded me all shipping charges which I paid and infamous, inflated UPS $40 brokerage fee.
So it was very nice on his part and show care for customer.
Tell me everybody how many companies would do it???

Thank you Don, you went out your way extra mile.
Replacement charger works like a charm, after 8km ride it takes just 15 min to fully charge.
About battery:
First of all I tested it on power restricted for Canadian market TidalForce bicycle.
Restricted controller by sofware will never pull more than 48 A from battery.
MY SIXTH RIDE:
bike pulled easly 47-48A every time under heavy acceleration.
Battery easly delivered 11.5AH before LVC beep. Terrain mosly flat with one 500m 20% uphill.
maybe 20% of time v. light pedalling. Many times typical1500W delivered for couple of seconds/TF controller will not allow for more/ , 10-12 A for many minutes at the time. I would say average amps: 10A during trip. I covered 38km and battery was easly delivering 45A at the end of trip. Min V was 35V for seconds when I accelerated under full throttle.


This battery doesn't have any kind of LVC cut off, it beeps 3 long beeps when dangerously low V on any cell is approaching and beeps again continously when critical low V is detected on any of 12 cells. I never reached that stage and don't want to reach. You know why.


Best
MC
 
:shock:

The nominal 360 WH battery cost $750? That's $2.08/Wh! Even the 2.2Ah 36V dewalt packs(A123) at $130 market price are $1.65/WH and those are A123s! But, granted, their BMS isn't nearly as effective and it seems the newest version isn't compatible straight out of the box(Just requires some hacking) with e-Bike projects.

That must be one effective BMS for the price you paid. It sounds like it with the per-cell monitoring. It's nice it gives the user the choice of damaging the batteries from over-discharge and it makes it obvious before it's about to.
 
Its good to hear about good service at the high end of the price spectrum! If I ever need superior technology and power, I will remember this!
otherDoc
 
Way to go Lifebatt! Thier service is definitly two steps above any other battery vendor I have ever dealt with 8)
 
swbluto said:
:shock:

The nominal 360 WH battery cost $750? That's $2.08/Wh!
Click to expand...
Also, remember that those BMI cells have been shown to provide over 5000 recharge cycles so they will last many years more than most other competitors. You'll actually save money over the life of the battery. Maybe we need another way to measure the value. Something like price/watt hour/recharge that amoritzies the price over the expected battery life. Otherwise you're comparing apples to oranges.
 
swbluto said:
:shock:

The nominal 360 WH battery cost $750? That's $2.08/Wh! Even the 2.2Ah 36V dewalt packs(A123) at $130 market price are $1.65/WH and those are A123s! But, granted, their BMS isn't nearly as effective and it seems the newest version isn't compatible straight out of the box(Just requires some hacking) with e-Bike projects.

Before I was riding on 2S2P Milwaukee in theory 9Ah, they also delivered 48A easly, but I couold never got really close to 9aH even with pedalling. Real pain with battery made from tool packs is charging. I was using 9 packs for 2S2P , should I carry 9 chargers on my bike? Imagine all those switches needed for switching, all those connectors - real pain.
Of course you can build packs from cells, next you have to use home-made BMS, tune it, etc., etc.
MC
Click to expand...
 
mcstar said:
swbluto said:
:shock:

The nominal 360 WH battery cost $750? That's $2.08/Wh!
Click to expand...
Also, remember that those BMI cells have been shown to provide over 5000 recharge cycles so they will last many years more than most other competitors. You'll actually save money over the life of the battery. Maybe we need another way to measure the value. Something like price/watt hour/recharge that amoritzies the price over the expected battery life. Otherwise you're comparing apples to oranges.
Click to expand...

True. Perhaps a certain amount of WH delivered before it reaches below a certain capacity percentage threshold under "Standard" discharge conditions?

But, for right now, once you get cells that go above 2000 cycles, the more comparable factor is shelf-life as most people are not going to be discharging more than 365 cycles in a year. And "A123" and "PSI"/"Life-batt" are certainly more comparable in that regard.
 
Yes, I agree about the shelf-life statement. At this point we don't really know what the shelf-life of the different LIFEPO4 batteries will be. I suppose we'll be the ones to find out first hand. I suppose this is sort of a gamble from that regard. I'm betting based on the documents I've read about LiFePo4 that it will be more stable that lithium ion and should go at least 5 years or more, but that could be optimistic. At 5 years I'll be at at around 25,000 miles. That's about break even with the foil packs in ROI. At least I'll be in great shape by then :) With Lead acids, shelf-life is not as much of an issue since typical ebike usage tends to hit their recharge limits within a year. I know from the power scooter industry that I work in that the average life of SLAs is about 18months. That's even with good float charging.
 
