Headways are pretty... and a new incarnation of a LifeBATT

[chuckufarley]

Well I have acquired a couple new projects with cool components and I have put everything to good use so far. I got 24 10Ah Headway cells off ebay for 400 bucks and two 36v 40A BMS boards for 100. I got a good deal on everything I think. The headways are for a future project which is as of yet undecided

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and one bms I put on the LifeBATT cells that were out of an earlier Marrs cycle he gave me the leftover cells from a battery he was having trouble with. I built a 36v/16ah pack and a 48v pack for him to use out of the original 48v/30+Ah pack the original bms was messed up but I tried to fix it.... I don't have a wiring diagram to check if it works but I soldered the mosfets back to the board ....If someone has the diagram its a 100A BMS I would love for it to work. I would like to see if I fixed it but i hesitate to cook it by hooking it up wrong ....Anyway I guess eyelets to connect the balance wires would've been prettier.....but I'll probably screw with it more later anyway. Aren't Headways DAMN PRETTY THOUGH!!

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[liveforphysics]

Headways or Lifebatt make prismatic cells now? Or is the picture of some other cells?

[Nuts&Volts]

LifeBatt
http://www.lifebatt.com/LIFEBATT%20P18% ... STEM_3.pdf

[rkosiorek]

I have not had a chance yet to use any of the new prismatic LifeBatt cells. i'll be interested to hear of your experience.

i have used the exact same AA-power BMS with my LifeBatt 10Ah(Green PSI) and 14Ah(Silver Headway) cells though. in general the BMS worked well. i still have a couple of boards that i use and i sold 3 of the 24V 40A version of the boards to Ypedal. I believe that Ypedal was also using these with his Green PSI 10Ah cells.

my only complaint with this BMS is that the balance current of 50mA is far too low. that limit id set by that bank of 12 x 75R resistors along the right side of the board. I paralleled a 68R resistor with each of those to increase the balance current to 100mA.

at 100mA it was far easier to keep the packs balanced. especially with the Headway cells.

rick

[miro13car]

LifeBatt prismatics
they are advertised as Taiwan technology, made in Taiwan.
Can you, please tell us more how they perform?
I have been using 36V pack with grey LifeBatt cells which is obsolete tech right now , they of course cannot match performance of A123 flat cells even remotely.
IResistance is a king and A123 cannot be beat on this.
Let me put this this way,
I thought I had excellent LifeBatt cells untill I found out about A123 cells.
It is not about if they are 20Ah versus 10Ah ,it is about internal resistance IR which gives A123 so superior performance.

[rkosiorek]

LifeBatt prismatics
<snip>
Let me put this this way,
I thought I had excellent LifeBatt cells untill I found out about A123 cells.
It is not about if they are 20Ah versus 10Ah ,it is about internal resistance IR which gives A123 so superior performance.

the silver cells are only okay. the older "green" PSI based cells were very good. but from the specs at least not as good as A123. the green cells were capable of very high discharge rates.

i'm with miro13car and am keenly interested in the performance of the new prismatics.

rick

[chuckufarley]

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Just bought a 60A-100A BMS from BMSBATTERY for about $110 with shipping for the headways .... I am batting around the idea of just using cell level monitoring and devising a way to make charging the cells individually less of a chore .... I saw some cool little 6s balance chargers on ebay for under 20$ but I would need several.....cheap ...works for lipos why not lifepo4? But this is for a customer......so just make em happy ...make em fly.

[alban]

I'm interested in that concept too - not using a BMS but watching the charge and only discharging to 80% or trusting the controller's LVC. Can you balance charge 2X 6S 10ah Headways - wired with balance leads - in parallel (using a parallel board could you do 6 such packs albeit at low charge rate?) with a simple 200W 6S balance charger that does LiFePO4? Can't see why not, but I'm not very electrical. Is there a prob apart from the normal caveats about parallel charging (use same cell no.; similar cell voltage level; attach charge wires before balance).

[chuckufarley]

I am expecting the BMS shortly I bought the biggest 48V 16S I could get for 100 bucks from bms-battery in china 60A continuous and 100A pulse which is about what the headways are supposed to be capable of ...This is my first headway pack but I am just basing my assumptions on the specifications of the parts, for now it needs to be simple. And functional. but I plan to test it out on a bike I converted to delta/wye and also have a hi-power cycles dual motor rig I acquired that had a fried lipo. It needs a battery so we'll see how she hangs....I fully expect it to shred though. I will of course happily provide updates. The 36V I built out of lifebatts kicks ass but my throttle broke and I am too busy at work to fix it right this second. I am also busy trying to convince someone I know that he should buy some A123 AMP20 cells to play with.....patience grasshopper...