# Where'd you get your LFP batteries from?



## dimitri (May 16, 2008)

OK, I'll bite 

Not sure how many different answers you expect, its not like these cells are sold at every Walmart  , anyone regular on these forums would know there are 2-3 ways to get these cells.

Anywhoo...

1. Cell Brand, Size, Quantity? ThunderSky , LFP160AHA, 40 cells

2. Vendor Purchased From? Elite Power

3. Dates Purchased and Received? paid in Jan 2009, got them in March 2009

4. Total Price Paid (including all those nebulous port fees)? 11K ( OMG, cold sweat just looking at the invoice  )

5. Happy or Not with Vendor/Manufacturer? Very happy with cells, vendor is OK as long as you don't have anything to replace. I was lucky not to buy their charger and BMS, I hear others weren't so lucky, but let them speak on their own . I mean Vendor was great communicating and providing info and all that, so I personally can't complain, but I suspect that if I got a bad cell I might have troubles with warranty since they don't even stock these cells. But then again, who does? Right?


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## Grant_NZ (May 28, 2008)

dimitri said:


> OK, I'll bite
> 
> Not sure how many different answers you expect, its not like these cells are sold at every Walmart


LOL classic


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## 86Honda (Apr 15, 2009)

1. Cell Brand, Size, Quantity?
Sky Energy, 100Ah, 30 cells

2. Vendor Purchased From?
EVComponents

3. Dates Purchased and Received?
Last payment last week, still on the way from China.

4. Total Price Paid (including all those nebulous port fees)?
$3.6K - shipping form the west coast to Indiana added over $400 to that

5. Happy or Not with Vendor/Manufacturer?
Don't know yet - gotta get my BMS and get it all installed. I expect great things, since the old lead acids weigh about 1030 lbs and the new cells will be about 200. Vendor has been very professional so far.


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## ahambone (Jan 13, 2009)

I'll jump in on this too.

1. Cell Brand, Size, Quantity?
Headway 38120S, 10Ahr. Ordered 125 cells will use either 96 ((4p)x24s) or 120 ((5p)x24s) when they arrive, depending on how I lay them out in the car.

2. Vendor Purchased From?
Group purchase organized by Frodus (on this forum). He has recently become one of the employees at EVComponents. Future purchases will probably go directly through EVComponents as they have announced that they will carry the 38120S in stock domestically.

3. Dates Purchased and Received?
The cells have not arrived yet. Due in Seattle/Portland area in the next two weeks. Wired money back in May. Received confirmation they were on sea freight around the 22nd of June.

4. Total Price Paid (including all those nebulous port fees)?
$16.50 per cell to get them, with port fees, into the US. So $2062.50 thus far. From there I will do cheap UPS Ground or USPS to my house in Houston, TX. I'd estimate another $100 to $200 for domestic ground shipping, max because I've only ordered 80 or 90 pounds of batteries.


5. Happy or Not with Vendor/Manufacturer?
Very happy with the vendor so far, don't know yet about the cells. I'm using a self-built Goodrum/Fechter BMS kit for my cells and a Zivan charger flashed for LiFePO4. The surrounding components are high quality, let's hope the cells match!

Cheers,
--adam


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## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

Thanks for the replies so far, dimitri, 86Honda and ahambone. For those who have not yet received their LFP cells, please edit your posts after you get them to let us know how both the cells and the vendor performed.

Okay - so far it looks like we have 2 vendors - Elite Power and EVComponents - and 3 manufacturers - ThunderSky, Sky Energy and Headway.


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## frodus (Apr 12, 2008)

Even though I work with EVComponents, I want to leave feedback on the group buy, because really, we're buying from a distributor named Victoria for the Headway cells.

1. Cell Brand, Size, Quantity? Headway, 10Ah each cell, 200 cells.

2. Vendor Purchased From? I organized a group buy in May for these cells from a distributor named Victoria, then got hired at EVComponents.com to continue bringing them into the US.

3. Dates Purchased and Received? Money wired middle of may, on the boat the 20th of June, awaiting arrival early July.

4. Total Price Paid (including all those nebulous port fees)? I paid a little less than $16.50 due to having to handle all the paperwork, organizing customs, phonecalls and invoicing. Future pricing will be $17 a cell for orders through EVComponents without all the risk of wiring money. CC and Paypal are additional forms of payments.

5. Happy or Not with Vendor/Manufacturer? I consider myself as a person with high self esteem... lol.... but seriously, things have gone smoothly with the order so far (except for some delays from the Vendor in China). No real hangups. I've been up front with people, as I'm in the same position they're in (for the May group buy).

at EVComponents, we want to do the best we can to supply batteries to the EV Comunity. If there are any questions, concerns or feedback, let us know... thats how you fix things.... only if you know they're broken.


