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Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 09 Aug 2022, 08:59

I have a few chairs. The ones I use for backup are still lead. 2 years ago I fitted some cheapy leoch ones, which predictably have failed in a weird way. They behave normally (6mOhm so is "soggy" fashion but good enough as a backup.). They were charged according to their spec weekly. The discharge graph test is below...

THESE batteries. You get exactly what you pay for sadly. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334514025287 I already knew better. (6mhm) But didnt expect this kind of fault/failure too.

So these batteries were 75Ah on initial tests. And after maybe 40 cycles one of them has failed... See that sudden knee in the discharge graph? Thats where 1 cell gives up. So now these "cheap" batteries are giving me 21Ah instead of 75.

But its much worse than this. The chair in question "cuts out" refuses to drive, even if fully charged, as I accelerate hard. Like someone dropped an anchor! Then it gives me a battery error code. They are only fit as anchors. So cheap isnt cheap is it, as I am now having to do what I knew I should have done in the first place.
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 09 Aug 2022, 09:10

I am going to replace those cheap (turned out very expensive as expected) batteries with these. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131119213209

Why? They are cheaper than MK (which I know I should really buy!).
They are larger Ah capacity too. 88.9Ah at the 20h rate. Which is usually a mistake as it means either internal resistance OR cycle life are worse.

Well their cycle like claims to equal MK. So thats good.
And predictably they are 5mOhm. Thats better than the crappy leoch ones that failed suddenly above. But slightly worse than MK... Which is a lot worse than ODYSSEY which is stupidly too expensive for a backup chair. At just 2.5mOhm. Plus those dont actually fit in this particular chair...

So the best "cheapy" battery I can find is a HAZE battery, the GEL one here https://midsummerenergy.co.uk/pdfs/haze ... asheet.pdf

You can get these on ebay for 195 each. Sounds a lot? Yes. You can drop 20% of that with a self certification VAT exemption form. If the seller accepts one. We will see in 2 hours. But still cheaper and bigger than MK73Ah, and still high quality gel. These are 88.9Ah at the 20 hour rate. Not 80. With just a fraction higher internal resistance (impedance) at 5mOhm instead of 4 to 4.5 for MK. So a bargain, reasonable spec good quality chinese "cheapy". Hopefully.
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby shirley_hkg » 09 Aug 2022, 10:27

You can get these on ebay for 195 each. Sounds a lot? Yes. You can drop 20% of that with a self certification VAT exemption form. If the seller accepts one. We will see in 2 hours. But still cheaper and bigger than MK73Ah, and still high quality gel. These are 88.9Ah at the 20 hour rate. Not 80. With just a fraction higher internal resistance (impedance) at 5mOhm instead of 4 to 4.5 for MK. So a bargain, reasonable spec good quality chinese "cheapy". Hopefully.
It doesn't cheap when 8 of CATL cells below are only £250.

Genuine 155 useable Ah , and you can leave it unattended for 183 days.

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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 09 Aug 2022, 10:51

I realise all that. But its a lot of bother for a chair I wont use for maybe 4 months at a time. But if I was to do the lithium thing I would do it properly, 200Ah plus.
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 09 Aug 2022, 11:16

Seller accepted my VAT exemption, as a one off after I explained why.

So they were around 80 quid cheaper... So will be here tomorrow.

£389.52 so divide by 1.20 to remove 20% gives £324.60. A £64.92 refund! :dance


Be interesting to see after 10 cycles how good these are.
Will measure impedance, and capacity. Impedance worries me the most. But the specs look reasonable. Even if not that much cheaper than MKs. But around 23rds the price. I liked the older AGM version marked as EV Battery, it worked very well. Till it really failed and let me down very suddenly with an internal inter cell strap melting. Haze seem to make some reasonably good budget ish batteries. Good enough that I will give them a 2nd go!
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 10 Aug 2022, 10:31

Quick rundown...
85Ah leoch AGM batts are a horible 6.6mOhms and 400 cycles@80% DoD.
And mine failed or one of them did when stored properly and around 40 to 50 cycles. Now reads 23Ah! :clap
https://batterystore.co.uk/content/Spec ... 85-MOB.pdf
You literally get what you paid for. OK in a backup chair (if they dont fail like mine did) because they are generally cheap. Dont perform well under load though, because of 6.6mOhm... Better if your chair is programmed in grandma mode and then it will be hidden.

