Comments by "Drew Hodge" (@drewhodge3820) on "Off-Grid Garage" channel.

When they fix the 0.3 voltage issue I will certainly buy 3 of them. I'm really glad I held off buying one now.. It's in my Aliexpress shopping cart.
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@OffGridGarageAustralia I totally agree with you
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I really enjoy your videos. Here is a question for you. When charging from solar panels, is it more efficient with higher voltage household/domestic panels into a charge controller OR the 12v (12v-19v) panels into a charge controller.
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Da Da. You are my father. LOL.
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I've seen other people drill out the stripped or cross threaded terminals and re-tap with the next size thread.
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You always give me a giggle along with some great real life information. Thanks for taking the time to make the videos.
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That's janky. You can't just cut off the extra wires to make it a 4S balancer. LOL.
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Have you tested the resistance across the individual bus bars?
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@OffGridGarageAustralia I was watching someone's video the other day. He had a slightly bent bus bar (hardly noticeable) connected to some Lifepo4 cells with the laser welded lugs. That one slightly bent bus bar caused serious resistance between the two cells it was connecting. He used ali washers under the bus bars to increase the surface area and it made a big difference as well. P.s keep up the great work. Thank you for sharing all your valuable information. I purchased 8 cells from Amy in September and I made sure to tell her you had sent me.
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Amy is a pleasure to do business with. Can't fault their service.
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The surface of aluminium oxidizes almost instantly when it come into contact with the air.
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There is no point using a DALY BMS in the UK. They dont have Low Temperature Protection. So they are a total waste of time and the are overpriced.
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@none0049 Daly have a temperature sensor for high temp cut off. The last time i looked Daly still didn't have a low temp sensor cut off protection. There are better BMS boards for a lot less money. At least half the world sees freezing weather conditions and offgrid systems from Cabins in the woods to RV's see freezing temperatures. Other BMS manufactures are way ahead of the game.
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@OffGridGarageAustralia Thank you for you reply. I am struggling to find an MPPT charge controller that will run my 2x400w solar panels ( Imp: 9.42A , Vmp: 32.91V, Voc: 40.25V ) to charge my 12V 400Ah LiofePo4 battery. This solar set up will be going on my van build.
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Brilliant information. Thank you for taking the time to do this research/testing and sharing it with everyone. Did you do a video about using the software? After watching your video i purchased a EBC-A20 Battery Tester but i need to figure out how to use it now.
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Question. If i supply this balancer with a 30v external power supply, can i use this to balance the 12x Lifepo4 cells in my 3x 12v nominal Lifepo4 batteries in parallel ???
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Please send Australian Beer to me in the UK immediately so I can test my BMS correctly. Sorry Will I don't need you to send me frozen vegetables from the USA any more. LOL
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The welded terminals are a good idea. Ok that means the cells can't be swapped out but on the other hand they wont come lose inside a sealed plastic battery box. The build quality is nice.
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I understand why all the batteries would turn off all at the same time. Imagine you have a stack of 5 cases. One cell has a failure. That cell is in the bottom case. The shut down has saved all your other cells in all your other battery boxes. There is no way you could gain access quickly. I do think they need an external breaker/switch. I think that's the major safety issue. If they give you the option to buy the cables or include the connectors to crimp onto your own cables that is an easy solution. I can imagine someone building the whole battery and then having to wait weeks for a set of cables or connectors to be delivered from China is going to annoy a lot of people. You don't send that much money to find out you can't connect the battery for another month or more.
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@OffGridGarageAustralia Helicoil tap is the way to go when tapping threads in aluminium. It's very hit and miss with a standard tap. I know most taps will have a taper at the bottom (unless you buy a specialist tap) so the bottom of the bolts threads will have to be tapered to match. You can get a blind hole, helical tap but they are a specialist tap that you will have to order in.
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Great video as usual. Scottish accent fail. LOL
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I still don't know the best type of balancer for my 12v Lifepo4 battery?
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@wolfgangpreier9160 I've built two 12v 300Ah battery packs for my campervan. Both batteries have their own BMS. Two separate 40A Epever charge controllers. 70A B to B charger and a 70A mains charger. Solar comes from two 400W panels on the roof.
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In the UK Red is live and Black in neutral. Earth is green or green and yellow stripes. On our 240v mains the old wires were the same red-live black- neutral But the newer 240v mains cables are brown-live and blue-neutral and earth is always yellow or bare wire with a yellow sleeve that is slid over the bare wire.
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That actually looks like a safety protocol. When the discharge function is turned off. That way the voltage can never go to high, when the discharge function turned off.
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I see the cost of these cells has gone up a lot since you made this video. 4 cells shipped to the UK is £436 (UK Pound sterling) That's 808 Australian dollars.
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They always ship batteries at a lower state of charge. All the manufactures do is match the cells with a similar voltage, with a similar resistance, after the cells are left to stand for a month or two. To make sure the cells dont have a voltage drop over that period of time. They dont top balance the cells.
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The rain washed the solar panels. You will be gaining about 20% extra power. LOL
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@OffGridGarageAustralia Thank you for the reply. Keep up with great work with the videos. They are always very educational.
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Bigger isn't going to be better and definitely not cheaper. Double the weight. More than double the cost due to new production lines. The new 397Ah cells coming out will be the same sizeas the 280Ah /314Ah cells so very little to change on the production/manufacturing lines and they will fit inside all the same boxes so no increased costs. Back to the weight issue. Take Tesla power wall for example. They are stupidly heavy to get delivered and move around in site. So the new 298Ah cells will win the race.
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@OffGridGarageAustralia Slight typo 392Ah not 397Ah. CALB are planning to produce 392Ah cells later this year (they estimate 3 months lead time to the start of production). I saw the info on a YT channel a few days ago. The much larger 587Ah -628Ah cells will require new manufacturing line, down time to construct new manufacturing plant and time to ensure quality control. I watched the video in the (Starmax Energy for Lithium ion battery) YT channel on the 8th of May. Obviously all these new sized cells will have production teething problems.
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Is the carbon or oil on the work bench conducting anything? Just a random thought went you were measuring the fuses.
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@OffGridGarageAustralia The bench top looked dark like it might have had oil on it or had heat applied to it. Only a random thought. It seemed like you got slightly different meter reading when you did the measurements on the lighter coloured part of the work bench compared to the darker areas of the work bench. I am probably totally wrong. (I usually am) But sometimes (Only sometimes in my case LOL) thinking outside the box actually gets it right.
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I have been busy over the past couple of months. Congratulations on 20,000+ subs. Did you find a good active balancer yet? The last videos I watched on YT were your videos about the NEEY balancer that didn't work. P.s I really wanted to say a massive THANK YOU for the link to QISHOU. I spoke to Amy and mentioned your channel. I received 8x 304Ah cells to the UK within 10 weeks.
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@OffGridGarageAustralia LOL. Practise make perfect.
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