Fogstar Seplos Mason v4 batteries

[wookey]

I acquired a Seplos-Mason v4 kit fromFogstar last week (which is good because they are out of stock again today - I suspect these things are selling like hot cakes at the moment: it got £100 cheaper between me deciding to buy and actually paying a week or two later). So last year that was 15.5kWh for £2300 (v3 kit); now it's 16kWh for £1700 and the box has been improved.
Mine came with 16 EVE 314Ah cells. Which are exactly the same physical size as the popular 280Ah and 304Ah cells, just heavier.

The main catch at the moment is that the only instructions are a video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ-RMxj66CA which personally I find an extremely frustrating way to build something. Very useful for an overview, but there is a really tedious amount of skipping back and forth trying to do things in the right order and not to miss anything important. Especially as I was assembling in the extension at the edge of wifi-range. Dear Fogstar, please make us a PDF! I've taken a load of photos and will do it for them if I get time.

Frustratingly it says 'torque accordingly' for the clamp bolts that hold the top plate onto the cell-stack, but doesn't give a torque figure. Anyone know? Also annoyingly it shows all the cells going in and it's hard to see if a foam pad is put above and below the stack. Looks like not, so I don't put them in, but then there is a gap so no actual clamping will be going on. So I take it all apart and put them in. Then I get past the clamp bit in the video and it says 'do not put foam at top and bottom. Grrrrr.

A document with some diagrams would be _soo_ much more efficient.

~1.5mm gap at top of stack with one end foam (bottom):

~1.5mm of foam compression with 2 end-foams:

Having no compression seems just wrong so I think foams-in is the right answer, whatever the video says.

However, grumbling about the instructions aside, the kit actually seems very well done, with flexy busbars replacing the rigid ones from EVE, a BMS board _and_ separate higher-power capacitive balancer. And at a pack price of £106/kWh these batteries are actually getting reasonably cheap (yes I know I could fully DIY for even cheaper, but I rather like the nice sturdy metal box).

[wookey]

It's all screwed together now and it works, so I guess I did it right despite a couple of bugs in the 'documentation'.
The support people are pretty responsive.

[Moxi]

Looks better with the foam in place, I always understood the cells needed to be firmly encased to avoid swelling so having a 1.5mm gap didn't seem correct in my view.

I like the overall look and the fact that all the required kit is in the box too as I am not confident in making separate purchases myself but feel suitably capable to assembly a kit.

I might watch the site to see when the next set of kit arrives and drop a Christmas present hint to SWMBO to see if Santa has room in the sleigh?

I already have 14kW so another 16kW would go nicely to that and give me plenty to work with and compliment future solar panel plans too ?

I was always tempted to go the DIY route with Colin but never sufficiently confident of the customs and excise element.

Moxi

[Fintray]

I was always tempted to go the DIY route with Colin but never sufficiently confident of the customs and excise element.
Moxi

I bought from Colin via Alibaba and the whole process went very smoothly, DDP (delivered duty paid).

[Moxi]

I was always tempted to go the DIY route with Colin but never sufficiently confident of the customs and excise element.
Moxi

I bought from Colin via Alibaba and the whole process went very smoothly, DDP (delivered duty paid).

Hi Fintray,

Did you know what duty was due up front or just before delivery to home ? How was the currency conversion handled ?

Moxi

[Fintray]

I was always tempted to go the DIY route with Colin but never sufficiently confident of the customs and excise element.
Moxi

I bought from Colin via Alibaba and the whole process went very smoothly, DDP (delivered duty paid).

Hi Fintray,

Did you know what duty was due up front or just before delivery to home ? How was the currency conversion handled ?

Moxi

The duty was fully calculated including the shipping cost before the order was shipped, it was all paid up front and there was a currency charge which is all handled through Alibaba.

[smegal]

It's good to see one of these kits in the wild. I quite like the idea of one of these, combined with some Colin cells, this seems to be a good compromise between DIY and off the shelf.

What inverter are you using? That's the part I've not quite got my head around.