I would like to add to a previous comment about wearing at least safety glasses when working on batteries. Back in the 80's I had a battery explode right under my chin. The explosion blew me off my feet and the safety glasses off my head, blinded me for about 10 minutes, and lost my hearing for about an hour. In your test, the fact the BMS system did not trip until a much higher load would have been considered a failed test in my opinion. But as always, excellent job in your review.
Overload protection is not the task of the BMS. It merely protects the battery from catastrophic damage. Apart from that, the part should behave like a lead-acid battery. It is often not recommended to use LiFePO as a starter battery in vehicles, as a BMS that suddenly switches off can lead to severe overvoltages in the system. All BMS manufacturers therefore try to provide the necessary protection without really strict limits. That's why the advice at the end of the video was important to always provide a suitable fuse. Overload protection is the responsibility of the user!
@@w4id676 Yes, you should always make sure you have sufficient protection in such tests. Nobody can predict what will happen if the BMS fails. I'm 100% with you on that.
Looks like Thermal trip on the BMS not Current. 75°C thermal switch on the heat sink of the BMS of that battery. Thats what dropped out the first battery then came back on after cooling down. Overcurrent protection releases immediately after disconnecting loads. They use custom spec JBD style BMS. It will hold 120A until flat no problem. Cells can handle 500A+ Car audio guys pull 7-800A out of same cells. Good to see you included a low temp test. XZNY is an up and coming brand and continues to improve their products. Thanks for the video!
Hey good info man, I've watched some of your videos too, I like your style. I was wondering about that temp shut off too. I'd have to tear it open to find out and I hate doing that to perfectly good batteries for what I'd use it for, capacity wise. I'd never come close to pulling that load in anything I'd do regularly but the protection has got to be there. Fuses for the win. And my 250 amp breaker I used in this and a couple other vids fails miserably. I need to fix that. Thanks for watching mate!
@@hamradiotubeI enjoy your content and have learned a lot with your radio content! The XZNY ultra minis have high frequency plastic welded case tops and basically have to be destroyed to get into them then you’ll have to plastic weld or epoxy them back together lol. Always be conservative with OCPD with budget batteries. Much better to trip a breaker than activate the linear fuse inside them (the wires 😮) Magnetic/Hydraulic (midnite solar/outback power) better than the cheap thermal breakers or fuses! Take care my friend
It seems like all of these "no name" batteries pass initial testing for capacity. What would be good to see would be the tests run again after 6-8 months of use to see if they degrade over time and use.
depends on use and how you drain cycle it.. my 12v 100ah lost about 7ah in 3 years of use.. i did drain it down flat couple times to shut off and had to plug it to 12v to power wake up the BMS.. so i say no need to worry about it really after 6 to 8 months.. give it a good year so you can get a estimate of lifespan youll get out of it on your use ...
they also tend to change whats inside afterwards so its not just the capacity when you initially buy but afterwards when other people are wanting to buy. the quality is not consistent
Gotta tear open all these budget batteries and run the cells QR code through one of the apps to see what you are getting. If its EVE, Gotion, GFB, CATL, etc then I wouldn't worry about degradation at all in the first few years. Your battery should capacity test at ~105Ah when new since A Grade cells always come out 5% above their rating give or take a percent. If you're getting right at the rating then you either have a very out of balance battery/the company didn't give a flying fuck about matching cells or you're getting junk cells. Degradation is most in the first few hundred cycles and then it should settle down and be barely noticeable. Expect to see a 100Ah battery testing at 104Ah drop to 102Ah after a year and maybe 101Ah after a couple years if you're cycling daily at reasonable C rates.
You are missing one of the most important tests. Battery charge and discharge rate. This is important for building battery banks. If you conduct this test it should either have visual output such as graphing or a digital print out for comparison between batteries.
We saw the battery take a 120A load with 11 point something at the invernter so likely 12 point something at the terminals. So fair to say this is your standard EVE LF105 cell or similar. 1C discharge rate continuous, 2C burst.....3C is possible but as we saw voltage drop was getting to be pretty bad. Charge rate is usually 0.5C recommended and 1C max. All these ~100Ah cells have identical specs pretty much unless they are purpose made power cells...which you wont see in these batteries. 2C-3C standard discharge with 5C burst. A lot of the newer cells are going for cycle life over discharge/charge rate with 0.5C showing up in a lot of datasheets like the newest EVE MB30 and MB31.
