Our LTO Starter Battery Update | Skoolie Conversion | Adam & Steph

[@jockmcmillan2640]

I came across your videos while I was researching different types of lithium batteries. And from what I have learned is that they need to be put on a charger from time to time to help maintain voltage and Performance. Keep up the good work. I enjoy your videos.

[@vasilemazilu7342]

Sir i think next upgrade should be an alternator with external voltage regulator. We use lishen in big car audio systems. 6s pack like these should be charged at 15,6v minimum. Keep doing that, i like what i see 🙂 hello from România

[@AdamandAtlas]

Yes I’m going to either drop it to 5s and lower the alternator voltage, or do like you said and up the system voltage. Tho i don’t want to push it to high and damage the computer. Nice to hear others are using these cells!

[@mazda2284]

​@@AdamandAtlas i run 15.6v with 2 6s lishen 18ah banks and a 6s Shengquan 6ah LTO. 7k rms clamped and only drop to 15.2v . they work fine at 15v even in 6s , any vehicle will work fine at 15v

[@noobulon4334]

Lto is an excellent chemistry to use for starter batteries, they have some incredible charge/discharge rates and good temperature stability. If you need more bulk capacity consider making a lifepo4 pack that gets charged from solar and charging the lto battery from that pack

[@neilfairless4589]

Adam, put a multimeter in line with your starter battery and you should (if the meter supports it) be able to see and track any possible drain on the batterys. We use a fluke and can see what if any leech drain we have when we build vehicles.

[@AdamandAtlas]

Ill try that out. Thank you!

[@cricketol]

any update on your lto starter battery?

[@mtrevino92]

I’m using the same cells in my car audio build. Before assembling my battery bank, I had to charge each cell to 2.5 for maximum use. I am running a high output 320 amp alternator with a 72ah battery bank. My daily charging voltage is 15.5v.

[@bryanmendoza2770]

Adam, you may try to consider adding 5A active balancer on the cells to keep the cells balance since there is no BMS.

[@bryanmendoza2770]

i did a capacity test on this cells (26ah) version and base on the discharge curve they have nominal voltage range around 2.0v - 2.55V. kzbin.info/www/bejne/boDZmmWwr7Gng5o

[@TitW_Radzio]

Hi, Very unique clip can U update matherial? 3 years of testing/modyfications? Probaby DC-DC charger/s will help U maintain voltage

[@mazda2284]

we make bars and balancers and cases and everything for these in car audio . I was one of the first people with these cells as well as other cells like these

[@swormser865]

How do I get bussbars etc from you ?

[@ericklein5097]

Is the voltage loss beyond the self discharge rate in the datasheet?

[@mazda2284]

these are awesome, very flat voltage curve 👌

[@w8ingsim43]

Hello, could you please tell me why you chose Lishen brand LTO cells over other brands? I am curious because I just started a job selling LTO cells. Thanks a lot.

[@AdamandAtlas]

I bought lishen cells because they were available at a good price from a supplier that could get them shipped to Canada. Ideally, i would have preferred Yinlong cells because of there slightly higher nominal voltage, making the pack closer to a proper 12v. In the future i wouldn’t build a pack with this chemistry tho.

[@w8ingsim43]

​@@AdamandAtlas Thanks for the speedy reply, can I have the info of this supplier? I left Canada 2020 after graduate from university, I aim to build my network starting from Canada. Many thanks.

[@AdamandAtlas]

I got my batteries from Batteryhookup.com

[@arifuzinatto]

I'm from Brazil, nice video did you buy the lishen batteries from what platform

[@BurnerJones]

Any updates on this? Have you added an active balancer? I think this is just a balancing issue. The 6s configuration shouldn't be a problem, it just means that you're missing out on a little capacity by not fully charging them. Running without a BMS should be fine since the alternator should never go above the maximum voltage (~16.8) but a low voltage safety cutout (~9v) would be a good idea. It'd be really difficult to find a bms that could take the amperage you need out of these batteries anyway. What is going to definitely be a problem is running without a balancer. I'm also building an LTO starting battery and there isn't a whole lot of information out there. I'm far more familiar with lifepo4 but the amp rating of the bms and needing a heating pad to be usable below freezing was kind of a deal breaker.

[@AdamandAtlas]

The capacity was so limited that i couldn’t get the bus started in freezing temps. I ended up pulling the battery out and reverting back to lead acid for the time being. I’ll be pulling the battery apart and testing all the cells in the future. I think i have a few cooked cells because the battery would self-discharge in a matter of days. Id use Headway LiFePo4 cells and insulate and heat the cells if i did it again.

