Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

Decided to put princess on a diet and install a lithium battery . I have been installing large lithium packs in gem cars for about 3 years and have learned a lot about different types of lithium and their characteristics . The lithium cells we use in Gem cars are Lithium manganese (LMO) same chemistry as Nissan leaf , chevy volt , bmw , etc. They work well in these applications but they don't like heat and started losing range after a year in hot climates . So I started researching a better chemistry and found Lithium Titanate (LTO), this is stuff is incredible ! These will run circles around any other lithium .

Here is some info on them :

A lithium–titanate battery is a modified lithium-ion battery that uses lithium-titanate nanocrystals on the surface of its anode instead of carbon. This gives the anode a surface area of about 100 square meters per gram, compared with 3 square meters per gram for carbon, allowing electrons to enter and leave the anode quickly. This makes fast recharging possible and provides high currents when needed. (from wikipedia)

these cells can be charged/discharged at 7c with short runs over 10c . Battery can be charged to 90% in less then 10 min.

They perform very well at low temperatures and extreme temperature tolerance from -22 degrees f to +131 degrees Fahrenheit . Most other lithium's well either not perform or quickly degrade if operated in these temperatures .

They are very stable and considered one of , if not the , safest of all lithium's . we have test data showing them charged to TWICE their normal voltages with no thermal runaway , and they continued to function properly .

25+ year shelf life

20,000+ life cycles (charged and discharged twice a day would be 27 years!)

LTO can be stored at 0 volts . ( there is a test online were they stored them over one year at zero volts and after 1 year there was no lose of capacity ) so if you have an application were there is a deep discharge or storage without the ability to keep on a charger these will work great. Other lithium's will be permanently ruined if they were to go below there minimum voltages .

The only problem is that they're not available to the public and if you could buy them they are EXTREMELY expensive . But we got lucky. Altairnano wanted to sell some old stock they had (sizes they are no longer selling) so we bought all of it (about 12 pallets of them, mostly the larger 55ah cells , but 2 pallets of the smaller 11ah cells).

I've really wanted to build one for my crossfire and finally got a chance . It takes 6 cells in series to get the proper voltage and decided to double up on them for more capacity (12 total 2p6s)

the stock battery weights 41lbs , this one weighs 10lbs
stock battery has 680cca's this one approximately 1200 cca's
stock battery life span 4 years ? This one 20+

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

Are we to assume that with all those pallets, you are going to offer them for sale to forum members ?
( along with a kit to hook them all together and to the car )

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

The cells are listed on ebay (don't need thousands of them!) . But if a forum member wants them i can sell them directly and make a kit up , sure.

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

i didn't have all the parts i needed on hand so used some terminals and wire that i had to start .

one of the other advantages is lto doesn't fall back when charging stops . With a lead battery the voltage is at 14.0v when the car is running but as soon as you turn the car off the voltage drops down to 12.8v or so . This one stays @ 13.9v so the car turns over a little faster.

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

;) This is QUITE interesting! One question I would have is would this battery be subject to a runaway charging situation? Another question, will the under-hood temperature exceed the maximum in southern states in the hot southern areas of the country? Can't wait to see all the responses to this idea. Also, why hasn't any battery manufacturers done this for vehicular applications? ;)

.

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

no thermal runaway issues with these at all . we have some lab tests were they over charged the cells to twice their nominal voltage . cells continued to function . a regular lead battery would probably explode if you overcharged it that much . the battery as configured is rated up to 16.8v so its not even close to its maximum .

as far as heat they are rated and tested to 55c so about 131 degrees , shouldn't be a problem

p.s. i live in s.Florida so they see lots of heat .

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

Is this your ebay listing? : https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lithium-***...hZ9fjR&vxp=mtr

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

yes that's mine . my partner up in minn also has the 11ah (but sold out of the larger ones).

i can do them a little cheaper with shipping direct then thru ebay

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

decided to do this one a little different . usually we have the posts sticking out of the boxes for easy connection of cables . This one i kept the terminals inside of the box for a cleaner look .

took some copper bar and made the terminals on their side to keep them inside . i usually heat shrink the connections but realized i'm out of the size i need so for today its duct tape !

this is the cells ready to be dropped in the box

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

Very intriguing. Just a couple questions:

Are there sources for the actual battery case? (I couldn't find any on-line, other than the marine-type boxes that a typical battery would be stored inside of.)

