# reliable source/price for prismatics?



## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

I am getting ready to buy a set of batteries soon for second vehicle... when last I checked CalibPower.com for CALBs was the best place to go for US customers since it is semi-direct and from stock rather than facing the possible delivery nightmares of group-buy and slow-boat delivery.

I am considering only CALB, Winston, Sinopoly.... My favorite retailers obviously have to throw in a little margin, but I thought I'd check to see if anyone has had luck with finding a reliable source for Winston or sinopoly at prices lower than CALBs from CalibPower?


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

You might get calbs cheaper through Don Blazer than calibpower. $1.22/ah IIRC


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

Ziggythewiz said:


> You might get calbs cheaper through Don Blazer than calibpower. $1.22/ah IIRC


who is Don Blazer, where is he, and does he deliver from stock? I'm wondering how he can sell for less than CALB factory distribution center?


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

He's an EVer with a couple auto shops around Portland. He did a couple group buys a few months ago on EVDL. Contact @ [email protected]

He can sell cheaper because he doesn't take a cut.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

Ziggythewiz said:


> He's an EVer with a couple auto shops around Portland. He did a couple group buys a few months ago on EVDL. Contact @ [email protected]
> 
> He can sell cheaper because he doesn't take a cut.



hhhmmm, I will check into it, but I have serious trust issues with group buys and individuals from Portland/WA in general having been burned first by Morrison, and then by Kois.


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## mk4gti (May 6, 2011)

bought some 130's from calib power a month ago.... flawless !

I had cheaper options, sometimes it's better to go with "the big box stores" so to speak.

"in stock" was important for me and shipped from cali to north ny ... took 6 days !


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## jeremyjs (Sep 22, 2010)

Don't forget Balqon, winston's NA distributor, or Jack at EVTV. He's got the calb CA cells and a good reputation.


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## ricklearned (Mar 3, 2012)

jeremyjs said:


> Don't forget Balqon, winston's NA distributor, or Jack at EVTV. He's got the calb CA cells and a good reputation.


I got 36 Winstons a month ago and am happy. It helps that they are almost in my backyard.


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## skooler (Mar 26, 2011)

If your happy to deal with customs then its worth having a chat with Sinopoly direct. They do give quite competitive pricing, especially when you consider that the 60 and 200AH cells have an extremely good energy density.

Theres no point going through a middle man like me as I'm on the wrong continent!

If you need a hand hammering them down or want some contacts then send me a PM

Just out of interest, whats the intended project?


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

ricklearned said:


> I got 36 Winstons a month ago and am happy. It helps that they are almost in my backyard.


I was unaware Winston set up a Distributor... thats what I was hoping would show up from this thread. whats the company/URL to check out 'Balqin' or whoever is the Winston company?


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

skooler said:


> If your happy to deal with customs then its worth having a chat with Sinopoly direct. They do give quite competitive pricing,


I started looking into direct order, but got lost in the shipping/customs requirements and could never figure out what the real price was or whether the company really wanted to sell small batches. The typical Chinese business model of exchanging 8 emails to settle on price was frustrating.

If the process is actually not that bad, I'd be interested.  Anyone care to explain what it takes to get a small batch, say 50 cells delivered to the US and shipped all the way to a residential garage?




skooler said:


> Just out of interest, whats the intended project?


 I have THREE in the wings. another Suzuki Swift, a '62 Sunbeam Alpine, and a Mazda Miata that is currently dead-lead. planning to do the Miata first, and try to start Rent/Lease biz locally for people interested in EVs.


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## skooler (Mar 26, 2011)

dtbaker said:


> I started looking into direct order, but got lost in the shipping/customs requirements and could never figure out what the real price was or whether the company really wanted to sell small batches. The typical Chinese business model of exchanging 8 emails to settle on price was frustrating.
> 
> If the process is actually not that bad, I'd be interested.  Anyone care to explain what it takes to get a small batch, say 50 cells delivered to the US and shipped all the way to a residential garage?
> 
> ...


I cant say for the US but I have always found Sinopoly really good at getting cells to the UK.

Never a problem with small batches.

You could try and find a customs broker locally who can give you a fixed price.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

skooler said:


> You could try and find a customs broker locally who can give you a fixed price.


that was the problem for me.... living thousands of miles from either coast, and not finding a customs broker willing to deal with small orders.