My son and I have four batteries from XZNY. Two of mine (18Ahs) are in a K8MRD copycat battery box. I haven’t put them through the torture test you have, but so far so good.
Lol! I'm a little scared to try that in the house but that is important. Maybe I'll work on a way to test that safely for future battery reviews. But I'm guessing a wrench probably isn't the safest method? I suppose at some current level it would act as a fuse!
The Baofeng “comm experts” make use of the lowest quality Chinesium 🔧 wrenches as their method of overcurrent protection. Using an assorted set of open-end wrench’s, the smallest size is equivalent to the lowest ampacity in the world of fuses. For my repeater standby power (Motorola Quantar 100w UHF = 24vdc / 20a max) 1/2” wrench seems to be the proper size. Apparently, since we are all about “Safety is #1 sometimes) the wrench-fuse SHOULD be insulated. I’ve been advised to use grade heat-shrink tubing, but that adds a whopping $0.20 cents, too excessive for most Baofeng aficionados. Yup…. I went with masking tape 😂
There used to be a guy on youtube called K8MRD Radio Stuff, and he would have taken a dremel and claw hammer to one of those batteries. He might have even taken one to the range. Boy I miss him 🤣🤣
Finally! Someone who understands me! I put another little easter egg in my doublet video the other day and nobody has got the reference yet. Not from TPB though.
So what is inside these batteries? Is the build quality good. Can you look up the cell spec data? Are these grade A or B for what claim. Like you only did half the review on these batteries. Like we need to see the guys too.
Great Batteries, I have several of thier 18ah batteries in my battery boxes (same size as a 12Ah SLA ) they are workhorses. Had them over a year now and no issues, used regularly for pota on my IC706 MKIIG. Each box has 2 batts for a total of 36Ah.
No over-current protection; it got too hot and over-temp protection saved it. A lot of cheaper batteries are built this way. That's a hard fail, in my opinion. Fuse your wires appropriately and you can mitigate for that failure.
I grabbed one a week ago, so far so good! Appreciate the handles, and it's basically as small as a 12V/100AH LFP can possibly get. There were two 10% coupons you could stack earlier today - I picked up a second one for $144 shipped, right about 11 cents per watt hour.
Thank You for doing all the tests on this particular battery. About the most draw this battery will see is my IC-7300 and an auto tuner in a POTA setup. So hard to know which of these cheap batteries will be safe and go the distance. My Bioenno cost me well over $400 and is only 35 ah. Or so. This will make a nice cheap affordable backup for my POTA station. $166 and change out the door,and should arrive next week… Thank you once again for pointing this bargain out to me.
I'm still wondering what "Passes with flying carpets," means. :) I'd want to see what things look like inside the box. If the assembly is sloppy or the circuitry is junk then it can look good during a power test, then burn your house down next week. I always check the low rated reviews on Amazon to see what the problem was. In particular I look to see if the purchaser had any problems with customer service or returns. If no real problems I'm OK with a product that has a modest rate of failures. But if customers have horror stories about the price of shipping a product back, or if they lose their money entirely, I don't buy the product. I won't be buying any of these batteries. I can't afford to spend $170 to ship a battery back to China. Sure they say it ships to you from USA. But if it's a bad battery they charge you the price of a new one to return it. That's a scam. The other customer whose review I read is still trying to get their money back. It doesn't look like they will. I don't know about you, but I can't risk simply throwing away away $170. Also, it's a very bad sign when a 1 year warranty on a $170 battery is $50, especially on a battery they claim should have a cycle life of 15,000 cycles. That's 41 years of once a day cycling. Yet it's nearly 1/3 of the cost of the battery to give you a 1 year warranty on a battery that should already come with one? Something's very wrong here.
Hi Mike. Great review. (1) I would have liked to have seen max charge and discharge rates (you charged at 20A but is that the max I wonder?). Also being LIPO/LFP I can only assume you can charge to 100% and discharge to 0%? Would have also been useful to see if you can actually draw 120A @ 12.8v and have the battery last for 1 hour ie. 120Ah. And then push it to see you you could draw 240A for 30 mins. (2) I'm sure you said you added a 250A breaker but you got the AMP draw up to 275A; why didn't the breaker trigger? (3) You didn't say but I'm presuming I should add a 120A inline fuse to the (negative?) terminal?
