First test results Winston vs LiTime

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

as I wrote, I wait for the 1 year, 2 years .................................. etc updates

I already wrote a thread of running my cheap LFLs down to 15% after 11 months. I care not if they may or may not be as good as expensive cells, just that they were fine doing it.

All you care about is lifespan? How about loading a battery up with 100A, 200A? Can the BMS do that? Why does a Winston battery accept more current than a LiTime? Why does the LiTime accept and deliver more when the current is low?

Many aspects, lifespan is the least interesting of them.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

All you care about is lifespan? How about loading a battery up with 100A, 200A? Can the BMS do that? Why does a Winston battery accept more current than a LiTime? Why does a Winston battery accept more current than a LiTime?

Many aspects, lifespan is the least interesting of them.

I am going to answer you questions and then unsubscribe

How about loading a battery up with 100A, 200A? - I have loaded my 400ah batteries via the inverter to the max load I ever load. Something like 150a

Why does a Winston battery accept more current than a LiTime? - I don't know you are the only one with different cells. All I can say it my 400ah bank
of Power Queens will accept all the amps my charger+alternator+solar can sent to them at once.


I don't CARE which is "better". All I care about is my batteries do all the things I ask of them and they do. That is all I expect of them.

A leave others to run science projects

[scherzoja]

As one who does not have the money to buy $500 batteries just to test, I am grateful to folks like Jedi who do this to help us make more informed decisions. It would be very convenient if this thread were not cluttered up with posts not directly related to what Jedi is testing. If one has a setup that uses some other battery brand or a combination of LFP and FLA, then please share, but put it in another thread to keep things uncluttered. Cross-referencing to existing threads that are related (even if remote) is also very helpful.


Jedi, I am very interested in your experiments because there is so much information floating round (anecdotal and marketing) that it is not easy to sort through all of it. I have not yet replaced my FLAs because the quality and features of drop-ins seems to be rising, but with so many vendors appearing, it's hard for someone with a very shallow understanding of electrical engineering to separate marketing BS from actual long-term performance.

Thank you again for Jedi, et al. who spend you time and money to help the rest of us in this community move ahead to design and install systems that are targeted to what we need.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by scherzoja

As one who does not have the money to buy $500 batteries just to test, I am grateful to folks like Jedi who do this to help us make more informed decisions. It would be very convenient if this thread were not cluttered up with posts not directly related to what Jedi is testing. If one has a setup that uses some other battery brand or a combination of LFP and FLA, then please share, but put it in another thread to keep things uncluttered. Cross-referencing to existing threads that are related (even if remote) is also very helpful.


Jedi, I am very interested in your experiments because there is so much information floating round (anecdotal and marketing) that it is not easy to sort through all of it. I have not yet replaced my FLAs because the quality and features of drop-ins seems to be rising, but with so many vendors appearing, it's hard for someone with a very shallow understanding of electrical engineering to separate marketing BS from actual long-term performance.

Thank you again for Jedi, et al. who spend you time and money to help the rest of us in this community move ahead to design and install systems that are targeted to what we need.

100% agree. this is an extremely useful thread. Jedi didn’t have to take his time to share all of these results with everyone. It’s very kind of him to do so and adds to the collective knowledge

regarding not having money for the $500 battery experiment? Just YOLO it or do it for the plot. lol. that’s what I did. Last year I Just picked up the LI time bank and went for it. ha ha. Worked out just fine

[s/v Jedi]

Okay, another update. This time at a high soc%.

As you can see bank B (LiTime) has caught up with bank A (Winston) at the low 90 percent range. If this continues they may even get fully charged first.

[CaptainRivet]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Okay, another update. This time at a high soc%.

As you can see bank B (LiTime) has caught up with bank A (Winston) at the low 90 percent range. If this continues they may even get fully charged first.

what is your end of charge voltage/stop charging. Is it different for Winston and LI-Time.
If i remember right the LI-Time requests charge to 3,65V to be able to balance while Winston are fine with 3,45-3.55V.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by CaptainRivet

what is your end of charge voltage/stop charging. Is it different for Winston and LI-Time.
If i remember right the LI-Time requests charge to 3,65V to be able to balance while Winston are fine with 3,45-3.55V.