MK 73Ah MK Gel. 4 to 4.5 mOhm (measured) and used to be on the spec sheet. So perform much better! 500 cycles@80 DoD. So a lot better! And more of the Ah is usable due to lower impedance. We dont need a link as we all know what those are.

The Haze, GEL 80Ah has 450/500 cycles and a little MORE Ah capacity than the MK.
But its impedance is 5mOhm so slightly worse control, torque, charge speed, etc. But also only 2/3rds the cost of MK. Will perform roughly the same regarding range even though "bigger" Ah because of higher impdance. I just ordered a set of these for my backup chair. To replace the crappy leoch ones that failed catastrophically and suddenly.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131119213209 These. Look pretty good. I like Haze. They try. Not quite MKs though. But closer!

The Haze AGM looks identical be careful what you buy. It has a 4mOhm impedance (woohoo) and so better for active users with heavy or programmed chairs. Less cycle life. And usually a bit cheaper. So thees also that. Dont expect more than 350 to 400 cycles. And it MUST be charged very thoroughly every cycle. Unlike the gel which is less harmed by a too short charge. So you need to put back around 125% of what you use. This is true of most AGMs though. If you expect them to last. This needs 14.7 or 29.4V and around 8 to 12 hours CV. I would get the gel version.

Odyssey new GRP24 size. Its 14mm too wide just at the top for some powerchairs. So measure carefully. STUPIDLY expensive, 2.5 to 3mOhm. So performance and range is unbeatable. As is charge speed. Esp in sport, or those that like a highly programmed to "go" chair. And 76Ah. These last a long time. And can be charged FAST. Will start a truck in a siberian winter. If you can fit these in, just do it! They are just better in every possible measurable way. Will give better range than any "85Ah or 90Ah alternative too. https://eu.odysseybattery.com/products/ ... 4-battery/ Only 400 cycles claimed. Thats not what I see! They seem to outlive all the rest. Probably because they can be topped up during the day fast! So average DoD remains low.

Non of these are a patch on lithium. That lives at LEAST a decade, and gives 4.5x or greater range. But those are not for everyone. (complication).
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 10 Aug 2022, 16:37

I have more than one old backup chair in the garage.
This is the 2nd set of cheap chinesium Leoch 85Ah AGM batteries. This set is as good as new. Meaning mediocre! But cheap. But these were parked in the same garage, right next to the first set (above that only gave TWENTY TWO and a bit Ah...). They were treated in identical fashion. So the first set must have had a manufacturing problem from day 1. An impurity, a bad connecting strap, a less than full cell "fill" of electrolyte. Or whatever. This is wht you get when you buy chinesium batteries.

Ths set are already past the 81Ah mark, and are still going. A long way from the 1.80Vp cell end point. I expect the full 85Ah from this set. They have the same 40 to 50 cycles, and were charged in the very same accurate way regularly all year. They are about a year old.
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 12 Aug 2022, 02:52

OK I have these GEL version of the HAZE GRP24 battery.
And have measured its impedance, and capacity.
And can compare.

So here goes.

Fully and properly charged 20 hours.
The 80Ah Haze battery gave 79.1Ah down to 10.8V over the 20 hour rate (4A continual discharge) on the PL8 charger /tester.
The MK when new and also tested (3 years ago), gave 69.6Ah. I keep the files from the charger. So thats worse. By 13%. And these batteries both IMPROVE by approx 5 to 10% each over the first 10 cycles or so. As the plates become etched in use which increases surface area. So called "forming the plates". So I really should test both after this "break in" period. Say 10 days normal use. But I no longer have any new MKs to test. And old ones will be a lot worse. At least these figures here are under the same "unused" never cycled conditions. Even if artificially low. So while they can both do better, it is still a fair like for like comparison.

