Cheap Batteries are Coming, Cheap Batteries are Coming, Cheap Lithium Batteries ...

[burtpolson]

I really appreciate the input. I will investigate my converter to see what I am dealing with. Thanks.

[Scramjet]

That is what the spec sheet states. None of my WFCOs actually did what they were supposed to. They stayed stuck at 13.6. I am not alone. There have been hundreds of reports on the various forums about this.

Have you actuallychecked the voltage that your WFCO is putting out? If you are getting 14.4, you would be the first one to report that.

Huntindog,

I have not seen 14.4v but according to the manual under certain conditions it is capable. The point was that the WFCO converter will not hurt your typical lithium battery. It is not the perfect solution and not optimal but it is free! It is certainly easy to replace the charger. For best results you would spend the money on a lithium specific charger.

It would be a slower charge and not a full top charge but a lithium battery would still be safe and useful even if only running between 13.2v and 13.6v.

Brian

[Dopperud]

I kept my original converter as a backup if my inverter/charger ever takes a dump; It can be turned off with a breaker in the AC panel. Another benefit is that if you BMS shuts you battery off, due to low voltage for instance, my inverter/charger will not charge unless it detects a battery. I pop on the converter on and it brings my batteries back up and then I turn off the converter and the inverter/charger takes over.

[SilentService]

Thank you and congratulations for moving up to the LiFePo4 battery, the difference is truly amazing.

The problem with simply using the existing Converter with your new LiFePo4 battery is voltage. The existing Converter differentiates between the four charging modes based on the voltage it reads from the battery. Lead acid batteries loose voltage as they discharge, this is what the converter senses to begin or maintain charge, for example: if the voltage is 12v or below the Converter will produce a "Bulk" charge until the battery is charged to 80%, then the Converter produces an "Absorption" charge which is designed to allow the battery to "Absorb" the charge at a slower rate (also lower voltage) until full, after that the Converter will produce a "Float" charge (at an even lower voltage) which is designed to maintain the battery's charge.

With LiFePo4 batteries you do not get a "Lower" voltage that the Converter can sense because the LiFePo4 battery operates at a slightly higher voltage and that higher voltage is maintained until the battery is 85% to 90% depleted. Consequently, the Converter is not "Triggered" to start charging, nor is it programmed to know when the LiFePo4 battery is charged up.

What this all means is that you will not get the full benefit from your new LiFePo4 battery while you are using a non "Lithium ready" Converter because the old Converter can not fully/properly charge up the new battery.

FYI, this will not harm your new LiFePo4 battery.

This is why it is recommended that you replace your existing (Non-Lithium) Converter with a "Lithium ready" Converter. WFCO does make a replacement Lithium Converter as well as Progressive Dynamics, these are the two most popular choices for Lithium ready Converters.

Again, Congratulations on joining the Lithium revolution :-)

Great information SolarPoweredRV! I do have one question on the WIFCO converter that is rated for 55 amps. I'm currently looking at purchasing 2 or 3 Ampere Time 200amp batteries for a total of 400-600 amps hours. If I did buy three, would a 55 amp converter be sufficient enough to charge all batteries without running the generator all day? If not, would I have to change any wiring if I installed something like a Progressive Dynamics 60 or 75amp converter?

[RV Sailor]

Good post

I think maybe you aren’t aware but this term converter is an RV language anomaly. The rest of the world calls them chargers. There are far more intelligent charger choices than WICO and Progressive with far more history and users.

I come from a sailing industry background and have a 35 ft sailboat along with our RV. Our sailboat and now our RV uses solar power, shore power when available, generator etc.

The hub of our system is a VICTRON Multiplus 3000 Inverter Charger. It has a robust 4 stage powerful charger, a 3000 watt inverter to make all our 110 outlets powered by our lithium batteries live. It of course can be set for all types of batteries including lithium. It switched electrical charging sources available automatically without manual switching.

In The boating industry Victron , Xantrex, are far stronger and reliable candidates than WICO or Progressive and have huge followings. The are made to survive marine environments.

Take your time to educate yourself fully on all the components of your increasing electrical system.
One advantage of the Victron system ( Multiplus Inverter Charger/ MPPT solar controller/ Battery Monitor) is that they all are blue tooth together. You can literally watch and control from a phone.

Don’t be confused by Renogy/ and other newer players in the field. I suggest matching your components together.

https://www.victronenergy.com/invert...48v-800va-3kva

[SolarPoweredRV]

Great information SolarPoweredRV! I do have one question on the WIFCO converter that is rated for 55 amps. I'm currently looking at purchasing 2 or 3 Ampere Time 200amp batteries for a total of 400-600 amps hours. If I did buy three, would a 55 amp converter be sufficient enough to charge all batteries without running the generator all day? If not, would I have to change any wiring if I installed something like a Progressive Dynamics 60 or 75amp converter?

Your Converter charges your batteries (and simultaneously runs all DC loads inside your coach) from the 120v shore power inlet. It doesn't matter if you are plugged into Shore Power or are running your Generator the Converter still works in the same way.

With so many amp hours of battery storage I would suggest you get the higher amp hour converter that your current wiring can handle. Find your converter and find out what gauge wire Grand Design used for the 12v wires, alternatively, you can decide to upgrade the wiring and go with an even higher amperage Converter.

