Don’t buy these. No matter how inexpensive. We bought these from many different sources, and multiple batteries from different sources failed in the electric car almost immediately.
DO buy from this company. I built a 48 volt pack for the melex golf cart earlier this summer, and only charged it twice, with no BMS. These batteries are very good I’m very pleased with them. I took them out of the golf cart two days ago and measured each cell at 3.27 volts. I believe the old Melex abused them horribly too (operating the Melex on 48v was too much fun, not to go full throttle.)
So now the real test begins. Charging as it gets colder.
@SteveUnruh
Thanks for the link to Will’s video. It appears from what he said, that our greatest sin here is not charging to 100%. I guess I need to work on that. The biggest problem is with the 48v systems. There isn’t a junk method of charging 48v packs unless you take them apart and charge with 12v.
I do have some treadmill motors…and some predator engines.
Anyhow, like Will says, we get so little sun right now that even trickle charging those batteries in the cold is not hurting them a bit. They just don’t get enough amps in to cause dendrites.
I would look at that sjy company and look at their hundred amp hour battery cell pack. I think each cell is less than 100 bucks and you get a BMS with it. I want to say that battery weighs about a quarter of what the lead acid gel cell weighs.
I had one new Samsung? Sanyo? cell phone a decade ago that would overheat badly right out of the new box, charging.
I’ve had now lifetime been present when eight lead acid batteries forced charging some to break up sulphate, then were hydrogen outgassing. Then with any arc-spark; the cases blew up. Been cases shards cut. Acids splashed burnt.
ALL forms of energy storage has hazards!!
A car jacked up to work on underneath has then invested-stored energy from the lifting.
Demands awareness and respect.
Any spring loaded demands awareness and respect. They bite. They cut and you will bleed.
A tall tree up high limb or top decades storing positional energy can hurt you badly. Or make your wife a widow.
Awareness and respect are the keys to safety.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Some time ago we talked about a spring or flywheel starter for a larger engine, but now Mr. Steve has nicely stated the dangers of stored energy,… Well, to relate to my forklift, which I am rebuilding, namely, this machine has a rather large hydraulic pump (75 ccm/rev), and the idea came to me to use this pump to start the engine as well.
I will give an example:
if a heavy load is lifted so that there is 100 Bar in the cylinder and when I let this flow of oil through the pump, it works as a hydraulic motor and produces 107 Nm of torque (I take into account the efficiency of 0.9), which is more than enough to start the engine
I could lift the load before stopping, but that would be dangerous, a safer option is a hand pump, with which I would slowly push the oil into the lifting cylinder and thus lift the weight
the most elegant solution would be to install a hydraulic accumulator, which could be filled before stopping or with a hand pump
the forklift has a gear pump that can easily function as a hydraulic motor, but since in such a mode high oil pressure would be brought to the suction side, this pressure would also create pressure on the seal along the pump axis, thus a minor modification of this pump will be required in terms of adding a small tube, which will act as a drainage line from the space in front of the seal
it will also be necessary to modify the hydraulic connection, but everything is very easy,… manual valve, non-return valve, some pipes, …
My and our friend Giorgio showed us his Fiat tractor which has no battery, the gasifier is heated with a manual blower, the starter is manual, and the engine has a magnetic igniter, well, if we have a “classic” 12V ignition distributor, we can reach this voltage when starting , if we replace the “classic” alternator with a dynamo with permanent magnets, which used to be installed in older cars, I remember cases when the battery was so empty that not even the control light came on, and it was enough to go down a hill for a few meters and the engine started.
Where has the modern development of technology brought us, we had good reliable machines - cars, but now…???
Yes, and it works super. Friend of mine bought one. Grazy simple but grazy dangerous and they all are Chinees knocks. I will stay away, far away. In the days we were welding production wise, I cant count the times I forgot to put the mask down. If that happens with a laserwelder you are blind, no second chance.
I love it Tone, how you think out of the box, top!
Thank you. Very good points. Safety first. It can damage retinas at like 200m, and of course fumes. I figured there had to be some huge drawback to them beyond price to not see everyone switch. (plus of course I misread the price so it is out of my pocketbook range.)
I was just admiring how well it looked like when it cleaned the metal, even with paint and oil on it. It wasn’t a messy process.
According to Miller, the welding is actually easier. IF you aren’t trying to do odd welds in corners like flat sheet metal construction types of things because the torch wiggles the laser around instead of manually having to move the puddle like mig and it doesn’t warp nearly as much. It works better pulling then pushing the weld. And it looks like it is less prone to poking holes in thin sheet metal construction. And it technically doesn’t need filler.
Yes it is. All all is true, only one drawback is safety, the lack of it. I use the same source in our cutter as the welding machines and if I look at the cabinet it scares me. But cutting quality is superb against plasmacutting. And we used a top brand for that. The plasmacutter went to the scrapyard. All laser now. Topjob. Bought the machine but didnt dare to install. Afraid of the 2 kW fiber. Still am and accidents are always stopid and happen when you are in a hurry, and we always are😀. For that reason welding is a no go. My friend with the laser welder has a blind spot now, only from reflection somewhere.