Cycle life.
We only have the manufacturers data and officie EU testing refereced on the tech documents. Its not practical to buy two batteries, and then cycle each one on the bench under controlled conditions, to find out how many cycles before each has only 80% of rated capacity left. It would take 500 days discharging. And 500 days recharging correctly to find out. I dont have 3 years to test that! In both cases both claim 500 cycles @ 80% DoD. So this is a draw. And both of these are a lot better than any AGM I saw that we could use. Inc Odyssey. (400/450 Cycles.)

Internal resistance.
The Haze Gel, measured almost 6mOhms (5.84mOhm) when new. This will also improve once its done around 10 or so cycles. It should only be tested when FULLY charged. And after the break in period. So I expect this will match the manufacturers claimed values. That is 5.0mOhm. I measured with my chinesium impedance tester. Which works very well. I couldnt test a new MK as I dont have one. I did test a 1 year old one, at 4.55mOhm. Which is better. And I tested a almost new Odyssey which was almost exactly 2.6mOhm. :admirer
This is the ONE thing that the Haze battery does worse. And it will probably not worry 90% of users. But I wouldnt want this in any of my daily chairs. It means less control, less predictability of acceleration etc. Slower to FULLY charge. That bothers me. Most wouldnt notice.

Reserve Capacity.
This is probably the best possible and most useful battery parameter to look at as a performance idea in a heavy rehab powerchair. Gives a real idea of stamina, range in a difficult situation, heavy users, off road, Grass, carpers, hills etc.
It measures a continuous 25A load, Similar to our usage. Until the battery drops below 10V under this 25A load. Its designed as an automotive battery spec. It is roughly what a car draws with ignition on, engine not running. It allows for lights, fans, ignition system etc. And tells you how long you will get! In minutes.

Haze gel. A very good 142 minutes which really surprised me.
MK gel does 112 mins. Which is average for many batts, Because of a combination of impedance and lower actual Ah.
Odyssey ODX-AGM24 gives a huge 160 minutes! :shock: Because of its low impedance. But we will ignore it here due to cost and it being impossible to get in some chairs.
The Odyssey grp34 PC1500 gives 134 Minutes! Again will only fit some chairs as its a fraction longer than a normal grp34 battery.

The Haze is a gelled electrolyte battery. Its ALSO an AGM battery like many gel batteries are. Just like the so called "rebranded" Permobil "special" battery. I would not be surprised if this is one and the same battery. Because its a little better than I expected! At least for an "aveage" programmed chair. Seems like a simple lable swap!
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 13 Aug 2022, 12:41

After a little research, and a phone call to a battery industry rep that I used to deal with it seems that the ETERNITY 60 and 80Ah gel batteries, that sunrise now fit are in fact exactly the same as the HAZE 80Ah gel. They appear to be physically the same, I am looking at one of each right now on my bench. The only difference is the lables.

They are both measuring same internal impedance with measurement accuracy and battery variability.
They both have the exact same discharge and charge curves (pretty damned slow in fact! You need 14 hours at 14.1V CV. for a really full battery.
They both have the same terminals, in identical positions. And the same moulded in plus/minus.
Only the "block" of top case that the terminals sit in are different. In colour. The Eternity, black/red and the Haze both grey. And the actual "caps" in the top where they are filled with gel under vacuum. Thise are very slightly different. But thats just a minor change that may apply to both "makes" on a different date.

Electrically they are absolutely identical.