[@BurnerJones]

@@AdamandAtlas Gotcha. That gives me something to think about. Those headway cells are pretty badass.

[@RandomNuggetsRobert]

Nice application for the cells you got! I'm getting ready to do it slightly different, leveraging 6s balancers @ 6 cells each and then stack to 48v. Hopefully my config will not suffer the same issues. Waiting on parts currently...........

[@Soda_and_me]

ive just ordered 32x 36ah lishen batteries

[@JuanGonzales-or6pu]

Hi Guys, it seems that without knowing you guys created a Monster battery. Each Lishen LTO has a 10 sec discharge of 1800 amps, in your rig that would be 7,200 Cranking amps. Which is way overkill for your application. I have created and installed a SLI battery pack to tart my car 3 months ago and have been working wonderfully. it’s in 5 series, 1 parallel configuration. 5 S will give you the correct voltage for the car alternator, which is 2.5V nominal, 2.8V 100% SOC. To test your car start it, disconnect the battery and then test the voltage on the leads. It should be 14.2 V aprox in a 12 V car. which is perfect for 5 S, These are great cells. you just have to match voltage of each cell individually and with the vehicle.

[@AdamandAtlas]

I considered doing 5S with this battery pack, but from the datasheets for these cells, their max voltage at 5S is a little below 14V. with the alternator charging at 14.2V it would overcharge the cells and constantly damage them. I also purposefully overbuilt this pack because this big diesel calls for over 1500 Amps to start and the factory batteries supplied 2700CCA so I wanted to match or surpass that. but I defiantly went a bit overboard for sure. The battery is currently dropping voltage for no reason so I'm going to be revisiting this topic in the future and maybe rebuild it or build a giant LiFePo4 battery with a built-in heater to make it useable in all seasons.

[@jamesmason7124]

@@AdamandAtlas hello from the high desert of New Mexico USA 🇺🇸. You need a bms and a DC to DC charger so you don't burn up your alternator. As far as the power drain goes, it sounds like you have a parasitic drain of some kind so use a good clamp amp meter or multimeter, and disconnect the negative lead going to the ground and then connect your meter in between the negative battery cable and the ground, and check to see how many amps are passing through, keep in mind that most multimeters can only handle 10 amps so use a DC clamp meter . I hope this helps you out. Keep up the good work and stay safe and charged

[@GTrainRx7]

5S is a bad idea. 6S gives you much better leeway. The alternator will not have an issue, as the drain to start the bus will be minimal. 5S may give the "correct" voltage, but 6S gives the batteries a longer life, which is the entire point of this.

[@tuncg]

@@GTrainRx7 the cycle rate is already 30000 cycles if it is 10000 it is still the best on the market , 5s you can use more capacity.

[@patrickday4206]

Your right 6s is the way to go. If your parasitic drain is large it's probably your alternator if small it could be anything but you should definitely track it down I've done it in the past it can be tough start with something like a cheap shunt 20 bucks Amazon and pull fuses until it stops if it doesn't something was added unfused later on

[@patrickday4206]

Lol I used the same flooring to cushion my lto's

[@mozilla0119]

Any updates?

[@sesl91]

For the voltage drop, I wonder if it's just the cells trying to balance amongst themselves and losing power in the process. I know it's just a starter battery but I wonder if a BMS would solve your issue? At the very least it would give you much better info since most have bluetooth to send diagnostic info to your phone and seems to be widely recommended for DIY batteries anyway for balancing, over/under voltage, and charging features. Found y'all from just having battery videos on autoplay but definitely subscribing for the journey!

[@AdamandAtlas]

Thanks for joining along! I (adam) live for random battery build videos on youtube haha. Id like to add a bms to this battery but because the bus calls for upto 1500a of current on startup, id overload a bms. Thought about running a bunch of smaller bms in parallel but its rather cost prohibitive. I think I’m going to change this out with a big headway diy battery and heat it instead. The voltage mismatch of titanate is a big pain. The cells are balanced tho. I think the drain is caused by the bus, not the battery

[@sesl91]

Yeah the voltage is definitely awkward on the LTO cells but heated batteries seem like a really solid alternative. As for the cranking amps, I think if it's not tripping your main lead fuse (150a? 200a?) then it likely wouldn't trigger the BMS but I'm not expert with this stuff. Either way y'all got very tricky requirements you got to work with but I'm sure you'll figure something out and look forward to whatever y'all come up with!

