# After many many attemps we have the option...



## LithiumaniacsEVRacing (Oct 9, 2010)

now to buy A123 batteries. I cannot get into specifics, but the only issue is we must build our own packs to supply our needs. Lots of soldering, looking for a company that can "handle" this process for us, any suggestions?

Option two is to buy Saft Batteries, but they have not answered our requests "yet". The Saft Batteries would be much easier to build a large pack.


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## LiFe (May 24, 2010)

LithiumaniacsEVRacing said:


> now to buy A123 batteries. I cannot get into specifics, but the only issue is we must build our own packs to supply our needs. Lots of soldering, looking for a company that can "handle" this process for us, any suggestions?
> 
> Option two is to buy Saft Batteries, but they have not answered our requests "yet". The Saft Batteries would be much easier to build a large pack.


Are serious about soldering a race pack  You need to buy the specific equipment and do it yourself. Spend a little time learning the basics. "Soldering" is for the village idiot. And only a shade tree tosser would lay waste to legitimate A123 made-and-tested cells by soldering them together.

Purchase a Miyachi Inverter welder, or an AC model Mitachi with at least a 3500amp rated transformer to weld the cells to nickel interconnects, or bump the power to 5000amp and do it with copper foil using tungsten electrodes.
When you're done with it, you can sell the setup to the next hillbilly ready to light their pants on fire 


Saft? those frogs can't provide you with intelligent advice on how to assemble a safe and reliable pack. There's a lot to learn about stud cells, and they're not intended for mechanically supporting the cell.


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## LithiumaniacsEVRacing (Oct 9, 2010)

Thanks, I didn't intend on building the pack myself. I used the word "soldering" as a basic welding term. I will have a professional build my pack. 



LiFe said:


> Are serious about soldering a race pack  You need to buy the specific equipment and do it yourself. Spend a little time learning the basics. "Soldering" is for the village idiot. And only a shade tree tosser would lay waste to legitimate A123 made-and-tested cells by soldering them together.
> 
> Purchase a Miyachi Inverter welder, or an AC model Mitachi with at least a 3500amp rated transformer to weld the cells to nickel interconnects, or bump the power to 5000amp and do it with copper foil using tungsten electrodes.
> When you're done with it, you can sell the setup to the next hillbilly ready to light their pants on fire
> ...


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## Guest (Nov 27, 2010)

For liability reasons i doubt you will find someone to do that for you. It is a racing application and can't be guaranteed. You need to buy the equipment and tab them yourself. You are the racer and need to know exactly what goes into your vehicle. Not what someone else has done. If someone else does it for you, you then have the option to sue if something goes bad and I am sure with that kind of money involved you would. So get off the wagon and get into the shop and do some work. Learn. Grow. WIN.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

Observation of the currently active racers does seem to confirm what they're saying. They usually have a team member who learns the process and does the welding. This really is the downside of the M1 cells. If you can work your way into a deal with pouch cells you'd be much better off, IMO. I was set and determined to use M1s until I really took a look at the new pouch cells.  You can get them with even higher power density than the M1s, and you're talking hundreds of (pouch) cells instead of thousands (of cylindrical). Also, fewer connetions means less chance of something going horribly wrong. It's worth a look, before spending money.


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## LiFe (May 24, 2010)

toddshotrods said:


> Observation of the currently active racers does seem to confirm what they're saying. They usually have a team member who learns the process and does the welding. This really is the downside of the M1 cells. If you can work your way into a deal with pouch cells you'd be much better off, IMO. I was set and determined to use M1s until I really took a look at the new pouch cells. You can get them with even higher power density than the M1s, and you're talking hundreds of (pouch) cells instead of thousands (of cylindrical). Also, fewer connetions means less chance of something going horribly wrong. It's worth a look, before spending money.


A123 pouch cells are basically off the table. In any case, I completely agree with you on your choice.


http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php?p=210285#post210285


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## LithiumaniacsEVRacing (Oct 9, 2010)

Pouch cells have less ratings if I am correct, I will take another look.