So as a GRP24 replacement, go for Eternity 980 Gel, or Haze 80 gel. Whatever is the cheapest. The quality is almost MK standard, as far as we can tell, the cycle life is around 450 to 500 instead of 500 plus so almost up there! The range of these are better than MK by around 7 to 9% based on the 132 to 148 25A Reserve capacity test. They perform a fraction worse if heavy loads/sport/fast charge/overweight users/highly programmed chairs are concerned. But its only slight. A 1mOhm worse impedance. And they are MUCH cheaper than MK. At just over half the price! So the small differences dont make a lot of sense at todays £290 MK each price. Dont buy cheap chinese AGMs though...
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 13 Aug 2022, 19:11

And while talking about eternity gel batteries as fitted as stock now by sunrise (unless you pay extra for MK?), I have some in a front drive chair here right now. Well I did up until an hour ago. The owner has the usual cant steer properly problem, and its got all the usual programming issues, and the added front drive problem. I spent 2 hours on friday trying to make the damned thing steer properly. Well as properly as you can on front drive chairs. And just could not get it to be accurate and linear even at low speeds with gyro turned off.

After some hours frustrated and baffled as to why this particular chair was being so terrible, I started dissasembling it. First thing was that I suspected its batteries. These are 8 months old. Owner tells me they are great. Definitely healhy. This is exactly why seat of pants testing or testimonial data is completely useless.

I didnt believe him as I cannot get a proper drive response out of the chair. It works, its got at least "some" range, but something is odd. So they are sat on my bench. Or were. Now back in the chair and its gone.

Well battery 1 tested out fine, gave me a smooth discharge curve. measured 5.6mOhm, 81Ah out, and literally as good as new.

Battery 2 was almost 9mOhm. And so obviously is defective. So I tested it on discharge with the pl8 anyway. Full 24 our charge, and then a discharge test at the 10 hour rate, 8 Amps, and that should have delivered around 75.5Ah according to the manufacturer chart to 10.5V. In reality its voltage fell below the point where the chair would stop at 27Ah removed... So baddery is junk. And then proceeded to do a very very strange dance! And kees recovering. This is indicative of a failed internal strap making a bad connection between cells. Bad welding. And so this battery is totally buggered and inconsistent. And is the cause of the unpredictable non linear steering. As that measured impedance varies. So if you see this dance below, you know what it is! Its now almost done at 10.5V and climbing again! Seriously, never saw anything like it.

This ended as it dropped again at 44Ah total. From an 80Ah battery. But importantly the battery capacity is only low because it keeps going high impedance. And so the 8A load pulls the voltage down. So its dead jim. And the source of the "cant make it steer" programming problem. And it reminded me why I will never buy front drive all over again.
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 14 Aug 2022, 00:12

Heres how that ended...
At the approx 1.7 hour point, 16Ah removed the chair would show a red light... At the next dip it will stop. All the time, the voltage under load is unstable and te chair responds oddly.
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 14 Aug 2022, 14:28

Ok... For the first time in literally 15 years I have a set of gel batteries. For my backup chair. So I looked in my workshop and found 12 powerchair chargers!

I started testing them yesterday, and am halfway through them. And all the way through the ones that were at least worth looking at. And they are all useless for gel. Junk basically. So I started looking on amazon, battery plus, ebay etc. NON of them say what they do. Everything is both dumb, "auto" "smart" or marketing bullshitI tried all the chinese auction sites. They are even more vague. And all seem to think gel and AGM are the same thing.

So I want 10 or better 12 Amp so it can be used safely on XLR connectors, (I have 2 chairs, with only them, The rest have Anderson connectors. But often have other peoples chairs here too.) and any less than 12A really isnt adequate. Really 12 isnt either, but you cant go more on XLRs. Less takes the CC stage far too long leaving no time for a proper CV stage. That needs 8 to 12 hours on top. Sooo, after dozens of emails to "experts" that dont have a damned clue what they are selling, inc 3 manufacturers I am ordering a https://www.victronenergy.com/chargers/ ... 22-charger

It hasnt got a decent charge profile for a long service life gel, in cyclic use either. But it allows user profiles. So I can TELL it what it should do. Custom everything. All I want is CC12A then 28.2V room temp till 8 hours or 1000thC is reached whatever comes first, then 72.0 float. It's also 12A capable so in with a chance of getting a decent charge during a long overnight.

