Anyone Ever buy from this LIFEPO4 ebay supplier?

Yes, some people have. I've not heard any negative comments. However there was a long discussion between various people including Don Harmon approx a month ago concerning the LiFePO industry. It seems there's only one true blue real provider of the technology for those batteries, and that there are several imitators.

I notice that the ratings on this battery are very weak and only appropriate for a bicycle. I'm meaning the max current draw of 35A.

You might have noticed I placed a bid on that pack ;).. Um, I also have a 36v wilderness energy bike, but with a 35A controller. I think this pack will be fine for a 36v WE system. I know nothing about upgrading a WE controller to 48 volts but I think I've read their motor will handle higher voltages.

Anyone concerned that the not-so professional looking duct-tape encasement for the pack may be reflective of other aspects of the product's quality?

I also e-mailed "pingping" with some questions myself - dimensions, maximum amperage, ability to connect different size packs in series for a 60 volt pack...

Hi,

I found another one here at ebay selling LIFePO4 "missbattery"

I had some communication with hear but not bought yet because I own a welldone battery with cylindrical Amita cells for my bicycle which still works (may be LiMn? hyperbike) and the ebayed packs are not suited nor robust enough for my car.
But I will have an eye on that firm/may be retailer only.
http://www.youtube.com/tribluered

I will definitely not go for LiCo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB1iKYgKSqo&feature=related

I have one of these Yesa 48 Volt 12 AH Packs on sale in the market place listing on this forum brand new. Delivered. No duct tape on this deal with charger and BMS. $ 640.00 I bought it for my dual motor unit but the amps were not high enough. Still under warrantee.

Dual Motor?

I also have some dual Motor Design running both freehub BDC motors from one controller- This works even if one is 36V and one 24V. Whilst front and rear wheel might be powered without additional control, my dual propelled front wheel project does not start as intended. I'm still searching for a regenerating dual motor controller where I might insert some logic to account for velocity differences between the two motors.
It would be nice to have a controller which might be programmed.

any hints?

many thanks

You might like to know that LiFeBATT has a new National Distibutor for e-bikes. Bob Mcree has made an announcement about this over on Endless Sphere: http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=41324#41324

Cheers!

Don Harmon

Anybody tried to put packs in parallel to get higher amps?
My Secma FunELEC draws up to 175A with the 1.9kW DC machine allthough it should only draw 65.

cheers

Efried

Anybody tried to put packs in parallel to get higher amps?

A lot depends on the battery chemistry (BTW this question should have been asked in its own posting rather than trailed off-topic at the end of an unrelated posting). Generally it's a good idea to parallel individual batteries rather than parallel at the pack level. But NiMH batteries apparently don't handle this well.

On my lectra motorcycle (SLA batteries) I have 5 pairs of batteries for 60 volts total. And, yes, this means each battery in the string is delivering half the overall amps.

The calculation I was told by another manufacturer is 1.5 times the SLA rating.

I've been testing a PHET 7.5AH pack at 36V. This seems to have almost but not quite the range of my 36V SLA pack that uses 12AH batteries. After about 7.4~7.6AH of total draw, the PHET pack will drop to 25V under load and the BMS system will cut off power until voltage returns. This is based on running at an average 1C rate (but sometimes as high as 3C for short distances). This is according to my CycleAnalyst.

The SLA pack seems to get to about 8AH, at which time it drops to around 20V and isn't really contributing much.

This is all measured using a Crystalyte 35A controller with a BMC/Currie USPD setup.

Interestingly, because of the much quicker voltage drop off on the SLA, the total number of usable watt-hours is no more than the LiFEPO4 pack.

Morgan

Hello everyone !

Wow.. registered a long time ago, never posted.. but a link to this thread on the ES forum made me do it ! lol.

Ok.. first.. i'm not selling anything, just reporting back personal experience... if anyone cares to know.

Cheap battery packs.. wrapped in Duct Tape.. - NO.

It makes no difference how much or how little you pay for a pack.. if it just don't work.

I have a 1700 $ GEBattery pack sitting on my kitchen table that promissed 2nd generation BMS, better charger, 25ah 48v..

Arrived without BMS.. cracked box, chargers both died after 4 hrs of use.. an 8 amp load will make it sag 20+ volts.. and heat up from 20celcius to 28celcius on a full discharge.

My experience will not reflect evryone's experience.. but it's a darn good indicator of what to expect. I just hate to see anyone here all excited to get their new expensive Life battery pack only to have it fall way short of any expectation.

Anyone willing to spend 1000 $ on a battery pack, owes it to themselves to investigate a bit further.. A123 packs, Valence, come to mind.. LifeBatt is on the way and looks good. tho yet un-proven, having Bob Mcree on board does inspire confidence and i will be getting some very soon.. but again.. new product.

Long story short.. : If it's wrapped in Duct Tape.. Don't buy it.

Hi Ypedal,

You hit the nail on the head for me!

