Lithium Battery System Voltage

[Dopperud]

Hey did any of you guys have to replace your charger / controller to switch over to the LiFePO4 batteries?

The charger that came with your unit is probably in the 30 AMP range and will not fully charge a Lithium battery as it will cut back the charging voltage in the float phase which is necessary with lead/acid. It will work, but be slow and inefficient. I still have my charger in place as a backup if my inverter/charger ever goes down. It is also handy if you ever run your batteries down to full discharge and need to "jump start" your batteries to recharge from the inverter/charger as the inverter/charger will not function unless it senses the battery.

Bottom line, if you spend $900 on a battery, get the proper charger to take cafe of it and charge quickly. For BattleBorn, get enough to charge at 50 AMPs per battery max.

[chadskidmore]

Yep, the main difference between the FLA/AGMs is the BMS on the Battleborns and most other lithiums. The BMS helps manage the battery charge state, cell balance, etc. FLA/AGMs do not have that and as the various cells age keeping them all balanced is tough since there is nothing managing that at all.

[chadskidmore]

BB says that they are drop in, which they are, but one of the huge upsides to lithium is the fast recharge since they will drink down about as much power as you throw at them. To get that however your charger needs to be capable of that. If budget is a concern do the batteries first and then later upgrade the charger but to get the most benefit the charger should be upgraded. I ended up with a Victron multiplus and it can throw 50 amps at the batteries which means less generator time or time plugged in to get SOC back up to 100%. With my solar I don't have enough to throw that much at them but it still gets me back up to 100% within several hours.

Last season was my first with the new setup and I was still conditioned to always be looking at load, voltage, etc to "manage" my power system. By the end of the season I had gotten so I largely just ignored it because it was never even close to being an issue. Even running for several days with normal stuff in the trailer it was not an issue. And that was with normal evening lights, some furnace, microwave on occasion, coffee pot every morning, hair dryer each morning for the ladies, etc. I think the lowest I ever drew my 4 BBs down was something like 30% and that was after a good 5 days like that with limited sun over all the days to charge up. Finally ended up running the generator for a bit and all was back to 100%.

[DaveMatthewsBand]

...I ended up with a Victron multiplus and it can throw 50 amps at the batteries...

Technically, just so folks are aware...
that 50 amps is the max the BMS will allow on each of your Battle Borns.
But since you have 4 of them and the Victron Multiplus charger only puts out 120 amps, each of “your” batteries is really only receiving a maximum of 30 amps.


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[chadskidmore]

Agreed, still a heck of a lot better than non lithium chemistry batteries.

Technically, just so folks are aware...
that 50 amps is the max the BMS will allow on each of your Battle Borns.
But since you have 4 of them and the Victron Multiplus charger only puts out 120 amps, each of “your” batteries is really only receiving a maximum of 30 amps.


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[DaveMatthewsBand]

Agreed, still a heck of a lot better than non lithium chemistry batteries.

For sure. And no need to constantly monitor their voltage so they don’t reach critical mass and implode.



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[Justonemore]

I have had our 4 100 amp Battle Born batteries for a year and added 1260 watts worth of solar and am very happy with the setup. I also have a 3000 watt Vectron inverter. If you are trying to pencil it out it may be a challenge but not having to run the generator and running everything other than the electric heater ( sometimes I’ll run either for an hour or so but really isn’t so efficient) or air conditioning. Even this time of the year I don’t get below 75% on the batteries by the time the solar kicks in. I run the tv, router, cell booster, charge laptops, phones and iPads, use my electric coffee maker, microwave for short periods and use an instapot. I have my inverter set to charge until 14.4 amps and floats until 13.8 then goes back to bulk

[DaveMatthewsBand]

I have had our 4 100 amp Battle Born batteries for a year and added 1260 watts worth of solar and am very happy with the setup. I also have a 3000 watt Vectron inverter. If you are trying to pencil it out it may be a challenge but not having to run the generator and running everything other than the electric heater ( sometimes I’ll run either for an hour or so but really isn’t so efficient) or air conditioning. Even this time of the year I don’t get below 75% on the batteries by the time the solar kicks in. I run the tv, router, cell booster, charge laptops, phones and iPads, use my electric coffee maker, microwave for short periods and use an instapot. I have my inverter set to charge until 14.4 amps and floats until 13.8 then goes back to bulk

We have pretty much the same setup and can run a window unit air conditioner all day long.
It actually does a good job keeping our trailer cool. I have a few videos of this setup here:
https://youtu.be/jMeFnt1znEA


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