Echo Tools 58V 4ah Batteries

[magudaman]

Just was at home depot today and saw the new Echo line of battery powered tools. This includes a chain saw, lawn mower, hedge trimmer, and leaf blower. But what is really exciting is the tool system runs on a 58v and is running 4.0ah batteries (also have a 2ah one), That is ~230wh per pack. No idea what cells they are using but the 4ah version charges in 1 hour and the 2ah in 30 minutes. The blower appears to have the highest consumption killing a 4ah pack in about 30 minutes.

4.0ah battery looks to running about $169 USD which is cheap for the amount of watt/hours in the power tool realm.

All the too are also running brushless motors.

Battery link:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/ECHO-58-Volt-4-0-Ah-Lithium-Ion-Battery-CBP-58V4AH/205575726

I would love to buy one and tear it down to see what makes it tick and also see if it would make good donors our projects. I will have to see if they start to show up on ebay.

 

[arkmundi]

Sure. See if you can dig up the specs & datasheet. Like max amps, cell chemistry, cycle-life, etc., the things we need to know before its put into any kind of service for our eBikes. Certainly, its the potentially higher-volume of portable electric tools that may have a chance of driving down battery costs without sacrificing the essential character of lithium-ion.

 

[dogman dan]

Even without such data, I would think three of those in parallel would run most "typical" kits ok. Two for a lower amps 48v controller.

But still a bit pricy, 3x $170 for 48v 12 ah. But for some situations, perhaps very tempting. One pack for a teeny tiny motor on a road bike, used only for a short burst to get up a hill. Or for a short range trike, that just goes down the street to the group mailbox, for a disabled person.

 

[magudaman]

Ok so I bought one to figure out what I can.

The weedeater unit comes with a power head, charger, and a "58v" 4ah battery.

I will start with the battery, cool design, very modular. Feels like it is built like a tank. 4 light fuel gauge when the button is pushed:







I got a bit worried right off the bat with the rating on the bottom 204 watt hours...uh 58v * 4.0ah = 232w/hr, well maybe it is just 15s or 16s with 3.6v nominal...

Lets open it up and take a look at what make it tick:




View attachment 7

OK so 14s2p 18650s; LGDAHD41865 stamped on the sides. I didn't get a good picture but they have a balancing ribbon wrapped around the pack to access cell for balancing. During my battery capacity test it appears there is no high power shut off, which also appears to be the case looking at the BMS unit.

Battery test:
I am pretty short on time today so I did a rough test this time around. I will try to drop a graph in here later from a discharge. I discharged the cells at ~300w constant power. I pulled the cell internally down to 3.2v per cell which extracted 4.020ah and 206wh. The cells barely got warm to the touch. I put the pack back in the trimmer and ran it for a couple minutes with no load...I wanted to see if the trimmer controller would shut down. No such luck, so back on the load till ~39v or 2.8v per cell. This extracted a total of 4.15ah and 216wh. I again put it on the trimmer and fired it up no problem and it continued to run. Finally in fear of over discharge I stopped and put the pack on the charger. The cells actually got warmer on the full recharge than the discharge.

Charger:
The charger is a 58v 5a charger. I saw the unit get as high as 329w on the AC input side. It is also huge!




Lastly we have the trimmer:



View attachment 1


Brushless outrunner motor about 70mm in diameter and 12mm deep not including the fancy fan.

I will try to update this write up some tomorrow but I am out of time tonight...to be continued

 

[Punx0r]

It appears the rated voltage quoted is hot-off-the-charger and not nominal like it out to be. Marketing BS

 

[dogman dan]

Yep. I figured it was 14s. But that's good, if you wanted to put a few in parallel to run a bike, and would prefer 14s to13.

 

[mistercrash]

I can't find info on LGDAHD41865. Only LGDBHE41865 comes up.

 

[tmagik]

So what's in the middle of the pack? Or is there a high-power shutoff buried in there somewhere?

I tore apart the charger and it seems like it talks to the battery via RS-485, so now I need to get myself an rs485 snooper on the bus and see what it says. Tomorrow I should be able to tell you how long the chainsaw runs.

What I'm most interested right now is a 48VDC input charger with no obnoxious fan, or what could go wrong if I hook it up to the approx 52v bus on the TenKsolar panel system I have on the house.

How happy are Li-ion batteries if you parallel them? I imagine if you want to be intelligent there should be some or-ing diodes (or some fancy zero-drop or-ing switches) so you don't have one battery charging another.

 

[lifer99]

This could be the cell spec sheet.

 

[mckgyver]

So the 4Ah version is 14s2p, does that mean that the 2Ah version is 14s1p (while still using the same enclosure as the 4Ah pack?). Im very interested to hear more about the communications interface. Thanks for cracking one of these packs open!

 

[erik88]

Yeah even I am confused if 2AH is 14s1p and using same enclosure pack or not? The other day I didn’t had tools to open it so searched for Best power tool brand and then only could crack it. Now it’s so confusing and I am not able to decide.

 

[maydaverave]

This could be the cell spec sheet.

So if this is the right spec sheet the four amp hour battery is rated for forty amps discharge continuous? I have An old ebike that's just sitting because I have bought two one thousand dollar batteries and each only lasted about a year. I might try one or two of these packs. Much less financial risk.