Initially, I started out as a consumer - a long time ebike user who wanted a good LiFePO4 battery for my own bike (see here). I searched high and low, and wasn't too excited by the "raw" packs that you mention. I finally found PHET, and after a lot of work with them then a long wait, got them to send me one of their finished packs meant specifically for ebikes. This pack is very nicely done. (Pictures can be seen at my website).

Because there are so many of the packs like the ones you mention, we decided to start making the PHET bike packs available here in the USA at retail. I don't think this technology will be adopted by the wider public until more are available in nice packages like this, with real warrantees. (I also ordered one of those "raw" packs for comparison at the same time - but it still hasn't arrived for testing).

So, I will admit a biased since I'm going to be selling these packs now. But I wouldn't be doing that if I wasn't impressed by it in my own usage.

About me, since I'm new here: I've been using ebikes since my first Zap around 94-95. Three generations of e-bike later, I still use one every day for my 7 mile commute. I have built up most of my bikes from scratch, love to tinker with bikes, and ebikes especially. I only recently discovered this site, else I would have been here long ago!

Morgan

Like they say with sex you can never have enough.

I've been using ebikes since my first Zap around 94-95.

Welcome, Morgan.. I, too, started with a Zap DX kit in about 1995 - bought from Real Goods. That bike got stolen and the thief was stupid enough to not steal the charger. I still have that charger. I didn't learn my lesson on the DX kit however, and bought another one a couple years later .. Anyway, I took a look at your site and loved that you have xtracyclized bikes.

Thanks for the welcoming! Funny story about stealing the bike but not the charger (though I'm sure it wasn't funny at the time!)

The evolution of the electric bike has been quite interesting, and challenging at times. I owned the Zap initially when I lived in Madison, WI, and sometimes I rode it in the rain. One time after riding it on a particularly rainy day, I had the bike parked in the lab I worked in. Suddenly the quiet was broken by the bike taking off, running into a wall, a high pitched whining, a pop (the tire), and the smell of burnt rubber. The dampness in the controller had shorted something out, turned on the motor, and the friction roller had eaten clear through the tire! Zap replaced the unit, but later I had similar issues again (never quite as dramatic though). Even the Currie, which I still use to this day, has had its share of challenges (e.g. broken spokes at the drive adapter), though overall it is a far superior solution. I'm really excited about the new generation of hub motors because of the low-maintenance aspect (we've been using the Crystalyte, but will soon be evaluating a new geared motor alternative). Though the Currie is fine for a tinkerer like me, I think for this technology to be adopted by the "unwashed masses" requires reliable and simple configurations that don't require messing with.

It has been really inspiring having an Xtracycle (for about a year now) in combination with the electric assist. Finally I feel that I have a bike setup that can truly replace a car for the majority of local trips, because it is so versatile. I carry my daughter to daycare, I've carried furniture, stereo systems, an 8'x10' carpet, adult passengers, 80 lb loads of groceries, and so on. It was mainly due to the inspiration that this setup gave me that I've become a true electric assist bike advocate, wanting to get more people into it.

Anyway, thanks again for the welcoming,
Morgan

Do you know the sizes of the PACKS, MAX AMPERAGE, AND CHARGER AMPERAGE?

BTW, don't knock duct-tape. You can do amazing things with it.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=yO72seZKgu0

to draw 40Ams out of this duct tape design may become smelly...

Hi,

for us Europeans it makes not a big difference to buy from US-retailers or directly in China or Taiwan. The product may be lost in between on the long way or the liability is difficult to enforce by law. Also if the product is shipped first to the US and then to Europe we have twice the shipping cost. So while it might not be beneficial for the US retailer, it is certainly a good thing that we Europeans are able to buy cheap batteries via ebay to test out new chemistries. Otherwise you have to give up promoting electric vehicles because local retailers sell you 10 years old battery technology.
I also see the ebay selling not as their main channel, its only to introduce the product so they are also testing out the price and may also go lower than usual.

Efried

We have a rep in the UK. Better to buy from a reputable source than the lowest price on ebay. You get what you pay for!

Hello,

have a look at those well confined packs:

http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/100415823/Phev_Lfp_Battery_Packs.html
http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/100218347/Electric_Bike_Lifepo4_Battery_Pack.html
http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/100058997/Li_Ion_Battery_For_Eletricity_Motorcycle.html
dlgbattery

brands Hy Pow, DLG, Ecity, Kingyoup, Yesa, Xianyang Pianzhuan Group Corp

The inconvenient truth ist that Chinas electric vehicle industry has outperformed the western ....

here we have some hype - there (China and India) we have the vehicles...
http://hyev.en.alibaba.com/
http://incalcu.en.alibaba.com/
http://flybo.en.alibaba.com/

cheers

Efried

forgot the smart/a-class clone

http://longwise.en.alibaba.com/product/200074148/201921980/Electric_Car/Electric_car.html