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## st51 (Apr 20, 2009)

dimitri said:


> OK, I'll bite
> 1. Cell Brand, Size, Quantity? ThunderSky , LFP160AHA, 40 cells



I'm looking for something similar. I had found these ThunderSky LifePo4 160Ah on Ebay (not sure of the model #)... I'm assuming they are the same. Or maybe even something built like this LifePo4 100Ah @ 102volt pack.

But do you think it is better to go directly through a mfg? _Mainly thinking in terms if replacements were needed (which sounds like most end up with a few duds)._

--


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## frodus (Apr 12, 2008)

st51 said:


> I'm looking for something similar. I had found these ThunderSky LifePo4 160Ah on Ebay (not sure of the model #)... I'm assuming they are the same. Or maybe even something built like this LifePo4 100Ah @ 102volt pack.
> 
> But do you think it is better to go directly through a mfg? _Mainly thinking in terms if replacements were needed (which sounds like most end up with a few duds)._
> 
> --


 The cost for 1-2 cells isn't gonna be cheap, thats for sure. The money savings is when you get a large order together... or get on the back of a group buy.


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## dimitri (May 16, 2008)

st51 said:


> I'm looking for something similar. I had found these ThunderSky LifePo4 160Ah on Ebay (not sure of the model #)... I'm assuming they are the same. Or maybe even something built like this LifePo4 100Ah @ 102volt pack.
> 
> But do you think it is better to go directly through a mfg? _Mainly thinking in terms if replacements were needed (which sounds like most end up with a few duds)._
> 
> --


First Ebay link is from Jungle Motors, this is a conversion shop and they also sell TS cells, I almost bought from them, just found them a little late. Brad from JungleMotors is a member on this forum and very good guy to deal with. He was competitive with Elite, not sure how he can compete with EV Components though . However, if he has those cells on Ebay, he probably has them in stock, which is not something EV Components can say today . I would recommend to call them ( number is posted on their web side www.junglemotors.com ) and check availability, maybe even get a better price than Ebay 

Second Ebay link, too expensive and never heard of that seller, so can't recommend it, plus 100Ah cells may not be big enough depending on your project.

Also, most do not end up with few duds. Reputable vendor checks every cell before shipping. Every cell I got was tested by Elite and they provided test results for every cell's serial number. If you got a dud, then something is wrong with your vendor.

Dealing directly with China is too complex for a regular customer IMHO, plus you don't get price advantage of large orders. I would rather buy from US vendor...

Hope this helps.


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## st51 (Apr 20, 2009)

dimitri said:


> Dealing directly with China is too complex for a regular customer IMHO, plus you don't get price advantage of large orders. I would rather buy from US vendor...


I agree. 

-


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

I'm in on the buy from EVcomponents so still waiting on the cells, should be arriving soon. 34 of the 100ah cells. So far James and Dave have been very helpful and I don't see any other vendors coming anywhere near their prices for TS/SE cells.


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## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

Bumping this thread... I thought the order from EVcomponents was supposed to come in at the end of June... what's going on with that?


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## ahambone (Jan 13, 2009)

I think Travis is supposed to pickup the cells some time this week in PDX. I know he had relatives visiting and something else going on (work maybe ?  ) that he had to coordinate around before getting the cells. I am sure he will tell everyone when he has the cells in hand. I'm not worrying until around the 21st/22nd if we don't get any updates.

edit: Wrong buy, I think. I thought you meant the Headway purchase, not the TS/SE purchase. My bad.

Cheers,
--Adam


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## Powered By DC (Jan 3, 2009)

Both The TS and SE batteries are sitting in customs as we speak. They are undergoing an intense inspection so have been delayed a bit. I am hopeful thy will be released by the end of the week or beginning of next week. I believe some of our non us customers have already began recieving their orders. 

Dave Kois
EV Components, LLC
http://www.evcomponents.com
253-988-5020
Skype dkoisii


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## EVComponents (Apr 20, 2009)

Tesseract said:


> Bumping this thread... I thought the order from EVcomponents was supposed to come in at the end of June... what's going on with that?


I thought the end of June also. 

We are at the mercy of China, ocean freight schedules, the Teamsters union and US customs. There is a lot of room for issues to happen. Please be patient. We have about 250,000 AHs of ThunderSky and Sky Energy LiFePO4 cells sitting in a customs warehouse in the Seattle region.

We have our employees ready to start ground shipping pallets of batteries to customers as soon as we get the batteries released from customs.

We have been responding to customers via email. But we will also post an update here on DIY and on EVDL when we get our shipments released from customs.

Thanks,
James Morrison
www.evcomponents.com


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

Sorry to hear about your troubles guys. They only delayed our order by about 1 week and most of that was learning curve on how to do the paperwork.

Best of luck to you, I hope it works out.


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