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## LithiumaniacsEVRacing (Oct 9, 2010)

I have the skills, its the time I do not have. But, I have members that will be willing to help. We will get it done no matter what it takes.



gottdi said:


> For liability reasons i doubt you will find someone to do that for you. It is a racing application and can't be guaranteed. You need to buy the equipment and tab them yourself. You are the racer and need to know exactly what goes into your vehicle. Not what someone else has done. If someone else does it for you, you then have the option to sue if something goes bad and I am sure with that kind of money involved you would. So get off the wagon and get into the shop and do some work. Learn. Grow. WIN.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

LithiumaniacsEVRacing said:


> Pouch cells have less ratings if I am correct, I will take another look.


There are high energy pouch cells and high power pouch cells. The high power cells are what you want for racing and the best of them have a higher power density than even the all-powerful 26650 M1 cells from A123. I think their best high power pouch cells do as well, but they're not for human consumption. Even Croation super powers can't get them. Just being silly Cro.  I looked at Kokams, like WZ is using - they're pretty impressive. The downside, according to the published stats is a really short cycle life, but Wayland says they have tested them for something like a couple thousand cycles, with more left in 'em. I think his comment is in the 10.25 thread here about the WZ. The ones I like say 500 cycle lifespan.


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## LithiumaniacsEVRacing (Oct 9, 2010)

The only pouch cells i have found with the ratings i need are very expensive from Kokam. I do not have the relationship that Wayland has yet. 

Is there a "cheaper" brand of pouch cells that will give me the ratings I need? 



toddshotrods said:


> Observation of the currently active racers does seem to confirm what they're saying. They usually have a team member who learns the process and does the welding. This really is the downside of the M1 cells. If you can work your way into a deal with pouch cells you'd be much better off, IMO. I was set and determined to use M1s until I really took a look at the new pouch cells. You can get them with even higher power density than the M1s, and you're talking hundreds of (pouch) cells instead of thousands (of cylindrical). Also, fewer connetions means less chance of something going horribly wrong. It's worth a look, before spending money.


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## LithiumaniacsEVRacing (Oct 9, 2010)

Please let me know all you can find out on pouch cells. have you seen this website:

http://www.proev.com/P1Batt.htm

Each cell is $666.00 bucks?



toddshotrods said:


> Observation of the currently active racers does seem to confirm what they're saying. They usually have a team member who learns the process and does the welding. This really is the downside of the M1 cells. If you can work your way into a deal with pouch cells you'd be much better off, IMO. I was set and determined to use M1s until I really took a look at the new pouch cells. You can get them with even higher power density than the M1s, and you're talking hundreds of (pouch) cells instead of thousands (of cylindrical). Also, fewer connetions means less chance of something going horribly wrong. It's worth a look, before spending money.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

LithiumaniacsEVRacing said:


> The only pouch cells i have found with the ratings i need are very expensive from Kokam. I do not have the relationship that Wayland has yet.
> 
> Is there a "cheaper" brand of pouch cells that will give me the ratings I need?


I thought you were willing to pay to play


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

LithiumaniacsEVRacing said:


> Please let me know all you can find out on pouch cells. have you seen this website:
> 
> http://www.proev.com/P1Batt.htm
> 
> Each cell is $666.00 bucks?


Yes, Kokams are very expensive. My desired Kokam pack is nearly twice the price of the A123 pack I wanted (though lighter and more powerful).



JRP3 said:


> I thought you were willing to pay to play


That's what I keep saying. You're sending mixed signals.





LithiumaniacsEVRacing said:


> Please let me know all you can find out on pouch cells...


You're kind of on your own there dude, outside of the basic info we've been sharing. I am not ready to build my pack yet, and basic research is as far as I plan to go until I have a working vehicle to sort the rest of the details out, and to show any battery manufacturer I'm dealing with "what I'm working with".

