Another Chins battery post

[WorldwideDave]

Hi friends. Thanks for reading.

I bought a new CHINS battery from a couple who was going off-grid, but due to personal finances, decided to scrap that plan.
They sold me the battery with no owners manual and no battery bolts.
It is a 12.8V 200 AH 2560WH LiFePO4 deep cycle battery.
It has no number on the top, so CHINS support has been helpless.
I accept the fact now that it might be stolen or that it was acquired in an illegal manner, but I have no idea. They seemed like a sweet couple who are facing difficult life challenges.
I also am not sure if this is a knock-off chins or what. It sure looks like one. Not seeing a need to post a photo at this time. The battery has some sort of flap on the top.
Anyway, I do not know if this has a smart or dumb BMS.
I cannot tell if it has the internal heater or not.
I don't know which type of cells it has inside either.
I don't know if it is balanced.
I haven't really used much, and they claim they never used it.
I put it on a 0.8 amp trickle charger designed for LiFePO4 batteries. It charged up for a few days. I put a shunt on it to watch the charge and discharge.
Next I connected a 100 w panel to a Renogy Solar Charge Controller. I could see that it was charging it just fine.
Next I connected a 200 w panel in parallel with the 100 w panel for 300 w total, and it also charged fine.
After almost a week the renogy reported that the battery was finally 'full'. As it would not take anymore charge.
I am discharging it using DC loads for past few days. Working great I think.
I don't have an inverter purchased or connected yet. Getting to that later.
Do I have a good battery or a bad battery?
So far I have charged about 2000 w hours and discharged it 2400 w hours. I'm going to keep discharging it until the battery indicator on the renogy tells me it is getting low, then I will connect the solar panels to the SCC again.
What if anything else can I do?
The logo on my chins does NOT have the lightening bolt the way some models do.
I think this is a year or two old based on their estimate. Could be older I don't know.
The orange flap on the top of the battery casing looks like it could be pried open, but I don't know that I have a need to do that.
The battery seems to be working, but I have no knowledge of whether any cycles were run on it at all.
It looks brand new in every way. Super clean on all 6 sides. Threads looked unused.

 

[Supervstech]

I don’t understand, you said it is charged, but you don’t know if it is good?

 

[Partimewages]

The only way to know is to load cycle and charge with known good equipment. Otherwise it is just a guess.

 

[wpns]

Not seeing a need to post a photo at this time.

Post some photos, maybe someone here will see something not captured in your textual description.

If you’ve gotten 2400WH out of your 2560WH battery it can’t be all that bad.

 

[WorldwideDave]

Sure thing. Why not.

 

[WorldwideDave]

Also here are my two meters. No solar connected for a week now. Just using it slowly. Those counters have not been reset and don’t reset daily. That is over all time since I have owned. No inverter so only small dc loads right now including the Wyze streaming security camera I have pointed at them.

 

[WorldwideDave]

That’s 2946 watt hours discharge but over two weeks. A week ago I was charging the chins up a lot with trickle charger and the sun on separate days.

 

[Supervstech]

It is generally accepted that connecting clamps to bolts on a battery wastes energy, and disrupts readings.

Try to connect to terminals, in direct contact with the lugs, or using lugs.

 

[WorldwideDave]

That’s fair. Was just doing the trickle charge with zero loads during that phase when pictures were being taken. It has the screw eyelets attached now. Pix are 10 days old.