John in CR
100 TW
I'm developing a new relationship with a battery vendor / pack builder in China. He seems quite knowledgeable with respect to batteries and does pack assembly. While making arrangements for some test packs I inquired whether he had a source for the 20ah A123 cells. He hasn't dealt in them before, but found a source, so we arranged to get 4 to test and make sure they weren't junk. He picked them up and all had right around 19.5ah capacity at a 10A discharge rate, and an IR of less than 1mOhm, so they seem to be the real deal.
He quoted me a price of $24/cell plus $2.50/ea for capacity and IR testing (plus shipping of course), so it's possible to get tested and matched cells shipped directly to each buyer. Since self discharge is important he suggested charging them and waiting a week to do the capacity discharge measurement, so we're testing for self discharge too. I'm trying to gauge interest, since a volume greater than I want should net a cheaper price, and the more cells in total, the better the matching of the cells each will get.
This is a new supplier for me, so we shouldn't go hog wild with initial orders. I did surprise him with a request for a reference, and he gave me FalconEV, which I verified. It wasn't a preplanned deal as my reference inquiry was a surprise to the gentleman at Falcon, and my guy in China had supplied them with some battery packs without issue.
I want to first get a handle on interest, since we don't know how quickly the A123 supply will dry up. Once we see how many then I'll talk to him and put those with real interest in direct contact. Separately I'm getting some 4C and 20C NMC's in custom alignments from him for testing, and if those test well I'll turn you guys loose on those too in hope that the volume I help create nets us all a cheaper and reliable source for batteries. I don't want to flood him with all the same questions from a bunch of different people all at once, so let's get questions answered first, and then put those who are serious in direct contact.
John
He quoted me a price of $24/cell plus $2.50/ea for capacity and IR testing (plus shipping of course), so it's possible to get tested and matched cells shipped directly to each buyer. Since self discharge is important he suggested charging them and waiting a week to do the capacity discharge measurement, so we're testing for self discharge too. I'm trying to gauge interest, since a volume greater than I want should net a cheaper price, and the more cells in total, the better the matching of the cells each will get.
This is a new supplier for me, so we shouldn't go hog wild with initial orders. I did surprise him with a request for a reference, and he gave me FalconEV, which I verified. It wasn't a preplanned deal as my reference inquiry was a surprise to the gentleman at Falcon, and my guy in China had supplied them with some battery packs without issue.
I want to first get a handle on interest, since we don't know how quickly the A123 supply will dry up. Once we see how many then I'll talk to him and put those with real interest in direct contact. Separately I'm getting some 4C and 20C NMC's in custom alignments from him for testing, and if those test well I'll turn you guys loose on those too in hope that the volume I help create nets us all a cheaper and reliable source for batteries. I don't want to flood him with all the same questions from a bunch of different people all at once, so let's get questions answered first, and then put those who are serious in direct contact.
John