# Lithium Battery Manufactures



## skooler (Mar 26, 2011)

Sinopoly and Hipower are the other main contenders for LiFePO4.

I guess CALB appear to be preferred because EVTV push them so hard.

Sinopoly and Hipower are cheaper (evtv currently selling old CALB SE stock at $0.95/AH though)

I'm not going to say that the below is 100% accurate as that will spark a riot.... However..... Sinopoly has the better energy density and CALB CA a better power density.

I have ignored CALB CAM cells as I don't have any pricing other than EVTVs. Also ignored winston as I'm not sure if thy are still trading.


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## dougingraham (Jul 26, 2011)

Sunking said:


> Do I assume correctly Calb is preferred because they are the lowest price? Or is there another reason?
> 
> For example I think the GBS line is higher quality and can have BMS built right onto the battery inter connector buss straps. I also like the square battery post with 4-hole bolt pattern.


I have GBS 100 AH cells in my car. I like the covers, and the four point bolt pattern. But they are basically 1st gen cells like Sky Energy, Thunder sky, Winston, Sinopoly, CALB SE series and Hi Power. If you examine these you will find minor differences but essentially they are all very similar. The GBS are the only ones with any real difference but that difference is not in the chemistry used. The CALB CA cells are what I would get if I was in the market today. They can actually do a 3C discharge and have a lot less sag while doing so. They also seem to be able to do a 10C pulse discharge with minimal sag which none of the other mentioned cells can do. The CALB CA cells are not the lowest price.

The CALB CAM cells have quite a bit higher energy density but they are appropriately more expensive as well.


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## evmetro (Apr 9, 2012)

I run a 200 ah gbs gen 3 pack in one of my conversions. My biggest gripe is the five screw style terminals. (I have the same 4 screw pattern, but there is a fifth hole in the center). Each battery needs ten screws, and with only 34 batteries in this pack, that's 340 screws. If you had 48 cells, that would be almost 500 screws! The square terminals may be square, but they are not square to each other, so I had to build a bunch of custom bus bars. I also have more connection problems for some reason with these terminals. My instrumentation displays the highest and lowest cell resistance, so I know immediately when there is a shitty connection. I have had to pull a few bus bars on occasions to make things right. These terminals just seem to be a little picky if tiny differences in mil ohms bother you. Every time I see a tiny bit of extra resistance on a connection, I see it build over time so I get on it right away.

I also have some conversions with Tornado batteries. I prefer these to my gbs batteries. Way less sagging, and they top balance amazingly well. My bms stops shunting higher cells almost immediately and they all settle to resting voltage the same way and at the same speed like they are all duplicate cells without the typical unique characteristics. They are still unique, but not as unique as the gbs cells. I also get every last bit of range that I expected from my calculations. I know that this is not a very scientific way to judge batteries, so I will just say that I am certainly not disappointed with these batteries. Now it will be a long time before I can report on the cycle life...

Sometimes I think we need a new lithium thread that lists all of the cells available today, and some feedback from people who have used them.


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## skooler (Mar 26, 2011)

I wouldnt say the Sinopolys are first gen..... I can draw 600 amps on my 74 cell, 100ah pack for a couple of seconds and only sag to 215v from a resting voltage of around 244v (charge cuts off at 259v, drops to about 246v after an hour resting and will stay at around 244v for a while before dropping off)


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## skooler (Mar 26, 2011)

Post 417 on my build thread:

Thought I would post this after doing some testing for sag over the weekend. Tells an interesting story.

74 cells (236.8v nom) with about 10 miles driven since last charge. Sag is about 215-220v at 600amps. About 10% sag - Pretty good!


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## dougingraham (Jul 26, 2011)

evmetro said:


> I run a 200 ah gbs gen 3 pack in one of my conversions. My biggest gripe is the five screw style terminals. (I have the same 4 screw pattern, but there is a fifth hole in the center). Each battery needs ten screws, and with only 34 batteries in this pack, that's 340 screws. If you had 48 cells, that would be almost 500 screws! The square terminals may be square, but they are not square to each other, so I had to build a bunch of custom bus bars. I also have more connection problems for some reason with these terminals. My instrumentation displays the highest and lowest cell resistance, so I know immediately when there is a shitty connection. I have had to pull a few bus bars on occasions to make things right. These terminals just seem to be a little picky if tiny differences in mil ohms bother you. Every time I see a tiny bit of extra resistance on a connection, I see it build over time so I get on it right away.


I have 52 cells so I have 416 screws to torque. I used the supplied bus connections (a stack of 4), Noalox grease and I used Nordlock washers. I replaced the supplied screws with hex head stainless. No problems at all with anything coming loose. Of course this was a little over $400 in additional cost for the screws and Nordlocks. I didn't have any issues with the supplied bus connections as the pre-drilled holes are just enough oversize to accommodate slight misalignment.



evmetro said:


> I also have some conversions with Tornado batteries.


