Going Lithium... Wish me luck...

[JDCrow]

I’ve had the Alibaba express app on my phone for sometime and looked at the lithium batteries for awhile now. Have always been nervous about pulling the trigger in them based on what you are saying.

A few Chinese based battery companies are now selling on eBay (Chins, Amphere) and have pretty decent reviews, but at $300 or so more per battery than Alibaba.

I am looking into the self heated batteries right now as we get pretty cold in the winter, and I’m nowhere near retirement. 
 

Thanks for the update 

[wamcneil]

diysolarforum has an active bunch of diy lithium builders. There are a small number of Chinese suppliers that folks report having experience with, mostly supplying prismatic sells for diy battery packs, and the feedback is kept updated on that site. I'd stick with a known supplier with references on that site and not experiment with new sources. 

Xuba is one with many reports of good service and supplying as agreed. It's kind of a wild west market with these gray market cells. Apparently the sellers latch on to a good supply of quality cells, but then have a hard time maintaining their supply over time. So whoever has the good cells right now is kind of a moving target.

There are about 4-5 manufacturers of top quality lithium cells. Apparently the manufacturers occasionally dump a quantity of cells that didn't quite make the cut to be labeled 'grade A' and sold through retail channels. Somebody buys a large quantity of 2nd quality cells and then they go out through these sellers on alibaba. But there's not a steady and reliable stream of good cells, so it can be hit or miss. So, a certain brand of cells will be available for a while, then the sellers will shift to another brand. 

In my battery, cells were spec'd to be Lishen 274 ah cells, but the batteries arrived with ETC 277ah cells instead. Another quality brand is Eve with 280 ah cells.