New Lithium battery RowPow. Thoughts?

[MCJEFE]

I would love to hear back any thoughts or opinions on these new battery packs.

So my Dad asked me to look into this new lithium battery that his cart dealer is trying to sell him. I was expecting the typical drop in (using 18650 cells) for $3-5k. These seem at first glance to be more than the typical plastic box someone is filling with unknown 18650 cells and slapping a sticker on it. What I found was that the pack they were offering him was a single 105AH 51V (charged to 56.7v) that's using 105AH prismatic Lifepo4 cells in a 16S1P configuration installed for just over $2k.

They also are advertising suggested retail cost:
38v/105ah - $1900
51v/56ah - $1500
51v/105ah - $2000
51v/160ah - $2600

The dimensions are about the same as our 14 module Leaf packs ~18x13x10 and seems to have all the protections unless I missed something. The one concern that I saw was that it has a documented maximum discharge of 115 amps. I was speaking with the west coast sales manager and he said that the cells were rated for 250 amp surge...

The parent company of RowPow is EVE Energy and looks to be a large manufacturer in the lithium battery world for about 20 years and also manufacturers their own batteries battery packs for industrial and commercial OEM products.

I asked what their sales have been so far and he said that they are getting started with their sales and setting up dealers. The first shipment to the US was in April and have since shipped 5 containers. They have offices in Los Angels, Texas and Florida.

Again I welcome any thoughts or opinions you may have, especially from the guru's! ;)

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[Jkerle]

I will have my hands on one by next week. It's going in a club car precedent 6in lift 23in tires with a Navitas 5kw Ac conversion. I'll report back my experience.

As of right now the cart will go over 30mph but it takes forever to get there the voltage drop under acceleration is killing it. I'm seeing the pack drop to lower 40s so hoping the lithium will wake it up. I have read other reports that people are more than happy with them. 5 year warranty too.

Retail prices are extremely high... So watch for prices to get more inline with FLA these will take the market by storm if they can get them to us quicker. We are 4 weeks into waiting for it. However no money has been spent yet they are giving us a 30 day trial.



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[DaveTM]

Would be interested to see the reports!

[BBBHC]

Originally Posted by MCJEFE

The one concern that I saw was that it has a documented maximum discharge of 115 amps. I was speaking with the west coast sales manager and he said that the cells were rated for 250 amp surge...

Well I'm certainly no guru, but definitely interested to learn. Hmm... seems a little suspicious to me. They are saying the discharge Amp rating is more than double what is in the documentation? I'm thinking for stock golf cars these batteries could work. For those of us with aftermarket bigger tires, speed/torque motors and controllers, I don't think they will work. I know folks have seen discharge peak amps north of 400 Amps.

Originally Posted by Jkerle

I will have my hands on one by next week. It's going in a club car precedent 6in lift 23in tires with a Navitas 5kw Ac conversion. I'll report back my experience.

I don't know squat about the difference of DC vs. AC, in terms of how they utilize Amps. I know the difference between the two in how they work. I have read that AC is more efficient than DC, but that's about it. Does AC systems convert the DC power from batteries at less of an Amp draw than DC systems, at same power? What would be the difference of performance of said battery pack in the two different systems?

[Jkerle]

Originally Posted by BBBHC

Well I'm certainly no guru, but definitely interested to learn. Hmm... seems a little suspicious to me. They are saying the discharge Amp rating is more than double what is in the documentation? I'm thinking for stock golf cars these batteries could work. For those of us with aftermarket bigger tires, speed/torque motors and controllers, I don't think they will work. I know folks have seen discharge peak amps north of 400 Amps.







I don't know squat about the difference of DC vs. AC, in terms of how they utilize Amps. I know the difference between the two in how they work. I have read that AC is more efficient than DC, but that's about it. Does AC systems convert the DC power from batteries at less of an Amp draw than DC systems, at same power? What would be the difference of performance of said battery pack in the two different systems?

The AC setup from Navitas pulls a **** load of amps. Enough to drop the voltage of a new full charged set of 6/8v trojan 875s to lower 40s. It's a 600amp controller.