 

[mikebikerad]

This is amazing, looks like something an ES nerd would build if they had $1M in development capital......love the brushless outrunner on the weedwacker.

 

[maydaverave]

I bought the echo weed eater today that comes with the 4ah battery and one hour fast charger for $260. I took the battery holder off the weed eater and mounted it to my bike, connected the positive and negative wires and my bike started right up. I can take the battery off my bike and put on charger in less than a minute. If the battery holds up to use on my little twenty amp controller I can just buy the batteries separately till I get the range I want. The battery feels very light and solid, I guessing less than five pounds.

 

[maydaverave]

Cute little thing.

 

[maydaverave]

Just was at home depot today and saw the new Echo line of battery powered tools. This includes a chain saw, lawn mower, hedge trimmer, and leaf blower. But what is really exciting is the tool system runs on a 58v and is running 4.0ah batteries (also have a 2ah one), That is ~230wh per pack. No idea what cells they are using but the 4ah version charges in 1 hour and the 2ah in 30 minutes. The blower appears to have the highest consumption killing a 4ah pack in about 30 minutes.

4.0ah battery looks to running about $169 USD which is cheap for the amount of watt/hours in the power tool realm.

All the too are also running brushless motors.

sorry didn't mean to hijack your thread, thanks for the information on these I hope they make great ebike batteries.

 

[Hillhater]

This could be the cell spec sheet.

So if this is the right spec sheet the four amp hour battery is rated for forty amps discharge continuous? .

..be careful, ..that's a big "IF", ..and I doubt that is the correct spec sheet..
Apart from having a different part number, the capacity doesn't match either.
If they were those cells in the pack, I'm certain they would have jumped at the opportunity to call it a 5Ahr pack.
..So, don't be surprised if you have issues at high current draw levels. :wink:

 

[maydaverave]

This could be the cell spec sheet.

So if this is the right spec sheet the four amp hour battery is rated for forty amps discharge continuous? .

..be careful, ..that's a big "IF", ..and I doubt that is the correct spec sheet..
Apart from having a different part number, the capacity doesn't match either.
If they were those cells in the pack, I'm certain they would have jumped at the opportunity to call it a 5Ahr pack.
..So, don't be surprised if you have issues at high current draw levels. :wink:

I'm willing to be the guinea pig on this. I doubt my bike pulls the current that the lawn mower this pack is designed for does. My electric lawnmower with a cord pulls about 1500 watts. Another thought, all these high power tools can also run off the 1p 2ah pack.

 

[Hillhater]

A lawn mower probably wouldn't show voltage sag as obviously as an E bike !
There are very few 18650's that can give 20 amps continuous, and those that do are not cheap !

 

[maydaverave]

A lawn mower probably wouldn't show voltage sag as obviously as an E bike !
There are very few 18650's that can give 20 amps continuous, and those that do are not cheap !

Its a commuter in Florida so most of the time I'll be cruising at about half my max speed. I would guess continuous amps will be about ten or fifteen. It rides just fine no cutting at full throttle and so far I haven't managed to get the battery more than Luke warm. Time will tell but I think one of these 4 ah batteries will work for a low amp budget build that just needs to get you to a nearby job without being sweaty.

 

[maydaverave]

Could be a cheap easy way to get into ebiking. The 4 ah battery with a 350 watt bafang geared motor would be an ideal first bike. Very light weight, simple, reliable, cheap, and most importantly idiot proof what would be ideal if these batteries turn out to be decent quality is for someone to 3d print some battery boxes you could drop multiple batteries in without modifying the batteries.

 

[riba2233]

A lawn mower probably wouldn't show voltage sag as obviously as an E bike !
There are very few 18650's that can give 20 amps continuous, and those that do are not cheap !

Not necessarily, look at samsung 25R price:

http://eu.nkon.nl/rechargeable/18650-size/samsung-18650-inr18650-25r.html

LG he2 is also relatively cheap at larger quantity.

 

[maydaverave]

I have no tools that give me any information nor do I have any access to information not all ready posted. But I did just do some shade tree testing and I can tell you this much. The battery charges at 5 amps so more than 1c. At more than 1c charging the battery warms slightly. If you take that warmish battery and put in on an ebike with a twenty amp controller in 85f direct sunlight and hammer it just as hard as you can with no pedaling for several miles wot and then take the battery out and hold it. It actually feels cooler barely lukewarm and that might just be sunlight hitting the black case.

 

[speedmd]

Echo makes quality power tools. Many pros use them hard daily. I am sure they tested this battery out with more than a few of them for some time before ending up with the pack / charger combo. If the price is good, it would possibly be great to standardize it for a quick bike mount to end up with something like this. 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 ah options. Voltage is perfect.

 

[maydaverave]

Echo makes quality power tools. Many pros use them hard daily. I am sure they tested this battery out with more than a few of them for some time before ending up with the pack / charger combo. If the price is good, it would possibly be great to standardize it for a quick bike mount to end up with something like this. 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 ah options. Voltage is perfect.

I was looking at the battery and it looks like it would be extremely easy to build a bike mount for it. It has a recessed groove for a rail on either side, the battery is square, the terminals simply grip a square tab on either side. So a mount would need two rails to guide the battery onto two tabs and hold it there.