I did my research to find out what kind of pack I needed, and what would work best for my goals. It's a long road from where I am to the ultimate performance goals I have, so that all goes on hold for a while. I'll probably throw together a "cheap" Headway pack to do some initial testing, sort through some of the bugs, and make final decisions. I still think you're going about this all wrong. Even pro racers, with multi-million-dollar budgets have tons of issues to sort through to get a car up and running. Just swiping plastic, and throwing a bunch of parts together, isn't the path to record-setting performance. You need to accumulate a lot of hard data. I shouldn't have to tell you that racing is an incremental process. You build upon a foundation, towards a set of goals, analyzing and adjusting as you go. The most important part of that whole process is the foundation.

Put some motors and batteries in that thing and start pounding on it, before you spend $30-50K on a battery pack. Wayland, Dube, and Lawless, all had a significant amount of track time - in their EVs - before they set records in them. I'm an old-school ICE drag racer as well (I've lived and breathed this stuff since I was 14-16) and a lot of that experience doesn't translate directly to EVs. It helps, but is not a direct transfer of knowledge, because of the nature of the beast (the electric motor).


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## ewert (Sep 5, 2009)

If money is not much of an issue, you could just throw together enough of those 90C burst RC batteries (Turnigy nano-tech from Hobbyking) for whatever max volt max amp draw you can get from the controller / motor you put in your car. So they might have crap-o-la cyclelife. They have insane kW/weight and kW/$ ratios. Was it $5000 for around 1MW burst power (for 40 secs ).

Firehazards? No problem for drag teams, yes? Short cycle life? Well it is a test battery for controller/motor. Have to do manual construction? Prolly less than on zillion A123? ... What's not to like, as they are buyable right now. So you might burn them out "fast", but they are cheap/kW ...


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

ewert said:


> If money is not much of an issue, you could just throw together enough of those 90C burst RC batteries (Turnigy nano-tech from Hobbyking) for whatever max volt max amp draw you can get from the controller / motor you put in your car. So they might have crap-o-la cyclelife. They have insane kW/weight and kW/$ ratios. Was it $5000 for around 1MW burst power (for 40 secs ).
> 
> Firehazards? No problem for drag teams, yes? Short cycle life? Well it is a test battery for controller/motor. Have to do manual construction? Prolly less than on zillion A123? ... What's not to like, as they are buyable right now. So you might burn them out "fast", but they are cheap/kW ...


I've thought about those. Links and info were posted here before. I am curious about the connections. I think I remember seeing something like 4mm wires. Seems like a lot of current through such a small connection. There was a guy on NEDRA who claimed to be building a 300+v/2Kamp pack that would weigh less than 200lbs. I think it was supposed to have a 90c rate, and he admitted it was just a drag race setup (not much range) - sound like these RC cells.

I might consider it, but again you become part racer/part battery tester with something like this. If the primary goal is experimenting with advanced EV componentry, and seeing what it will do, this is a great idea. If one's primary goal is record setting performance, you're adding a whole new dimension to the plan that could be a hindrance to acheiving the main goals. In that case it would be wiser to use a proven technology and adopt new ideas after they have been proven.


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## DavidDymaxion (Dec 1, 2008)

BYU used the stock A123 connections -- but they were running about 50 A per cell, not the much higher Amps the Killacycle team runs. You can see some pics here:

http://explodingdinosaurs.com/byugarage

They run the 10 cells in series from a DeWalt tool battery pack using the stock connections, and then ran wires across each group of cells to put them in parallel.


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## pm_dawn (Sep 14, 2009)

You can check these out.

http://www.eigbattery.com/

Check the Product Tab and Cells
They have both Lipo pouches and LiFePo4 Pouches. Up to 30C in the LiFePo4.

I think they are willing to sell in small quantities.

Regards
/Per


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

ewert said:


> If money is not much of an issue, you could just throw together enough of those 90C burst RC batteries (Turnigy nano-tech from Hobbyking)


I've heard they don't really do anywhere near 90C.


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## pm_dawn (Sep 14, 2009)

Not what I heard.

