camelot-forum.co.uk

Oh dear. My 4kWh lead acid Powervault G200 has completely died. A full force charge for 2-3 hours will get about 200Wh into the battery.
Even more oh dear, it's now out of warranty (by about a month damn it), so Powervault are refusing to replace it.

So, what do I do people?
Junk it?
Replace the batteries myself?
Take Powervault's offer to replace the LA batteries with Lithium but in the same unit at a discounted cost (not yet revealed)
Replace it with a completely different unit?

Get in touch with heir marketing dept & politely tear them a new one!

Ask them if after being let down to this degree what fool would chance a second ride with the brand of such "repute"
Recommend they read your warnings about the products lack of longevity on various forums in coming weeks, ..do they want that kind of press as it will likely bring others with a problem to the surface further derailing the brands reputation in a "tiny" specialist, soon to go big market & how hard that would affect consumer confidence & resulting sales.

Balls to the wall.

Hi Gus
Yes good point. I have gone back to them to remind them that I've been with Powervault since they launched. I got the G200 as part of the UK Power Networks DNO battery trial, I did some media work for both Powervault and UKPN to talk about it, and indeed my company actually created their 3D product animation for the Powervault 3 battery! I also pointed out that I had flagged to them in September that I felt the battery had lost significant capacity as it was seemingly only capable of storing about 2.6kWh when doing a force-charge, but was told then that that wasn't sufficient loss of capacity to trigger a warranty replacement. Just 3 months later and it's completely dead...

We'll see.

Ergo you notified them within the warranty period! thus any delay was their problem especially as it signified the unit was indeed crapping out.

Their problem, not yours.
(send the email highlighting this notification / phonecall or whatever & ask them if they really wan the trouble that is brewing if they do not adhere to a decent product warranty, nor want it highlighting in the media et al that the company dumps customers who have shelled out not insignificant sums for what appears to be a non supported item.

beyond warranty an item should be expected to be of reasonable quality & fit for purpose regardless of warranty, ..which is a different thorn in the side of the company.

Hi dan,

Very sorry to hear the powervault has died, obviously be sure they are not going honour their warranty which by the sounds of things they should!

If they turn out to be a company unworthy of custom then you need to consider what has caused the fault in the vault and seriously reduced the battery lifespan.

Were the batteries routinely cycled beyond a sensible 10 to 20% DoD (if they said it was capable of greater DoD then ask them for the battery manufacturers documents that support this including the charge profiles)? Does the charger apply the correct charge voltage at all the right stages of FLA charge ? Are the temperature ranges specified in the manual maintained (upper and lower) at the install position.

If you don't get anywhere with all that then my personal opinion would be to bin it and build your own system using off the shelf batteries and equipment (maybe with help from the forum you might be able to Bstardise the unit to make it work how you want with other battery chemistries to keep costs low?)

The benefits are that you will understand how things work as you will be the designer and installer, if things go wrong you will have a better understanding of why and how to amend things, you reduce the risk of buying a box thats controlled over the web by others - something which seems to be becoming the norm and leaving us all at the whim of the company/ government. Theres something to be said for non integrated kit - you can still have the control and flexibility you need for the home but you achieve it via different routes.

I'm doing a lot of reading and checking as i start my battery journey and I am already learning a lot and focussing in on what I need and what I would like to have. Until yesterday I hadn't realised that my background power in the cottage was around 120Watts, I have some smart plugs ordered to kill of some nocturnal loads that are not needed and the upshot of this is that my first Battery system needs to be "tiny" in comparison with my piers on this forum. It also means i can consider a 24V system first and then later when money permits and IF i need more batteries I can consider 48V. The inverter to feed this to the house can be equally small and the chargers for the batteries will be specific rather than generic - batteries will be LiFeP04 and if any gravity units get built in the forthcoming years i would be tempted by Bromine or other electroplating batteries.

Moxi