Showing posts with label balance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label balance. Show all posts

July 2, 2013

Batteries arrived!

Yesterday 68 battery cells arrived at the garage from i4wifi in Czech Republic. The cells are the CALB CA100FI Lithium Iron Phosphate cells with a nominal voltage of 3,2V making it  total of 318V battery pack voltage.
The delivery
A single 3,2V 100Ah cell
Each cell can hold up to 100Ah of charge so this makes the total capacity of the battery 21,8kWh. I hope this will give me a range of about 100km.
The cells are supposed to be delivered half charged and I measured the resting voltage of each cell. According to EVTV, who I believe know most about these cells, a fully charged cell has a resting voltage of around 3,38V. Of the 68 cells, 64 had a voltage between 3,290V and 3,294V which looks nice. However two of the cells had a voltage of 3,272V and 3,286V which is disturbingly different. I will ask i4wifi if this is an indication of problem or just normal.
I have ordered a Powerlab 8 battery balancer which I will use to bottom balance the battery. Bottom balancing involves discharging each cell to the same bottom voltage which I understand the Powerlab will automate nicely using a lead acid battery to put the charge into. Hope to start that this weekend.