After recently reviewing a Wattcycle LFP battery sent over by the manufacturer, [Will Prowse] was made aware of some disturbing changes to the internals of batteries received by regular customers. Rather than the nice protected cables, thick solid metal busbars, braided wire and excellent build quality, the units that a regular customer – got as well as the one that [Will] bought off Amazon – all feature something more akin to what you’d find in a budget LFP battery, including a wide variety of LFP cells.
With these LFP batteries generally coming in fully opaque plastic cases, it’s really hard to tell what the internals look like without either going medieval on them or using less intrusive methods such as an X-ray machine. In this case more capable braided cables were replaced with regular cables that in a test showed a much higher voltage drop compared to the braided type.
Along with all the other changes between these batteries, this makes it impossible to rely on any reviews as a customer. [Will] notes that Wattcycle isn’t alone in doing this, and makes the case for more transparent cases for LFP batteries. After all, if you can see at a glance through the transparent case what the cables and wiring looks like, what BMS is installed and even what any LEDs on said BMS PCB are doing.
There are some LFP batteries with such a transparent case already, and with some smaller LFP batteries you can even pop the top off without having to resort to very permanent levels of violence, so this is not a problem without solutions. From a consumer perspective it definitely would be nice to see the internals as literal transparency from the manufacturer’s side, as well as an increased ability to monitor the battery for any thermal, leakage or other issues.
Think something got mangled in editing there? Or am I just not following? Isn’t the issue that the replacement cables were less capable?
Yeah. It looks like “lessa capable” should’ve been after “replaced with”, not where it is.
I really appreciate Will Prowse’s efforts to review and test these batteries! Good job as always!
A lot to be said for looking inside (and I love my little Shargeek pack) however I do think about the safety awareness of your average human poking around inside. Which is why I love reviewers who do these things for them.
Yep, this is fully channeling grandpa simpson;
We had one flying a quadcopter with a long rope attached, in a thunderstorm, at night. The drone got caught in 66kV powerlines (Australia voltage), the rope wrapping around all three conductors a few times, the drone hanging down at 2nd story level just over the normal household voltage lines.
The pilot started assembling aluminium tent poles into a longer and longer length trying to dislodge the aircraft. Luckily skittish so easy to scare off till the linesmen arrived.
im on my second wattcycle 12.8V 100Ah smart battery. Well they are dumb. on replacement battery, their app shows total 13.41V and individual cells; 1 with 25.7V, 2 with 10.46V and 3 with 5.23V. the fist battery was totally failed with bad bms.