[@AdamandAtlas]

Bms’s have a max amp ratting till the basically start to melt from the heat of the current flowing thru them. A beefy bms with cooling fans max out at around 250a, which is about a quarter of the way there lol. I will defiantly continue to explore extremely high amp alternatives to lead acid for vehicle starting. Lead acid needs to die lol

[@sesl91]

@@AdamandAtlas Haha lead acid definitely needs to die and glad see you leading the charge

[@GTrainRx7]

You don't need a BMS if the battery will never be overcharged, and these cells survive discharges just fine. A cell balancer (like from Heltec) would be good though.

[@AntoineGrondin]

How's this working out now? Did you put a cell balancer in your pack? Or found the source of the charge leak?

[@AdamandAtlas]

No update yet! Haven’t bad time yet to circle back to the starter battery project. Once the interior is built, ill work on it and report back!

[@danbartleson9880]

My question is how did you connect the battery cables to the batteries, the bolts on the battery itself looks to be alot smaller than the cable ends on standard battery cables. What do you think your cold start amps are, 850 amp is standard on a series 31 lead acid battery for most diesel applications with 2 or 3 batteries being used. Great videos you are putting out, keep up the good work, weather permitting you should be done sooner than you think...

[@AdamandAtlas]

The battery has 4 bolts on each polarity side and the bus has 2 big posative and 2 big negative cables and some accesory cables that are much smaller so i connected each to there own bolt on the battery, the bolt itself is probably undersized, but they have good contact with the busbar. Yeah, the old batteries were rated for 850 CCA. According to my math, this replacement battery can do 2700 cranking amps. Not sure about CCA tho, considering the cold has very little effect on this chemistry until -50

[@danbartleson9880]

@@AdamandAtlas you should be good

[@TedCent]

Ahh yes looks like you solved se of the build issues I seen I would add a balancer in case one in parallel goes out

[@AdamandAtlas]

Yes a balancer is a good idea. Im going to revisit this battery in the future and add one, and probably change it to 5S and mod my alternator to drop the voltage slightly to bring it within the operating range of this battery. 2.5v nominal is hard to work with making 12v batteries

[@MichaelCarper2]

LTO can be charged up to 3.1 before major damage happens. So 5s is the way to go

[@Tore_Lund]

I was in the same situation. I decided against LTO batteries: Their voltage range makes them a bad fit for a 14.2V system, won't be able to use 40% of their capacity. They are expensive, can't be float charged. So I went with old fashion NiCd batteries. 10 in series is a perfect match and they are happy about float charging, have a high cycle life and are not bothered by charging at low temperatures either.

[@varman001]

there must be a balancer circuit... otherwise the cells cannot charge equally to the maximum. so the reason you ve been losing capacity over time. a simple $10 LTO balancer would do the trick.

[@randyrainbow05]

smart BMS would help with balancing the cells also control over input current so the alternator don't burn out unless u install smart alternator then won't be as much of an issue

[@colinmaharaj]

Been a year, how's it holding up.

[@AdamandAtlas]

Not great! Going to make an update soon. But the jist of it is, at 6S the voltage is to high to get a reasonable charge into it and it cant start the bus in the winter. For a car, this battery would be great. Not so much for big engines.

[@Shus93]

​@@AdamandAtlasdid you make that video, I search among your channel but I cannot find that.

[@dustinthurston1]

​@@AdamandAtlas I first subscribed after seeing your LTO build video, then continued to follow the channel. I'm wondering if some of your issues are due to the condition of these particular cells, the brand, or even a misunderstanding of the state of charge. I picked up a BMW 10AH LTO pack from BatteryHookup. (Same battery David Poz did a video on). I wanted to run something in parallel to keep my car's main battery fully charged. It has a large AGM, but the start/stop feature and continuous power draw tends to pull the battery voltage low, particularly in winter. LTO seemed like the perfect option for cold weather, except for the less than ideal top voltage at 6S. I run a shunt battery monitor to track state of charge. I'm overall pleasantly surprised. With the alternator around 14.5V, the battery appears to charge above 90%. So, state of charge seems higher than I expected at given voltages. It is hard to get the car to charge it fully because it checks for voltage drop and starts backing off on the alternator voltage. On the other hand, I find that the car raises the charging voltage when the battery is cold, so that helps with the effect. Generally, the LTO is charging at about 4x the rate of the AGM. When the car is off, energy is trickled back into the AGM. For your use case, I hate to see you give up (unless these are just junk cells). These should last forever and if they're low, you can quickly add enough charge for a start. Maybe you need a shutoff of accessory power draw. Monitor cell balance and get an active balancer if necessary (harder to find for LTO). Probably don't need a BMS, but you could have the starter circuit bypass the BMS. Don't know how things are wired, but that may still allow BMS to cut off the ignition power. If possible, monitoring the balance of cells and testing the capacity through full cycles could give some insight. Hope I wasn't rambling too much and good luck!.