Great battery ! the mini type are a big hit with the RV people. Love the low temp charge protection. I hardly ever hear of a LiFePO4 going bad. And some of the earyones whear BMS failure. and were very few . Not only they got smaller they got better. There's newer transistors being used in BMS now. The low temperature protection is a firmware thing in BMS . Glad to see that more often. The heated type are great. The BMS disconnects the cells and turns on a internal heater. when warm up the cells charge . The heater is tempter controlled. Great stull from LiFePO4 battery now ! now er need K8MRD approved stickers . 73
A battery discharging at twice the rated current is a failure. I wish CZcamsrs would stop promoting this failure of the bms as a pass because it allows more current to flow than rated.
Good battery if you need a starter in an emergency. Seems to have a thermal trip, not O.C.P as we know it. Low temp protection is ironic. I would buy them.
Good luck. If current in just a few% over rating, it can seem to take forever to trip. Short circuit may try to trip but just arc over melting into a short . One should not put an AC breaker in a DC circuit.
So, would you buy these or keep looking? Im looking for a 100aH batt for my field day and pota rig to pwer my 991, tuner, my laptop, a small fan, and maybe a worklight for the station.
You cant beat these. The company makes quality batteries after I switched to them for my battery boxes, several friends followed suite and they love them.
@TK4619 Thank you, since I saw your review, I watch a half dozen others. I liked your presentation to and I feel like you give a straight up, no sh!tter vs a straight up shill which we see at times from other folks... Thanks for the video and tips. I'm going to try one...
PLEASE wear safety glasses when you do a load test at over double the rated load...... I would hate to see you lose your eyesight if one exploded. I love your videos - Thanks
Man I was gonna make a really smart ass comment to you but I know you're only saying this out of concern and I do appreciate that. You're not wrong. At least I took my bracelets off for this one. So here's my smart ass comment anyway. But I'm wearing contacts! 73
They do. I've shot, punctured, overcharged, and put in fire LiFePO4 cells. In these types of tests there's really nothing to worry about. LiFePO4 batteries are extremely safe, have extremely high current ratings per cell, and it takes a whole lot more than what I'm doing to trigger an unscheduled rapid disassembly. Still, don't try this at home.
I would like to add to a previous comment about wearing at least safety glasses when working on batteries. Back in the 80's I had a battery explode right under my chin. The explosion blew me off my feet and the safety glasses off my head, blinded me for about 10 minutes, and lost my hearing for about an hour. In your test, the fact the BMS system did not trip until a much higher load would have been considered a failed test in my opinion. But as always, excellent job in your review.
Overload protection is not the task of the BMS. It merely protects the battery from catastrophic damage. Apart from that, the part should behave like a lead-acid battery.
It is often not recommended to use LiFePO as a starter battery in vehicles, as a BMS that suddenly switches off can lead to severe overvoltages in the system. All BMS manufacturers therefore try to provide the necessary protection without really strict limits.
That's why the advice at the end of the video was important to always provide a suitable fuse. Overload protection is the responsibility of the user!
@@Ole-vu9yj Points well taken. My primary emphasis was to wear protective equipment when conducting such tests.
@@w4id676 Yes, you should always make sure you have sufficient protection in such tests. Nobody can predict what will happen if the BMS fails. I'm 100% with you on that.
Looks like Thermal trip on the BMS not Current. 75°C thermal switch on the heat sink of the BMS of that battery. Thats what dropped out the first battery then came back on after cooling down. Overcurrent protection releases immediately after disconnecting loads. They use custom spec JBD style BMS. It will hold 120A until flat no problem. Cells can handle 500A+ Car audio guys pull 7-800A out of same cells.
Good to see you included a low temp test. XZNY is an up and coming brand and continues to improve their products. Thanks for the video!
Hey good info man, I've watched some of your videos too, I like your style. I was wondering about that temp shut off too. I'd have to tear it open to find out and I hate doing that to perfectly good batteries for what I'd use it for, capacity wise. I'd never come close to pulling that load in anything I'd do regularly but the protection has got to be there. Fuses for the win. And my 250 amp breaker I used in this and a couple other vids fails miserably. I need to fix that. Thanks for watching mate!
