[Docan Energy] New 48V 105Ah (16S1P) All-In-One Golf Cart Battery — Technical Specs & Fitment Details

Been keeping an eye on Docan's all-in-one units for a while now, and this 16S1P configuration at 105Ah is interesting timing for me personally.

I've got a small garden office setup running on a Victron MultiPlus and a pair of Fogstar Drift 100Ah batteries — works brilliantly for the office loads, but I've been mulling over whether something more integrated would've been the smarter route from the start. Less faffing with separate BMS wiring, essentially.

The golf cart angle is what catches my eye here though. My neighbour runs a buggy around his smallholding and is constantly battling with ageing lead-acid packs. If the fitment dimensions play nicely with standard Trojan-style battery boxes, that's a genuinely compelling swap.

A few things I'd love to know from anyone who's tested these:

• How does the built-in BMS handle regenerative braking loads? Golf carts can be spiky
• What's the cycle life claim, and is there any independent data to back it up?
• Comms port — does it speak anything useful like CAN or RS485, or is it a closed system?

The all-in-one format always makes me slightly nervous from a repairability standpoint. If the BMS goes sideways three years down the line, are you binning the whole unit?

Would genuinely love to hear from anyone who's dropped one of these into an actual cart rather than a static setup. Real-world discharge curves under motor loads tell a very different story than bench specs.

@LindaLamb Interesting find! One thing worth flagging with these all-in-one golf cart units — the 16S1P configuration means you're locked into whatever BMS they've baked in, so compatibility with your Victron kit is the key question before anything else. Victron's DVCC can be a bit fussy about third-party batteries that don't speak their comms protocol properly.

Worth checking whether Docan publish a proper datasheet showing the charge/discharge curves and whether it supports CAN bus or VE.Bus communication. If it's just voltage-based without proper BMS integration, you might lose some of the smarter Victron features like state-of-charge accuracy.

Have you contacted Docan UK directly? Their technical support has been hit-or-miss from what I've read, but sometimes you get lucky and someone knowledgeable picks up. Would be good to know what your Victron setup actually is before going further.

Anyone know what comms protocol this unit uses? Wondering if it'll talk to a Victron system via CAN bus or if it's dumb BMS only.

Running a similar voltage setup in my motorhome and the difference between a battery that properly integrates with a Cerbo GX versus one that just sits there is massive for SoC accuracy and charge management.

Also — what's the actual usable capacity figure they're quoting? 105Ah gross sounds reasonable but if the BMS cuts in early and late you could be looking at significantly less in practice. Has anyone seen a proper discharge curve for these, or is it just the usual optimistic spec sheet numbers?

@Squib that's exactly what I'd want to know too — has anyone managed to get one of these Docan units talking to a Cerbo GX properly?

I've been down this rabbit hole with a couple of cheaper all-in-ones before. Some claim CAN bus compatibility but end up needing a specific cable pinout that's completely undocumented. Anyone had luck finding a VE.Can profile that works, or are we looking at a RS485 workaround?

Also curious whether the BMS will actually allow charge current control from an external source, or if it just monitors and cuts out. Makes a big difference when you're trying to do smart EV charging schedules around cheap-rate tariffs.

@LindaLamb what inverter/charger are you running in the garden office? That might determine whether comms even matter for your use case.

@Squib @Cleggy I'd be very cautious assuming CAN bus compatibility here. Most of these Chinese all-in-one golf cart units ship with RS485 at best, and the "Victron compatible" claims you sometimes see on listings usually mean nothing without a confirmed VE.Can profile or a supported BMS protocol in the Cerbo's device list.

Ran into exactly this with a no-name 48V unit on the narrowboat — spent a frustrating weekend with a USB-to-RS485 adapter and a protocol analyser before admitting defeat. Ended up just wiring it as a dumb battery with a Victron BMV-712 watching over it externally.

Worth emailing Docan directly and asking specifically: does it appear in the Victron supported battery list, and what's the exact comms protocol and baud rate? If they can't answer that precisely, you've got your answer.