new cell type introduced by Winston Thundersky

roger said:

Hello,
did someone heard about more details about new cell types introduced by Winston/Thundersky? It seems to be a new chemistry and a great advantage in weight and size. They call them LSP type and production will start soon. Anybody who knows more informations as printed at preliminary datasheets?


Roger

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Nope. I just heard Jack Rickard talking about them on his EVTV show and I looked at them a few times on the TS site. They are Lithium Sulfur. Nominal voltage is lower. Cycle life is a bit lower. Operating temp is wider. Energy density is hugely better. Strange that they aren't making them in smaller sizes though. I think there is a message in that......

I hope they will make smaller sizes, too. But the most interesting question for me is the safety. If they can catch fire or explode..... I don´t know.
Current LiFePo cells were crash tested by German´s technical control association last year. They are known by them to get the car´s certification. But this energy density....... I´m looking forward to try them if the pricing is moderate. No risk - no fun.

Roger

am I calculating their energy density right? It looks like they're claiming 260 w/h per Kg.

there aren´t any charge/discharge curves at the datasheets and we don´t know the working voltage at main of discharge curve, for known LYP type it´s from 3,4 to 3,1 Volts at 80% DOD. Here we have no information. All I can see that we must use 2 cells to get the same voltage as with LYP type. Did you see the other types, too? It seems they make 2, 4 or much more cells of them in one body. Hope they make a smaller type, say 200 AHA, with reduced height.

DIYguy said:

Nope. I just heard Jack Rickard talking about them on his EVTV show and I looked at them a few times on the TS site. They are Lithium Sulfur. Nominal voltage is lower. Cycle life is a bit lower. Operating temp is wider. Energy density is hugely better. Strange that they aren't making them in smaller sizes though. I think there is a message in that......

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Based on how Winston/TS creates their other data sheets I would guess at a nominal voltage of 1.4 - 1.5v and compared to the LYP data sheet the new batteries do NOT have a wider temp range. It's -45 to 85 for LYP and -35 to 85 for the new LSP.

It's cool that the 600Ah cells can max out a Zilla 2k with full current continuously... for 20 minutes.

So we are talking roughly double the energy density of current prismatic cells?

Edit: looks like it might be more like 50% more if we are to assume 1.5 volts.

Will someone check my numbers on this?

Based on their posted specs a pack of 140 of these new batteries would contain approximately 126KWh of energy at a maximum voltage of 322 (using 2.3 as max voltage from the .PDF - I chose the number of cells to match the capability of the Solitron max voltage, with a bit of headroom). Such a pack would weigh around 1600 lbs, so would be suitable only for a full size pickup truck. Match that pack with a Solitron, an 11"HV motor, and an EVGlide powertrain (leaving the full motor bay for some of the cells, mounting the rest under the bed) and such a truck would have how much range? If I use the conservative value of 600Wh/Mile from this post that's like 210 miles of range! Even limiting to 70%DOD that's about 150mile range. Well, with my driving style in Atlanta at 70mph, call it 80 miles of range - still enough to replace my car in almost every circumstance.

Anyone know how much these cells cost?

The CALB 180Ah cells have a mass of 5.6kg, not 5.8kg.

PhantomPholly said:

Based on their posted specs a pack of 140 of these new batteries would contain approximately 126KWh of energy at a maximum voltage of 322 (using 2.3 as max voltage from the .PDF

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You seem to be using a nominal voltage of 1.5 VPC in your calculations.

Is this a guess, or do you know it to be about right for the LiS chemistry? I came up with a figure of 1.9 V nominal, but I don't remember where that come from. I'm pretty sure it's not authoritative.

I believe that these cells are not ready for sale at present, e.g. see this post:

http://www.aeva.asn.au/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=2411&PID=30749#30749

PhantomPholly said:

Will someone check my numbers on this?

Based on their posted specs a pack of 140 of these new batteries would contain approximately 126KWh of energy at a maximum voltage of 322 (using 2.3 as max voltage from the .PDF

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Don't use max voltage to calculate KWH since you'll never see max voltage during use. You need nominal voltage which might be 1.8 or something, don't really know how these cells behave.*

*Edit, didn't see Coulomb's post

Coulomb said:

You seem to be using a nominal voltage of 1.5 VPC in your calculations.

Is this a guess, or do you know it to be about right for the LiS chemistry? I came up with a figure of 1.9 V nominal, but I don't remember where that come from. I'm pretty sure it's not authoritative.

I believe that these cells are not ready for sale at present, e.g. see this post:

http://www.aeva.asn.au/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=2411&PID=30749#30749

Click to expand...

I used 2.3v for calculating max voltage; 1.5v for calculating KWhrs per another poster in this thread as a "conservative" voltage" for capacity calculation. I don't "know" any of this, was just trying to use conservative numbers and estimate range, while keeping the number of cells low enough that max voltage would not exceed the Solitron. If it really is 1.9v then max range would be about 265 miles (again assuming the 600Kwh/mile figure from another post). Either of those figures is excellent news for performance, what is unknown is price - which sounds like it's a ways off if they haven't even started selling them yet.

It looks like BASF is looking at lithium sulfur as well, but they say production wouldn't start till 2020 at the earliest:

http://www.theengineer.co.uk/news/n...lectric-cars-closer-to-market/1007340.article

rochesterricer said:

It looks like BASF is looking at lithium sulfur as well, but they say production wouldn't start till 2020 at the earliest:

http://www.theengineer.co.uk/news/n...lectric-cars-closer-to-market/1007340.article

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Yeah, just saw that. Does that mean that the Thundersky are vapor-ware?

PhantomPholly said:

Yeah, just saw that. Does that mean that the Thundersky are vapor-ware?

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Probably not but that's why they aren't making them in size for automobiles. They're probably for UPS and other utility functions which won't require more than 100-500 cycles.

Yeah, a 300ah cell @1/2 TS voltage, giving us an effective 150ah comparing to the current TS cell voltage would be sweet. And at about 5.83~6.00 pounds 2.65kilo. Progress is coming, just like progress from a 500k 5.4" floppy to a 10 gig the size of your fingernail.

francis

Unfortunately batteries won't scale the same way electronics do.

I just saw an update of Winston´s Datasheet. Now they show a few graphs about cell behaviour.
One vendor told about starting sale now.

http://www.thunder-sky.com/pdf/20112239492.pdf

Roger