Are you sure it wasn't the inverter tripping on second battery. Because it wad still over 12v as soon as you tested it
@@hamradiotubeI enjoy your content and have learned a lot with your radio content!
The XZNY ultra minis have high frequency plastic welded case tops and basically have to be destroyed to get into them then you’ll have to plastic weld or epoxy them back together lol.
Always be conservative with OCPD with budget batteries. Much better to trip a breaker than activate the linear fuse inside them (the wires 😮)
Magnetic/Hydraulic (midnite solar/outback power) better than the cheap thermal breakers or fuses! Take care my friend
It seems like all of these "no name" batteries pass initial testing for capacity. What would be good to see would be the tests run again after 6-8 months of use to see if they degrade over time and use.
depends on use and how you drain cycle it.. my 12v 100ah lost about 7ah in 3 years of use.. i did drain it down flat couple times to shut off and had to plug it to 12v to power wake up the BMS.. so i say no need to worry about it really after 6 to 8 months.. give it a good year so you can get a estimate of lifespan youll get out of it on your use ...
they also tend to change whats inside afterwards so its not just the capacity when you initially buy but afterwards when other people are wanting to buy. the quality is not consistent
Gotta tear open all these budget batteries and run the cells QR code through one of the apps to see what you are getting. If its EVE, Gotion, GFB, CATL, etc then I wouldn't worry about degradation at all in the first few years. Your battery should capacity test at ~105Ah when new since A Grade cells always come out 5% above their rating give or take a percent. If you're getting right at the rating then you either have a very out of balance battery/the company didn't give a flying fuck about matching cells or you're getting junk cells.
Degradation is most in the first few hundred cycles and then it should settle down and be barely noticeable. Expect to see a 100Ah battery testing at 104Ah drop to 102Ah after a year and maybe 101Ah after a couple years if you're cycling daily at reasonable C rates.
I've have one of their 12AH ones and its been solid.
You are missing one of the most important tests. Battery charge and discharge rate. This is important for building battery banks. If you conduct this test it should either have visual output such as graphing or a digital print out for comparison between batteries.
We saw the battery take a 120A load with 11 point something at the invernter so likely 12 point something at the terminals. So fair to say this is your standard EVE LF105 cell or similar. 1C discharge rate continuous, 2C burst.....3C is possible but as we saw voltage drop was getting to be pretty bad. Charge rate is usually 0.5C recommended and 1C max. All these ~100Ah cells have identical specs pretty much unless they are purpose made power cells...which you wont see in these batteries. 2C-3C standard discharge with 5C burst.
A lot of the newer cells are going for cycle life over discharge/charge rate with 0.5C showing up in a lot of datasheets like the newest EVE MB30 and MB31.
My son and I have four batteries from XZNY. Two of mine (18Ahs) are in a K8MRD copycat battery box. I haven’t put them through the torture test you have, but so far so good.
Hey that's awesome! Love you built your own battery box.
open one up and lets see what's in side....
Short circuit protection. When are you going to check a very important test???
After I earned the nickname "Wrench Dropper" the only thing I really care about is short circuit protection.
Absolutely. !!
Lol! I'm a little scared to try that in the house but that is important. Maybe I'll work on a way to test that safely for future battery reviews. But I'm guessing a wrench probably isn't the safest method? I suppose at some current level it would act as a fuse!
The Baofeng “comm experts” make use of the lowest quality Chinesium 🔧 wrenches as their method of overcurrent protection. Using an assorted set of open-end wrench’s, the smallest size is equivalent to the lowest ampacity in the world of fuses. For my repeater standby power (Motorola Quantar 100w UHF = 24vdc / 20a max) 1/2” wrench seems to be the proper size.
Apparently, since we are all about “Safety is #1 sometimes) the wrench-fuse SHOULD be insulated.
I’ve been advised to use grade heat-shrink tubing, but that adds a whopping $0.20 cents, too excessive for most Baofeng aficionados.
Yup…. I went with masking tape 😂
😊cz c. Ze
2:52, o😊
There used to be a guy on youtube called K8MRD Radio Stuff, and he would have taken a dremel and claw hammer to one of those batteries. He might have even taken one to the range. Boy I miss him 🤣🤣
Yeah but it's tough to destroy a perfectly good battery.
