Good battery for a 5k install w 320 amp alternator?

Kybasshead75

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Ky
Install will be running about 5k tops of total power needed already got a 320 amp alternator for it I'm thinking around 45 amp hours of lithium should work?
Is it a good idea to run factory batteries with a high power lithium I could use an isolator for each I've heard of people going with only lithium and being fine.
 
That's a large alternator, especially if this is a daily setup. With the alternator being that strong you should be fine with a large AGM from a good company (Northstar, X2 power, XS) under the hood.
 
I was in the same situation recently (5kw and 320a alternator), and I went with a JY Power HP-40 battery. I didn't do research to land on that battery, but it was what a local shop recommended (alcohol may have been involved). I trusted the shop owner's opinion, because I've known him for nearly 20 years and he's always been passionate about car audio. It is not the cheapest option by any means, but I am very happy with the performance. No headlight dimming running full bore.

As for running batteries together, I refer to this article:
https://www.jypwr.com/blog/how-to-wire-agm-and-lithium-batteries-together/

I removed my underhood battery from the circuit. I think an isolator would be a better option, because I can't see a downside of having another battery as a buffer at peak demand with the engine running, but I went with JY's recommendation.

Please share what you wind up going with.
 
That's a large alternator, especially if this is a daily setup. With the alternator being that strong you should be fine with a large AGM from a good company (Northstar, X2 power, XS) under the hood.
I was wanting to go with lithium because it's so much more powerful and lightweight at the same time! This new tech is amazing
 
I was in the same situation recently (5kw and 320a alternator), and I went with a JY Power HP-40 battery. I didn't do research to land on that battery, but it was what a local shop recommended (alcohol may have been involved). I trusted the shop owner's opinion, because I've known him for nearly 20 years and he's always been passionate about car audio. It is not the cheapest option by any means, but I am very happy with the performance. No headlight dimming running full bore.

As for running batteries together, I refer to this article:
https://www.jypwr.com/blog/how-to-wire-agm-and-lithium-batteries-together/

I removed my underhood battery from the circuit. I think an isolator would be a better option, because I can't see a downside of having another battery as a buffer at peak demand with the engine running, but I went with JY's recommendation.

Please share what you wind up going with.
okay I thought I remembered hearing something about it being a good idea to have a buffer as well as backup for the engine. I will review the article thoroughly, I'm seeing great deals on Amazon with the life po4 lithium 12-volt batteries. I would be more tempted to go with a proven car company like limitless lithium or excess power for myself. Don't mind paying for it to be right. I'm going to create a build log as I go through it currently working on the sound deadening got the interior totally torn apart now.
 
I would be more tempted to go with a proven car company like limitless lithium or excess power for myself.
All of the marketing I have seen from any of those folks seems like a lot of snake oil, magic beans, and pixie dust. As far as lithium goes they charge a high premium to put off-the-shelf Chinese cells in a pretty case then over-promise on how much amplifier power they can support.

I went round and round in circles trying to get honest answers from all those clowns before opting on just building my own lithium banks.

Right now I would not bother with LiFePO4 unless you're getting a really good price on some c-max cells and building your own bank. LTO is just superior in nearly every way for our purposes. Yes, you can probably mix and match with AGM and you may still get acceptable lifespan from your batteries but I would not recommend as they will not want to rest at the same voltage and one will always be parasitic off the other. 40AH trying to power a 5000W amp (I thought you were running an 8k?) is really pushing your luck though. Depending on your install and listening habits it might be adequate but you could just as easily put yourself into a position where you're using that battery at it's absolute max limits.

Lasly your 350A or whatever alternator will not put out anything near what you think it will outside of a test bench in optimum conditions. I'd consider that a "peak power" rating until proven otherwise.
 
All of the marketing I have seen from any of those folks seems like a lot of snake oil, magic beans, and pixie dust. As far as lithium goes they charge a high premium to put off-the-shelf Chinese cells in a pretty case then over-promise on how much amplifier power they can support.

I went round and round in circles trying to get honest answers from all those clowns before opting on just building my own lithium banks.

Right now I would not bother with LiFePO4 unless you're getting a really good price on some c-max cells and building your own bank. LTO is just superior in nearly every way for our purposes. Yes, you can probably mix and match with AGM and you may still get acceptable lifespan from your batteries but I would not recommend as they will not want to rest at the same voltage and one will always be parasitic off the other. 40AH trying to power a 5000W amp (I thought you were running an 8k?) is really pushing your luck though. Depending on your install and listening habits it might be adequate but you could just as easily put yourself into a position where you're using that battery at it's absolute max limits.