Something to consider is that all of your 12v DC loads will come from your Converter while you are plugged in to shore power (or running the Generator). Consequently, only the left-over amperage can be used to charge your batteries. Let's pretend that it takes 25 amps to run your coach, that leaves you with only 30 amps to charge your 600 amp hour battery bank. Now if you chose the 75 amp Converter, you now have 50 amps to charge your battery bank. With the 75 amp Converter your batteries will charge up almost twice as fast.

I believe that Progressive makes a 90 or 95 amp Converter, if I had a 600 amp hour battery bank I would chose the 90 (or 95) amp Converter and replace the wiring (from the Converter to the batteries) if I needed to.

Just to give you a frame of reference, I have 70 amps of available charging on my system, however, I have limited my charger output to only 50 amps because I rely on my Solar system to charge my batteries and not Shore Power.

PS: my system operates at 24 volts so 50 amps at 24v is plenty of power to charge my battery bank.

[SilentService]

RV Sailor, I have looked at Victron and agree it is a more robust system. Unfortunately I know enough about electricity to be dangerous! In addition, I want to keep it simple and a little cheaper because we will upgrade to a solitude in 5-6 years and may look at that set-up then.
Thanks for the input!

[SilentService]

Your Converter charges your batteries (and simultaneously runs all DC loads inside your coach) from the 120v shore power inlet. It doesn't matter if you are plugged into Shore Power or are running your Generator the Converter still works in the same way.

With so many amp hours of battery storage I would suggest you get the higher amp hour converter that your current wiring can handle. Find your converter and find out what gauge wire Grand Design used for the 12v wires, alternatively, you can decide to upgrade the wiring and go with an even higher amperage Converter.

Something to consider is that all of your 12v DC loads will come from your Converter while you are plugged in to shore power (or running the Generator). Consequently, only the left-over amperage can be used to charge your batteries. Let's pretend that it takes 25 amps to run your coach, that leaves you with only 30 amps to charge your 600 amp hour battery bank. Now if you chose the 75 amp Converter, you now have 50 amps to charge your battery bank. With the 75 amp Converter your batteries will charge up almost twice as fast.

I believe that Progressive makes a 90 or 95 amp Converter, if I had a 600 amp hour battery bank I would chose the 90 (or 95) amp Converter and replace the wiring (from the Converter to the batteries) if I needed to.

Just to give you a frame of reference, I have 70 amps of available charging on my system, however, I have limited my charger output to only 50 amps because I rely on my Solar system to charge my batteries and not Shore Power.

PS: my system operates at 24 volts so 50 amps at 24v is plenty of power to charge my battery bank.

I also am looking at adding 400-600 watts of solar with an MPPT controller. I believe my current converter is connected to a 15 amp outlet. If my calculations are correct, I should be able to run a 70 amp converter (please let me know if I'm wrong.) I will have to verify the wire size that runs to my batteries is adequate for a 10ft run.

[rootusrootus]

I ditched the converter altogether and just use a charger (a Victron IP22 12/30/3, to be specific). It's not exactly the same as a converter, in the sense that it isn't designed to run loads directly (it can do that, but then it won't act as a charger, it is either/or). But it is effective. For my use case, I do not ever average anywhere close to 30A of continuous power from the battery so a small charger works out fine.

Now that our camping season seems to be done, I'm back in the game of deciding what to do for batteries next year. I have most of the parts (aside from cells) to build a pair of 272Ah DIYs. I have a single BB 100Ah installed in my trailer right now. I wonder if cells are starting to ship again or not.

[ultramafic]

Great information SolarPoweredRV! I do have one question on the WIFCO converter that is rated for 55 amps. I'm currently looking at purchasing 2 or 3 Ampere Time 200amp batteries for a total of 400-600 amps hours. If I did buy three, would a 55 amp converter be sufficient enough to charge all batteries without running the generator all day? If not, would I have to change any wiring if I installed something like a Progressive Dynamics 60 or 75amp converter?

For what its worth i am running a set of 280 amp hour cells, i didnt want to get into totally rewiring to my battery bank so i went with the 45 amp progressive dynamics charger replacing my stock 50 amp or maybe 55 i dont recall offhand.

My BMS has a monitor app that i can track many statistics but one of which is rate of charge or discharge as the case may be. I have yet to discharge the bank down significantly as in much below 75 percent but when plugging into shore power or generator power the most i saw going into the batteries was about 22 to 25 amps per hour. (I get about 5 to 7 amps while towing too fyi through the trailer plug.)

I personally dont find this all too concerning as the battery bank will run the trailer in most camping situations for at least two of three days which is about the length of most of our camping trips. That being said if we were out on an extended trip I wouldnt be against running the generator for a few hours to bring back a good chunk of the charge.

We replaced our two 6 volt lead batteries which with the load from the fridge fans, lights water pump, bathroom fan and all the other stuff we use every day m, were barely able to give us a day without dipping into or close to the "damage zone". With the new batteries we run a small inverter, watch movies, run an electric cooler, you name it and I am far less worried about damaging or running out of power.

Mike