# Calb CA



## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

We'll have to wait and see what the price is on them, and maybe that will drive the others lower.


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## frodus (Apr 12, 2008)

Would you mind elaborating more than just the link? (it's blocked for me).


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

New CALBs (CA series grey cells) coming out this month supposedly. Lower sag, better thermals and cycle life compared to the CALB SEs we know and love.


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## jeremyjs (Sep 22, 2010)

frodus said:


> Would you mind elaborating more than just the link? (it's blocked for me).


Just a much better cell. Less sag, less heating at high C rates, better cold weather performance, higher cycle life and they should be more consistent from cell to cell in capacity due to more automated manufacturing. This is all based on CALB's data sheets that he received from calb. Jack makes promises of much in house battery torture to see just how much better they are. He's melted many a lithium iron cell on camera demonstrating their capabilities on bench tests. No mention of any energy density changes or price.


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

...interested in the comment he made about energy density being 70% better then the SE cells, and that if the 180AH SE cells sagged 22% @ 1000A then, 22% sag in the 180AH CA cells should be 1700A....


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## MN Driver (Sep 29, 2009)

Pulling 10C from the 60Ah cells with a Sol Jr feels a little more comfortable if these new cells generate less heat while they are at it. Since the voltage sag would then be less, I'd probably not even be hitting the 600 amps since my motor would hit the max voltage first. Either way, I'll take it! Was planning for Sinopoly because of their 60Ah(B) cell and its light weight but their lack of availability of that cell size in the US and the apparent improved cell from CALB, I might take the hit on weight.


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## somanywelps (Jan 25, 2012)

MN Driver said:


> Pulling 10C from the 60Ah cells with a Sol Jr feels a little more comfortable if these new cells generate less heat while they are at it. Since the voltage sag would then be less, I'd probably not even be hitting the 600 amps since my motor would hit the max voltage first. Either way, I'll take it! Was planning for Sinopoly because of their 60Ah(B) cell and its light weight but their lack of availability of that cell size in the US and the apparent improved cell from CALB, I might take the hit on weight.


What motor are you running?


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## MN Driver (Sep 29, 2009)

somanywelps said:


> What motor are you running?


Planning to use the Kostov 9 with the higher voltage series field mode configuration and am going to put the motor order in soon(up to 12 week lead time since the US distributor doesn't stock them as they aren't popular yet and need to wait until they are getting a volume Kostov order in if I don't want to pay for small piecemeal intl shipping $$$). I imagined most any 60Ah 100 cell prismatic pack to sag to 250v under 600 amp load, especially with colder weather, therefore that made my decision. I also need a higher voltage pack to get the capacity and voltage I need as a 90Ah or 100Ah pack at 20kwh wouldn't be nearly enough voltage for this motor. Smaller cells of the same total capacity perform better at the same discharge amperage too.


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## dladd (Jun 1, 2011)

the impression I got from reading his blog is that it is an incrementally better cell, with an incrementally higher price. Good on the better cell, bummer that prices are not dropping...


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## MN Driver (Sep 29, 2009)

He's trying to sell the cell too, so there's going to be some 'talking up' that he'll be doing with it as well. I'm hoping his mark-up isn't as bad as the rest of the stuff he is selling. Granted it's business but there are others in business to that are willing to sell for less so the competition factor is there and nothing is stopping other vendors from selling the same product, including CALIB in California, who has been receptive and ready to answer questions and I know someone who got a great price, delivery, and warranty support from them too. I'm not sure how well Jack will be at providing warranty support, as with everything, time will tell.


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## palmer_md (Jul 22, 2011)

Ziggythewiz said:


> We'll have to wait and see what the price is on them, and maybe that will drive the others lower.


$252 for the 180Ah cell.

http://evtvshop.projectooc.com/products.php?cat=10


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

That's not bad at all for an EVTV price. Has anyone pinged Keegan yet?