Being new to LTO technology, is it intuitive how these individual cells connect in series for assembly?

I won't need an actual replacement battery for a year, but it sounds like I can buy these now and not worry about storage for that long? If so, better to make up the battery now, or just store the cells as-is until needed?

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

Why did you not use 6 of the 55ah cells ?
What would the CCA be on that configuration ?

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

55ah would be way overkill . i probably could have gotten by with just 6 11ah cells but wanted to have plenty of reserve power so went with 12 . the 55ah ones used for the gem cars would weigh 24lbs and are about 12" x 11" so a tough fit in crossfire and no real advantage .

we built a 12 cell 11ah one and put it in a diesel tractor . diesel need a lot of power to start and it had no problems. i'm going to do a 6 cell for the waverunner , 12 cells for the muscle cars and 55ah for the boat ( boat needs lots of ah's for all the electronics , pumps , etc.)

here is a video from a guy who has bought multiple sets from us 11ah and 55ah

this is just 6 cells

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

WHat does the batterys case look like? Woody

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

so here it is installed and running . it looks so compact in there . landed up using the factory battery tie down , worked perfect . For those who want to lose even more weight you could remove the metal tie down and replace it with something lighter .

for a cleaner look i went to west marine and made a 16" negative battery cable and changed out the factory one , also easier to attach the copper terminals.

for battery boxes we use plastic ammo cans , they fit perfect . this one is an mtm (comes in green , black and purple!) plano has one almost identical and menard's sells one too.

if there is any interest i can assemble another one and take pictures . its pretty easy stuff.

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

wrong type of lithium . That article is about lithium iron , these are lithium Titanate LTO .;)

Lto has no carbon in it , no problems with fire , explosion , thermal nuclear meltdown , well you get the idea.

Toshiba is now making an LTO cell they call them SCiB , here is a little info from Toshiba:

What is SCiB™?
Toshiba SCiB™ is a highly safe rechargeable battery with six outstanding characteristics.
By using oxide-based materials (Lithium Titanium Oxide), SCiB™ is designed to prevent thermal runaway resulting from short circuiting caused by physical stress.
Furthermore, SCiB™ has various superior characteristics, including a long life exceeding 15,000 charge/discharge cycles, rapid charging time of 6 minutes, input/output current densities comparable with capacitors, and operation at temperatures as low as -30°C.

the cells i'm using sold for over $100/ea

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

What about the charging of them using our alternator?
What are the drawbacks as there has to be some?

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

they are compatible with our alternators . mine reads 14.2v when running and the pack can handle up to 16.5v.

disadvantages are weight and cost . a 12v 20ah racing battery from lithium pros (c925) weighs 7.75lbs compared to my 22ah one that weighs about 11lbs ready to drop in . in our case not a big deal but an electric car they would be hundreds of pounds heavier then other lithium's .

By far the biggest disadvantage is cost the big cells originally sold for $600/ea and these 11ah over $100 ea. a battery pack for a Tesla would be $100k plus few non commercial applications need discharge cycles in the tens of thousands . This is why they are used mostly in military and commercial applications . But if Toshiba can get the cost of theirs down you will start seeing them a lot more .

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

Could these be easily added to the top of the plastic ammo box to make it truly plug and play ?
https://www.crutchfield.com/p_122580...c&awug=9012851


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cro...fbaacd231d.png

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

yes was thinking something like that myself. just ordered these

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

There appears no charge balancing circuit between cells??.ww

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

So what is the actual price ready to drop in to a Crossfire?

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

i put this on here to show a great upgrade i was doing . if others were interested to help them do it . wasn't planning on building batteries for others do to time constraints . well be glad to post more pictures and a parts list that i used .

cells costs $95. plus shipping . other parts come out to about $25. its not hard to do probably 3-4 hours to assemble and install first timer .

