Hi Guys

Anyone interested in a group buy of EVE 280AH LF280K? $110 per cell excl import costs (add another $15 per cell for shipping and customs). Import from China.

Matt

So you would need 4 cells and a BMS, then you have a battery?

1 minute ago, McGuywer said:

So you would need 4 cells and a BMS, then you have a battery?

For a 12V battery, yes 4 would do the trick.
For a 48V you would need 16 of them.

2 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

For a 12V battery, yes 4 would do the trick.
For a 48V you would need 16 of them.

Not trying to derail or anything but is it that easy?

Also, how would you charge the battery? 14.7v?

(Only looking at the 12v battery).

3 minutes ago, McGuywer said:

Also, how would you charge the battery? 14.7v?

Simple answer, Pretty much close to that.
As these are lifepo4 you would need to stay under 3.65V per cell so for 12V you would charge at no more than 14.6V or risk damaging the cells.
With a decent BMS like the JK you should be ok as it will prevent you from going over the cell limit if set correctly.

Edited September 12, 20223 yr by WannabeSolarSparky

Looking at the specs, you would need 16 for a 48V setup  https://www.evlithium.com/hot-lithium-battery/eve-lf280k-280ah-lifepo4-battery.html
At a 17,5 exchange to the Dollar that would be around R35 000 for a 48V 16 cell battery. No idea what a suitable/capable BMS for this 280A/h battery would cost.
But considering 280A/h, that would be double the capacity for a similar priced off the shelf battery locally.

4 minutes ago, zsde said:

No idea what a suitable/capable BMS for this 280A/h battery would cost.

JK BMS about R2500

https://www.jkbms.com/product/jk-b2a24s/

Edited September 12, 20223 yr by WannabeSolarSparky

On 2022/09/02 at 4:48 PM, Mattymatt said:

Hi Guys

Anyone interested in a group buy of EVE 280AH LF280K? $110 per cell excl import costs (add another $15 per cell for shipping and customs). Import from China.

Matt

If your numbers for shipping and customs are accurate, then this is a very good deal for a 280A/h battery.

15 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

Simple answer, Pretty much close to that.
As these are lifepo4 you would need to stay under 3.65V per cell so for 12V you would charge at no more than 14.6V or risk damaging the cells.
With a decent BMS like the JK you should be ok as it will prevent you from going over the cell limit if set correctly.

Thank you, I will start a new thread. 

You need to consider more than that in you cost:

1. What happens, if you have a faulty cell? How long would it take for a replacement to be shipped? Maybe you need to consider buying one or two extra cells and that has to be factored in the cost.

2. What happens, if the BMS goes faulty? How long until a replacement is shipped? Buy an extra BMS to stay in storage... Is it worth doing that?

3. What inverter are you going to use and is the BMS capable of CAN communication to the inverter. If not, can you find the communication protocols and who is going to program it for you?

4. How are you going to charge and balance the cells initially and how would you do that, if you need to re-balance them after some time? A good bench power supply for lithium cells is not cheap.

 

I can assist with 3 & 4 of the above. I have the equipment to get these cells in the sweet spot & can build these on behalf of anyone interested. 

I can also test QA because again I have the equipment & have successfully built a few half dozen of these. But you need to be in JNB proximity for this. 

However, be very careful with the source of the cells & group buys. One such forum admined by Will Prowse has already burnt it's fingers. Well, the forum didn't burn it's fingers, but the initial guy organising the whole deal got into a fix with the suppliers. Basically he got overwhelmed & things went South quickly. 

I would always say, this is at one's own risk. Having shipped a few dozen times, things can get tricky & sometimes you need to be patient & make good financial decisions. International shipping is not child play & neither is poor quality goods. 

However, buck for buck this is the best way to get large battery banks built at affordable prices. eg. 280ah is 14kWh. There is nothing on the market that would match that except a FreedomWon & that would be enormously more expensive to acquire. 

@PowerUser

Your concerns are all valid but just as points 3 and and 4 are sorted with the previous post one can always find 3 x 100Ah cells to use in the place of a damaged cell while waiting for a new cell. Buying 1 extra cell is a good call.

Another BMS can be sourced and one can run on voltage charging/discharging while sourcing another BMS.

Lithiums are the easiest cells to change in the range of 20-80% SOC. Due the size one can always charge in series via a 12V setup via a solar panel and controller up to 90% and just do controlled charge for the last 10-20% via a power supply to save time instead of having a massive power supply. The 10A adjustable power supplies are not that expensive.

The All grid garage has a few videos to guide one on how to go about.

This forum also has members that can help and can give guidance.

For this saving its worth a bit of effort initially.

Updated list:

mattymatt : 16 cells

sunset1 : 4 cells

raj35: 16 cells

total: 36

target 52 cells 

post if you'd like to add me to the list of interested buyers.

On 2022/09/12 at 10:16 PM, Steve87 said:

I can assist with 3 & 4 of the above. I have the equipment to get these cells in the sweet spot & can build these on behalf of anyone interested. 

I can also test QA because again I have the equipment & have successfully built a few half dozen of these.

@Steve87which BMS would you recommend to use with these 280Ah cells in 16 cell configuration? 

To answer this question all depends on you power requirement. JK BMS don't make a bigger than 200A BMS & a JBD make up to 300A. So it all depends on the inverter used & its maximum DC battery draw. Personally I like the idea of the Contactor of the JBD. Both of these BMSs can be paired with a Deye or Sunsynk inverter so inverter Comms is no issue. Personally I like the idea of an Active balancer so the JK has one inbuilt. So it's a plus & the JBD has the contactor which is in my opinion a very robust piece of kit. It's a 50/50 between the 2. 

Is the group buy still on? I'm looking to add more cells. 

I am curious what happened with this group buy @Mattymatt did it go ahead or what was the outcome?