[@AmericanProspector1776]

Damn so these batteries wouldn't be good for power during a blackout?

[@ericklein5097]

I would be really skeptical of that 1 one cell...or all of the others. Seems strange that Lishen wouldn't have a jig made up for terminal length so that every single one of these cells is identical. I know BH isn't sketchy but makes me wonder what their source is for these. I know with the YinLongs you can take the wrap off and there's a bar code or something on the can that most of the fakes don't have. Are there any ways to verify you have legit Lishen cells? Do you have a way to measure Internal Resistance?

[@AdamandAtlas]

Ive yanked this battery out so ill do some testing on them in the future. The self discharge is rather high but ive put thek thru the ringer over discharging them by accendent a few times so im sure they are fried. I have 1 spare cell that wasn’t a part of the pack that ill test against

[@ericklein5097]

@@AdamandAtlas even a simple DC internal resistance test would help identify a cell that really fried. Hit it with a 10A discharge or something like that and then do resting open circuit-loaded voltage divided by amperage to get a rough idea of DC internal resistance. An example would be 3.50-3.32/10=0.18/10=0.018ohms or 18 milliohms. Theres also a formula for doing two different discharge currents which is usually much more accurate. Not sure what the datasheet IR is on these but its usually listed as the AC IR which is roughly 50% higher than DC

[@ericklein5097]

@@AdamandAtlas Looks like the datasheet says

[@xavierpendrag0n]

For most of the information I have seen on LTO, they typically will fall off quite a bit in voltage before the actual useable state of charge. They will consistently charge and discharge at near 99% state of charge for grade a cells and anywhere from 85% to 95% for grade b cells. What seems to be an issue really isn't though if you think about that drop in voltage that happens nearly every time they are put under a high c rate of charge discharge in these test. It is just a characteristic of the chemistry of these batteries. I was considering something like this as well at some point for my coach batteries. The higher voltage of the batteries may not be allowing your regulated charge from your alternator to properly charge them. Being that your battery is now higher voltage, it could be causing an issue with the alternator to actually charge them. I have run in to this problem before with other power systems and can see where this may be part of the issue. Eventually, the batteries will come down to a more nominal state of charge for the vehicle. At that point, the important thing is to determine what state of charge they maintain at that voltage range. You may need to add cells at that point at the lower state of charge to increase amperage. I think this still does exactly what you want to do though. You will actually not have to charge to maximum or discharge to maximum and get even more life out of the battery. With those batteries not ever being effected by cold they should be impervious. I have seen tests on them pass along 85% state of charge even frozen. That is amazing. They do not have dangers from physical damage, even though they may become non functional from being pierced, they would still not chain effect. I think what you have done is amazing, but some testing may be necessary once you can verify that your alternator is charging the battery to determine what that voltage is and then at that time do a capacity test on them. If it looks like there may be some issues, you could always handle the charging with solar to maintain them vs constant load on the alternator. This could become and issue depending on what your findings are with the capacity test tells you.

[@DIRTVENTURE]

I think you need to ad in a piece between the alternator and the battery…. O clean up the voltage coming from the alternator.. a few of the lithium battery companies I’ve talked to have suggested this as well.

[@stefanmargraf7878]

Was that a direct replacement? I mean, the problem is, its pratically shortcutting the generator as the battery is basically a black hole for current! Did your generator survive that? I would expect shortly after starting the engine the generator cables become very hot during charging. You can charge those batteries with 1000Amps! The rest is done right, but you have to monitor each 2,3V row. If one row hits about 2,8V, its permanently damaged!

[@AdamandAtlas]

We never had any alternator issues. Yes, the batteries can absorb massive amounts of current, but the alternator will only ever produce its maximum amperage value, which is 180amps. The batteries total capacity is not much more than the original lead acid batteries so the alternator will not be running at its maximum much longer than before.

