VoltX lithium battery part 3. I stuffed up

I stuffed up, VoltX lithium battery part 3.
In this part I realise that we have been testing and reviewing batteries all wrong. It shouldn’t be just about whether the battery can do its amp hour capacity but more importantly how well it works as a battery.

[@PowerPaulAu]

G'day Phil, I shared your previous video link on my page because I see so many people saying "what are these batteries like", so it was good to see them torn down. As you say, cheap and/or second hand cells are not going to perform well, especially when they aren't matched. The BMS missing what I consider as one of the basic functions, over current cut-out is a big issue. This can easily allow temperatures to get out of control. And of course the lack of any thermal management compounds this problem. The $200-$500 range of 100Ah LiFePO4 batteries is littered with essentially identical inner workings now. One factory in China make the vast majority of what we see on Facebook, eBay and Google ad's here in Oz, and they make them to a price, not to a quality. They are being distributed by anyone with a dollar, who wants to make a dollar, and many of those people/places have no real battery knowledge. They are banking on very few people using them to their limits, so they hope to get very few failures. I don't think you stuffed up with what you said in the previous videos, there are a few mistakes on how to balance batteries and some other minor things though. However your analysis was pretty much on the mark. These batteries are aimed at the bargain uneducated market, and because that market is so large, they sell. The customers and the company are not going to care if they fail in a couple of years, when they should last longer than a decade. Keep up the good work... PowerPaul Australia

[@stevecrowe176]

Great analogy of the market in Australia!! My scenario, just getting back into camping as a cheaper alternative to caravan park cabins which have recently gone up in price lots, between $1350 - $1500 pw now for a basic 3/4 person cabin. As they are saying on the news, real wage growth has stalled for years!! I've basically recd $1.65ph increase the last 4yrs mostly from the government tax changes etc. People say get another job, at 62yo is hard enough to get one, beggars can't be choosers! Hence camping is the (my) option. So yes these batteries do fill a niche in the market. Now to "try" and find something a little more decent than this lithium battery... Cheers

[@evil17]

Another good vid Phil. If ur up for 24v or 48v, all in one systems are getting so cheap and easy now and the server rack batteries are great value for $, and I think would be a very robust & slim build for 4x4ers too. A 24v server rack batt in the the rear centre of ur tray back with 24v all in one up to 3kw & built in generator/mains variable charger to 60amps ya cant go wrong, + u could probly even weld off it in an emergency especially if u had a set of Maxwell caps with jumper clamps on the battery bus bars to finish the job that can start a dozer on their own. Love ur vids!

[@philsrandomstuff2392]

I like how your thinking out side of the box. Haven’t given much thought to using server rack batteries, think I will look into it some more Thanks for comments and ideas Evan

[@herbertvonsauerkrautunterh2513]

I'm tempted to open the voltx 300ah battery i have. I don't really need it in it's plastic case. I might do if the cells aren't balanced... Would as simple as an active balancer or better BMS.. i don't care about the cells that much, whether they are b or c grade.. they will still last long enough.

[@Severe2jz]

I got a 120ah voltx for $360 off ebay shipped. I chose this one as the bms is 100ah discharge not 50 like in the 100ah batterys. So far so good. For $360 if it lasts a year thats only $1 a day im happy

[@philsrandomstuff2392]

You got a Great price there. Hopefully the 100amp bms is better than the 50amp one. I find it hard to spend big money on some thing that is ultimately a disposable item. I’ve seen big dollar lithium batteries fail with just 3 years of service .

[@gamman28]

I don't suppose you took the bms off to see what Amp spec it is? The make a few in the range.

[@philsrandomstuff2392]

60 amp from memory

[@hotboxcivic]

I took the plunge and bought these going off your initial thoughts. Look forward to seeing your results once you add the cell balancer.

[@philsrandomstuff2392]

Hi, Hay thanks for your reply, As you see I have two of these batteries , one battery ( The one I did the load capacity test on ) is junk It suffers from voltage sag by this I mean it will not hold its charge voltage. A fully charged good lithium battery will sit around the 13.45 V/ 13.5v this battery drops back to 13.3v within two hours of removal from charger. Doesn’t necessarily mean the battery is bad it just means that the battery is showing its age, sagging battery voltage means that the cells have lost capacity. I will be doing a video on the active cell balancer install and if it works as advertised.

[@evil17]

@@philsrandomstuff2392 curious how this went, active balancers work ok, but a good JK BMS takes care of balancing real well too. I like ur thinking about adding some better gear to this battery, I think it will be worth it.

[@philsrandomstuff2392]

@@evil17 just top balancing made all the difference, don’t really need the active balancer if I use 80% of capacity and recharge at 20%. Below that I start getting cells voltage differences. This is where the active balancer helps when recharging

[@Aidensmith1]

I noticed they do a 300ah battery in a new design and advertising a more advanced BMS (max discharge 400A and continues of 200A) whats your thoughts on this? Think it would be any better or still have imbalance issues? Also allow to be ran in parallel, hence my new found interest into them at this price point.

