Full Review of Power Queen 12.8V 190Ah LiFePO4 Battery (2023)

If you're in need of a new battery, don't miss out on this detailed review of Power Queen's 12.8V 190AH grade A LiFePO4 battery. Professor Hobo provides an extensive test to help you assess the battery's capacity and overall performance. Let's take a deep dive into the review and find out just how capable this battery is.

Part 1 Brief Introduction of Power Queen 190AH LiFePO4 Battery

This lithium iron phosphate battery from Power Queen boasts a capacity of 190 amp hours, clearly labeled on the giant side. It has a high grade A EV cell inside, allowing it to achieve a rating of 4,000 cycles to 80 percent. To calculate the number of watt hours in the battery, simply multiply 12.8 by 190, resulting in 2,432 watt hours. The 4,000 cycle rating means that the battery can be charged to full and discharged to zero over 4,000 times, which equates to over 10 years of daily use. For those who require longer battery life, discharging it to 20 percent and charging it back up to 80 percent can double its lifecycle. With grade A EV prismatic cells and a lifespan of at least 10 years, it's more likely that the battery will outlast whatever device it powers, with an expected lifespan into the 2030s.

What's particularly impressive about the Power Queen battery is that it comes with a 150 amp BMS, rather than the typical 50 or 100 amp BMS found in other batteries. This means that you can draw up to 1920 watts on an inverter from just this one battery, with 150 amps in and out for incredibly fast charging times. In fact, it can be charged from zero to 100 percent in under an hour and a half at 1920 watts. The battery measures approximately 19 by 7 by 10 inches and weighs around 44 pounds, although it may weigh slightly less in reality in 41.8 pounds.

It is also IP65 water-resistant, making it suitable for outdoor use. The battery has built-in nylon carrying handles on each side and comes with all necessary hardware, including lock washers. Power Queen backs up this impressive battery with a five-year warranty, which is a great deal considering its price point.

The Power Queen battery comes with a high-quality manual that includes clear instructions and helpful illustrations for both series and parallel connections.

It also covers important information such as operating temperatures and recommended voltages for specialized chargers. The manual is well-written, with few misspellings or errors, and it even provides tips on temperature regulation. Speaking of connections, this battery can be configured in a 4P 4S arrangement; four batteries connected in series for 48 volts, multiplied by four times in parallel for up to 600 amps of discharge current. With the ability to configure up to 48 volts, you can choose between 12, 24, 36, or 48-volt options. In fact, if you were to purchase 16 Power Queen batteries and connect them in a 4P 4S configuration, you would have an enormous 39 kilowatt hours of power at your disposal – more than enough to power the average American home for a full day. This makes these batteries ideal for off-grid solar systems. While some DIY enthusiasts may raise concerns, the Power Queen battery offers a reliable and advantageous solution for those seeking high-capacity battery storage.

For those who are considering a server rack battery for their power needs, it's important to compare the costs with a drop-in lithium battery like Power Queen. While a 5 kilowatt server rack battery may seem like a good deal at $1500, it actually costs around 30 cents per watt hour, compared to the Power Queenat 25 cents per watt hour. When building a large 30 kilowatt hour array, this difference can add up to thousands of dollars more just for the fancy display and metal casing of the server rack battery. Instead, choosing a less expensive drop-in lithium battery like Power Queencan save you money while still providing high-quality performance. So, when it comes down to it, would you prefer an expensive server rack battery with all the bells and whistles or a cost-effective and efficient drop-in lithium battery?

Part 2: The Ability of the Battery

In this part, Professor Hobo is going to test the battery in his laboratory, let’s dive in to see how capable the Power Queen 12V 190Ah LiFePO4 battery is.

2.1. Capacity

Firstly, let’s test the capacity of the battery, does it really have 190 Ah amp hour?

Based on the battery capacity test, the Power Queenbattery actually scored 197 amp hours, despite being labeled as a 190 amp hour battery. This phenomenon is relatively common with prismatic grade A EV cells, which are typically rated slightly lower than their actual capacity. When eight of these cells are connected in a row, as they are in the Power Queenbattery, you can expect to have a little more capacity than originally estimated.

2.2 Charge and Discharge Rate

In order to charge the Power Queenbattery above 100 amps, a specific setup is required. While the Sun Gold Power inverter charger has a charge limit of 90 amps, the battery is capable of taking up to 150 amps. To achieve a charging rate of 110 amps, a 20 amp Renogy charger is used in combination with the inverter charger. In order to simulate solar power, a variable voltage power supply is connected to the solar input on a solar controller. This allows for the voltage and amperage to be adjusted to suit the needs of the battery. To ensure that the system is functioning correctly, a Victron shunt is used to monitor the current flow.

To begin charging the battery, we need to turn on the inverter charger. This will get us started with about 85 amps being pushed into the battery, as you can see from the meter.

Next, flip the charger. As you can see, we have 80 volts and the amps are starting to climb. The meter shows that we now have 105 amps, and it continues to rise up to 106 amps. This confirms that the battery can handle at least a 100 amp BMS for charging.

It's time to conduct a discharge test and see if they can pull at least 150 amps from the BMS.

The solar degenerator is about to be turned on, with the aim of pulling at least 150 amps from the BMS. Hobo will attempt to push it even harder than that and see if it can handle the increased load.

