Hi all,
My Aims power inverter is OK. They are very good in the support department, which is just down the road from where I live, but they are very over priced. The inverters are more designed for wet cell batteries (think RV deep cycle), but there is a lithium battery maker here where I live (battle born batteries) that has been tested with their inverters. If you are thinking Aims, then your going to have noise on your lines....I use power line communication to control my micro inverters, and the inverter disrupts the operation of the system sometimes. The only alternative to the dumb inverters for grid connected systems is the Outback Solar Radium series which is ridiculously priced, and offers not much more than what you could brain storm at your local hardware store with timer relays. If I were you, I would buy an AiMS (or Sigineer ...their Asian manufacturer ..for 1/2 the cost) and a bunch of deep cycle batteries at Walmart. This would actually cost less than DIY lithium ion battery packs, but of course would not be as fun to put together.
Paul
Hi again,
I have 7 battery packs hooked up in series to my 24vDC power inverter, and it does seem like it takes a long time to charge them. Each is 1sx198p (4cells across by 28 cells deep). The charger on my Aims Power inverter is 85 amps max, but sometimes it takes all day and still the lithium cells are not fully charged. Is there a way to calculate approximately how long it should take to get the cells (apprx 1400 total of 1600mAH used laptop 18650s) from apprx 3.7 volts up to 4.2 volt? Thanks for any advice.
Paul
One more time....
Regarding the above mentioned battery packs...I've noticed a cell thats gets warm to hot to the touch when charging, and I'm looking at 'snipping' it off the grid. Remember, these cells are already soldered together, so I'm also looking at a way to test them to see which may be not holding a charge or to resistant to current. I have a standard multimeter, and would really appreciate a tip on how to 'bench' the packs and check for bad cells without taking them apart. I dont have a 24v charger, except for the Aims Power inverter, which cannot be used to bench test.
Again, thanks for any advice!
Paul