[@philsrandomstuff2392]

Hi Arden The only way to find out is to buy one and do what I’ve done. With lithium batteries like anything the more you pay per watt hour the better the battery is to a point.

[@goatlady7761]

I thought the cost of lithium batteries to manufacture was under $150us per kilowatt even less for LFP?

[@philsrandomstuff2392]

In Australia the average price for EVE 105ah cell cost $150 plus freight for me to buy

[@PatrickStevenKellar]

HI Great videos, thank you. Voltx also have a 200ah battery, I would assume that this would be two banks of four in parallel to give the 200ah. Would this mean that they would need an even better BMS to balance the cells and then the two banks? I guess what I am really interested in is your thoughts as to whether 2x100ah would be any better/worse than a single 200ah unit.

[@philsrandomstuff2392]

Hi Patrick It would more than likely be 4x 200 amp hour cells or 2x100ah cell in parallel and then put in series . If you want to take the risk and buy a volt X battery and need 200 Ah I would buy the 200 AH single battery. The reason I say this is because the two batteries I have have two different resting voltage when fully charged 13.3 and 13.45 it’s like mixing new and old batteries together the one with the lower voltage will always discharge the one with the higher resting voltage. They will eventually equalise. But in the process there could be a lot of current flow from to other Once the charger has turned off, I believe this is why I say that you cannot parallel the batteries. I would bite the bullet and just buy decent quality batteries and not waste my time with these in my opinion

[@Lime-Spider1959]

Hi Phil enjoying this mini series on the VoltX batteries. As I mentioned before I have a VoltX 100ah battery for my tinny but I run 2 x Renogy 100ah smart lithiums in my ute canopy with Renogy 2000w inverter , 40amp DCDC charger and 500amp smart shunt. Have you had a look at the Renogy batteries with pouch cells and if so what is your opinion? Interested on your thoughts Cheers.

[@philsrandomstuff2392]

Glad your enjoying my videos. I think renogy are doing good batteries at good prices. It doesn’t matter if it’s pouch cells or prismatic or cylindrical cells the main thing is that the cells in the batteries stay balanced as cell imbalance is the biggest failure that I see with lithium batteries. Having a charger that has a absorption mode really helps to allow the BMS to balance the cells. Sounds like you have a neat canopy set up👍

[@Lime-Spider1959]

@@philsrandomstuff2392 Cheers mate thanks for the tips

[@dsb2767]

Whats your thoughts on the Kings 120ah an 200ah lithium batteries

[@philsrandomstuff2392]

I’ve looked at them and think they have a good product and the price reflects that. Like I said in the video if you want a good lithium battery that’s going to last you are going to pay between $800 to $1000 AUD (120ah)and that’s the price range the kings batteries fall into, they also have a good instructional video on how to use them.

[@tantryl]

Genuinely not sure what you're trying to get across with this video. The impression I got from Part 1 was it was cheaply made with a cheap BMS and technically pulled capacity but it wasn't that flash and didn't even have proper over current protection. You specifically call out the BMS in this video but I was kinda expecting you to say "and here's the proof, 3 months later and it can only draw down 85Ah!" or something not "I was specifically talking about the BMS and cell balancing, which I mentioned in the first video but not enough I guess".

[@philsrandomstuff2392]

I guess what I was trying to get a across was if you if you got one of these batteries and just charged it and that used it as intended, you would end up with a battery that has failed or low capacity because of cell imbalance which is what i have found to be the biggest problem with cheep lithium batteries. To me if a battery can do it stated capacity doesn’t mean much if the cells don’t stay balanced during the discharge/ charge cycle. I should of put the batteries in and used them as is but from experience I know they will fail, so I set about trying to see if I can make these batteries better. So I charged the cells individually and fitted the active cell balancers and the batteries so far are staying in balance voltage ways and meeting my power demands no problems.

[@brucedavidge564]

Hi here phil just how your batterys are going now, I thinging about purchasing two of the ungraded voltx 100amp ones 100am bms continues with the the 5year warranty to replace my two 4 year old AGM's just wounding have any feedback on THEM thanks phil look forward to hear you thanks again.

[@philsrandomstuff2392]

The two batteries I have have been working fine with no problems at all, I have Done a capacity test of the batteries after three months of having them and one battery still does 100 amp hours and the other one does 94 and hours. I think paying the extra dollars and buying the better quality voltX batteries will be a greater peace of mind.

[@evil17]

@@philsrandomstuff2392 Who/where did u purchase these batteries from Phil?

[@philsrandomstuff2392]

@@evil17 I purchased them off Catch.com on sale for $375 each They have the better voltX rv 100ah battery for $100 less than voltX site

[@johnwayne8475]

Hate to say it, you stuffed up again, what really matters in real life is does it run appliances and keep running over years, not about BMS, active cell imbalance bla bla bla. When you actually do a long term test over say 2 years then let us know.