Hi, I came here to find out any experiences with these new lifepo4 packs on ebay. The seller pingping has not answered my email yet asking for a 72v or 36v x2 10ah (or less ah). I was also wondering if say a 20ah pack uses 20ah cells or maybe 2 10ah in parallel. If that were the case, then I would surely snap up a large pack and split it up. Anyhow, my first set of batteries, b&b sla 36lbs 72v 9ah is about done after about a couple hundred cycles. Of course the pack was cheap, $180, but it was flawed from the start. To save money and to get the batteries to fit my bike correctly, I put 12v and 6v batteries of identical make and ratings in series with each other. One would think that this would work well, but I was blown away by the differences in charging voltages and discharging voltages between the 12v and 6v batteries. So anyhow, I have replaced 4 of the 12v batteries and zero of the 6v batteries, but I periodically check the end open voltages of the 36v halves after my meager, yet demanding 5 mile commute. The batteries are getting closer to 36v after only 5 miles now, so it is time to renew. I've been waiting and waiting , analyzing this option and that option. And now sla prices have gone up. In retrospect, I would do things a little differently. Like the 72volts thing. That's the biggest pain of all! And the desire for 30mph cruising speed, caused additional problems.
My previous bike had a we brushless 408 fwd 26" 48v (36v controller worked fine until it got drenched).
This bike used 4 12v 12ah batteries, 36lbs, 24mph for 24 miles. I was really impressed with the range of that thing. No other electric scooter or ebike I had could even come close to that speed and range figure! So I commuted for a year on that bike, and my commute was 12+ miles each way...no problems there. And the 12v 12ah sla batteries are very common and cheap. I learned a lot, and so for my next ebike, I wanted the best. I needed the best brakes. I wanted the smothest ride. I wanted to go faster.
So I did the brakes and suspension thing, and boy was I pleased...no complaints there! I did a rear 409 26" 72v 9ah 36lb battery. So, for the same 36lb sla battery, running at 30mph (6mph faster), my range was cut by about 1/3 (8 miles). The original 72v controllers were less efficient than the new ones they have now. And of course the puekert factors are the major players, and also raising the cruising speed of the single speed brushless hubmotor from 24mph to 30mph plays a big role in power consumption per mile. But still the biggest headache is creating a decent battery for the thing.4 12v 12ah batteries would fit exactly the same size and weight of 12 6v 9ah batteries, yet there is not much price difference between a 12v 12ah and a 6v 9ah, so the 72v battery costs a lot more. And the cost to go to nimh or li 72v just didn't make good sense to me. But wait there's more! I wanted to be able to pedal along no matter what speed I was going. So I changed my front sprocket from 44t to 48t. Now I could pedal along happily at 30mph comfortably. Ooops, now my chain was to short to engage 1st gear. I could either spend more money and get a new chain, instead I opted to take 1st gear out the system. Now on the few days when all my batteries were working properly, And as always, I would pedal along at all times. On those days, well it was sure fun to have that torque, to be able to get the front end up when crossing dips or just showing off on my commute, but many times I got going too fast so that I didn't need to add pedal power; I needed to let off the throttle. On the majority of days, one of my batteries (whicheven one was weakest) would act as a current limiter. I found that I actually enjoyed my commute a little more since my contribution by pedaling actually helped out, and was needed. And also that 27-28 mph was a comfortable speed---fast enough to not seem slow, yet not so fast as to have to change my gearing, and not to draw as much attention, and also decrease my power consumption. Of course the torque of 72v with good batteries will be missed...but come on, this is a bicycle, right? I ride on the street, the sidewalks, cops all around, never once got hassled, always pedaling when power on...So in retrspect, I feel perhaps a 407 rwd @ 48v would have been a better, much less costly set up. A few less mph, more than 100% increase in range, no major gearing changes to make, and a 36lb sla battery for less than $100. But I have a 409, 48v =20mph. I can't do that. So these lifepo4 batteries aren't the lightest things, nor the smallest. But they are definately the most semsible choice for power output, range, and cost. And also I would like to incorporate an electrical battery charging brake, which this type of battery could likely handle. I keep dreaming of the day when I can leave work and go wherever I want, instead of now, I can only consider going straight home, and try not destroy my weakass pathetic excuse for a battery so I can get another use out of it. So if I can get a lifepo4 72v 10ah with chargers and bms and one year warranty for around $500, then I will jump on it! If I can't do that, then my 2nd choice would be to get a different motor, give up a couple mph, and save a whole lot of dough! And break these chains of limited range. What is cheaper commuting on an ebike or driving my car? There is absolutely no contest there! Not even close! My car cost $500.
My maintenance costs for it are $0. Yes! No oil changes, no brakes, no tires. Just put gas in! My ebike cost about $2000. I have to fix flats, buy special tires, buy new brakes, and buy new expensive battery! It cost more to buy, it requires much more maintenance, broken spokes flat tires. Its a much more enjoyable commute until the tire goes flat, or it rains real hard, or it is dark and I am going too fast to see where I am going...Yep...I'm counting on this new battery to make it all better...at least for a little while...I could give my car a rest...because everything has to break down eventually.

You might want to check this link out ? http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2903&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=45

Best,

Don Harmon