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## jeremyjs (Sep 22, 2010)

not to bad and the cells do come with nordlocks, ss screws, a simple nylon lifting rope, and the heavy braided straps.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Bowser330 said:


> ...interested in the comment he made about energy density being 70% better then the SE cells, and that if the 180AH SE cells sagged 22% @ 1000A then, 22% sag in the 180AH CA cells should be 1700A....


I thought the energy density was the same, which is disappointing, but the power density is better.


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

Just emailed Keegan for price on some 130's but didn't specify blue or gray. Will see what he says.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

A CALB rep has said the 130's aren't being made any more, so if you get any they will be the old blue SE's, and possibly odd leftovers.


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## dladd (Jun 1, 2011)

JRP3 said:


> A CALB rep has said the 130's aren't being made any more, so if you get any they will be the old blue SE's, and possibly odd leftovers.


well shoot, I better get on it and order some then! I've been wanting to pick up 2 more 130ah cells for my car (to replace a few of my weaker cells) but haven't gotten to it yet. Bummer they are discontinued.


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

From Keegan:

130Ah blue units - $157.30 ($1.21Ah) each cell, no stock. Will be available till first week of August. 
- Connector contains busbar, bolts and washers, $2.00 per set.

100Ah Gray CA units - $128.00 each, in stock.

I'm wanting to replace some US Battery XC2200 232Ah batteries in a Genie GS-1930 scissor lift with lithium. Not sure which one is close for my application as I have to take Amp measurements to determine Ah when considering Peukert.


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## jeremyjs (Sep 22, 2010)

Saw this video and thought I'd share. Pretty impressive if not a little crude and dangerous.


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

ElectriCar said:


> From Keegan:
> 
> 130Ah blue units - $157.30 ($1.21Ah) each cell, no stock. Will be available till first week of August.
> - Connector contains busbar, bolts and washers, $2.00 per set.
> ...


Wait so the Blues are 1.21$/AH and the Greys are 1.28$/AH?

Is there really any reason to get the Blue cells anymore?

100 Greys @ 128$/ea
32kwh (@320wh/mile) = 100mile range
700lbs
12,800$ 
10C = 1000A

Sounds like the perfect cell for a DIY'er without much skills or patience....


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## Elithion (Oct 6, 2009)

jeremyjs said:


> Saw this video and thought I'd share.


For those who are too impatient to look at this for 30 minutes:


10:40 glowing metal
12:30 some fire
22:30 1000A
24:10 wrench welded across the cell


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## rwaudio (May 22, 2008)

Elithion said:


> For those who are too impatient to look at this for 30 minutes:
> 
> 
> 10:40 glowing metal
> ...



You forgot the part where it's just shy of 2000A
It's a bit before the 1000A test I believe.


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## jeremyjs (Sep 22, 2010)

Well it looks like jack finally put the screws to some 40ah cells. The results are definitely encouraging. Roughly half the sag at 2x the load compared to the old SE cells. Looks like you could make a fun, low cost, low range, but still powerful car with these things. They're still no A123, but they seem to be close enough to make all the extra hassle of building a pack out of pouch cells seem less and less appealing for a street car.


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## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

Oh, I would love to replace my 38, 60 amp hour late Thunder Sky cells (about 1.5 milliohms internal resistance) with 56 CALB CA 40 amp hour cells. The pack of CA cells would actually weigh less. I forgot the exact voltage sag number I saw in Jack's test, but calculated about 1.0 milliohm internal resistance. I'd go from about 37.5 kW, which is fine for a 1200 lb. car, to about 68 kW. More is better.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

I think the 40's would do fine at higher voltages, but there are too many people only half listening to Jack and wanting to do a small 40AH pack based on his recommendation for a 60AH lightweight car.


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## jeremyjs (Sep 22, 2010)

Ziggythewiz said:


> I think the 40's would do fine at higher voltages, but there are too many people only half listening to Jack and wanting to do a small 40AH pack based on his recommendation for a 60AH lightweight car.


Agreed. It'd also be really nice to see a couple other things. A true apples to apples test with 40ah SE cells at the same loads, the speedster test is all well and good but it'd be nice to see it under more controlled conditions, where we know SOC, temperature, etc. And a constant current test on both to empty or near empty to see what kind of constant currents it can take without overheating.