Lasly your 350A or whatever alternator will not put out anything near what you think it will outside of a test bench in optimum conditions. I'd consider that a "peak power" rating until proven otherwise.
That jives with what I've heard from a lot of experienced audio enthusiasts about the new lithium technology. How complicated is it to build your own from those Chinese cells that seems to be all the rage now. I've heard others recommend that too saying it's cheaper and better.
I always had a feeling it was a bad idea to mix the two types because of voltage your regularities and the differences they have. Makes sense to me. I'm running my son down 8K at 2.670 so it will realistically be putting out about 4K of power. I'm running high sensitivity mid-range and Tweeter so 1 k will be plenty loud powering them.
I was thinking I'd need more battery power because that alternator isn't putting out that much unless you're revving it at Max RPMs. I always prioritize base electrical and dynamat over anything in a new build.
 
That jives with what I've heard from a lot of experienced audio enthusiasts about the new lithium technology. How complicated is it to build your own from those Chinese cells that seems to be all the rage now. I've heard others recommend that too saying it's cheaper and better.
I always had a feeling it was a bad idea to mix the two types because of voltage your regularities and the differences they have. Makes sense to me. I'm running my son down 8K at 2.670 so it will realistically be putting out about 4K of power. I'm running high sensitivity mid-range and Tweeter so 1 k will be plenty loud powering them.
I was thinking I'd need more battery power because that alternator isn't putting out that much unless you're revving it at Max RPMs. I always prioritize base electrical and dynamat over anything in a new build.
Fortunately if you're trying to DIY there's a couple machine shops that are building ready-made bus bars for the popular lithium cells so if you can figure out how to line up the - and + in a flashlight you can probably sort out busing cells. The only thing you'll need to be a little handy to sort out is a secure mounting location for them somewhere inside the cabin (they may not like the heat under the hood). My brother and I bought some copper bar stock from a place out west and nuts and washers from Fastenall and did that all ourselves but it was definitely a PITA so unless you just like a challenge or have some decent metalworking tools you should stick to some ready-made solution there I think.

At least one of these "'professional" battery brands is claiming you can use their LTO banks with your AGM which is probably true. It'll certainly help. But I believe they're just relying on the huge life expectancy of that technology so that even if the buyers are doing shitty installs they'll still outlast their warranty. Conventional wisdom used to be to not even mix and match different types/brands of lead acid batteries, and it's a testament to marketing that these companies have convinced much of the market that mix matching different chemistry batteries is now fine. I'd say mix matching lead acids probably only becomes really detrimental as things age though. First couple years I don't expect it would make much difference if any. In short, mix matching is definitely not doing it correctly and you will be sacrificing performance and life expectancy of your batteries.

Your alternator will put out that "rating" ONLY at some certain RPM (2000 or a bit more usually) and only before it gets hot (which won't take long in real world applications). Provided you've bought from a known reliable brand you've done as much as you can on that front so don't sweat it, but do be aware that you can't plan on (I definitely already have 350A of what this amp wants to eat). The other piece of that puzzle is that alternator cannot deliver instant burst power. Your battery needs to do that and keep things buffered until the alternator can load down and deliver more.

That Sundown amp will make over 5000W into 2 ohm so you may well be seeing that, and real world real time efficiency may not be as great as whatever bench test or published stat you might be using to plan around. I'm running 240AH of YingLong LTO cells and voltage won't drop more than 0.2V with a single SFB8000 running a pair it will dip about 0.8V if you're riding it hard. Certainly I could probably get away with less but we bought these before anybody in the USA was using them so I figured if I over built enough that even if they only performed half as well as specs claim that I'd only ever really need half of that. Fortunately as it turns out these things actually do deliver as advertised, but now I'm in a great position where I'm never really demanding too much from them. If you look at performance and life cycle data on batteries you lose both performance and service life much more quickly the closer you approach maximum safe ratings.

That all said, you may get by with less battery so you could possibly just buy one 6S bank and see what happens and add more until you're satisfied. We cannot predict how you're going to play music nor impedance curve of your box installed so nobody can tell you what your real current demands will be. I will suggest that you may well have enough power on tap to smoke your 3 woofers though if you're not careful so do go easy at first until you get a feel for how they're holding up once you get going. You will have little to no warning signs (smell) if you're getting into thermal limits if you're running sealed box and you definitely don't want to melt voice coils your first week out the gate.
 
Fortunately if you're trying to DIY there's a couple machine shops that are building ready-made bus bars for the popular lithium cells so if you can figure out how to line up the - and + in a flashlight you can probably sort out busing cells. The only thing you'll need to be a little handy to sort out is a secure mounting location for them somewhere inside the cabin (they may not like the heat under the hood). My brother and I bought some copper bar stock from a place out west and nuts and washers from Fastenall and did that all ourselves but it was definitely a PITA so unless you just like a challenge or have some decent metalworking tools you should stick to some ready-made solution there I think.

