Curious about the Powerwin BT100 LiFePO4 batteries? Wondering what our customers have to say about this powerful energy solution? Look no further! Let's delve into the insights and experiences shared by our satisfied customers.
check the customers said
Justin C.:
This is a very easy battery to swap out a battery from a UPS unit and these will last for quite a long time compared to standard NiCad batteries. this is also about half of the weight of the standard battery, so if your UPS take more than one, you will have a much lighter system. LiFeP04 batteries are great for just swapping out NiCad batteries. This also stores more power than a regular batteries.
DPS:
I work outdoors and away from infrastructure so I bring a couple modes of portable electrical power with me to power and to recharge a variety of electronics testing equipment. One type of "power supply" that I've made is simply a LiFePO4 battery that's in a rugged plastic box and wired to deliver battery voltage through two terminal posts and through 4 ports of 5V output by means of two automotive type USB charging ports.
I've been using 6Ah and 7Ah batteries for the past year but needed a little more capacity to make it through a work day so I tried this 10Ah battery from POWERWIN. Not only does this battery provide its rated output of 10Ah, it's the same size as the 6 and 7Ah batteries that I've been using so it's a direct replacement for the smaller capacity batteries.
LiFePO4 chemistry is far superior to other battery packs and chemistries that I've used and this particular 10Ah battery has proven to be rugged, stable, and capable of delivering its rated output.
Andy in Washington:
I have an older model UPS that I still use for my security camera PC, and it was in need of a new battery. Normally it has always taken traditional lead-acid batteries, but I thought I would give this a shot.
=== The Good Stuff ===
* It fit right in, the terminals were where they should be, and when I plugged it in, the UPS detected the battery at about a 65% charge level. It charged in an hour or so with no drama.
* I didn't do the math, but when I unplugged it, it kept a desktop PC and monitor alive for at least 10 minutes- which is about all I expect. That gave my PC enough time to detect the UPS was in discharge, and power itself down.
=== The Not-So-Good Stuff ===
* The percent charged display of my UPS seems a little suspect with this battery. After I ran it down, it came up as 10% charged, and slowly charged to 50%. The last 50% took about a quarter of the time to charge as the first 50%. Not really a big deal for me.
* When power was restored after a discharge, the UPS still alarmed as if the power was off. It required a manual reset of the alarm to shut it up. I don't know if the UPS has a problem or not, but I suspect the different load characteristics of this battery versus a lead-acid are to blame. It is an annoying problem, but since my power probably only goes out once per year, not really all that big of a deal.
=== Summary ===
While it was not a 100% compatible replacement for my application, it was close enough for me. If you are more picky about some of your UPS advanced features, you may be disappointed, but I was happy with it.
FullmetalZ26:
I installed two of these in an APC SmartUPS 750 that runs my house's networking equipment. Converting over from the regular SLA batteries the unit normally takes was easy, just swap the wiring from the old batteries to the new and pop them in. No reconfiguration to the UPS itself was needed for the new batteries, as these have built-in battery management circuitry that plays middle-man to manage the lifepo4 cells properly while presenting the UPS with state of charge characteristics equivalent to SLA batteries that it was originally designed for. After installing the new batteries, I allowed 16 hours to ensure a full charge, then ran the UPS down to 0% charge on a stable 30% load so it could recalibrate its internal runtime values. Everything worked great, and I got just about 75 minutes of runtime from it with that load, consistent with new batteries' capacity and wattage draw at that 30% load.
Now onto the main caveat with lifepo4 drop-in replacements for UPSes -- maximum discharge current. Regular SLA batteries can typically withstand much higher discharge rates than the average lifepo4 battery, especially cheaper ones. Lifepo4 batteries with equivalent discharge rates to SLA (on the order of 50-100A continuous) are going to be much more expensive than this battery. Before ordering, I had poked around the manufacturer's website to try and find this discharge current, but was unable to. The batteries themselves came with a datasheet though, which I've attached, showing max discharge at 10A per battery. This isn't terrible but it does substantially limit the output capacity of the UPS. Where SLA batteries capable of outputting 50A max could deliver over 600 watts continuous to the UPS, this one maxes out at 120 watts and the built-in management circuitry will shut the battery down if you exceed it. So while you'll have a very long runtime at lower loads, you won't be able to use the higher load capacity of your UPS to run a higher load at a shorter runtime.
In the end for my setup, this isn't an issue, as my networking stack only ever has this UPS at like a 10% load, which is never going to bump up against the max discharge limit on these batteries. From what I can see, these batteries seem well-constructed and I expect them to last at least a few years longer than the SLA's I was replacing every 2-4 years. Provided you keep the limitations in mind when deciding if these will fit your battery application, I think these batteries are a fantastic option for upgrading equipment you already have on hand, especially considering how expensive new lifepo4 UPSes are right now.