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

Understood.
On your ebay listing for 6 at $48, the last picture shows connector bus bars with bolts, but your pictures on the forum show some sort of clip thing.
If I order 2 sets of the 6, do I get the clip things that you used ?
I found the ammo box and external battery posts already.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cro...48360ef4f3.png

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

How do you suggest 1000+ amps from a 11ah battery with a c of 7. Max10c.

Also 11ah in a pair string would have 22ah capacity which is very small capacity. Id not think this can crank car much at all and with headlights on your gonna be dark in less than 1 hour.

Please explain. Woody

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

yeah i was posting pictures of different ones we have done and different connection methods . my partner built all those copper clamps , very time consuming . i use body clips i ordered on ebay . just fold over the tabs and slip on the clips , pretty easy . if someone wants to do over kill they can put screws thru the clips and make the connections even tighter . Also one of the other pictures shows one we potted in with black potting material .
i just ordered more clips on ebay . if i have some i will send them to you or give you the link . if you order them directly from me i can save you some on shipping . just paypal me 95. for the cells and $15 for shipping (110 total ) i prefer friends and family so paypal doesn't take a cut . i can ship fedex in one day. will upload more pictures in my gallery when i can figure out how!

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

Woody,
lithium cells are rated on continuous charge and discharge rates. these cells will go thousands of cycles at these high rates ( a lead battery would die in a few cycles at the high rates). but for shorter periods they can go much higher . if you go to lithium pros website their most popular battery for racing is the c680 it is an 11ah battery! for huge pro mod cars it is the l925 also 11ah , can you imagine starting a 500ci v8 racing motor with a 11ah battery ? they have been for years . now those are lithium iron , i have lithium titanate which can output considerably higher amps (go to wiki for more detail) we could probably get away with an 11ah like the lithium pros does but for a few dollars more you can have double the capacity , no brainer .( for $50 more you can have 3x the capacity if you want and it still only weighs 15lbs)!

as for reserve capacity if you take a lead battery with a rc of 115 min and convert it to ah (multiply by .4167) you get 48ah . now peukert effect tells us that if we drain a lead battery rapidly we get significantly less total power .so if we use a peukert calculator , put in 48ah battery , draw 48 amps out of it it will only last .461 hours for a total draw of 22ah's . this is fully discharged (you do this a few dozen times and your new battery and it is toast).

now a 22ah lithium will give you all 22amps in that same time (and it will do it thousands of times)
the lithium manufactures use a term LHA that gives a user a way to compare lithium amp hours to equivalent lead ah . for rough calcs its 2 to 1

as far as head lights i haven't timed how long they would work. my guess is about the same . but if i left my lights on and completely drained my battery to zero it would probably kill it . if i did it to an lto battery and left it at zero for a month , i could just jump start it and away i go with no ill effects to the battery.

mike

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

Kokam....Brilliant battery's, we have just installed 40 Mega watts at our power station continuously online in case one of our gas turbines trip. i know its a bit off thread. they really do have some grunt.

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

Where can a person buy those clamps that are shown in the pictures that connect the individual cell tabs? I searched around yesterday and couldn't find them. The tabs seem to be made very thin, almost like tin foil from what I see. Can you solder those clips and run wire to each? The wire I would think would need to be at least 12 gauge and then were the two 6 packs are connected together the parallel wiring would be about at least 6 gauge. Seems like those clips are essential to put this all together.

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

its aluminum so hard to solder /weld to . clamping works very well and is easy. these are the clips i use on my larger cells and am going to use on the 11ah now (was using a smaller clip but like these bigger ones better). get them on ebay out of friggen china , wish i could find a us supplier . ordered 250 a few weeks ago , when i get them i will send along with cells if wanted.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/20-Pcs-Spri...AAAOSwmtJXV4v2

here are pictures of connections we have used and a couple of batteries we potted afterwards for a super clean look .

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

here is one of the big ones i finished this weekend , 3 of these go in a gem car . 1.8kw of power in each box !

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

Mr Rockefeller, I just bought two of your six packs.

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

So a 100 total + shipping? I'm interested too.

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

I was admiring the photos of the red battery, it looks like the 65 Ah battery? Is that the one that you were using in the crossfire in pairs?

