Capacitor bank, i think i was taken.

[dasfriek77]

About a month ago i got a Maxwell 2 banks worth which is 12.

Ill be honest i dont know who even sent them.

But i tried to charge them and it kept shutting my chargers down immediately.

yes positive to positive and grounded correctly 

I have tried everything right down to tring to charge each cell individually.

 

Ideas? I have $600 worth of paperwaits.

 

sell the on ebay as dead for $15 a piece?

Getting them working would be better.

[SnowDrifter]

What do you mean shutting down chargers?

What's the exact model you have? Or pics?

What I would do is this:

- If they're in a bank, disassemble them to individual capacitors

- Use/make a "test light" and connect each capacitor to it, one at a time, to drain them to 0.0v. Can use a brake-light bulb and some alligator clips

- Once they're all drained, assemble them to your bank.

- Take that same test light, and use that to charge the bank to ~5v

- Measure the voltage across each capacitor. No need to disassemble the bank. But they should all be the same voltage. If so, keep charging. If not, then there's some tolerance / bad units in there that needs to be addressed

- Keep charging to >10v. Once there, then you can hook up your battery charger to it. Or leave it until it's >12v and safely integrate it into your vehicle's electrical


Note: do NOT try and hook up an un-charged super capacitor bank to your vehicle. Powering a dead cap bank is like shorting out your wiring. Huge inrush current, lots of sparks, probably going to blow fuses.

[dasfriek77]

Thank you for the help.

But yeh each single cell and especially a bank of them was like shorting my chargers out.

I have a power supply that was perfect to give a charge at low voltage and got the singles to take a small charge.

As to my issue my multimeter’s battery was shot and i tried it out on my pocket O-scope and saw they would take voltage in short burst as the caps were pulling every amp i could feed it.

At 10v i hooked it up to one of my test bench lithium battery.

As to why the chargers were failing for so long. So i hooked my 100aH battery up to my big 120amp charger and then connected that battery to the supercaps it still was pulling heavy amps. But i use 0 Gauge for everthing so at that point nothing got warm even.

after i charged everything i got it too 14.4V same as what my car puts out and im letting it sit and back under the Balancer.

 

 

1 more question if you dont mind,

i have an Ioxus supercap that droppnhrtz sells for $100

and now this 2 banks of Maxwell supercaps but where down the lithium battery line do i place the caps?

I swear i heard or read that the caps should be at end of the line of the batteries. And buy as many supercaps if possible.

I have 276aH of battery power, 80aH LTO 2x banks, then a 96aH headway build and lastly a prismatic 100aH sized.

the end of the line makes it easy on the supercaps and more battery wear. But electricity moves fast so it would be able to take the strain of my battery cells.

If its first it puts the strain on the supercaps before it ever reaches the batteries.

so i have 3 Lithium batteries and 2 supercaps including the ioxus.

[SnowDrifter]

Capacitors start at 0v. Most battery chargers are 'smart' and don't energize until they see a turn-on voltage. Better ones still can detect between 6v and 12v batteries. Better ones still can reject the charge if a cell in the battery is bad.

I'm curious if the unique charge profile of capacitors was confusing your charger and causing it to abort.



Location-wise, they should go close to your load - near your amplifiers.

Though.... I am a little curious about the battery mish-mash you have going on. Mind sharing details about it? How's your alternator set up?

[dasfriek77]

I think my bluetooth battery Monitors my cells have should pic up on dead cells. I built every battery myself so i know them rather well.

they are BM6 on Amazon,and rather inexpensive.

 

But yeh i think the 0V caps fooled every charger until i got the 2 supercap banks Maxwell’s.

 

FINALY AN ANSWER TO MY SUPERCAP QUESTIONS!!!! Thank you so much for this info!

ill place the caps before my first battery i have hooked to my cars lithium cells but ill decide if my cars needs a differant  hook up soon.

 

atm i just have my 2x banks of 6 LTO build for 80aH and 96aH Headway cells seem to play well together so far. Thats those two batteries and ioxus supercap.

My alternator is a 180A stock one that’s it, But its dead set at 14.5 - 14.4 and charges everything to that and cranks so well it works great with these 2 batteries.

