Crankshaft

The active balancer option sound interesting. Is there a particular model that one can get here in SA? Are these things adjustable, or does it just pull all the cells up to equal the one with the highest voltage? I'm liking this idea as is means I can clamp my cells and wire them in series, charge and top-balance and be done with it. The 'traditional' method of putting in parallel and charging to 3.6 volts means, ill have to break-up the battery and rewire it again before commissioning it.

I order though Nuvision. Orders usually gets here under a week. Big time and shipping savings.

Digikey sells a silver loaded grease. https://www.digikey.co.za/en/products/detail/chemtronics/CW7100/307001 Not cheap though. A waste of money?

I would prefer proper busbars. There are the types with a flexible centre, but then I guess one is back to the cable situation.

Thank you Chris Do you reckon it will fine to put some grease on the cell terminals?

Any comments regarding the cleaning and coating of the aluminium terminals? If I can't find any special stuff, I reckon I will carefully clean with fine water-paper, and then coat with a light grease.

I got one of the Apexium 100A BMS boards and 16 x 105AH Eve cells. I would like to to this 100% instead of just 'slap' together: Any advice on the following: 1. Should I first top-balance the cells? Thinking of paralleling in 2 sets of 8 cells and then charging to 3.6 or even 3.65 volts. Or, will the Apexium BMS eventually do the job? The battery is initially going into a UPS system so will be mostly at full charge. 2. For busbars, Stamcor lugs crimped onto short lengths of 25mm2 cable. This way I avoid the standard aluminium busbars and have flexible links between the cells. My concern is the aluminium oxide on the cell terminals. Is is necessary to use a special de-ox and protective compound and the connection? I have read that Silver conductive past is the best. The other stuff is called Noalox. No idea where to find either. Thank you.

Hi. I got the BMS from Lee when she was still with Apexium. The cells from another supplier. I'll send you a PM.

The cells are clamped in 2 rows of 8 cells. I guess it will just be easier to do 8 at a time. The total time should be about the same. My 3.6 volt PSU is only 5 amps, so it's going to take a while.

I got one of the Apexium 100A BMS boards and 16 x 105AH Eve cells. I would like to to this 100% instead of just 'slap' together: Any advice on the following: 1. Should I first top-balance the cells? Thinking of paralleling in 2 sets of 8 cells and then charging to 3.6 or even 3.65 volts. Or, will the Apexium BMS eventually do the job? The battery is initially going into a UPS system so will be mostly at full charge. 2. For busbars, Stamcor lugs crimped onto short lengths of 25mm2 cable. This way I avoid the standard aluminium busbars and have flexible links between the cells. My concern is the aluminium oxide on the cell terminals. Is is necessary to use a special de-ox and protective compound and the connection? I have read that Silver conductive past is the best. The other stuff is called Noalox. No idea where to find either. Thank you.

I'd put some large dollops of adhesive under those cement block. They may be heavy, but the wind can be stronger.

That makes sense. Thank you.

I'm wondering why a solar panel manufacturer has panel ratings so close. Checking out the Canadian HiKu mono panels. There is a 375w and 380w model. Size and weight identical, small price difference. Why would a manufacturer make panels that are so similar. I wonder why anyone would choose one over the over. My guess is that when the cells are selected , the better-performing cells go on the 380w panel. Could also be an older and a newer model.

Thank you Plonkster. I suspected as much. So far I'm very happy with these batteries.

Good morning I have 4 x 100AH Ritar Lead carbon batteries powering my Victron Multiplus 3000. No solar at present, so it is just a huge UPS for the house. I connected a Raspberry Pi as a Venus device, and find it great to be able to monitor the system. Whenever there is an outage (load-shedding), I notice that the battery voltage drops from 54 volt to 49 in approx. 15 minutes. After this it remains at around 49 volts (dropping slightly) for the duration of a typical 2 hour load-shedding event. I'm wondering if this is normal lead-carbon behavior. My guess is the 'capacitor' component of the battery discharges very quickly, and then it behaves like a regular lead acid type. Any comments?