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=22464

regards
/Per


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## DavidDymaxion (Dec 1, 2008)

Something I forgot: Bill Dube has a bead on someone that'll build you an A123 pack (it might be him or someone he knows, not sure which). You can contact him on the NEDRA board.


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## LithiumaniacsEVRacing (Oct 9, 2010)

I have found another company:

http://www.lithionicsbattery.com/

Just window shopping for now. Like I said I have the money, but spending is a wise concept. You should always research all the options. Trust me in the end, I will have the pack needed. I bought the Zilla 2k I said, pictures soon on the website. I will spend, but there are soooo many options you must discuss them all.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

pm_dawn said:


> Not what I heard.
> 
> http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=22464
> 
> ...


Impressive. I stand corrected.


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## toddshotrods (Feb 10, 2009)

pm_dawn said:


> Not what I heard.
> 
> http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=22464
> 
> ...


I'm really impressed. I was going to use a Headway pack to do some initial testing, but this seems to make more sense. I wouldn't be concerned with range, so it looks like it would be possible to build a decent amount of power for a better price. It would also be light as a proverbial feather.

They're bigger than I was thinking, and 8awg wire is much more than I was thinking. I didn't convert 4mm to awg, and was just going on the impression I had from looking at the pics. They look small in the pics on HobbyKing.

Edited to add:
I played around with some numbers for the Inhaler, using "PRODUCT ID: N5000.10S.45 Turnigy nano-tech 5000mah 10S 45~90C Lipo Pack". It's 37 volts. Ten of them in series for *370 volts*, five of these sub-packs paralleled for *2250 amps *(at 90c). The batteries would weigh about 169lbs, so a sub-200lb pack is possible. With that the Inhaler would be so light it should be able to manage 150 wh/mi, giving me a range of about 50 miles down to 80% DOD. Advertised price for each cell is about $163, and a pop-up offered them for $153 while I was looking. Purchasing 50 should give some negotiating power, and keep the price of the whole pack under $10K. Not too shabby, at all.


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## DIYguy (Sep 18, 2008)

pm_dawn said:


> You can check these out.
> 
> http://www.eigbattery.com/
> 
> ...


Any idea what these are worth? Know anyone who bought them?

Cheers,


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## welder4u (Nov 30, 2010)

I don't know if this Saft battery would be good or not for your project, but it has some of the things that I would like in a battery in my drag car. Like quick recharge and the ability to be thrashed time and time again, or so they say. 


http://www.saftbatteries.com/Produi.../Language/en-US/Default.aspx#CaracsTechniques


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## pm_dawn (Sep 14, 2009)

NiCds for a dragster ?????
You must be kidding me right...

Saft has some on the paper totally awesome LiFe cells though....
Check this out:
http://www.saftbatteries.com/doc/Do...cell.911c645b-8e4a-46c3-a926-1ba6e8f8970c.pdf
175C from this cell Cont


Or this High Power Li-Ion cell:
http://www.saftbatteries.com/doc/Do...heet.a2c55356-164e-4fe3-b957-86bbed023422.pdf
200C Cont

But I dont know how you would get hold of any ????

Regards
/Per


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## LithiumaniacsEVRacing (Oct 9, 2010)

Very nice, anyone have any military connections? 



pm_dawn said:


> NiCds for a dragster ?????
> You must be kidding me right...
> 
> Saft has some on the paper totally awesome LiFe cells though....
> ...


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## welder4u (Nov 30, 2010)

pm_dawn said:


> NiCds for a dragster ?????
> You must be kidding me right...
> 
> 
> ...


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## pm_dawn (Sep 14, 2009)

Hi Welder!!

No doubt they are really good batteries for what they where designed for.
Lightweight high energy storage for traction applications. But that was in the early nineties. Things have evolved since, lithium has come to rule.

Those SAFT STM-5 blocks drive most of the european series produced EVs from the French auto makers, like Renault, Citroen and Peugeot. And has done so for 15 years.



Regards
/Per


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