My bench tests last night was partialy to test the caps and the 100aH prismatic cells. And they passed with flying colors. Lets just say the 2 SALT amps do with the prismatic battery and caps so well it held the voltage +- .1v fluctuations was the most the battery moved. Yeah thats my SALT4 also pushing my sundown 15” Z v6 and it shook my whole 2 story house. With the GATELY 15” box thats a work of art. 

And Thanks to SM for his parts and info by testing and designing.

My trunk is the original spot for the stock battery, Chrysler useed a good and thick 0guage wires on both the posative and negative. I added another ground at the spot  where the OG battery goes. Useing fiber optic line to my DSP from the HU and i have no engine feedback.

 

So my last tests will see if i need that 3rd battery or not.

Im pretty sure the differance in cell compatability shouldnt go more than 20aH cell capacities.

im at 80aH LTO, AND 96aH headway cells and if i need the 3rd which i doubt ill need is a 100aH prismatic build. Last nights tests proved to me the prismatic cells i got were upto headway specs, And it didnt have Any issue keeping my amps happy.

[SnowDrifter]

I'm sorry man I don't mean to be rude, but I'm really having trouble following what you're saying.

Would you mind re-typing / re-formatting so it's easier to follow? I want to help ya, but I'm not the best reader

[dasfriek77]

16 hours ago, dasfriek77 said:

I think my bluetooth battery Monitors my cells have should pic up on dead cells. I built every battery myself so i know them rather well.

they are BM6 on Amazon,and rather inexpensive.

 

But yeh i think the 0V caps fooled every charger until i got the 2 supercap banks Maxwell’s.

 

FINALY AN ANSWER TO MY SUPERCAP QUESTIONS!!!! Thank you so much for this info!

ill place the caps before my first battery i have hooked to my cars lithium cells but ill decide if my cars needs a differant  hook up soon.

 

atm i just have my 2x banks of 6 LTO build for 80aH and 96aH Headway cells seem to play well together so far. Thats those two batteries and ioxus supercap.

My alternator is a 180A stock one that’s it, But its dead set at 14.5 - 14.4 and charges everything to that and cranks so well it works great with these 2 batteries.

My bench tests last night was partialy to test the caps and the 100aH prismatic cells. And they passed with flying colors. Lets just say the 2 SALT amps do with the prismatic battery and caps so well it held the voltage +- .1v fluctuations was the most the battery moved. Yeah thats my SALT4 also pushing my sundown 15” Z v6 and it shook my whole 2 story house. With the GATELY 15” box thats a work of art. 

And Thanks to SM for his parts and info by testing and designing.

My trunk is the original spot for the stock battery, Chrysler useed a good and thick 0guage wires on both the posative and negative. I added another ground at the spot  where the OG battery goes. Useing fiber optic line to my DSP from the HU and i have no engine feedback.

 

So my last tests will see if i need that 3rd battery or not.

Im pretty sure the differance in cell compatability shouldnt go more than 20aH cell capacities.

im at 80aH LTO, AND 96aH headway cells and if i need the 3rd which i doubt ill need is a 100aH prismatic build. Last nights tests proved to me the prismatic cells i got were upto headway specs, And it didnt have Any issue keeping my amps happy.

 

Trust me its my thinking just doesnt reach my fingers in the correct order, This isnt my first time to be asked to try and make posts easier to follow. Its no medical issue,its just how i am. Ill retype that post

I have bluetooth battery monitors. I also use balancers on my builds also. Its called a “Battery monitor” or BM6 on Amazon.

That monitor would let me know with low voltage on a going bad cell.

 

My car is completly running On lithium batteries. My alternator is the stock 180amp output.

I have 2 battery builds in the trunk. My LTO is 12 cells and 80aH capacity.

The second battery is a headway cell build with 48 cells in it.

I have a third 100aH battery made with 4 prismatic cells ready to go in. But after i finish the rebuild of my system ill see if i need to add another lithium battery. I doubt i do need it. So im running 2 batteries in the car for a total of 176aH, but could go as high as 276aH if i need the 3rd battery.

i counted the cells in “Parker the basshead” on youtube is running an 80cell headway build, i dont know the exact aH on his,but you can see how his build is around 20+ volts and he connects his amps in the middle where its most likely 16volts.