Here is what I can say about "shelf life" with LiFePO4: With the growing demand for this battery chemistry, and the potential market out there for EV and Storage, once automation is fully realized the supply will probably not meet the demand for a few years which pretty much makes "shelf life" a moot point. In other words the cells will be installed in product and shipped out within a few weeks of being mfg. This means that they will find their way into actual usage in a very short time period, so the whole issue of "shelf life" is just not all that significant. Best practices for LiFePO4 mfg. should include a QC protocol where any cells that have been sitting on the shelf past 28 days are completely re-tested and cell balances restored before going into a finished product. Those that can't be brought back to original spec. would go into the re-cycling bin. At least that is how we do it @ LiFeBATT. :mrgreen:

Don Harmon
 
Don, I think you're completely misunderstanding what we are talking about. We aren't talking about the concept of shelf life where products sit in a warehouse and age substanitally before getting to the customer. We are assuming that's pretty negligable for these batteries. What we are talking about is after the product gets to the customer and they start using it, it's still aging and theoretically it's capacity is slowly deteriorating. For an SLA battery for instance, it ages regardless of whether or not you use it even it's fully charged. IOW, you can recharge them a couple hundred times, or let them sit for a couple years, whichever comes first. Either way, you'll never be able to use them with a large % of their capacity after a couple years even if you only recharge them once and let them sit there. The same thing happens with Lithium polymer (laptop) batteries but they usually last about 3-5 years. That's the shelf life and it limits the number of totally years the battery is useful even if the cycle count is never reached. What we are saying is that noone yet seems to know how long LiFePo4 chemistries will be useful. So do you know how long a battery manufactured today will still be useful if it just sits and never gets used? If that number is, let's say 5 years and I end up cycling it let's say 1000 times, it's still worthless in 5 years because of it's degraged shelf life capacaity right?
 
I found someone that thinks they should last a very long time.

http://www.boatweb.com.au/2008/04/lithium-iron-phosphate-lifepo4-batteries-for-marine-applications/

A great advantage of LiFePO4 batteries is their extremely long life. For a standby power application such as battery could be expected to have a life of up to 20 years.
Click to expand...
 
Jozzer said:
Way to go Lifebatt! Thier service is definitly two steps above any other battery vendor I have ever dealt with 8)
Click to expand...

:lol: No offense, but didn't you get a ton of free batteries from Lifebatt to say those types of things? :wink: :p
 
mcstar said:
Yes, I agree about the shelf-life statement. At this point we don't really know what the shelf-life of the different LIFEPO4 batteries will be. I suppose we'll be the ones to find out first hand. I suppose this is sort of a gamble from that regard. I'm betting based on the documents I've read about LiFePo4 that it will be more stable that lithium ion and should go at least 5 years or more, but that could be optimistic. At 5 years I'll be at at around 25,000 miles. That's about break even with the foil packs in ROI. At least I'll be in great shape by then :) With Lead acids, shelf-life is not as much of an issue since typical ebike usage tends to hit their recharge limits within a year. I know from the power scooter industry that I work in that the average life of SLAs is about 18months. That's even with good float charging.
Click to expand...

Here's a diagram from http://www.a123systems.com/#/technology/life/lchart1/ for a123s: It seems they best in the cycle-life regard so we'll have to wait and see about the shelf-life(It seems a123 also seems to think they should last at least a decade and PSI's and a123's chemistries are similar, so I think we can assume their shelf-lifespans will be roughly similar, give or take a couple of years.). To be more comparable, I guess we should compare their "ready to go packages" for larger capacities(For cars, but theoretically something should come out in the future for more bicycle use) such as the hymotion, but there's the current convenience of having a close alternative in a more bicycle-friendly format such that LifeBatt offers. The hymotion per WH cost at http://www.a123systems.com/hymotion/products/N5_range_extender is about ~$2/Wh with their $9995 price tag and ~5kWh estimate. Add in Lifebatt's "bicycle friendly" size factor, and it seems they're pretty much equivalent, unless you need dragsters drawing... what... 30Cs? Now that's some power. :D
 
pwbset said:
Jozzer said:
Way to go Lifebatt! Thier service is definitly two steps above any other battery vendor I have ever dealt with 8)
Click to expand...

:lol: No offense, but didn't you get a ton of free batteries from Lifebatt to say those types of things? :wink: :p
Click to expand...

No, I got 24 cells after already buying a ton (5 times that amount) of them for my projects. The 24 cells were a goodwill guesture from Don for advertising space on my bike. My willingness to say good things about the cells comes from having used them and found them to be damn good. I am just as verbal about A123 cells, the only other cell that fits the bill for my applications, but they are sadly unavailable.
Few people here have actually tried the product, despite pages and pages of peoples opinions about Lifebatt, I am just hoping to even the odds!

I hope all the people who have known me here for a long time understand this!

Besides, "no offense", but isn't that a terrible thing you suggested considering this is a post from another user telling what great service they have had? :wink:

Edited to add, having tested batteries from some 30 different vendors this last year for myself and other collueges in the trade, I feel its a shame if my learnings will no longer be trusted. I actually got way more freebie's from most of the other vendors, but most are now paperweights and doorstops!
 