Seems that this is one of the very few chargers that is available that is any good for gel. And ony then if you take over and tell it who is boss... But at least you can!

It will be fitted with cable that has an anderson and a XLR. So I can use my multimeter to monitor if it behaves! And charge both ways.

This gel lark is working out expensive.
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby LROBBINS » 14 Aug 2022, 14:42

Why didn't you just use a ZXD? Just would need an Anderson to XLR adaptor.
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 14 Aug 2022, 15:04

Because they are already taken. But yes I could do. Bit noisy next to my bed though. Strangely they are quiet while under load. And get loud once the load drops to almost nothing as it becomes charged. Not that it bothers me a lot. Right now that is what I am actually doing. But then my other stuff/chairs are missing out.

I am going to have a garage sale of old mobility chargers. Some are super heavy with old style transformers in them. One I swear has valves in it. Some seem to charge at random voltages and change all the time. One pale blue and white 8A rectangular transformer one insists on charging at 14A... The invacare older upright toaster style ones are terrible! Its hard to know what they are trying to do - they seem as if they are on drugs. At least some are. The orange and silver sunrise ones seem OK for AGM and yet they send them out with gel...

On the plus side my new super efficient Double inverter R32 air conditioner, actually a hot/cold heat pump is keeping me beautifully cool and dry! :clap
I should have done it years ago. I get 5.7 times more kilowatt cooling from 1kw of energy! Its magic. I also get 5.4kw of heat from each KW of input power in winter. One of the most efficient units available.

Right now its 25C plus in every other room. And 19 in here. And its running at 108 watts...
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby LROBBINS » 14 Aug 2022, 18:18

I'm getting jealous of your heat pump.
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 14 Aug 2022, 19:41

I presume you have an older less efficient £££ one that bankrupts you if you turn it on?
Surely not non! In italy.

In the last few years they have done several things new. One of those is a much greater efficiency drive because thats what is now selling them. People are interested in either saving the planet, or saving £££$$$ to be able to live in these rediculous times. So the most efficient sell better! So on top of that they have been moving to newer refrigerants. Again to save the planet. But one of those was the move to R32 which is less of a greenhouse/cfc problem. Many of the older units using other gasses (other than C02 or R32) are being phased out and will need to be replaced as no new refrigerant will be alowed at least in the EU.

Building heat pumps that can use R32 domestically only happened in 2017 with a single australian company. Aparently its quite hard. That has now been matched by a few others. Because of pressures, seals etc. One of the advantages of R32 is that it increases efficiency still further esp so in heating. Mine can give a reasonable efficiency right down to -20C. Which doesent happen here!

Take a look at the base specs.
https://www.hrponline.co.uk/products/ai ... ium?c=1301
And thats at normal power as it cools or heats it reduces power to whatever is needed. So mines taking 78 watts from the wall right now and my room is large. And 6 degrees cooler than the rest of the house.
Full specs here: https://www.orionairsales.co.uk/mitsubi ... 1145-p.asp in the pdf.

Its also darn close to being inaudible. Indoors and out. Unless I press the full power (no control) button and then I can JUST hear it when next to it.

Disadvantage is that both the indoor unit and outdoor units are about 2x the size of the older less efficient ones. And cost. But while ugly it definitely works!
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 14 Aug 2022, 19:56

Cooling capacity 2.5 kW
Heating capacity 3.2 kW
Power Consumption (cooling) 0.44 kW
Power Consumption (heating) 0.59 kW

Told you its a kind of black magic! cheers
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby LROBBINS » 14 Aug 2022, 20:52

Ha hah. We haven't any AC but Siena is usually cooler and less humid than much of Italy. Ours is a ground floor apartment raised ca. 60mm above the surrounding land. In a normal year we are quite comfortable for all but a couple weeks if we close our double-pane, low emissivity glass windows and roll-down shutters in the morning, then open everything up and put fans in the windows when temps drop in the evening. This year has been much, much hotter so far, hence my jealousy.
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 14 Aug 2022, 21:27

I see. Dont know how you stand it there. Or rachi, sores? I recommend you invest. It is a huge issue for me. Some days were 40C outside, 30 degrees plus in my room. And its very humid here, like 80% humidity. As its green and rains... So you cook. And sweat. And its horrible. Fans just warm you up! And it dehumidifies as its working too so you dont actually die. Or should I say it helps prevent sores. You stay dry.