[@stefanmargraf7878]

@@AdamandAtlas Thank you for your answer! If the cable of the alternator is big enough (AWG 4, 0.23in inner and about 0.4in outer diameter) and the connection is proper and clean, then there should be no fire danger. Best is to check with a thermo (infrared) camera. I believe, not all cars have the quality of a school bus. People wanting the same conversion should be carefull and check if something gets hot. Those currents are no joke, and are usable for welding.The never exceed voltage is more like 3V, not 2,8V, my error. I heard, the first charge of LTO should be done with 0,5C max. only. I want also to do a conversion with VW T6, but have to make more research. I would prefer to use a adjustable charger like the Renogy 60A. Otherwise my lights go off if the LPO demand all the power. (start/stop operation)

[@PainiacZ]

What has your batteries discharged to? If still normal voltage it's probably just because your alternator only puts out so much voltage ⚡

[@AdamandAtlas]

The batteries fall down to 10~ volts. I think theres a draw coming from somewhere

[@jakejacob9814]

Easiest way to find draw in a battery is you simply Unhook, the battery cable wire a light from cable to battery. The light will be lit up. Then you go to your fuse Panel and pull your fuses 1 by 1. Till the light goes out... that circuit will be the one with your draw

[@akska10]

i am not an axpert on this.. but i think your problem is in charging.. the battery needs about 18v to charge for 6s config. if you make it 17.5 or 17 it would be great but its hard to find such a thing. maybe you should try 5s config ? it will charge more properly.

[@AJTarnas]

if the alternator in their bus is charging the 6s pack at ~14.4v, does that really matter? that's 2.4v/cell. they won't be able to use the pack to its rated energy capacity but they don't have to for this to be better than lead acid. or will this low charging voltage kill the cells over time?

[@AdamandAtlas]

From my understanding, never charging the cells to there rated potential should not effect there longevity. As long as they have enough juice to start the bus, i'm happy!

[@shalondonay]

Bms ???

[@tbaine]

Where is BMS

[@chickencaronline6362]

Hello again. I will mention again that in 6s configuration, they need charging at above 2.5v X 6 = 15Volts to 'fill' the batteries ! Im sure your charging system doesent achieve this.. the maximum would be 3v X 6 = 18 volts. So.. if it was in 5s configuration, it would be 2.5v X 5 = 12.5V min or max 3v X 5 = 15volts , which is pretty well the correct voltage range of your Alternator, and float voltage levels . My little car has just 1 string of 5s configutration, and it works just fine, rain or shine.

[@GTrainRx7]

Why do you need to "fill" that battery? Simply put, the battery only needs to start the bus, and last however long you expect the bus to sit idle. "Filling" the battery makes zero difference to the operational capacity of the starter battery.

[@chickencaronline6362]

@@GTrainRx7 from actual experience using these Lishen batteries.. this is what I have found.. just saying.

[@GTrainRx7]

@@chickencaronline6362 You didn't answer my question, or add any more information, just sayin'. If you had actual experience, you would know how little capacity they hold in the ends of the voltage limits, which makes your statement seem like you haven't actually used them.

[@chickencaronline6362]

@@GTrainRx7 sorry I wasnt clear. In the 6S configuration using a usual 14.2V regulated alternator to charge, in practical use, the cranking time was quite poor. Once I changed to 5S it was significantly improved. I agree that this probably shouldnt be the case, but it was. My ones are only the 16ah however, so larger ones may be better. It seems in 5s that they charge more fully, and although the 'set' was 1 cell less, they seemed to work better.

[@AdamandAtlas]

I can attest to 6S not being optimal and the batteries and having very little charge and cranking time in this configuration. Ill be rewiring them or building a completely new pack soon

[@AJTarnas]

the scientific method requires open publishing of methods and results, even negative results -- you should post the details of your build even though you think it's not wise for anyone to copy. your two videos so far show enough detail to copy you, but you could make it even more clear. my guess is that you should try 5s2p with a balance board and more sensors, and something to mediate between the alternator and battery and the battery and bus electronics. the starter probably doesn't care if the voltage it sees is 11v or 15, but the other electronics do. i don't know which items to buy for all that though. i want to replace the lead acid battery in my ford e350 v8 gas cargo van but i don't see a lto build where all the kinks have been worked out.

[@AdamandAtlas]

I did want to make this video a proper “how to” video but i need to pull it apart and check for possible dead cells. I will do a more In Depth video in the future when I get it all sorted out. DM me (Adam) on Instagram if you want more details on everything i did @adamglehs

[@toddhansen5765]

They are 2.5 cells. Times that by 5 and you get 12.5. I would take one cell out if you charge them off the altonator

[@mikayla7860]

randy !!!!!

[@AdamandAtlas]

King