How are the batteries paralleled mechanically? Woody

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

how thin can they be made, I am wanting to change out the capacitor behind passenger seat, been thinking about a odyssey pc680 7" x 3" x 7.5" and either just hooking strict to the agm under hood or with a battery isolator.
using for my stereo, always used batteries before been trying capacitors but not much luck, with only this one smaller battery will probably have to hook to battery and not with isolator.
ideas for me with the lithium?
or if I change the agm under hood to the lithium and have the better capacity and discharge rate would help the stereo but the risk of cold Temps and battery problems not good for me, since I am 2 - 4 hours from home every week, and would suck if went out on go home day :(

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

sorry guys for the slow response , i have a house full of relatives for christmas .

Woody,

the big orange ones are 11s1p 25v 65ah packs that go in the gem electric cars we replace 6 31 series gel batteries that weigh 420lbs with 3 of these that weigh 140lbs total ! the gem have farther range and because of the lower voltage sag are much faster . And we do it for the same cost as new gels .
mike

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

trying to make sure i understand your question properly . you are using an additional booster battery or capacitor for your high draw stereo ? if that is the case you could build a thin one , mount it behind seat and hook it to main battery thru an acr relay that would connect batteries when engine running but disconnect when engine shuts off .

or build one that has 18 cells instead of 12 . this gives you 50% more capacity . plus these will supply higher voltage to your system so your amps will put out more power ( you'll notice lots of manufactures rate their amp output watts @ 14.0v input )

feel free to pm me or call and we can go over options (i used to install large commercial sound systems so have a fairly good knowledge of audio)

mike

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

i have got multiple pm's about purchasing batteries and some of you have bought them on ebay , so i put together 2 options to make this easier.

buy the 12 cells directly from me (either send me a check or use paypal friends and family)
with the fees i save from Ebay and paypal i can include:

12 cells
spring clips for assembly
jst 9 connector for cell monitoring/ balancing (probably never need it but nice to have)
small wire terminals
small tube of Anti oxidant for connections

price 95. plus 15 shipping fedex

Option #2: Semi assembled battery

we(my 14 year old daughter and self) well pre balance the cells and assemble them.
put them in an mtm plastic box and attach the monitoring wires.

I realize that some of you may not feel comfortable assembling cells so created this option (and my daughter is trying to earn money for a car!)

you will still need to decide which end terminals you want to attach and will have to cut the plastic box accordingly . this requires no electrical knowledge and is easy to do.

cost $135 plus $18 shipping Fedex . will need a few days time to balance and assemble an order .

my direct Email and paypal account is "WMGCEO@gmail.com"

I also want you guys to know that i didn't do this to sale batteries and make a bunch of money(not enough profit in this to even cover my time) i posted this because i thought it was a great upgrade . So many others have contributed to this forum and i have benefited , this is my contribution to others . cant think of another way to get this much weight out of our cars for such a low price .( if someone knows of others please let me know so i can do those too!).

If for any reason your not happy with these you can send them back for a full refund (minus shipping) anytime , for any reason , batteries , used cells doesn't matter .
This offer is only good for 30 years , after that i will probably be dead and i don't know if my kids will still honor it :D

Happy light weight motoring!

Re: Building lightweight Lithium car battery 10lbs!
 

TY for reply.
My main amp if I go a 1 ohm draw has a tested wattage of 1945 watts, I am running in 2 ohm now, in 2 ohm with 4 awg wire and stock alternator it is way to much draw and need the reserve capacity and ah for batteries or a much larger capacitor, just get tired of messing with them.
Part of the reason for the larger amp is my long drives and cooler running amp.
But occasionally if I tired I will turn it up to keep my a$$ awake.
How will these cycle with the high charge and discharge rate?
Will they build alot of heat?
Think just running the 6 cells instead of 12 for the thickness will be plenty?
Or do 2, 6 cell packs, making a 8"x8"x2.25" pack, there is enough room behind seat to make a 24 cell 8"x8"x4.5"

Haven't messed with a acr relay.
Suggest that over just wiring direct or a battery isolator (alternator charges 1 battery at a time)
I have 4 gauge wire now, but will step it up to 2 awg when I install my 180 alternator I have at home.