Southport LiFePO4 dealer

[timpootle]

I kept this off the forum while PeterP was on holiday, but now he has asked me to tell the world what I have done.

WHAT HAVE I DONE??!!

I have ordered 204 cells of 200Ah capacity, to give me 800 Ah at 162v (4 strings of 51) in order to give my Berlingo a predicted range of 320 miles (and zero payload, they will weigh around 1000kg)

I chose to buy them from TYC Track Ltd of Southport, Merseyside. They supply batteries made by China Hipower at a cost of around $1.50 /Ah/cell, so I am paying around £36,000 for my set delivered to Liverpool docks.

Other cells are available- 50, 100 and 600 Ah from memory. I'm not sure what minimum orders, or bulk deals can be done. Anyone wanting that information should ring David Cowperthwaite at TYC. He has joined this forum recently (after I placed my order) and may well be along in a moment to speak for himself.

I will write up the fitting process in another thread in the PSA section, when I receive my cells. I have a lot of work ahead of me.

Tim Crumpton, temporarily in London

[MalcolmB]

Good news Tim! That's a shedload of cells, literally. I can provide some temporary (mobile) storage for some of them if you aren't able to use them all straightaway...

I'm really looking forward to seeing how you get on with this project. It should attract a lot of publicity when you're finished.

Have you decided on a BMS yet?

[electricvehicles]

Thats great news Tim, looking forward to reading about your progress. Just one small thing ??
Are you sure about the 1000Kg in battery weight ?? According the the manufacturers web site they say each battery weighs 8Kgs making a total battery weight of 1632 Kgs
Which will take you way over the max payload

[timpootle]

That page is showing a single 200v 200Ah battery at 8kg. The cells I am getting are 3.2v and ~1.5kg I think. Don't have the datasheet to hand while I am away from home. Will post details next Tuesday when I get back

*EDIT*I am talking garbage here. My sums have gone wrong somewhere.

[MalcolmB]

LiFePO4 have an energy density of around 80 Wh/kg.

800 x 162/80 = 1620 kg

[electricvehicles]

Hi Tim

Not to mention the cubic capacity of all the batteries, a whopping 1.13 cubic mts
Where are they all going to fit

[ChrisB]

Tim was telling us a bit about this at the Weekend all though I hadnt realised he had actualy gone as far as ordering them

As you say Tim ..........."WHAT HAVE YOU DONE" ........

I've just done a bit of quick checking and acording to the Blingo specs it can carry 500kgs i.e half a ton which is about what I would suspect is correct, if you look at taking out the Nicads then that gives you around an extra 350Kg, OK my maths aint great but this gives a total of 750kg

Now your talking about 1000kgs and others are talking upwards of 1500kg even your saying its gone wrong somewhere

Where did you get the idea the Blingo had a payload of 1000kg ??and we havent even looked at adding a BMS and possibley a charger

ChrisB

[GregsGarage]

You could split the pack into 2, one in the berlingo to handle ordinary driving and a trailer full-o-lithium for those longer journeys.

The other option would be to convert the berlingo to a milk float, that would fit those batteries in!

Greg

[GregsGarage]

I have also ordered a 72 volt 100ah pack from TYC Track Ltd. for my Fiat 126 conversion. These batteries can't deliver huge amps so won't be suitable for connecting to a Zilla controller but should suit my modest requirements. Will post an update when I receive them in about a month.

Greg

[MaryRCrumpton]

Thats great news Tim, looking forward to reading about your progress. Just one small thing ??
Are you sure about the 1000Kg in battery weight ?? According the the manufacturers web site they say each battery weighs 8Kgs making a total battery weight of 1632 Kgs
Which will take you way over the max payload

Tim just got off the phone from the guy supplying the batteries, and he has been told that each one actually weighs 5kg rather than 8kg!
That'd make the weight of batteries 1020kg.

Woohoo!

And of course, it should be remembered that as well as removing all the Nickel-Cadmium batteries (345kg), we'll be removing the water coolant too (33l coolant + electrolyte) and the radiator, pump etc, and all of that weighs a fair amount.

Having said all that, we can also improve the suspension if needed, by tweaking the torsion bar at the back, and gettng some stiffer springs at the front.

Gross vehicle weight = 1950kg

Mary.