100Ah 12V LiFePO4 battery for under $200

Thanks Jeff,  this is the kind of battery buildI am looking for.

I should've mentioned, finished dimensions: 6" x 5" x 10" and under 20 lbs.

Did a rundown test yesterday. Got 560 minutes on a 10.8 amp draw (a couple of 60W shop lights off an inverter). That works out to 101 Ah and that was at 40F. Not bad at all. LiitoKala Power cells are legit.

Fantastic Jeff!  Thanks so much for sharing with us.  Uh what’s that?  

Hey Jeff, uh, my wife asks for you stop sharing so much. 😂😂

Very nice!!!!

ac5s

What no Anderson Power Poles on the top???

Really nice build there Jeff!   

@ak6q You mean like this? 😎 

 Actually, I did all the electrical using power poles...

Now were talking... looks spectacular Jeff!

Jeff -

Awesome build.  You've inspired me to go out and pick up those same cells, and I'm now designing my own pack for portable use (at ~50 pounds...perhaps not that portable!). 

Just curious, did you ever run into any interesting waterproof box options?  I've looked at the apache cases at Harbor Freight, but they are juuust too thin for a 4s 100Ah build.

Thanks!

-Alex

I couldn't find anything off the shelf that met my needs. Didn't have a lot of space in the galley of my trailer so I needed the absolute minimum size for the pack. That and I wanted to compress the cells made plywood an easy choice. Do a search for cases over on the DIY Solar forum. There's always people there talking about case solutions they've discovered.

Congrats on the build!

Will just did a review of the LiitoKala cells and kind of poo pooed them but even he admits they delivered the advertised Ah. I respect his opinions but he seems a bit hung up on the cells not being perfectly flat. As many point out in the comments, none of the aluminum cased cells coming out of China are. That's why the consensus is to place them under light compression to improve cell life. Nobody can argue that $200 for 100Ah of LiFePO4 isn't an insane bargain.

My pack has been performing flawlessly and has a couple camping trips under its belt already. 

Here's my interpretation; thanks for the inspriation and links to the cells, Jeff!

I just ad-libbed a build and created a box with a variety of connections: USB, 12V lighter plug, and a pair of powerpoles. I got a battery case from AutoZone for $15 that has enough room for the battery, fuse block, and also to store my old 400W inverter when it's not in use.

My system is wired for 10A circuits, based on the outlets I'm using, but I run low power so it's not a problem at this point.

Here are the basic outlets pre-wired to the fuse block:

Putting it all in the box and roughing in the wires.

The exterior of the box with outlets and LED meter.

Doing a test run with my G90 and Win laptop (running from the small inverter.)

This is my first build of this kind. Fun to learn and find parts. I'm sure I'll tweak, but this is functional for me. It'll be at field day for sure.

73

Tom - KF0AER

Looks like an awesome battery box!