Will Prowse solar does exactly that in all his battery reviews, haven't seen this particular brand!
I second Will, he is the GURU
@@hamradiotube4=,,,- 1:47 😊😊,,😮
😮
“Overcurrent” seems just to be a temp sensor…
4:13 I can never thank you enough for the TPB references. Gets me every time 😂 🇨🇦
Finally! Someone who understands me! I put another little easter egg in my doublet video the other day and nobody has got the reference yet. Not from TPB though.
@@hamradiotube 😉 haha
So what is inside these batteries? Is the build quality good. Can you look up the cell spec data? Are these grade A or B for what claim. Like you only did half the review on these batteries. Like we need to see the guys too.
Getting closer and closer to my $1/ah price target before I buy. Patiently waiting.
Great Batteries, I have several of thier 18ah batteries in my battery boxes (same size as a 12Ah SLA ) they are workhorses. Had them over a year now and no issues, used regularly for pota on my IC706 MKIIG. Each box has 2 batts for a total of 36Ah.
Just looked on Amazon. Current price is $229 each. Today I ordered 2 Lipuls mini's for $375.00 for the pair.
No over-current protection; it got too hot and over-temp protection saved it. A lot of cheaper batteries are built this way. That's a hard fail, in my opinion. Fuse your wires appropriately and you can mitigate for that failure.
I grabbed one a week ago, so far so good! Appreciate the handles, and it's basically as small as a 12V/100AH LFP can possibly get.
There were two 10% coupons you could stack earlier today - I picked up a second one for $144 shipped, right about 11 cents per watt hour.
oh nice!
@@hamradiotube Thanks for confirming low-temp cutoff BTW.. I'd seen it tested/working on their other (bigger) models, but not on this one yet.
I saw another Unknown brand of 100Ah Mini Battery, on Amazon, for about the same price, 2 weeks ago!
Thank You for doing all the tests on this particular battery. About the most draw this battery will see is my IC-7300 and an auto tuner in a POTA setup.
So hard to know which of these cheap batteries will be safe and go the distance. My Bioenno cost me well over $400 and is only 35 ah. Or so. This will make a nice cheap affordable backup for my POTA station. $166 and change out the door,and should arrive next week… Thank you once again for pointing this bargain out to me.
I'm still wondering what "Passes with flying carpets," means. :)
I'd want to see what things look like inside the box. If the assembly is sloppy or the circuitry is junk then it can look good during a power test, then burn your house down next week.
I always check the low rated reviews on Amazon to see what the problem was. In particular I look to see if the purchaser had any problems with customer service or returns. If no real problems I'm OK with a product that has a modest rate of failures. But if customers have horror stories about the price of shipping a product back, or if they lose their money entirely, I don't buy the product. I won't be buying any of these batteries. I can't afford to spend $170 to ship a battery back to China. Sure they say it ships to you from USA. But if it's a bad battery they charge you the price of a new one to return it. That's a scam. The other customer whose review I read is still trying to get their money back. It doesn't look like they will. I don't know about you, but I can't risk simply throwing away away $170. Also, it's a very bad sign when a 1 year warranty on a $170 battery is $50, especially on a battery they claim should have a cycle life of 15,000 cycles. That's 41 years of once a day cycling. Yet it's nearly 1/3 of the cost of the battery to give you a 1 year warranty on a battery that should already come with one? Something's very wrong here.
Hi Mike. Great review. (1) I would have liked to have seen max charge and discharge rates (you charged at 20A but is that the max I wonder?). Also being LIPO/LFP I can only assume you can charge to 100% and discharge to 0%? Would have also been useful to see if you can actually draw 120A @ 12.8v and have the battery last for 1 hour ie. 120Ah. And then push it to see you you could draw 240A for 30 mins. (2) I'm sure you said you added a 250A breaker but you got the AMP draw up to 275A; why didn't the breaker trigger? (3) You didn't say but I'm presuming I should add a 120A inline fuse to the (negative?) terminal?
It's flying colors not flying carpets. No Alladins were harmed in this message. 😀
I was wondering what the flying carpets looked like. If they're red with gold dingle-balls I want one.
