[Ocean Invader Aquaholic]

Amp draw is the Minn Kota manual. Max is 56 amps. My boat is a basically a 18ft Jon boat. I use about 40-50% throttle for springer fishing. For summer and fall chinook I'm about 50-70% throttle depending on winds and waves.

I'm still kind of on the fence. My batteries live in the bilge which get wet when it rains. I also hose down the bilge regularly after crabbing. I hope these new batteries are water proof and shock proof from bouncing around in the stern trailering and boating. Current batteries are size group 27 sitting in battery trays. Need to measure and see if the Li Times will fit in my existing trays.

View attachment 1030260

Great info

 

[Jeb]

So, I ordered 3 of the group 24 LiTime LiFePo4 batteries. I wasn't going to go down that route for this project originally - I was going to go with a single 36volt. But given the price (sale @ $175 each) and the small profile/footprint for 100Ah in a group 24 size, I figured what the heck. The turning point for me also was that these were prism cells vs pouch cells.

Well, they arrived. Hard to believe this is 100Ah in such a small form factor. Can it really be true?
First one doing a bench test - full capacity test.

Well, amazing, it is above rated capacity at 103.7Ah on a full charge. Now just 2 more batteries to go for the full capacity test of EACH one before installation.

Besides the capacity testing...just a quick overview of the app. What is good, what is ok and what is lame.

The general operation of the app is good. Its snappy, it connects to each battery over bluetooth fairly quickly and no weird unexplained connectivity issues. The overview page shows the important things, such as SoC, Activity on the battery (whether its charging, discharging or in Standby). It also shows the current charge or discharge rate in Amperage. Also current capacity and voltage. All good info at a glance. It also allows you to rename each of the batteries - so you don't have some vague serial number for the Battery ID in the app.

Also, there are 3 icons at the bottom: Balance, Cells & BMS. If you click on each of these you can get a status. Here is where I do NOT like the interface compared to other BMS/Apps out on the market. Its basically a glorified idiot light like on your car dash board. It does not give the nitty gritty details like other batteries on the market. Personally, I would like to know the voltage of each of the cells and the delta across the cells. If there is a fault, such as BMS disconnect because of cell voltage, I would like to know that too. But what they really did was take the blinky light approach verses giving us the 'advanced' mode like some of the other batteries on the market. Oh well, maybe they'll do a software update in the future to give us that.

If for some reason the other 2 batteries fail the capacity test, I will post an update. Otherwise, they look good so far....

 

[joeer77]

So, I ordered 3 of the group 24 LiTime LiFePo4 batteries. I wasn't going to go down that route for this project originally - I was going to go with a single 36volt. But given the price (sale @ $175 each) and the small profile/footprint for 100Ah in a group 24 size, I figured what the heck. The turning point for me also was that these were prism cells vs pouch cells.

Well, they arrived. Hard to believe this is 100Ah in such a small form factor. Can it really be true?
First one doing a bench test - full capacity test.
View attachment 1053189


Well, amazing, it is above rated capacity at 103.7Ah on a full charge. Now just 2 more batteries to go for the full capacity test of EACH one before installation.
View attachment 1053190



Besides the capacity testing...just a quick overview of the app. What is good, what is ok and what is lame.

The general operation of the app is good. Its snappy, it connects to each battery over bluetooth fairly quickly and no weird unexplained connectivity issues. The overview page shows the important things, such as SoC, Activity on the battery (whether its charging, discharging or in Standby). It also shows the current charge or discharge rate in Amperage. Also current capacity and voltage. All good info at a glance. It also allows you to rename each of the batteries - so you don't have some vague serial number for the Battery ID in the app.

View attachment 1053191

Also, there are 3 icons at the bottom: Balance, Cells & BMS. If you click on each of these you can get a status. Here is where I do NOT like the interface compared to other BMS/Apps out on the market. Its basically a glorified idiot light like on your car dash board. It does not give the nitty gritty details like other batteries on the market. Personally, I would like to know the voltage of each of the cells and the delta across the cells. If there is a fault, such as BMS disconnect because of cell voltage, I would like to know that too. But what they really did was take the blinky light approach verses giving us the 'advanced' mode like some of the other batteries on the market. Oh well, maybe they'll do a software update in the future to give us that.

View attachment 1053192



If for some reason the other 2 batteries fail the capacity test, I will post an update. Otherwise, they look good so far....

Yes. They are awesome. Watch how long that balancing icon is flashing after fully charging. It takes longer than I would of thought.

I got about the same capacity reading on the app when I fully discharged and charged the batteries.

What charger are you running?

 

[Jeb]

Yes. They are awesome. Watch how long that balancing icon is flashing after fully charging. It takes longer than I would of thought.

I got about the same capacity reading on the app when I fully discharged and charged the batteries.

What charger are you running?