Even cheaper 540% efficient electric heat in winter. Depends on outside air temp but its all serious win.

P.S. I already collected a 2 gallon bucket of what amounts to distilled water from the drain pipe outside. In 3 days. To wash my windows, car. That was in my room! :shock:
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby LROBBINS » 14 Aug 2022, 22:04

Right now with the sun down and the fans running the house is 25.1o and 50% RH. By the morning it will be about 20o and still 50%, but will go up to about 28o (guessing) inside in mid-afternoon with the windows and shutters closed. BUT, today's high was only about 35o - last week we had 38-40o and it was pretty miserable mid-day especially in my basement shop on the SE side of the house. However, we do have a swimming pool and on the worst days, a dip in early afternoon can cool body core temp for quite some time. Still, we probably should get a heat pump like yours.
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 14 Aug 2022, 23:34

You have a pool, live in italy, and now I am jelous.
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby ex-Gooserider » 16 Aug 2022, 02:32

Our home's Central HVAC system had a failure of the furnace blower that moves the air around the house earlier this summer... According to the service people, it would have cost ~$2K to fix, and given that the system was about 20 years old, which is about their expected lifespan, it was strongly suggested that we'd be better off to replace everything...

After much research, it seems that in New England the setup most suggested is a 'dual fuel' system with a heat pump for cooling, and heat down to about freezing, when most heat pumps start losing efficiency (the ones that don't are MUCH more expensive) and a natural gas furnace to take over when the temperature drops below that...\

Just got the new system installed last week, and it is very comfortable... Only gripe is that I haven't figured out how to make the new "Intelligent" thermostat do what *I* want it to do as opposed to what it wants to do... I keep setting it to 76*F, and it keeps dropping down to 72*F a few hours later :evil:

It's a York 95% furnace and a Bosch 3.5 ton heat pump...

No idea yet what it will do for the bill, but hopefully good things...

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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 16 Aug 2022, 08:10

Mine does that drop in temperature. It watches the room via infra red and no people around means it lets the temperature go hotter or cooler to save fuel. But you can just turn that "feature" off via the remote. Yours will be doing something similar. Also if you dont turn certain features off it will try and save power in other ways. Like directing the hot/cool air at the people and not the room. Allowing you to feel warm or cooler while not actually doing the entire room before it reuces power. Modern system throtte. Rather than turn on/off. Its all about money/fuel saving. But again you can disable that. Also has a sleep thing. Where when YOU sleep you can press a button. It then gradually reduces power and allows the room to get a few degrees cooler or hotter since you dont notice this while sleeping. Which seems to work OK.

But generally you need to de "intelligentize" these new setups. And just set a temperature.
And look for super high efficiency. Yes even when minus temperatures while its freezing outside. Because due to brainwashing and climate nonsense/hysteria natural gas prices and even availability may make that unusable.

And only C02 and R32 are not about to be phased out. As refrigerants. Because of both higher effiency (green bullshit) and saving the Ozone layer, and climate change green bulshit...
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby ex-Gooserider » 23 Aug 2022, 03:12

Well I'm still trying to get the thing to connect to the internet (It needs to connect to a local weather station for the outside temperature to know when to switch between the heat pump and the gas furnace...) However I did figure out how to lock the temperature on whatever I set it to, so we are making progress...

Our situation in terms of Natural Gas is different from yours - we produce plenty and probably will be continuing to do so for years... Even the big inflation increasing infrastructure bill that Sleepy Joe just signed has a bunch of provisions for INCREASING our oil and gas production... So we don't need to worry about getting it from Moscow... In fact there is supposed to be a lot of work going on now for the US to be supplying a lot of the gas that you used to get from Pooty-Put... (at a nice profit mind you...)