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## skooler (Mar 26, 2011)

dtbaker said:


> that was the problem for me.... living thousands of miles from either coast, and not finding a customs broker willing to deal with small orders.


I'm afraid I dont know the US well enough to help, sorry.

I really dont understand why Sinopoly dont follow suit and open a Distribution centre in the US, and the EU for that matter!

Looks as the Balqon (sp?) or CALB/CALIB are your best option


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

skooler said:


> I'm afraid I dont know the US well enough to help, sorry.
> 
> I really dont understand why Sinopoly dont follow suit and open a Distribution centre in the US, and the EU for that matter!
> 
> Looks as the Balqon (sp?) or CALB/CALIB are your best option



agreed.... silly of them not to have a well-stocked corporate backed distribution center to take out the middle man and drop-ship to customers.

so far best prices for CALBs are direct from CalibPower.com , and Balqon.com is offering Winstons at the lowest price ($1.10/ah), but not all form factors in stock, which means 2 to 10 week wait for the boat depending on when they have a shipment coming and what size cells you want.

at this point I am leaning toward CALB for this project as I want cells somewhere between 100 and 200ah. CALB offers 100, 130, 180 and the 130s are low volume for them so not a huge inventory available. Winston offers a 160ah, but it would be several weeks wait from Balqon. sigh.... decision time...


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## kens0105 (Jul 30, 2012)

According to Reuters, business analysis and research firm McKinsey and Company have just released a report suggesting that the cost of an electric car battery, specifically the lithium-ion battery cells which make up the battery pack of an EV, will drop in coming years.

There's no doubt about that since any technology put into widespread use gets improved over time. It gets cheaper at scale, people find ways to make it better and so on. It’s only natural that lithium-ion batteries would do likewise. Strides are being made all the time.


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## PStechPaul (May 1, 2012)

I just happened to find this deal on a 12.8V 60 Ah 768 Wh battery for $380. That's less than $0.50/Wh, equivalent to about $1.50/Ah. It's about 20lb.

http://www.batteryspace.com/LiFePO4...8V-60Ah-768Wh-10C-rate-without-Balancing.aspx


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

So more than a CALB, Sinopoly, or Winston...awesome deal!


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## PStechPaul (May 1, 2012)

I was not able to find prices listed for other cells, but after some searching I found some for about $1.20/Ah. 
http://www.electriccarinternational.com/Lithium-Prismatic-Batteries.php

Also, the battery I found is *LiFePO4*, and is packaged into a a 13.2V module which might be convenient. The Calbs seem to be *LiPo*, although I'm not sure which is really better. 

I'm sure you can get better deals if you contact the dealers and manufacturers directly, but it's helpful to have prices posted. At least that's a starting point and a convenience if you need to order one or two. I'm sure these dealers who publish prices will also meet or maybe even beat prices where you have to send in an inquiry and deal with uncertainty.


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## jeremyjs (Sep 22, 2010)

PStechPaul said:


> I was not able to find prices listed for other cells, but after some searching I found some for about $1.20/Ah.
> http://www.electriccarinternational.com/Lithium-Prismatic-Batteries.php
> 
> Also, the battery I found is *LiFePO4*, and is packaged into a a 13.2V module which might be convenient. The Calbs seem to be *LiPo*, although I'm not sure which is really better.
> ...


All of the batteries talked about in this thread are LiFePO4 as far as I've seen. winston, sinopoly, hipower and calb are all lifepo4 with a little something or other added to get around patent issues.


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## mizlplix (May 1, 2011)

Here is a link to an entertaining article about buying from China.


http://www.mpoweruk.com/china_batteries.pdf

Enjoy, Miz


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## PStechPaul (May 1, 2012)

That was a very interesting read. I don't have any direct experience with Chinese companies except www.pcbcart.com, and they have been very good. A friend who manufactures diving equipment and thermal wire strippers has a contact in China for switching power supplies he uses for his battery chargers. 

Some time ago I had designed a DC-DC boost converter for a high power LED flashlight that started as a 25 watt unit and he kept demanding higher power until it was about 50W, and it was confined to a 1" diameter and 3" long volume. It worked, but there were some problems, and then in the crash of 2008 the market evaporated and the project was abandoned. 

But then he contacted his Chinese supplier and they said they could design what he needed. Apparently it worked, but he had some problems and I looked at the schematics and they seemed to be a hacked version of a standard switching supply. 

