New Product! Lithium-ion Battery (14.8V, 18Ah)

Originally published at: New Product! Lithium-ion Battery (14.8V, 18Ah) - Blue Robotics

Today we’re especially charged up to announce a new product that has been highly requested for some time! We now have available a custom made high capacity lithium-ion battery made specifically for the BlueROV2!

Check out the New Product Video on Youtube:

Lithium-ion Battery (14.8V, 18Ah)

With its massive 18Ah capacity, this 4S 14.8V battery will allow you to run your BlueROV2 for around 4 hours at moderate load, almost twice as long as previously possible with a 10Ah battery. We're especially proud of the build quality of this battery, the 18650 cells it is comprised of are known to be exceptionally high performing and very safe.

[products skus="BATTERY-LI-4S-18AH-R1" columns="1"]

Take a look at the results of our moderate to heavy load case. With gain set to 25% and 4 lights at 1/4 brightness, the battery powered the BlueROV2 for well over 3 hours! With almost constant depth and heading hold interrupted by periods of heavy full throttle use, this represents a realistic in field use.

Moderate Load 18Ah Battery Discharge

The notable high capacity of this battery means that it is subject to stricter shipping regulations than our other products. At over 266Wh, it has almost triple the energy of the maximum allowable laptop battery that can be transported on a passenger aircraft! In addition to a hazardous goods shipping surcharge, at the moment we are also only able to ship this battery to a select number of countries:

  • Australia
  • Canada
  • India
  • Japan
  • Mexico
  • New Zealand
  • Singapore
  • United States of America

We're working on expanding this list to include most of Europe and a few other countries. We hope to be able to do that within a few weeks.

We've got some more product announcements coming soon that we think will generate quite the buzz! That's all for now!

2 Likes

Looks good Rusty, nice work.:slight_smile:
Regards,
TCIII AVD

@rjehangir
Great news and fantastic statistics on battery use/time use.
Takes the rov to the next level commercially.
The best supported open source rov in the world.
Cutting edge tech:+1: Keep it up team :sunglasses:

2 Likes

Doh! Right after I put in a routine part order through the store. Oh well, I’ll be sure to pick up 1 or two on my next order before I get in the water again!

1 Like

Great stuff. Do you have a picture of it in the 3" housing? Curious to see how tight the fit and how much extra space length wise in the tube is left?

Li-ON should be a bit safer and less prone to being run down than Li-Po as well.

Here are a few pictures. I’d a bit hard to tell with the clear tubes, but there’s a little bit of clearance on each side. The packs aren’t completely circular either, it’s more hexagonal, so there’s a bit of space on the flat sides.

2 Likes

@rjehangir,
What is the C value of this battery?
Regards,
TCIII AVD

5C with 7C burst on the label.

that’s great news! I can’t wait to try it out on my next dive

Hi @rjehangir,

Went through the battery’s documentation page but wasn’t able to find any details of BMS for the battery pack.
What are the specifications of the BMS used here?

Hi @Yoel,

Our battery does not have built in BMS. With a proper lithium balance charger and voltage monitoring, its not necessary to a dedicated built in BMS. Our Lithium Battery Charger and the power module accomplish the same things.

-Adam

Thank you @adam.

Does the power module given here Power Sense Module have over discharge protection on-board?

Hi Yoel,

Not directly, it does not cut off the power below a certain value. The power module is a voltage and current monitoring device. It reports the voltage and current draw to the system/user, and you can do what you wish with the information. We typically bring in the ROV once we see the voltage start dipping below 13 V.

-Adam

Thank you @adam

Is it possible to parallel connect several of these batteries ?

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Hi Oystein,

Yes, it’s possible to connect the batteries in parallel but you do have to be careful. Here are few things to remember:

  • Only use batteries of the same capacity (Ah) and similar age/usage. Well used batteries will have less capacity than new ones.
  • Only use batteries at the same state of charge.
  • Batteries should always be balanced during charging to keep all the cells at the same voltage, but that’s even more important if you’re connecting them in parallel.

-Rusty

1 Like

Thank you Rusty
The idea was to charge the batteries isolated by a balanced charger. But one battery have too limited capacity sometimes.