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## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

Ziggythewiz said:


> I think the 40's would do fine at higher voltages, but there are too many people only half listening to Jack and wanting to do a small 40AH pack based on his recommendation for a 60AH lightweight car.


I think my lightweight car is the exception though.  It's not just light like a Speedster kit or a Geo Metro. The car weighs 1200 lb. with the current battery pack. Plus, I'm not limited to around 36 cells, like the Curtis AC package he recommends for small conversions.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

Agreed, though the weight doesn't matter as much for peak current as your controller/lead foot does  If you go 180V instead of 120 that's the same as a 120V system using the 60s.

I may need to dial back my controller/foot as GC8s don't dish the current as readily as marines.


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## MN Driver (Sep 29, 2009)

Ziggythewiz said:


> I think the 40's would do fine at higher voltages, but there are too many people only half listening to Jack and wanting to do a small 40AH pack based on his recommendation for a 60AH lightweight car.


It all depends with 67 cells of 60Ah and 100 cells of 40Ah, the 100 cells of 40Ah are going to perform better all around because the capacity is as close to equal as you can get and if the same amount of power is being drawn, the current will be at the same C rate as long as the battery capacity remains the same.

Also smaller cells sag less under the same C rate than larger cells do. This is why I think Jack's tests comparing 180Ah SE cells and 40Ah CA cells is a little flawed but it goes to show you that smaller cells can handle higher C rates, although not necessarily the same amperages but if you use a higher voltage pack with the same total kwh capacity you should be better off as long as all of your equipment can handle it. Of course you'd be setting the Soliton controller(or whatever other capable controller) to limit the motor voltage to something safe for your particular motor but with, say 96 cells, you are at a voltage where sag is almost eliminated as an issue. Not you aren't going to want to take 40Ah CA cells to the drag race because the current you would pull to actually sag them hard would get them a bit hot. There's a limit for current draw somewhere. With SE cells the limit was 400 amps(10C) for the 40Ah cells for 10 seconds and 10C all the way up to 70Ah cells(700 amps). 1000 amps for the 180Ah cells was the 10 second rating.

The rumor is that CA cells are good to 12C, the evidence looks positive that they would be okay with it. I'm just wishing Jack was testing terminal temperature via a thermocouple on the metal terminal as the plastic case is a bit of an insulator to temperature and he aims with the laser which if you've used an IR gun, the laser is way off when you are close up, take a look from the side sometimes while you aim at your hand the red dot is 1.5" or so below where the gun is 'shooting'. Not to mention the 'spot size' dynamic of IR guns. I figure that since he's not measuring a difference through the plastic or wherever his gun is actually reading that they are handling it fairly well, it's just not a very good representation of what's going on inside.

I'm planning on running 100 60Ah LiFePO4 cells(charged at a lowish voltage so as not to upset a controller manufacturer too much, yes I knw I'm cutting it close to the limit) in about as lightweight(1900 lbs pre-conversion) and aero(.25 cD) as you can get in a production car and I think they'll handle it no problem. I was looking at Sinopoly cells due to their energy density being much better in that size than everyone else but the power density of these makes me second guess and then the non-availability in the US of Sinopoly cells has me looking at CALB CA cells even more. I'm pretty sure I've got my decision made at this point, purchase is next spring so I've got time to mull about it.


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## puddleglum (Oct 22, 2008)

I've been hearing that these cells are the supposed to be the closest thing to a123 cells in a easy to use package. I know Jack is claiming 12C from them. Can anyone explain why the spec sheet on the CALB site says 2C max?


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

That's the continuous rating. I haven't seen a max pulse current, but even with the old ones it was up to 10C.


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## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

That concerns me a bit too. The older SE cells allow a higher continuous rating even with (it seems) more sag. Plus, Jack's test should not be relied upon for real world results for a couple of reasons.