Jozzer said:
Besides, "no offense", but isn't that a terrible thing you suggested considering this is a post from another user telling what great service they have had? :wink:
Click to expand...

I was just kidding around... you'll note the LOL, winkie winkie, and tongue waggle in post. Figured it was common knowledge for any dedicated forum reader that you are "sponsored" by them. Cool. I have no doubt that PSI batts... er... I mean Lifebatts are great cells, but you'll have to admit that their reputation here on this forum could use a bit of spit and polish. Group buy anyone? :lol: :wink: :p
 
Jozzer said:
Edited to add, having tested batteries from some 30 different vendors this last year for myself and other collueges in the trade, I feel its a shame if my learnings will no longer be trusted. I actually got way more freebie's from most of the other vendors, but most are now paperweights and doorstops!
Click to expand...
Emptor caveat... sometimes it's better to refuse the gifts and keep your reputation. Don't expect the public to be able to tell if you're biased or not.
 
TylerDurden said:
Emptor caveat
Click to expand...

So you know about Latin's word ordering rules(That is... the lack thereof.)? So would it be assumable you know Latin, as well?

(Considering how keen you are, I supposed the reversal of the more common American ordering was purposeful. Disregard if not.)
 
Yet, still no raw data of someone that travelled 3,000 km and see if they still hold thier AH ratings, or keep balanced.

I know that my LIFEPO4's are having a hard time keeping balanced and therefore topped up. They either trip the charger to stop too early, or "trip" LVC to cut off the battery pack and we are pedaling home, we never used to.

All my LIFEPO4 batteries worked great when new, it's after that when things get fuzzy.
 
Mine have done 6 months+ of hard use and still hold full capacity. last full discharge yeilded 39.2AH. Balance wise they need around 150mah per fortnight to keep straight (on 40AH pack).
Mileage to date, 1600 miles.


I wonder who paid off you lot who try to derail these batts?

Steve
 
swbluto,
yes you can buy DeWalt 36V packs on e-Bay for 130 dollars, because they are made in 1000s and 1000s,
if lucky and next what do you do with them?
Do DeWalt BMS allow for serial connections? What really happens to BMS when connected in SP , nobody knows schematics.
You pull them/cells/ from cases and what next? All process designing and building battery pack.
and how do you charge?
Cells are only begining.

I was riding on 2S3P milwaukee power tool packs with bunch of switches to separate packs for charging, rotary switch to switch charger to individual packs for over a year and was carrying 2 chargers with me which I had to switch TWICE during charging and it took 90 minutes to charge my set up after 8km ride.
MC
 
Jozzer said:
I wonder who paid off you lot who try to derail these batts?
Click to expand...

All would agree I'm sure that they are great cells. No one is derailing the cells. Wish I could afford some. I can't wait to see YPedal's new pack build with his.
 
The introduction of the "Cycle Analyst" is giving us ebike riders a critical eye to consistantly monitor our battery packs and spot any discrepency, no matter how small.

Best of luck to Miroslaw "miro13car" on his new purchase of his top-of-the-line batteries, and "ypedal's" batteries which are apperently from the same factory. I sure hope they last for years, then we'll all feel vindicated.
 
miro13car said:
swbluto,
yes you can buy DeWalt 36V packs on e-Bay for 130 dollars, because they are made in 1000s and 1000s,
if lucky and next what do you do with them?
Do DeWalt BMS allow for serial connections? What really happens to BMS when connected in SP , nobody knows schematics.
You pull them/cells/ from cases and what next? All process designing and building battery pack.
and how do you charge?
Cells are only begining.

I was riding on 2S3P milwaukee power tool packs with bunch of switches to separate packs for charging, rotary switch to switch charger to individual packs for over a year and was carrying 2 chargers with me which I had to switch TWICE during charging and it took 90 minutes to charge my set up after 8km ride.
MC
Click to expand...

Yeah, there are some disadvantages to slinging together multiple packs. Extended chargeup times and/or multiple chargers among them. It's too bad I didn't compare multiple charger costs with your charger, as that makes the comparison a little bit more complete.

But, I believe it's possible to put Dewalt's batteries in series in parallel as the user at this post, http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6169, seems to have. Series with multiple BMS batteries require a diode(to protect the BMS), and diodes for parallel strings will prevent current back-flow which could also damage the BMS. It's just that the new ones appear to shut-down at high start up currents, so you're going to have to charge up that controller's capacitor first before use(You might be SOL if the packs turn off during the middle of the ride. Haha. Just carry a "back-up battery starter", I guess. :p) . Also, yes, I was referencing current ebay market prices. But I don't think I'm that far off the mark if you're ordering multiple packs and you find a lot purchase.

However, going with retail prices of ~160, that'd come to 2.22/wh which clearly makes PSI the cheaper choice for e-bike applications(Although, still don't know about the long run cost).
 
Ypedal's cells are green ones.
from what I remember from posts here there are older type.
I hope there are not in my battery.
yes time will tell how these cells work over the years.
I don`t know .
 
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