There is no balancing with Winston at 3.45 nor at 3.55 or even 3.65. There is only balancing when I turn on the active balancer.

[CaptainRivet]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

There is no balancing with Winston at 3.45 nor at 3.55 or even 3.65. There is only balancing when I turn on the active balancer.

But do you have different end of charge.for winston and LI-time?

Point is Li-time need balancing for sure and they need 3,65V due to manufacturer while winston don't....
So you can either:
1) unnecessarly stress Winston with 3,65V
2) shut winston off earlier via its BMS whatever you use
3) run all on lower 3,55 V and risk the LI-time go out of balance

So what do you do?

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by CaptainRivet

But do you have different end of charge.for winston and LI-time?

Point is Li-time need balancing for sure and they need 3,65V due to manufacturer while winston don't....
So you can either:
1) unnecessarly stress Winston with 3,65V
2) shut winston off earlier via its BMS whatever you use
3) run all on lower 3,55 V and risk the LI-time go out of balance

So what do you do?

No. Surely you know that cells in series all get the same Ah in/out by law of nature.

[wholybee]

Originally Posted by CaptainRivet

But do you have different end of charge.for winston and LI-time?

Point is Li-time need balancing for sure <snip>

How do you know this? And how do you know that balancing doesn't start at a lower voltage than 3.65V? If the charge doesn't end until 3.65V then not balancing until 3.65V means it won't balance. So they MUST start balancing before then. They probably start at 3.45V or so.

Anyway, this is what testing of for, and Jedi is one of the best on the forum to test and evaluate these things. I look forward to what he concludes in several months/years time. I am going to try and not second guess the results until then.

[UFO]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

No. Surely you know that cells in series all get the same Ah in/out by law of nature.

I thought the Li-Times were parallel inside?

[Chotu]

Been stoping my Li Time bank at 3.55 for 13 months now, cycling up/down about 25% of capacity daily. Now with higher requirements while the heaters fight the refrigerator and freezer, cycling down 33% a day and charging every 3 days from nearly empty to BMS overcharge cutoff at 3.65. The higher stop is due to a different non-adjustable charger when charging through the generator.

Am I all good for balancing purposes?

[UFO]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Been stoping my Li Time bank at 3.55 for 13 months now, cycling up/down about 25% of capacity daily. Now with higher requirements while the heaters fight the refrigerator and freezer, cycling down 33% a day and charging every 3 days from nearly empty to BMS overcharge cutoff at 3.65. The higher stop is due to a different non-adjustable charger when charging through the generator.

Am I all good for balancing purposes?

Can you drop your BMS down to 3.6 or lower to cut off? to me 3.65 seems a bit high on a regular basis, but hey I know a bit more than some and less than others. I think outside of a lab, you will never hit the perfect balance and really I don't think it matters as long as you don't flatten them or completely over charge them.


So what if you lose cycles, they'll still last a very long time, possibly longer than most people will have their boat.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by UFO

Can you drop your BMS down to 3.6 or lower to cut off? to me 3.65 seems a bit high on a regular basis, but hey I know a bit more than some and less than others. I think outside of a lab, you will never hit the perfect balance and really I don't think it matters as long as you don't flatten them or completely over charge them.


So what if you lose cycles, they'll still last a very long time, possibly longer than most people will have their boat.

unfortunately, no. It's baked in. I'm using an iota DLS-90 with LiFePO4 charge profile while the sun isn't keeping up. It's not adjustable. I could manually try to stop earlier at times since it's a generator run

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by UFO

I thought the Li-Times were parallel inside?

Some are. I have the 24V 200Ah batteries which have eight cells of 200Ah in series. But if you get this battery in 12V then there are parallel cells.

I specifically only buy batteries with series cells only. For 12V I would buy the 200Ah instead of the 400Ah so that you have only series cells again.