But he had another application, where he needed to provide about 0.5V at 5 amps for a thermal stripper. I had made one for him years ago where I used a 50kHz square wave at 12V to a small toroid which produced the required low voltage with a few turns of #16 wire. A more powerful version used about 1 volt and 30 amps.

The ide was to use thin, flexible wire from the benchtop power source to a small lightweight hand held tool. But the Chinese design showed the stripper element connected directly to the output of the supply, which would require heavy wires to the element. Although my friend had explained what he wanted (through an interpreter), they had totally missed the point. My friend asked about the design, and questioned what the output was and what frequency it was. The Chinese engineer seemed confused, and said, "Of course, it's DC"! 

I looked at the schematic, and again it seemed to be 90% the same. I think nthey have one schematic and one design which they may have copied from another company or perhaps designed as a one-shot configurable design, where they just need to plug in the specs they need and it tells them what components to use. So they don't have to think about it, and probably don't have the expertise to take even a half-step outside "the box". 

The article's bottom line seems to be that price is not the only factor to consider. I would tend to trust the suppliers I found, and the 10-20% additional cost may well be worth it because they may get their batteries from the better suppliers, and they offer warranties and relatively simple return, replacement, and refund policies. 

I didn't see any links to websites and the ones I figured out did not have prices listed and it was hard to determine the exact chemistry of the batteries being discussed.


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## mizlplix (May 1, 2011)

Hi, Paul: I have done 3 direct purchases from China. Each one was a chore. Each one had issues.

The battery charger buy was delayed because they said it was not good enough for my purpose. They needed $500 more for the upgraded version. I said no and requested a refund. They countered, I countered and finally got the bigger charger for $200 more.

The battery deal was bad from the beginning. The cells had less than 2 volts when delivered. They just kept saying "We do not sell bad cell." After 7 requests to return/exchange them, I asked for full refund. That met with the same "We do not sell bad cell." I am currently trying to nurse them back from oblivion.

No China Direct for me. Miz


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

let me attempt to get this back on track. I am NOT interested in an unknown company or new kind of battery. I would much prefer to hear more about what it takes to get a known brand like Winston, Sinopoly or CALB into the US.

So far it appears that CalibPower.com is still the goto factory distributor for the CALBs. They are bumping their prices up though... with buys possible between $1.22-1.30/ah. 

What I turned up for Winstons is that Balqon.com has serious financial backing and factory relationship to enable sales at prices lower than CALBs (about $1.10/ah), but doesn't always have stock in house in all sizes and you might have to wait anywhere between 2 and 10 weeks for a container to come in.

I didn't find any big factory backed distributor for Sinopoly. Retailers seem to have them for $1.30/ah and up to cover their margins... tough to compete with either the Winston or CALB...


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## ricklearned (Mar 3, 2012)

I am away from my computer but there is another thread. Search Balqon or my posts. Later I can give you details.


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## PStechPaul (May 1, 2012)

So, what about these, with prices listed on a website, and a local office in Utah:
http://www.electriccarinternational.com/Lithium-Prismatic-Batteries.php

They have HIPOWER and BESTGO and SUPER for $1.20/Ah (8-12 week delivery), and CALB for $1.33 with 1 week delivery. And free shipping on 10kWh of batteries. 

Here is a spec on a 100Ah battery:
http://www.electriccarinternational.com/media/HiPower/HP-PW-100AH.pdf

The BESTGO 40 Ah is only $0.375/Wh. I prefer the Wh metric because it more easily correlates to multiple cell packs and other chemistries. So the 12V 12Ah SLAs I ordered are about $0.14/Ah (including shipping) and the 12V 105Ah deep discharge I had considered is $0.067/Wh.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

PStechPaul said:


> So, what about these, with prices listed on a website, and a local office in Utah:
> http://www.electriccarinternational.com/Lithium-Prismatic-Batteries.php


I have not heard much about this outfit good or bad.... have YOU ordered from them? I am looking for first-hand testimonials regarding customer service and reliable, timely delivery. I poked around their site for a while, and they have pretty good prices on a number of components.... I am just wondering what their delivery record is like and how much is in stock?




PStechPaul said:


> They have HIPOWER and BESTGO and SUPER


I am not a fan of these brands.... tests/specs available give me a feeling they are inferior to Winston/Sinopoly and CALB.


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