This will be a pretty extreme test of this pack. With the navitas dealer app we will be able to see the discharge amperage of the pack through out the test so we will see what it's actually putting out.

This is a free test mind you. I wouldnt spend a dollar on pack rated like this one is. However I have read good reports of this pack but when compared to a diy pack I'm not sure. Dropping 400lbs of batteries will make any cart feel extremely quicker than it did previously. I'm sure most using this pack do not have experience with a diy pack.

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[MCJEFE]

Originally Posted by Jkerle

The AC setup from Navitas pulls a **** load of amps. Enough to drop the voltage of a new full charged set of 6/8v trojan 875s to lower 40s. It's a 600amp controller.

This will be a pretty extreme test of this pack. With the navitas dealer app we will be able to see the discharge amperage of the pack through out the test so we will see what it's actually putting out.

This is a free test mind you. I wouldnt spend a dollar on pack rated like this one is. However I have read good reports of this pack but when compared to a diy pack I'm not sure. Dropping 400lbs of batteries will make any cart feel extremely quicker than it did previously. I'm sure most using this pack do not have experience with a diy pack.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your results. Are you planning to track the hours and look for degradation in performance or all out failure due to stressing the pack?

I'm not sure of how accurate my method was... but I got a cheap in line meter, ran my Leaf pack down to 3.65v, installed the meter and measured the AH while charging to full charge at 10 amps. You might be able to do something similar by measuring your pack capacity upon installation and after 50, 100.. hours to see if there's any significant change?

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[MCJEFE]

Originally Posted by Jkerle

I will have my hands on one by next week. It's going in a club car precedent 6in lift 23in tires with a Navitas 5kw Ac conversion. I'll report back my experience.

As of right now the cart will go over 30mph but it takes forever to get there the voltage drop under acceleration is killing it. I'm seeing the pack drop to lower 40s so hoping the lithium will wake it up. I have read other reports that people are more than happy with them. 5 year warranty too.

Retail prices are extremely high... So watch for prices to get more inline with FLA these will take the market by storm if they can get them to us quicker. We are 4 weeks into waiting for it. However no money has been spent yet they are giving us a 30 day trial.



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I love the Leaf packs but it's only going to get harder to find low mileage Gen 2 modules so it would be nice to find a reasonably priced option, that happens to use new cells.
I was thinking that something like these might be a viable option for the person who doesn't need a 30+ mph, tree climbing beast. You know for the person that's driving around a mostly stock, 18-20" tires and 22-24 mph cart to the golf course or their mostly flat paved neighborhood streets.

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[MCJEFE]

I'm pretty sure that these are the specification data sheets for the cells RowPow is using, there're made by the parent company Eve Energy.


I looks like the max discharge is C3 and if my math is right (probably not) then the actual maximum discharge is actually 315 amps.

Hopefully someone can help decipher these and confirm this...



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[Jkerle]

My main concerns are how many amps we can get the pack to output. If can put out 600amps I'll be happy. The continuous output doesnt need to be that high. 250amps should be plenty. As far as the life of the pack we wont have any idea. Not enough time to get that data.

I would be curious to see the actual ah value tho and test to confirm it's as advertised. That's a cool product I'll be adding one to my tool box!

If this pack provides the performance I'm looking for I'll be purchasing a 72v version for my personal cart and I will be able to provide a long term review of it.

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[Jkerle]

Install was extremely easy and straight forward. Clears the seat base by 2in. It weighs about 100lbs. That's quite a bit more than my gen 3 leaf pack. It's only about 55-60lbs. This is the 105ah version. My leaf pack is 82ah.

First test runs where a bit flawed. When the power was removed the from the controller it had a hard reset and we lost all of our preprogrammed settings.

Once this was fixed the cart came to life easily lifting both front tires off the ground.

I am on the road this week so I havent had first hand experience with it. When I do I'll get more into the specs and the amp output we are seeing. The cart did 0-20 in 3.84 seconds. FLA (new trojan 875s) the cart did 0-20 in 5.9seconds.







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