Have I been living in a cave? I have not heard of these. Can you provide more info about them?


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## dougingraham (Jul 26, 2011)

skooler said:


> I wouldnt say the Sinopolys are first gen..... I can draw 600 amps on my 74 cell, 100ah pack for a couple of seconds and only sag to 215v from a resting voltage of around 244v (charge cuts off at 259v, drops to about 246v after an hour resting and will stay at around 244v for a while before dropping off)


This would be about a 10% sag at a 6C discharge if the 600 amps is battery amps. 129 kw (173 hp) is a fair bit of power. That is better than I had heard they were capable of. There was one place I know of in the US that was stocking them but they don't seem to be doing that anymore for some reason. They also used to carry GBS and have stopped selling those as well.


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

evmetro said:


> My instrumentation displays the highest and lowest cell resistance, so I know immediately when there is a shitty connection.


You know that is just a little bit scary to think about. When and if EV's become mainstream fires are going to be a real problem for the industry. Consumers will not be like you and ignorant of the problem even if pointed out to them. Nor would they likely even know. 

Poor connections will start fires. Even no win the niche application EV's are in now fires always seem to pop up, even with some celebs have reported extensive fire damage like Neil Young.

Worked with batteries for 35 years now and have seen some really good fire and arc flashes. I work in the telecom sector with battery plants. Many have 10,000 to 15,000 AH of batteries sitting underneath a 6-ton copper buss above them. Not fun to see a wrench touch a peice of all-thread supporting the buss while tightening a connector on the buss. Pretty much vaporizes the wrench right in the worker's hand he use to have. Not a pretty site once you get your vision back.


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## evmetro (Apr 9, 2012)

Sunking, I often wonder how people know if they have a compromised connection. Although I like the top balancing that my Orion does, it is hardly my main reason for using them in my conversions anymore. Stuff like seeing a slight increase of resistance in a cell real time as an early warning of a connection that is compromised and likely to continue deteriorating and real time voltage sag of each individual cell are things that we need to know. I can't imagine how people would know when there is a compromised connection until there is arcing without the right instrumentation. I also can't imagine how people would know how much each cell sags in comparison to the rest of them while under load.


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## evmetro (Apr 9, 2012)

dougingraham said:


> I have 52 cells so I have 416 screws to torque. I used the supplied bus connections (a stack of 4), Noalox grease and I used Nordlock washers. I replaced the supplied screws with hex head stainless. No problems at all with anything coming loose. Of course this was a little over $400 in additional cost for the screws and Nordlocks. I didn't have any issues with the supplied bus connections as the pre-drilled holes are just enough oversize to accommodate slight misalignment.
> 
> 
> 
> Have I been living in a cave? I have not heard of these. Can you provide more info about them?


I have been upgrading with 8-32 stainless screws every time I have a bus bar off for some reason or another. These GBS cells would be a lot better in the long run if they sold them with what you are using or the ones that I am using.

As for the Tornado batteries, I have three packs of them. I came across them a couple years ago and have had to import the packs that I have. I have seen all that I need to see now to know that I will continue using these. I did get a dud in one of my orders, but they had a replacement shipped air and delivered to my door without any hassle or money. I am glad to see how they handled that situation.


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

evmetro said:


> Sunking, I often wonder how people know if they have a compromised connection.


If you are talking Joe Public they are clueless. 

I live in a large gated communit built around a lake and golf course with roughly 3000 residence and 1200 homes. 75% of the homeowners have golf carts. The roads are private so no hassles with carts on the streets, its a way of life here.

Anyway my point is there are at least a dozen cart fires a year here ranging from small fires just burning up a few cable up to inferno's. Every and one of them was caused by loose cable connections or poorly terminated cables. All the residents know me and come to me with their cart electrical problems. Unfortunately I have the 15-ton hydraulic compression tool to terminate cables and make a fair penny selling cable sets to neighbors. I work in the Telecom sector and design/build/test DC power plants as part of my profession. 

Auto manufactures are not immune. Sooner or later high current connections fail. When that happens you got a fire or melted cable insulation or melted battery post. I cannot count the number of welded cable connectors to battery term post on carts here. It is almost a daily thing here, When EV's go mainstream I bet electrical fires will be a huge problem for the industry. At least with gas fire you can put them out. Not so with a battery or burning aluminum. Add water and it explodes. All you can do is try to get away from it.

We as technicians, engineers, informed DIY know to look and inspect. Joe Public is in the DARK.


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