Phazr JLM ENERGY put the batteries on the roof, I don’t think so!

[JMACK61]

Just was given 2 Phazr JLM ENERGY battery banks that you mount on the roof next to your solar panels, some are under the panels. I‘m savaging the cells and will put them in my battery shed. Anybody have experience with the brand “TOPBAND” LiFePO cells? They seem nice, I need to put them through some test.

 

[sunshine_eggo]

Assuming those are the 25Ah version. Yep. Have four. Batteryhookup sells them for $15 each.

 

[JMACK61]

Assuming those are the 25Ah version. Yep. Have four. Batteryhookup sells them for $15 each.

Nice! You use them as is, or salvage the cells?

 

[sunshine_eggo]

Nice! You use them as is, or salvage the cells?

I bought 4 of them under the Topband Navitas label a couple years ago. It's a 4S test battery I just tinker with.

 

[mv916]

Does anyone know if these can be re-purposed. I just pulled 10 of these from my roof. Half are probably dead. The one I opened had batteries that were quite enlarged. This company went out of business shortly after I bought and had these installed. They advertised a 15 year life but I noticed these batteries only advertise 2k cycles.

 

[sunshine_eggo]

These are good cells. Any product can fail from abuse.

 

[meetyg]

Roof mounted batteries?
I would say that the excessive heat would kill them pretty fast.

Calendar aging and excessive heat are two of known Lifepo4 killers, sometimes more than cycle life.

But, I guess you could take them apart, test each cell (use an EBC-A20 or a DL24 tester) and salvage the good ones.
TopBand are really nice cells, easy to work with. I have a 12v 100Ah battery out of these cells (16 cells in total).
If any are bloated, I would skip them altogether (take them to a battery recycling center).

 

[mv916]

Sure, there is probably a reason the company went bankrupt. while it sounded good (each of these were mounted under the solar panel and direct charged and then power was sent to the enphase microinverter) probably wasn't the most promising long term use case. should I pull all the good batteries out and rebuild something separate?

 

[meetyg]

Sure, there is probably a reason the company went bankrupt. while it sounded good (each of these were mounted under the solar panel and direct charged and then power was sent to the enphase microinverter) probably wasn't the most promising long term use case. should I pull all the good batteries out and rebuild something separate?

For sure...
Yes, as I mentioned, test each cell first, then build your battery pack to whatever you need (12v,24v,48v etc...).

 

[chilidillo]

I built a couple of 4S8P packs with the Topband 25Ah cells from BatteryHookup, the more recent batches, not the green shrink Novitas. They have performed really well despite being in my Texas garage. Last summer they made it through probably 20 days where the temp in the garage exceeded 100F. I love them and the studs make pack assembly a breeze!