10kWh LifePO4 DIY Battery Addition..... Here is my write up.

Mine have arrived in hamburg according to screenshot shared by PWOD. UPS tracking code provided, but only label created yet, presumably will come together once through customs. Interesting everyone elses seems to be going via poland. Feel like I might get hit with some unexpected duty...

Any thoughts on the build?

https://youtu.be/oxh-OGLh8cc

10/16 now complete. Lowest is 236.41, highest is 239.37 amp hours. Going well and I’m glad they are all so similar.

It is easy to make a mistake, particularly by taking off the charger too soon, they take a lot of charging. I had to retest number 9 as it initially came back at 191ah and 238.69ah on the retest.

It’s going to take a day each to charge them again. Might do this in parallel as the panic will be off.

I meant to upload this previously. When PWOD sent me the waybill when I was chasing my recent delivery, I thought the shipment was coming directly to Ireland, and I worried that it wasn't coming via Poland, and that I would be hit for customs and vat.

As you can see from the chat, it would appear that the vat is being erroneously deducted at the checkout.

Yes stop mentioning it lest anyone hears it and changes it!! ... Ali Express it's a great way of getting chinese items delivered to you from Poland within the EU. What the seller does before poland is between them and the EU - none of my/our business.

Got another 16 on the way this evening😁

Set up looks fine especially at 10amp. In my dispute on AE, I’m not getting on well as the seller are saying my tester is not ‘professional equipment’. They could say this about any tester.

They also mentioned the temperature of 25c. Luckily I carried the tests in a heated enclosure to keep the temp constant.

It is now with AE to decide. I asked for a partial refund to allow for the 15% deficit in ah.

I had something similar. The cells were meant to be delivered in 16th Dec. I chased them and they sent on an empty UPS label reference. That is it is only a holder UPS are expecting the parcel with nothing received. They also were coming in through Hamburg.

I opened a dispute as its now over a month late and they never updated the tracking on AliExpress which makes me a bit suspicious.

Refund was given....took time. Bit given how late it was Aliexpress found on my side.

@johnbk - "Is there such a thing as an honest seller of these batteries?"

Sure. Some sellers on AliBaba have a stellar reputation for only supplying top quality grade A batteries, brand new.

But.....you'd pay about twice what we all paid including shipping and VAT

Personally, I'd much rather the cells I got than pay double for slightly better cells. But that's just me. Best of luck with your build!

If possible I would fit castors on the base for easy movement if ever needed. Nice job.

Casters are a good idea, thanks.

First of all, forget about a capacity meter - no point. The NEEY active balancer will certainly help to eek out every last bit of capacity, so likely more useful with 16 than 32 cells.

I got a 0 - 60v charger on Amazon

Ask your installer if they can get you a SOFAR inverter instead. It's perfect for Home Automation, since is can be fully controlled externally. If you were only planning to get a string inverter from the grant aided installation, then you want an inverter which easily feeds data straight into HA - and then a SOFAR for the Hybrid

This is it, I have 3 of them. One is on loan to another forum regular, when it comes back anyone in here is free to use it. Mind, these things are cheap and it is likely you'll need one again in future. If that's the case, you might as well buy one yourself.