First, he had just charged the cells at 3C and raised the temperature to about 100 degrees Fahrenheit on the outside of the case measured with an infrared thermometer. It is likely it was even warmer inside. Second, it has been common with the cells we are using to find that the smaller the cell the greater the current capability relative to capacity. Large cells might sag to 2.5 volts at 4C while on smaller cells it may require a 6C discharge to get them down to 2.5 volts.


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## bigmouse (Sep 28, 2008)

Just a quick bit of info to throw in here in case anyone finds it valuable.

I've been doing a bunch of testing on a CA40 cell as part of my thesis lately and finished today. Most of the tests were simulated driving cycles with the aim of developing a SoC estimation algorithm. Today I did my final test, and thought I'd do a high-current ramp on it just to see what the cell is capable of when fully charged.

I set the tester to do a ramp from 0-500A discharge over 15 seconds, with a trip at 2.5V. The result is below:










The cell when fully charged managed to output a bit over 400A (10C) before sagging to 2.5v. Not bad! If I had the time, I'd have performed this test at various SoC, but that is not useful for my thesis so I didn't want to take the time on the equipment to do that.

I just thought this bit of information might be interesting to folks here.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Thanks for the data. What was the cell temperature during testing?


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## bigmouse (Sep 28, 2008)

JRP3 said:


> Thanks for the data. What was the cell temperature during testing?


18 degrees C.


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

bigmouse said:


> ......
> I just thought this bit of information might be interesting to folks here.


Thanks big. Always nice to see people throw up test results.


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## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

bigmouse said:


> ...I've been doing a bunch of testing on a CA40 cell as part of my thesis lately and finished today....


Nice. Did you measure the cell voltage at the terminals (ie - a "Kelvin" measurement)? If so, the dV of 0.5V at a dI of 250A (150A to 400A) implies an internal resistance of 2 milliohms.


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## pm_dawn (Sep 14, 2009)

They Must have been recently charged or otherwise overcharged to start out north of 3.5v

Nice with some highcurrent tests.
I would like more test results presented here at DIY.
I just have a bunch capacity curves for old Thunderskys. I guess no one really cares about those.


Regards
/Per


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## bigmouse (Sep 28, 2008)

Tesseract said:


> Nice. Did you measure the cell voltage at the terminals (ie - a "Kelvin" measurement)? If so, the dV of 0.5V at a dI of 250A (150A to 400A) implies an internal resistance of 2 milliohms.


No, it was measured at the test unit, but the cables are very heavy (I'm talking inch-thick copper).



pm_dawn said:


> They Must have been recently charged or otherwise overcharged to start out north of 3.5v
> 
> Nice with some highcurrent tests.
> I would like more test results presented here at DIY.


Fresh charge within the previous 8hrs, yes.

More more interesting results: as part of my testing I also did the tests required to get the Peukert numbers for this cell.

At 1C (40A) it discharged in 1.019hrs
At 0.05C (2A) if discharged in 22.38hrs

This gives a Peukert coefficient  of 1.031, constant (K) of 45.73, for this cell where:

Q = K*I^(1-n)

"Q" being the effective capacity at discharge rate "I"


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## MN Driver (Sep 29, 2009)

Where does the K value come from?


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## bigmouse (Sep 28, 2008)

MN Driver said:


> Where does the K value come from?


K = T*I^n. where T is the time to discharge at current I.

I used the formulas in a paper titled "Improved Method for State of Charge Estimation of Lithium Iron Phosphate Power Batteries"


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## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

So "K" is the capacity of the cell at the 1 amp discharge rate, also known as the Peukert's Capacity.


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## green_EV 2000 (May 2, 2014)

They are different， the CALB CA and A123,CA is generally about 100AH, even larger ，if the LFP uneven coating on the copper foil material will greatly affect the probability of battery life, the standard is 20AH A123 cells, in terms of the individual batteries, A123 affirmation is better, but combined into PACK speaking, who's better, we can not entirely sure, such CA100AH ​​equivalent to five A123 batteries in parallel, but now is not very perfect solution BMS battery equalization management. Especially not balanced to the core (parallel across the battery module) for each CELL


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