I’m not an electrical engineer, nor do I play one on TV. So for those of us trying to follow along at home, is there an issue charging a single Lithium battery (say 100 amp hr) from an average TV without some modification between the two? If I’m following this thread correctly the answer seems to be somewhere between “don’t know” and “ probably not”. You guys clearly understand the topic much better than most of us. When contemplating making a change from lead acid to Lithium, the average bloke only contemplates what the compatibility issues might be on the RV. Should we be paying more attention to the TV end of the equation?
Thanks all.
There is a couple of issues. The first which is being discussed here is the charge current from the tow vehicle is not large enough to recharge a battery very much....charge current between 5 and 10 amps. It wont fully recharge a fully depleted battery during a normal day of travel. I address this by running a heavier gage wire and a dc-dc charger to control the charge current. you do not want to use a heavy gage wire without a charge controller as lithium batterys will use how ever much charge current you want to send at them.... Some will accept 200 amps with no issue, the problem is most alternators are 175 amps max. You will burn out your trucks alternator with out some regulation, be it a charge controller or a long small gage wire.
The second issue on trailers with large solar arrays and lithiums batterys is the charge voltage is signifiantly higher that what a standard tow vehicles max voltage is. The solar array feeds 14.8 volts or so back into the truck causing issues with brake controllers. I know one of the big three has a recall to address the issue of high voltage feeding back into the truck from the trailer.
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