At least one of these "'professional" battery brands is claiming you can use their LTO banks with your AGM which is probably true. It'll certainly help. But I believe they're just relying on the huge life expectancy of that technology so that even if the buyers are doing shitty installs they'll still outlast their warranty. Conventional wisdom used to be to not even mix and match different types/brands of lead acid batteries, and it's a testament to marketing that these companies have convinced much of the market that mix matching different chemistry batteries is now fine. I'd say mix matching lead acids probably only becomes really detrimental as things age though. First couple years I don't expect it would make much difference if any. In short, mix matching is definitely not doing it correctly and you will be sacrificing performance and life expectancy of your batteries.

Your alternator will put out that "rating" ONLY at some certain RPM (2000 or a bit more usually) and only before it gets hot (which won't take long in real world applications). Provided you've bought from a known reliable brand you've done as much as you can on that front so don't sweat it, but do be aware that you can't plan on (I definitely already have 350A of what this amp wants to eat). The other piece of that puzzle is that alternator cannot deliver instant burst power. Your battery needs to do that and keep things buffered until the alternator can load down and deliver more.

That Sundown amp will make over 5000W into 2 ohm so you may well be seeing that, and real world real time efficiency may not be as great as whatever bench test or published stat you might be using to plan around. I'm running 240AH of YingLong LTO cells and voltage won't drop more than 0.2V with a single SFB8000 running a pair it will dip about 0.8V if you're riding it hard. Certainly I could probably get away with less but we bought these before anybody in the USA was using them so I figured if I over built enough that even if they only performed half as well as specs claim that I'd only ever really need half of that. Fortunately as it turns out these things actually do deliver as advertised, but now I'm in a great position where I'm never really demanding too much from them. If you look at performance and life cycle data on batteries you lose both performance and service life much more quickly the closer you approach maximum safe ratings.

That all said, you may get by with less battery so you could possibly just buy one 6S bank and see what happens and add more until you're satisfied. We cannot predict how you're going to play music nor impedance curve of your box installed so nobody can tell you what your real current demands will be. I will suggest that you may well have enough power on tap to smoke your 3 woofers though if you're not careful so do go easy at first until you get a feel for how they're holding up once you get going. You will have little to no warning signs (smell) if you're getting into thermal limits if you're running sealed box and you definitely don't want to melt voice coils your first week out the gate.
That is what I was thinking I just wanted to know what I was doing if I'm building up the yen-long battery sells myself I could go on and do 80 amp hours worth where would you recommend getting the kids from I saw a place on Amazon called Jim's machine work I think and he had all the machine work already done. Where would be a good place to buy the battery sales from as Amazon doesn't have any buying options and I don't like eBay.
I'm setting my amp games with a multimeter and I also think the AK could very well smoke them so I'm going to turn the gains down from the multimeter match. I haven't got the amp yet but I'm thinking the 5K might not be enough. Really wanting to stick with the sfb series
 
Fortunately if you're trying to DIY there's a couple machine shops that are building ready-made bus bars for the popular lithium cells so if you can figure out how to line up the - and + in a flashlight you can probably sort out busing cells. The only thing you'll need to be a little handy to sort out is a secure mounting location for them somewhere inside the cabin (they may not like the heat under the hood). My brother and I bought some copper bar stock from a place out west and nuts and washers from Fastenall and did that all ourselves but it was definitely a PITA so unless you just like a challenge or have some decent metalworking tools you should stick to some ready-made solution there I think.

At least one of these "'professional" battery brands is claiming you can use their LTO banks with your AGM which is probably true. It'll certainly help. But I believe they're just relying on the huge life expectancy of that technology so that even if the buyers are doing shitty installs they'll still outlast their warranty. Conventional wisdom used to be to not even mix and match different types/brands of lead acid batteries, and it's a testament to marketing that these companies have convinced much of the market that mix matching different chemistry batteries is now fine. I'd say mix matching lead acids probably only becomes really detrimental as things age though. First couple years I don't expect it would make much difference if any. In short, mix matching is definitely not doing it correctly and you will be sacrificing performance and life expectancy of your batteries.

Your alternator will put out that "rating" ONLY at some certain RPM (2000 or a bit more usually) and only before it gets hot (which won't take long in real world applications). Provided you've bought from a known reliable brand you've done as much as you can on that front so don't sweat it, but do be aware that you can't plan on (I definitely already have 350A of what this amp wants to eat). The other piece of that puzzle is that alternator cannot deliver instant burst power. Your battery needs to do that and keep things buffered until the alternator can load down and deliver more.