After turning it on, the meter shows a reading of 152 amps. He plans to push it further until it shuts down, as it should do so safely if overloaded. As the test continues, the meter reads 170, 190, 200, and eventually 220 amps, indicating that they are running out of solar degenerator capacity.

The current reading of 288 amps is incredible. There is no more sorority generator capacity left, and they are amazed that the battery hasn't shut down yet. They speculate that there might be a surge on the BMS that allows it to run for a certain period at higher amperage levels than indicated. Let’sset a timer to test how long the system can handle this load,see if anything happens while running at 288 amps.

After running for three and a half minutes at almost 300 amps, the battery finally shut down. They could smell the heat shrink on their cables getting hot due to the high load. They need to let it cool down for a while before it can be restarted, but luckily, it only took a few minutes for it to cool enough to accept a charge again.

The Power Queenbattery has passed all three tests with flying colors. Not only did it score more than 190 amps on the capacity test, but it also performed well over 100 amps on the charge test and almost 300 amps for three minutes on the discharge test. This indicates that the battery can run at 150 amps continuously and can be pushed a little further for a couple of minutes before overheating and shutting down. This suggests that everything inside the battery is made of high-quality materials. One of the benefits of the Power Queen190 amp-hour battery is its built-in thermal protection, which was tested and successfully shut down the battery once it got too hot.

Part 3: Questions about Battery

3.1 Low Temperature Protection

Hobo also explains about the low temperature problem, saying that the battery doesn't have low-temperature protection built in. However, a lithium iron phosphate battery can still be discharged down to 14 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the internal temperature of the cells and not necessarily the ambient air temperature. He adds that when using the battery, the cells remain warm, allowing for its use even in colder weather conditions. It's recommended that batteries like this should be kept in an insulated area if exposed to below freezing temperatures. Based on personal experience with Battleborn batteries, Hobo shares that he had no problem using these batteries in his van despite being in an uninsulated area and being exposed to 15-degree temperatures. However, it's best not to charge the batteries at 2 o'clock in the morning when it's the coldest but rather during late morning or early afternoon when the sun is up and it warms up above freezing. In most scenarios, not having a low-temperature cutoff isn't a big deal, and there are workarounds available such as buying aftermarket accessories that prevent the battery from charging if it's below freezing. Ultimately, the primary use case for something like this depends on the individual's needs and requirements.

3.2 Don’t Use it as Starting Battery

These batteries aren't even designed as starting batteries but rather as drop-in replacement batteries for lead-acid batteries in most applications. Although they have a 150 amp BMS, which could potentially start a small vehicle, they are primarily intended to be house batteries. In RVs, the house batteries do all the heavy lifting, running lights, 12-volt appliances like refrigerators, and other appliances if connected to an inverter. If you have an off-grid solar array, it's possible to power your entire house using these batteries alone. They can also be used to supplement run time for most solar generators by connecting them to the same input as the 12-volt car charger. By using four of these batteries in series, you can bump the voltage high enough to simulate 48 volts of solar panels, making it very effective for larger solar generators like Blue Eddy or EcoFlow Power Station, which can charge fast from higher voltage solar inputs. Despite its capabilities, the 190 amp-hour Power Queenbattery is actually priced well.

3.3 The Price

Let's assume you get 10 years out of this battery, which is only $5 per month. For those who say that $600 or so for a battery is crazy, and they could just go to Walmart and get a lead-acid battery for $100, let's compare the equivalent usable power to the cheapest 100 amp-hour Walmart deep cycle battery. You can only discharge lead-acid to 50 percent, not 100 percent like a lithium battery, without destroying the lead-acid battery. That means they get an equivalent of around 200 amp-hours out of lead-acid. So, in this case, one needs 400 amp-hours of Walmart batteries, each costing $100. With four batteries, that's $400. However, lead-acid deep cycles to 50 percent last at most about 400 cycles or 400 days if done every day. Therefore, at $1 per cycle, that's $1 per day, or $30 a month if done daily, without including the cost of time and gas to drive to Walmart every 400 cycles to replace the battery. To summarize, the Power Queencosts $5 a month and lasts for 10 years, while lead acid costs $30 a month, and one has to replace it nine times in ten years. This is why it no longer makes sense to buy lead-acid batteries in 2023.

There is a big misconception that these drop-in replacement batteries require some kind of special lithium charger or lithium solar controller, but that's not the case. People often come to forums saying that they would love to get lithium batteries, but they have to replace everything in their RV. But as long as your battery charger or solar controller can output 14.4 to 14.6 volts on the basic lead-acid settings, you don't need to do anything. The battery itself is smart enough to know when to stop charging. That's why they are called drop-in replacement batteries since you just need to replace your existing lead-acids with them. However, if you don't have a specialized lithium battery charger or solar controller and kill the battery all the way to zero percent, to the point where the BMS inside turns off, you do need to be aware of that.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Power Queen 190AH LiFePO4 battery with its 150A BMS is an impressive and high-performance drop-in replacement battery. It offers more capacity than advertised and has proven to perform well on multiple tests, including a discharge test where it was able to handle almost 300 amps for three minutes before shutting down due to thermal protection.

While it may not have low-temperature protection built-in, it can still be used in cold weather conditions with proper insulation. The battery is primarily intended as a house battery and not a starting battery, making it an ideal choice for off-grid solar systems, RVs, and other applications that require heavy lifting. At a price point that makes it cost-effective over time, the Power Queen 190AH LiFePO4 battery is a reliable and advantageous solution for those seeking high-capacity battery storage.