Great battery ! the mini type are a big hit with the RV people. Love the low temp charge protection. I hardly ever hear of a LiFePO4 going bad. And some of the earyones whear BMS failure. and were very few . Not only they got smaller they got better. There's newer transistors being used in BMS now. The low temperature protection is a firmware thing in BMS . Glad to see that more often. The heated type are great. The BMS disconnects the cells and turns on a internal heater. when warm up the cells charge . The heater is tempter controlled. Great stull from LiFePO4 battery now ! now er need K8MRD approved stickers . 73
Overcurrent protection likely doesn't exist below 300A....its almost guaranteed to be overtemp.
After dumping all that heat in the room, I think you need to do a mini split heat pump AC review next.
A battery discharging at twice the rated current is a failure. I wish CZcamsrs would stop promoting this failure of the bms as a pass because it allows more current to flow than rated.
Did it shut off due to current or overtemp? DO you actually know?
10 years ago, I paid 200 for a 10 AH LiFePO4.
Curious as to how many years did you get out of it?
The bms needs adjusting thats a lot of current to pull from small 100ah cells. Other than that they seem good for the money.
Real question, how well does it run the 7300 and a tuner?
DO A TEARDOWN
Damn Mike. Thanks for heating the house up to test the batteries 😉
It got warm in here for sure!
He countered that by leaving his cooler open over night ;)
@@IdahoFluke 😆
Good battery if you need a starter in an emergency. Seems to have a thermal trip, not O.C.P as we know it. Low temp protection is ironic. I would buy them.
Your amazon store link is not working for me.
They prob cut and paste the Amazon description from another listing ...
I'm just here for the sad ham comments 🤣 73 from Scotland.
Thanks for the info. Do you have a specific details on the current breaker you use?
Snall batteries are usually pouch cells. Not a fan😮
Good battery. Wonder if they would work on an RV?
I don't see why they wouldn't.
Where / How do you dispose / recycle them?
Curious why the breaker didn't trip when you went over 250A? Im referring to the off screen breaker and not the BMS.
Because I think that breaker sucks. I need to get a different one.
Good luck. If current in just a few% over rating, it can seem to take forever to trip. Short circuit may try to trip but just arc over melting into a short . One should not put an AC breaker in a DC circuit.
Mike you are one Crazy Mad Scientist!!!!😂
A 20 amp 100w POTA radio should be a dawdle.
Nice small package with big capacity. What battery charger do you like for charging them?
I use this one for my 100Ah batteries. www.bioennopower.com/products/14-6v-20a-ac-to-dc-charger-powerpole-for-12v-lifepo4-batteries-bpc-1520a
So, would you buy these or keep looking?
Im looking for a 100aH batt for my field day and pota rig to pwer my 991, tuner, my laptop, a small fan, and maybe a worklight for the station.
You cant beat these. The company makes quality batteries after I switched to them for my battery boxes, several friends followed suite and they love them.
@TK4619
Thank you, since I saw your review, I watch a half dozen others.
I liked your presentation to and I feel like you give a straight up, no sh!tter vs a straight up shill which we see at times from other folks...
Thanks for the video and tips.
I'm going to try one...
Cries in Hawai'i... No can get em hea
PLEASE wear safety glasses when you do a load test at over double the rated load...... I would hate to see you lose your eyesight if one exploded. I love your videos - Thanks
I’m thinking face shield in the back yard or better yet in the middle of the street. Those things burn HOT.
Man I was gonna make a really smart ass comment to you but I know you're only saying this out of concern and I do appreciate that. You're not wrong. At least I took my bracelets off for this one. So here's my smart ass comment anyway. But I'm wearing contacts! 73
They do. I've shot, punctured, overcharged, and put in fire LiFePO4 cells. In these types of tests there's really nothing to worry about. LiFePO4 batteries are extremely safe, have extremely high current ratings per cell, and it takes a whole lot more than what I'm doing to trigger an unscheduled rapid disassembly. Still, don't try this at home.
@@hamradiotube All I’m saying is this is an unknown battery you are trusting.
Hi mike ,did you weigh the batteries?.
I did not. But now I did. It weights 20.5lbs.
non-human induced damage? So new battery if my dog knocks it off the table?? :D
Jones Matthew Robinson Timothy Hernandez Barbara
The expression is "With Flying Colours"
Flying colored carpet..