That Sundown amp will make over 5000W into 2 ohm so you may well be seeing that, and real world real time efficiency may not be as great as whatever bench test or published stat you might be using to plan around. I'm running 240AH of YingLong LTO cells and voltage won't drop more than 0.2V with a single SFB8000 running a pair it will dip about 0.8V if you're riding it hard. Certainly I could probably get away with less but we bought these before anybody in the USA was using them so I figured if I over built enough that even if they only performed half as well as specs claim that I'd only ever really need half of that. Fortunately as it turns out these things actually do deliver as advertised, but now I'm in a great position where I'm never really demanding too much from them. If you look at performance and life cycle data on batteries you lose both performance and service life much more quickly the closer you approach maximum safe ratings.

That all said, you may get by with less battery so you could possibly just buy one 6S bank and see what happens and add more until you're satisfied. We cannot predict how you're going to play music nor impedance curve of your box installed so nobody can tell you what your real current demands will be. I will suggest that you may well have enough power on tap to smoke your 3 woofers though if you're not careful so do go easy at first until you get a feel for how they're holding up once you get going. You will have little to no warning signs (smell) if you're getting into thermal limits if you're running sealed box and you definitely don't want to melt voice coils your first week out the gate.
 

Can be ran with AGM as well.
I saw that one and it was pulling some really good numbers on the bench I'd rather just go all lithium so I'm not blending battery types really. That Titan looks like it's great but if it is easy to build up the yen long cells I'd be willing to take that route and end up with 80 ah.
 
That is what I was thinking I just wanted to know what I was doing if I'm building up the yen-long battery sells myself I could go on and do 80 amp hours worth where would you recommend getting the kids from I saw a place on Amazon called Jim's machine work I think and he had all the machine work already done. Where would be a good place to buy the battery sales from as Amazon doesn't have any buying options and I don't like eBay.
I'm setting my amp games with a multimeter and I also think the AK could very well smoke them so I'm going to turn the gains down from the multimeter match. I haven't got the amp yet but I'm thinking the 5K might not be enough. Really wanting to stick with the sfb series

The Jim's terminals look nice. I've seen them in person. I think I've seen another brand and China sells some cheaper options that should be serviceable for bussing at your intended current demand but I'm not sure who re-sells in the states.

Wolfram did several group buys on those cells so perhaps he is still running those or just re-selling the cells? I know Droppin Hertz website sells them but you will get zero service after the fact from him if anything goes wrong so I'd advise against doing business there.

From what my guy in China told me the 35AH cells that have been going around out of "car audio" brands are all B-stock, which are supposedly fine unless you're trying to series up past 100V but I suspect those re-sellers aren't saying b-stock yet charging normal price. B stock cells can still be had for about the cost I paid per amp hour back a few years ago.

80AH should be safe, 120 would be really solid. Keep in mind LTO are meant to last 10-20 years so comparing with say 4 good quality 100AH AGM type batteries every 4-5 years to support a 5K buying into 120AH once is still a good value over the long haul.... and you really can't put a price on weight and space savings. 6S bank is the size of a 6 pack of pounder beer cans.

I'd definitely vouch for the SFB8000. Probably the best price to performance ratio of the lineup and at the price, why wouldn't you buy one?
 
Nice thing is Sundown is coming out with a line that is more efficient & more power then the SFB lines here soon or they maybe already out. Haven't looked in a few weeks, last time I looked in Jan about them they were saying end of Feb for price and release dates.
 
I saw that one and it was pulling some really good numbers on the bench I'd rather just go all lithium so I'm not blending battery types really. That Titan looks like it's great but if it is easy to build up the yen long cells I'd be willing to take that route and end up with 80 ah.
Beware of Droppin Hz. You will never get a reply from him after you buy if anything goes wrong.

10AH bank for 600$ is straight outrageous and even if it's a 100C discharge and 30C charge rated cell in there you absolutely would not want to be in that position. It'll probably outlast the warranty and it's certainly a convenient package but that thing is a perfect example of selling pixie dust and magic beans. Even the Toshiba SCIB cells aren't claiming that.

Best case scenario all of that marketing is 100% honest, then what? You have your 8,000W amp trying to draw 1000A, this battery (best case scenario) can provide that for half a minute and then your alternator (if you're lucky) is trying to dump 300A of current into it.... better hope that 30C charge rating is legit, now you'll need several minutes at max charge rate to get ready for another 30 seconds of reserve.

IF your application requires just a few seconds of reserve energy you would do better to invest in a super-cap bank. I believe you would do better by planning a battery bank with a bit of reserve in it as opposed to high C rating.
 
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