# Just Ordered My 1st Lithium Battery



## MoonRiver (Sep 2, 2007)

Battle Born 100 Ah 12v. $949


----------



## Murby (May 24, 2016)

Wow.. that is one expensive battery.. 1200 watts for $949 is a lot of money..


----------



## crehberg (Mar 16, 2008)

I think I just choked on my tea...

Let us know how it works out Moon.


----------



## Meinecke (Jun 30, 2017)

If batteries stay at that price level, i might never go off grid...insane


----------



## MoonRiver (Sep 2, 2007)

Murby said:


> Wow.. that is one expensive battery.. 1200 watts for $949 is a lot of money..


How much were your batteries for usable 100 ah?


----------



## R-Farm (Aug 18, 2016)

I am planning on going with 4 of those once my Rolls crap out. They look to be a solid battery at a very competitive price.


----------



## Murby (May 24, 2016)

At the moment, I'm going to be paying $2500 for 18kW + $500 for a BMS, so a total of $3000. The biggest differences are 1) I have to put in work to make my battery bank as its not plug and play like yours. Plug and play is nice, makes hooking things up really easy, but the amount of work I'll need to do to reconfigure my pack for my own purposes is actually minimal, and as it happens, something I'll enjoy doing. 2) Your battery chemistry is safer but not so much as to be a major consideration as far as I'm concerned. 3) My chemistry will last longer (higher cycle count).

It should be noted that my off-grid ambitions are not the same as yours either. I don't need to be off-grid right now, its an SHTF thing and I have configured my hardware to be flexible. If time ends up being on my side, I'll end up with a lithium battery bank the size of three microwave ovens.. If my time runs out early, I have a source right down the road where I can grab a bunch of brand new golf cart batteries. 

And to clear things up a bit because you're probably wondering where the hell I can get such a large lithium battery for so cheap, think Electric Vehicles.. The more of them that are sold, the more get into collisions and are turned to scrap and the cheaper the batteries become. 
The batteries in these vehicles are huge and could power my entire home for days.. The only drawback is that you have to know what you're doing with them as they are configured to churn out up to 400 volts instead of the 12 to 48 we use for solar storage. But these large EV packs are just individuals cells at 3.75v and stacked in series so re configuring is not difficult.

I have no problems with Battleborn batteries.. from what I can tell, they are a quality battery.. but darn expensive. Way to expensive for my tastes.


----------



## R-Farm (Aug 18, 2016)

Sounds like a cool project, let us know how it works out,


----------



## Itinerant1 (Jul 23, 2018)

Murby said:


> And to clear things up a bit because you're probably wondering where the hell I can get such a large lithium battery for so cheap, think Electric Vehicles.. The more of them that are sold, the more get into collisions and are turned to scrap and the cheaper the batteries become.
> The batteries in these vehicles are huge and could power my entire home for days.. The only drawback is that you have to know what you're doing with them as they are configured to churn out up to 400 volts instead of the 12 to 48 we use for solar storage. But these large EV packs are just individuals cells at 3.75v and stacked in series so re configuring is not difficult.


Going that route certainly is cheaper but having it's own challenges which reconfiguring the batteries to a 48v system really isn't one of them. 
The challenge is knowing where those batteries came from and if the donor vehicle was in an accident and how bad. That would be the BIG safety issue. 
Many folks are now using batteries from EVs just something to think about. Here is a situation a gentleman bought off ebay and used in his golfcart quoted from a post in his thread....
"My golf cart was powered by two 48 volt Li-Ion batteries bought on eBay. They were single units, not a full pack, from a wrecked 2013 Chevy Volt.

The golf cart was parked under the front pin box area to keep it free of the heavy wet dew we have been having.

The GC was not on a charger and the battery switch was turned off. I had charged it to 48.8 volts the previous day with a charger I had built that had both current and voltage limiting circuitry. It's peak DC output was 50 volts as controlled by an auto transformer, charging current was limited to 15 amps. There was also a timer that limited the charging time to a preset period. The temperature cut off circuit was built but not installed. I had previously charged the batteries many times and know the circuitry in the charger was rock solid and accurate. I also know my wiring was overkill and done to a level of perfection. I had driven the cart at about 6:30 pm and all seemed fine.
*Yet, the cart caught fire around 3:30 a.m. Fire may not be the best word as it apparently exploded."*

http://www.rvnetwork.com/topic/1307...some-help-please/?tab=comments#comment-936113

Would not be cool to get that 1 in whatever chance of a bad cell from a wrecked vehicle. Just something to think about.


