Re: [electricboats] Thoughts on 12 volt Lifepo4 batteries

If you want to buy cells to build… a lot of people building their own reported good dealings and quality product with an Alibaba vendor called Basen over the last two years. 

(However… ) The rest of this message assumes you are in North America, apologies if that isn't the case… 

1) costs have gone way up for both raw cells and shipping (about 50% increase for cells and 300% for shipping to West Coast US ports

2) Most Shenzen area companies are at a complete standstill for several weeks now due to very strict COVID shutdowns.  I expect any new orders will not be arriving in the US unitl late summer at this point. Even companies that aren't based in the areas facing shutdown are affected because of port logistics back ups.

3) Most BMS boards (lots of people here have used the ANT bms, also pylontech) are on backorder for similar reasons (and costs have gone up - the good pylontech boards are $250 now)

4) there is a weird inversion where several companies that started selling complete 12v batteries in typical ABS cases with built in bms, etc on amazon at scale have US based stock that was produced when costs were much lower (both shipping and lithium cells) and thus have price points that are at or below what is possible if you are importing now to build your own. They also have sold enough now that you can get a sense from the amazon reviews of the quality.  Lossigy, Chins, Ampere Time, zooms are in this category. There is a long tail of even cheaper ones but I'd be wary unless they have a decent set of genuine reviews. I sell lifepo4 batteries and I can't compete in this 12v/ABS case space because I didn't sink enough capital when the costs were low.  At some point these vendors will have to raise their prices if their inventory drops, or they will be (maybe are?) taking big losses. It appears that in the powerwall/server rack category there wasn't any one vendor that got enough supply stateside all at once, so that category is a little more open. Its kind of crazy but these folks are able to sell what they imported in 2020/early 2021 at nearly half the cost of the few domestic companies (Dakota, BattleBorn, etc). Upcoming registration should eventually give the domestic lithium producers a boost, but thats not likely to hit for a year or more. 

So I'd recommend going to amazon and doing some research on the above four.  I think Will Prowse has reviewed several as someone else pointed out.  If I needed a new 12v 100ah or maybe even 200ah that's probably what I would do if I didn't want to wait four months or more for a slow boat from China. 

-Ryan

On May 2, 2022, at 8:11 PM, Skray775 <kelly@skraye.com> wrote:

No, 36 volt 100 amp hour.

Option A:
Purchase three 12 volt group 27 type Lifepo4 batteries from Amazon or ?  

Option B: 
Build a 36 volt system from loose cells… but again, a reputable source?

I have no idea what is junk and what isn't. I was hoping for some reliable info on how to narrow down the choices or a recommendation for a reputable company to purchase from.