As such the price difference between the super high efficiency units and the system we got isn't likely to have a reasonable payback to justify the difference. We also usually get a few days every year where even the high efficiency units can't cope and they go to backup electric resistance heating - and that costs BIG money....

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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 23 Aug 2022, 07:47

Internet?
All it needs is an outside air temp sensor. Reads real world temp, and humidity etc on the way into the outdoor unit. Thats way more accurate than relying on the local area weather.

Also, some work at 3x greater efficiency than resistive heating down to -20C which never happens here. Mine works at -10C with above 3 to 1 efficiecy, and not sure at -20. But thats doesent happen here.
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby shirley_hkg » 23 Aug 2022, 14:06

Burgerman wrote: Also, some work at 3x greater efficiency than resistive heating down to -20C which never happens here. Mine works at -10C with above 3 to 1 efficiecy, and not sure at -20. But thats doesent happen here.
Heat pump will loose efficiency below 10℃ , though I have use them for over 30yrs.

In humid area , frost will block exhaust fins .

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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby ex-Gooserider » 30 Aug 2022, 02:27

Burgerman wrote:Internet?
All it needs is an outside air temp sensor. Reads real world temp, and humidity etc on the way into the outdoor unit. Thats way more accurate than relying on the local area weather.

Also, some work at 3x greater efficiency than resistive heating down to -20C which never happens here. Mine works at -10C with above 3 to 1 efficiecy, and not sure at -20. But thats doesent happen here.


I agree about the outside temp sensor, but it seems like that isn't available - everyone seems to want to connect everything to the net whether it is useful or not... :evil:

I haven't done the conversion to C, but I know that it is fairly common here to get to 0*F and we will usually see at least a few days / nights were it can hit -10*F, so definitely pushing the efficiency boundary.... At least one of the heating contractors we got bids from on our system said they would not even give us an offer on a 'heat-pump only' system as they had put in some and got tired of dealing with the 'No Heat' calls when the temperature dropped to low for the pump to deal with...

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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 30 Aug 2022, 06:37

-20C is -4 at which point the efficiency falls a lot. But it still produces almost double the kw heat compared to the kw input. So even at that temp you have well over 100% efficiency.

The difference is that you get 5.6 times (CoP 5.2, or 520%) efficiency at an average winter temp of 6C or 6 degrees above freezing . So you really need to look at the average temp where you live. And thats 7C over the winter here. So with this super efficient heat pump its better to revert to gas at -4C (depends on the current price of your gas per kwh and your gas heat efficiency to decide on the exact temp). And the SIZE of your heat pump too. So that its output is adequate when its really cold. The figures for different heat pumps vary a great deal.
In my case the winter outside temperature never gets cold enough to warrant turning on the gas heating. Even though it loses efficiency (output heat power falls significantly as it gets below say 10C) it is still not low enough to warrant using gas heating if you look at the costs. But thats here! If the heat output is too low to heat the room then the unit is undersized.

Heres its specs.
Obviously this wont heat a full house. Its intended for 1 room.
Its intended to show a typical modern high efficiency heat pump capability.
Note that these are test figures for an AVERAGE winter (EU/UK)
SEER 10.30 (Means I get 10.3x the cooling OUT compared to power in average summer temps.)
SCOP (Average climate) 5.20 (means 5.2x the cooling output over winter compared to power used.)
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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby shirley_hkg » 30 Aug 2022, 07:10

Don't forget to collect the discharge water for gardening / car wash.

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Re: Cheap half decent lead bricks

Postby Burgerman » 30 Aug 2022, 07:19

:geek:
I am ahead of you!
I have 4x 20 liitre black plastic water containers with 2 pipes plugged into the top!
Perfect for plant watering, car and window washing, and PC water loop...

Its a free supply of distilled water.
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