It takes a while to balance because the BMS is doing a top balance. There is an internal bleed resistor that drains off the cells that have too much charge to let the 'lower voltage' cells take a little more charge. The higher current chargers...sometimes it actually takes longer for the top balance. So having a smaller >10Amp charger can actually make it easier for the BMS to balance.
On serviceable units, I've top balanced manually on the bench - by putting a load on the cells that are exceeding the 3.65v per cell.
This BMS on this LiTime seems to do a pretty good job top balancing with a 10Amp Noco charger on the bench.

What I do NOT like about this BMS is that it does NOT show the voltages of the individual cells. So you don't know where you are at in the balance. Its all idiot lights. That might be ok for most; but I really want the details to know if I'm getting every little bit out of my battery packs.

Regarding capacity tests, I am a little skeptical of trusting what the BMS tells me. I've found that not all of them are accurate. I rely on my external battery load tester.

For battery #1 test - its within 1amp of the external tester. So the internal shunt & BMS appears to be calibrated appropriately. But I have purchased some of these Chinese LiFePo4 batteries where they are off by as much as 20%.

Testing Battery #2 and #3 on the bench and will see what we have.

 

[ChinookSlayer]

The other note with the LiTime batteries, when you first get it, it won't connect to blue tooth until it is placed on a charger. I thought maybe after that it'd be good, but when I last went to check my battery, it won't connect again. It's been sitting for a few months since kokanee trolling. I haven't put it back on a charger as I left it at 59% charge for the winter, but I'm assuming the system goes into a sleep mode if you haven't done anything for a long time to reduce current draw off the battery. When connecting to a charger again, the system (hopefully) wakes up and lets you connect.

 

[joeer77]

The other note with the LiTime batteries, when you first get it, it won't connect to blue tooth until it is placed on a charger. I thought maybe after that it'd be good, but when I last went to check my battery, it won't connect again. It's been sitting for a few months since kokanee trolling. I haven't put it back on a charger as I left it at 59% charge for the winter, but I'm assuming the system goes into a sleep mode if you haven't done anything for a long time to reduce current draw off the battery. When connecting to a charger again, the system (hopefully) wakes up and lets you connect.

My LiTimes have been disconnected from anything since Oct 7th. I can connect to them whenever I want with my phone. They are still holding at 50%.

 

[Lik2hnt2]

Have a solar Li battery pack I got last year for hunting camp. Also have a small gas generator. Found out the Li batteries will not charge in cold weather. Need to get a warming pad to place under it.

 

[joeer77]

I spoke too soon. Major power outage tonight in my part of town. Using my LiTime to run my modem, router, stereo, and TV. Draining that baby down with my 750 watt inverter.

 

[ChinookSlayer]

My LiTimes have been disconnected from anything since Oct 7th. I can connect to them whenever I want with my phone. They are still holding at 50%.

Hmmm, I wonder why mine won't connect again? Did your battery connect when you first purchased it, or not until you put it on the charger? Mine wouldn't connect until placed on the charger for the first time. I haven't used my battery since early Sept as I switched to salmon from kokanee.

 

[joeer77]

Hmmm, I wonder why mine won't connect again? Did your battery connect when you first purchased it, or not until you put it on the charger? Mine wouldn't connect until placed on the charger for the first time. I haven't used my battery since early Sept as I switched to salmon from kokanee.

My battery had 3 volts when I first received it. Soon as it started charging I could connect to it.

Maybe reboot your phone. Unpair your phone and re-pair it with the battery if rebooting doesn't work. If you have another phone laying around try that.

 

[joeer77]

It takes a while to balance because the BMS is doing a top balance. There is an internal bleed resistor that drains off the cells that have too much charge to let the 'lower voltage' cells take a little more charge. The higher current chargers...sometimes it actually takes longer for the top balance. So having a smaller >10Amp charger can actually make it easier for the BMS to balance.
On serviceable units, I've top balanced manually on the bench - by putting a load on the cells that are exceeding the 3.65v per cell.
This BMS on this LiTime seems to do a pretty good job top balancing with a 10Amp Noco charger on the bench.

What I do NOT like about this BMS is that it does NOT show the voltages of the individual cells. So you don't know where you are at in the balance. Its all idiot lights. That might be ok for most; but I really want the details to know if I'm getting every little bit out of my battery packs.

Regarding capacity tests, I am a little skeptical of trusting what the BMS tells me. I've found that not all of them are accurate. I rely on my external battery load tester.

For battery #1 test - its within 1amp of the external tester. So the internal shunt & BMS appears to be calibrated appropriately. But I have purchased some of these Chinese LiFePo4 batteries where they are off by as much as 20%.

Testing Battery #2 and #3 on the bench and will see what we have.

LiTime asking for feedback on the app today. I suggested your cell voltage idea.

 

[Berdink]

Plotted my motor data just for fun and added a regression line. I calculate about 11 hours trolling with herring (45% throttle) and 5.9 hours pro-troll and spinners (60% throttle). That's plenty of fishing time for our household. I'm usually done after 3 or 4 hours of trolling.

View attachment 1034255

.
That helps.
Because thinking linear would mean 50% throttle would me half the total allowed amp hours.
But it's not linear.
I found this on some video I watched.
View attachment 1000014672.jpg