I will take a picture of a laserweld in the shop tomorrow. Beautiful. And easy to weld, especialy thin materials. In this case the flesh is strong, no laserwelder for me.
Cutting looked superior to me too. Reducing time with a grinder and metal prep. I was thinking it was like the holy grail. Apparently it is, but it comes with a curse.
Consumables are an issue too the protective lenses are like 5 bucks each any splatter on them destroys them.
Nope. Consumables wear much less compared to plasmacutting. We seldom change anything only after some mistakes. Prices of consumables are not to different from plasma.
Grinding or some kind of work is not needed. Not with plasma not with laser. Edge quality is just way better. We designed our products without edges in sight. That doesnt really matter now.
There is no benefit from charging lifepo4 cells to the MAX voltage, charging to max and running them low will shorten the battery life Many tests have been done by Youtubers that have some real fancy set ups and so i am only relaying what those guys say, i am not knocking Will P he is ok but i like to watch people that are using these cells in everyday situations running there houses and cars .
if you have not watched this guy he does some interesting experiments testing out all types of chargers,bms’s batterys ect well worth a watch .
The video I watched, burned up like 6 of the protective covers but he was doing rust removal on car parts with it, so I would expect spatter exspecially since he didn’t know what he was doing.
The straight welds are nice and beautiful like you have shown. Have you tried it with round tube?
Do you just need the light green glasses or do you need those and a welding helmet? Because it looks like you can see out of the green glasses in normal light so you don’t have to remove them to see but you wear the whole face shield to protect your skin.
Dont really know because I am to scared. I only see guys in some kind of sunglasses, that is all. And it must be enough to protect you from a few kw laser…not me. If I want to see a fairy tale, I go to Disneyland.
Those lenses block the frequency of light emitted by the laser. Kind of like blue light coatings on glasses to reduce eye fatigue when working with a computer, or the yellow shooters glasses, or the gas welding lenses, sunglasses that block UV light, etc.
Honestly, your welding skills are probably too good to be used with that kind of torch anyway. According to Miller, they are trying to make it a lot easier to get great welds with less actual skill.
I saw this video too the other day. It triggered me to go open up my 30 Kwh worth of LifePower4 batteries I purchased in Feburary, and do a maintenance charge. They are in storage currently because the house they will go into hasn’t been built yet.
I’m glad I did, because I found out one of them had been left switched on by the factory, and was completely discharged. But as I’m learning about these, “completely dead” means different things in the new Lithium world with onboard BMS. It reaches a safe low voltage and triggers a full shutdown, including itself, to protect what’s left. I was able to jumpstart the battery from another good one, and charge it to 100%, no problem. I posted more details about my experience here: EG4 Lifepower4 arrived with switch flipped on - 0.3V left | DIY Solar Power Forum
Take Will’s advice with a grain of salt. He’s saying it’s OK to run 0-100% cycles occasionally, but with the understanding that you shouldn’t size your battery bank to do that on a daily basis. There was an extensive argument pushing back on Will’s video, on his own forum. Most everyone - including Will - recommends to size the batteries so they don’t need to be fully discharged on a regular basis. I think his intended point is that you shouldn’t be afraid to go to 100% or 0% now and then. It won’t be the reason your batteries need replaced in 10 years, calendar aging will probably get them first.
After 80% discharge, outputs drops off extremely quickly.
My understanding of LiFe batteries was they were good for deep discharge with no loss in cycle life so I am taking what he says with a huge grain of salt, as it is just one person with a youtube channel.
It is almost like he is mixing up lithium battery technologies because NMC and polymer batteries do have issues with cycle life and deep discharges which does get a bit confusing.
Here is the deal. The coming year is going to be a total shit show and I want to store more gasoline. All my gas cans are full. 40 gallons worth. They are all plastic. HDPE. I look at this on the web and they all say plastic cans will degrade and eventually break. Many of my cans are at least 20 years old. Not as red as they used to be but still seem pretty solid. I have some HDPE water storage jugs. I don’t really need to store water. They are blue 71/2 gallon jugs. Anybody see any problem using them for gasoline? I’m thinking there must be some chemists in the group.
Hi Tom, i’m not a chemist not even that super smart but i know a few things about plastic having had a plastic recycling company way back , HDPE on its own and out of the sunlight will last a life time , gas /petrol will not really last that long before it starts going stale, i guess the shop bought petrol additive will help a bit but how long well you will just have to keep rotating your gas cans with fresh fuel using up the oldest fuel first .
The fading colour on your plastic cans are due to the lack of uv stabilizer’s in the pigment so just keep ou of the light best you can .
Dave
only tried it once. Source is the same as our cutter, that is all.