Allied lithium batteries Loss of driving distance

[Jsmorton]

2 and a half years a go bought 4x 12V 60AH allied lithiums for my 2014 Club Car. It was great for a while but about four months ago it started dying about a 1/2 mile from home. I live about 3 miles from golf club, so about 12 miles round trip. Allied says a 60AH set should go 25-30 miles. I do have speed code 4 and a Plum Quick Bandit motor. Also the stock controller is still installed. I contacted Allied and they said to buy and install a balancer. Did that, no joy, cart died a mile from the house. I was using the club car charger, based on allied recommendation. Bought their charger, and it seems to charge faster but no restoration of the driving range. Allied recommends 48V 90AH system, local cart shop recommends relion or back to lead acid. Any ideas that don't cost me more $$.

[Volt_Ampere]

IMO most drop-in's just don't cut it. I'm running used Leaf cells and I have over four years on the first pack and I get a solid 25 miles per charge only charging to 90% and discharging to 20%. They are as good as when I put them in four years ago and I play at least 4 rounds a week. I have a second cart with used Leaf cells that I just built in January. I have almost 500 miles on it already and I get four rounds of golf on a charge. These cells are only putting out half of their new capacity but I bet they last me longer than any of the drop-in's out there. Proper charging, proper balancing, proper BMS is critical.

[PearlPack]

60AH isn't going to go 25-30 miles with the Bandit. Those numbers are likely with strictly stock everything.

I had the 4 x12v , 80AH batteries with the balancer, bandit, 2 g cables and a stock controller. I was getting 20miles on a good day.

I called Allied thinking THAT wasn't enough and they said the balancer has a parasitic draw which exposed the fact their Parallel batteries had to replace those in Series for balancing purposes. Since they made the design change after I purchased mine in Series and because they were still under warranty (1 year), I wasn't happy.

I talked them into swapping mine out since I wasn't happy with the parasitic draw and they did. They sent me 3 x 48v/90Ah (80Ah not available anymore). I even bought an extra which puts me at 120Ah and I get around 35miles now.

I've been happy ever since.

[Pat911]

The balancer will take days, even weeks to get the batteries in check. How long has it been connected.

[PearlPack]

Originally Posted by Pat911

The balancer will take days, even weeks to get the batteries in check. How long has it been connected.

Mine took 1 night.

[Pat911]

Really? I thought they could only shift about 500mA or so. A 100Ah battery that is 50% out of balance would take 100 hours to balance.

[Volt_Ampere]

I would be surprised if any of the available BMS's can balance at much more than 500mA per cell. The heat generated would cook it. (500mA at 4V is 2 Watts) I have not seen any that have the ability do deal with lots of heat. The use of a BMS to balance big batteries depends on them being in balance to start with so that the BMS does not have to do much balancing. When I build a battery pack I always balance the cells manually before I hook up a BMS.

[Pat911]

Hi Volt_Ampare,

The balancers in question operate at 12v. We’re talking about balancing the 12v batteries, not the 3.6v cells. 500mA at 13v is 6.5w, even higher than your estimated 2w. And that’s per battery. It’s feasible that it would be draining 3 batteries to match the fourth, that’s almost 20w total, unless it’s an active balancer in which case it would be “moving” energy from the higher cells into the lower cells and wouldn’t be dissipating too much itself. Without knowing the particulars of the balancer we’re speculating.

As you and I both know, this could all be avoided with one 48v battery instead of 4 x 12v batteries. You then truely have a maintenance free installation.

Cheers
Pat.

[PearlPack]

Originally Posted by Pat911

Hi Volt_Ampare,

The balancers in question operate at 12v. We’re talking about balancing the 12v batteries, not the 3.6v cells. 500mA at 13v is 6.5w, even higher than your estimated 2w. And that’s per battery. It’s feasible that it would be draining 3 batteries to match the fourth, that’s almost 20w total, unless it’s an active balancer in which case it would be “moving” energy from the higher cells into the lower cells and wouldn’t be dissipating too much itself. Without knowing the particulars of the balancer we’re speculating.

As you and I both know, this could all be avoided with one 48v battery instead of 4 x 12v batteries. You then truely have a maintenance free installation.

Cheers
Pat.

You guys are much more in tune with the particulars than I ....but I remember attaching the balancer that Allied provided and having everything balanced overnight.

[Volt_Ampere]

Most balancers are good for keeping packs in balance - not so good at balancing packs that are way out of balance. That is best done manually before turning the job over to a balancer.