----------



## Murby (May 24, 2016)

Itinerant1 said:


> Going that route certainly is cheaper but having it's own challenges which reconfiguring the batteries to a 48v system really isn't one of them.
> The challenge is knowing where those batteries came from and if the donor vehicle was in an accident and how bad. That would be the BIG safety issue.
> Many folks are now using batteries from EVs just something to think about. Here is a situation a gentleman bought off ebay and used in his golfcart quoted from a post in his thread....
> "My golf cart was powered by two 48 volt Li-Ion batteries bought on eBay. They were single units, not a full pack, from a wrecked 2013 Chevy Volt.
> ...


Yup.. which is why I would never put a large lithium pack in my home.. In fact, I wouldn't put a large energy storage device of any kind inside my home.. Lithium, propane, lead acid, hydrogen, etc.. Don't care what it is, if it can catch fire or blow up, it needs to be in a specialized steel container away from the house. I plan to convert a 250 gallon fuel oil farm tank into a battery bay and place it right next to the solar system.. Install a 6 inch blow out vent, and there isn't much that can happen except to turn the thing into an oven itself.
As I said, your lithium chemistry is safer.. you couldn't get those batteries to burn if you took them out and fired a shotgun at them.. They lack storage density and life expectancy.. although not by much.. not enough to make it a consideration for me. But the price is certainly a consideration and coupled with the alternatives, not something I'd be willing to get into.

Also, the RV guy's story about the Chevy Volt battery having experienced a large shock is suspect.. Not saying it didn't happen, I'm saying that they total those cars for the silliest of reasons. There's a Chevy Volt at my local dealer right now that is waiting for the insurance company to pick up.. its been totaled out.. the damage was caused by the driver hitting a large pot hole.. with the exception of that, if you looked at the vehicle, you wouldn't know it wasn't able to be driven away. The air bags didn't even deploy..

My guess is that his home made charger wasn't designed correctly and that it didn't balance the cells or that it charged at to high a current causing dendrite formations. But that's just speculation..
It could also be that he was charging to a full 4.2 volts per cell or discharging them too far.. A lot of things can go wrong, which is why a BMS (battery management system) is required.. and a lot of people don't want to spend the extra $500 to $700 bucks for one so they just hook up a charger and hope for the best.

Your battleborn batteries have the BMS built right into them...


----------



## Itinerant1 (Jul 23, 2018)

Not knowing the man who knows if he truly knew what he was doing and he certainly can count his blessing that no one was killed.

I don't use the drop in style batteries myself and been living fulltime off my Lifepo4 system since the middle of April 2016 boondocking mostly.
The Lifepo4 are 500ah Elite GBS with magnum 3000 hybrid/ magnum PT100, 1280w solar. Ive boondocked 775 days out of the past 839 so plenty of time using Lifepo4.
Charging has been set at 14.1 bulk (CC), 14.2 absorb (CV)(10 minute is minimum, can't be turned off), float 13.6 (CV) since day one (27 months ago) and the system has not been turned off since. Living on solar/ Lifepo4. Figuring at least 800+ 30% cycles. With a few totaling 70% DOD discharges after many consecutive days of rain/ overcast.
During these 27 months generator was used roughly dozen times for 2 hour each time putting a 200ah hold over charge into the batteries.

The Magnum has sufficient programability along with the Magnum PV solar charge controller which follows the inverter/charger programming. If anything happens that would cause conditions beyond programmed limits the BMS will disconnect the charge source or loads.
**Over voltage (highest cell is over 3.8V after a 3 second delay)
** Under voltage (lowest cell is below 2.8V after a 30 second delay)
** Over current (current exceeds 10C for 10 seconds)
**Over temperature (highest cell exceeds 150°F or 65°C)
**Under temperature (lowest cell is below 32°F or 0°C, charging is not allowed)
**Ground fault (There is a high voltage leakage greater than 2mA to the chassis pin)
**Unmanaged cells (The programmed number of cells does not equal the number of cells read)

When the batteries are at "my" full SoC they'll float and solar is powering norcold fridge, tv/dvd, charging phones/ laptop/ tablet, fans. 
During the late spring, summer, early fall these items might be on starting as early as 8-9 and still have the batteries full by 12:30 or so depending on solar harvest. 
I suppose the best part is if the batteries get full great if not no problem they'll work just as well at a lower SoC for long periods of time also.


----------