 

During my bench test of 100aH 4 prismatic cell battery and my SALT4 and SALT 1700.5 and the Salt 4 was powering my Sundown Z V6 15” and my voltage would drop -.1V and was the most stable voltage ive ever experienced, I had my charger/power supply on it and the biggest amp draw was usually 6amps was all it was feeding the battery.

 

added info is my SALT4 has a messed up 5th channel that should 1200 watts rms. Id bet its more around 100 watts. IM going to look at it on my oscilloscope and see more info before i send it back under warranty.

Hopefully this round was better,if something you want to know or explain better just ask

 

thank you Das

 

[SnowDrifter]

Right on

Honestly, bluetooth monitoring is fine. Good keeping an eye on it.

However, I do have some concerns about mixing chemistries. Lithium batteries have some pretty wildly different voltage ranges depending on said chemistry

Full charge voltages are as follows:
- LTO: ~2.8v
- LFP(headway): 3.65v
- NMC/NCA/LMO: 4.20v

My concern with the different configs is that one chemistry might be starved for energy and not reaching full charge - under-utilization. Or, worse, over-charging and risking degradation / fire risk (depending on the chemistry).

My other concern is what the alternator charge/temp profile is. Lithium cells are charged CC/CV - charge up to a given voltage and hold it there indefinitely. This differs from lead/acid chemistries which introduce a float charge as the final step, where voltage is held around 13-13.5v after the battery stops accepting current.

Stock alternators are designed to either passively, or actively (controlled via car's computer) honor an appropriate charge profile for lead-acid batteries. That's why your voltage is high when the car is cold, then drops when hot. However, this isn't a great approach for lithium as you risk either over-charging when cold, or only utilizing a fraction of the capacity when hot. A good approach here would be to look into external regulation for the alternator - a separate voltage controller for the output that maintains roughly the same voltage both hot and cold. See: Transpo 911-02R.


On the topic of chemistries: Honestly, LTO is like... The gold standard for car audio. It excels at high load, high cycles, broad temperature swings, and tends to fail gracefully rather than present a fire risk. That said, they aren't the most energy dense with respect to volume or weight, nor are they the best value per dollar when comparing capacity-per-cost. That said, it's my opinion that if you are looking to expand your bank, look into more LTO rather than introducing other chemistries w/ different voltage requirements to it.

[dasfriek77]

Still in reading form and making sense as best i can.

 

14.6v charged on the 96aH max voltage 3.65v each cell

16.8v LTO max charge  at 2.8v 

14.6v on the Prismatic bricks at 3.65V on each cell. Which are the same specs as headway cells.

 

only the LTO can be charged higher, But nothing is being overcharged. I guess i could take 2 cells off the LTO banks at get 14v with 5 cells in series. But it then would be too close to overcharging than id like.

 

I wish i could buy more LTO cells, Most expensive cells to buy. But well worth the costs.

Ive not seen my cars alternator charge anything above 14.4v but seeing how amps like this voltage.

BTW my old setup which was 2 AGM batteries and even then it would charge 14.4 volts from the factory.

 

Im not going to install that 100ah prismatic bricks ive been bench testing with unless its needed. As before i said the prismatic bricks are the same chemistry and specs as the headway cells.

 

My plan was a second headway cell build at 128aH but im thinking that just to much of a gap going from the LTO at 80aH and my headway build thats 96aH to then add 128aH is to much. I have about 100 more headway cells in box’s i have just sitting here. And they are going up in price so im guessing Batteryhookup is starting to run low on stock to raise their price.

BTW Project DP bussbars is almost a scam as ive been waiting on my 128aH highly polished buss bars for 3 months now and its been 2 months since he last answered and email or diect message threw his web site.

[SnowDrifter]

If I pull from XS power's LTO chart, charging at 14.4v puts your LTO bank at 25% capacity



I really don't see a way to get both of these to play nice with eachother. If you really want to get appropriate usability out of your chemistries, I think you might have some decisions to make