This is my first post here - I came across this thread (and forum) while researching the T-sky 160ah cells. It looks like there is a lot of great information on this site!
Anyhow, I have built a whole bunch of ebikes with LiFePO4, and now I’m ready to try a vehicle conversion. I am planning on 120v, and I always buy a pair of spare cells, so I am actively looking to purchase (40) 160a cells, a little over 20kwh.
If this gets off the ground soon, I am aboard for that 20+kwh. Heck, at $1/ah I might even purchase (50) of the 40ah cells for another 6+kwh. Hmm… Are these prices FOB china or from a US distributer? I have heard from a few battery resellers that they have had a difficult and expensive time importing LiFePO4, and that could add to the $1/ah price…
WOW, $1 per Ah, these are cheap.
I cant believe Tesla and other EV companies aren’t jumping all over this one.
What a bargain, the cheapest quality for the cheapest price.
So what if they last only 6 to 12 months. They are too cheap to pass up.
This will put all other companies like A123 out of business for sure.
I’m still waiting to hear if anything happened with this, I mean, i’ve got cash in hand right now, ready to buy if I can get 30 cells of 60Ah or similar.
I’m working on my own balancer for this, so I don’t need BMS, unless its included, or available for a fair price.
I’m a long-time subscriber (on and off) to the EVDL, but I’m new here. I’ve been looking for a good way to get my hands on some LiFePO4, and a ThunderSky group buy sounds like just the ticket. I stumbled across this forum looking for more info on their cells, and it’s just the group buy I was looking for.
Depending on volume and import prices, I could go for 50-60 of either the 160Ah or the 90Ah cells. My price cap is ~$10k, but I’d be willing to push it a little for the 160Ah guys. So, count me in!
As for bad cells (I think someone asked), ThunderSky doesn’t have a particularly good reputation (from a few years back) for honoring warranties. However, I have yet to hear anything bad about their LFP cells. I figure, if they’re this cheap, I’ll size my pack a little generously so I can afford to lose a couple.
lionev has posted new prices and seems to me like they might be worth the group buy…i’d like to hear more success stories and horror stories from both…i don’t want to end up like this guy… [ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB1iKYgKSqo[/ame] does anyone know if he got his replacement batteries from thundersky?
I’m going to buy LiFePO4 batteries for sure,i’m just still looking. I don’t want to waste money on lead acid batteries that will only last a few years and give me horrible range.
I’m looking at about 50 of the 100aH (er…90Ah…?) Please add my name to the list. If anyone cares to get us started on a group deal for the required BMS it would appreciated. It sure will help estimate the total budget needed. If the BMS is reasonable I might jump to 160Ah cells or even 200Ah. I was currently looking at buying through Lionev but it’s $300/cell for 100Ah+BMS. What about DIY BMS? I saw on Ryan Bohm’s ev on evalbum that he bought the MK2 for something like 1/2 the price and sodered them together himself…anyone else ever done this?
Is this purchase still moving forward? Is the deal still available? I do have a couple questions along the lines of:
[ul]
[li]What BMS works best for LiFePO4[/li][li]What charger works best? I heard some chargers can ‘throttle back’ as the different BMS circuits say their cell is full.[/li][/ul]
I understand the answer for both is “it depends” but, like this group purchase, there are some things out there that people stumble across and hearing about the good news is pretty cool
[QUOTE=electric85;2337]lionev has posted new prices and seems to me like they might be worth the group buy…
I’m going to buy LiFePO4 batteries for sure[/QUOTE]
I looked into LionEV and swapped a few emails with them. Their website has been updated because of my enquiry but they want $300 for a 100Ah cell and $500/200Ah with the BMS already installed on each cell…or $2/Ah+$100 for BMS. If this group deal can get us new cells for $1/Ah and some reasonable shipping (has anyone asked about this?) then there’s lots of room to breath before getting to $3/Ah like they’re quoting.
All the pics I’ve seen show the grey cells so these look like the Lithium Cobalt ones and not the LiFePO4 but then again they talk about LiFePO4 all over their webpage. Hard to sell a 100Ah LiFePO4 when only 90Ah and 160Ah are available. They never did get back to me about the Peukert numbers to be able to use the ev battery calculators. Has anyone found an range/speed calculator that is set up for lithium cells? Everything I’ve seen (Uve or evconvert.com) seem to be based on old school cells.
If everyone wants the minimum voltage clamper like shown on metricmind then we could have a pcb service give us a pretty good deal on etching all the boards. The individual component purchase and soldering would be individual unless we find a place that will populate the boards. If the group deal needs 100,000 Ah then (at an average of 160Ah/cell) we’d be looking at 625 voltage clampers…I’m sure that would get us a deal of some kind. Anyone have any connections with a shop already?
I just tallied up everyones request and it looks like we’re up to 104,000Ah!!!
I’ve put all the info and some arbitrary numbers for shipping and duty…I tried to guess on the high side to be pessimistic. If anyone has any connection to a shipping company who can give us a hand with estimating import fees this looks like a real possibility!
My calcs are on a google spreadsheet…I can give you read access if you drop me your email address to kristofor.jensen+etev@gmail.com I’d really like to get it fixed up. Heck we could even look into the shipping cost of redistributing from the “hub” and spread that cost out too to some degree…everyone’s purchase made the deal possible so it’s only fair I think.
FIY everyone in case you haven’t found it. There is a Yahoo Tech Group that was put together after some group buys in the UK and US back in 2003 (maybe this was when the bumm sets of batteries were sent?) This group is still active and seems to have quite a few people discussing the LiFePO4 batteries and I haven’t read anything bad…will keep hunting…
If we can get this off the ground in a month or two I’m in for 32 90ah cells, been looking for a long time i’m so SO glad i found this group buy before it was to late !!!
The cells are more expensive but apparently much better quality. Not square & handmade like TS. The lithium layers are carbonized which help with high current draw. These are being purchased direct from the manufacturer that owns the patent on the carbonization technique. A123 pays them a premium for rights to the technique…this explains their high performing cells AND high price. If anyone is still looking for cells and are hesitant about TS then this might be the ticket.
TS cells come separately (well, bundled together for shipping) with no BMS. BMS is be purchased for about $30 per cell…more if you want something fancy.
That other PHET purchase I posted about (2 posts up) turned out to be a ‘deal’ at about $4/Ah…$6-$6.70 if you want them prebundled with BMS. And this is the price they’re giving for a group deal??? Looks like I’m back to TS because, regardless of performance, it’s still way out of my price range for the Ah I’ll need…I’ve been reading a lot and following the TS yahoo tech group mailing list and it seems like there’s more positive feedback about the cells than we find in forums…I guess this means all ev’ers aren’t the net saavy type.
I’m going to keep shopping around…this thread had over 100,000Ah of interested people and it just seemed to grind to a halt so I don’t know if a purchase was made…everyone moved to another buy or what. I’m going to keep hunting around to find either another active TS buy or just find someone (person or company) willing to run point on another purchase…I’m interested in 10,000Ah and I know of at least another 25,000Ah of serious buyer…maybe it’ll just be a few people buying and away we go…
Hello there, I would like to join in on the purchase. I want to get 4, 90Ah cells for the total of 360Ah. I know its a small order compared to most of you here, but i am not ready to spend the money for EV sized battery pack and would like to get a few cells for testing.