Lithium Batteries - one less objection

[dkoldman]

Originally Posted by Winterbagoal

You can get a 100ah Relion RB100-LT unit for a measly $1348+tax each.

For that kind of money I can buy my own portable windmill farm to carry with me

I think for what the tax would cost for 2 of those, I can find me 2 very nice AGM batteries with high amp hours. I will start my research. Brands that come to mind are Interstate, Optimata & Duracell?

[Elkman]

Lithionics makes a Group 31 size lithium phosate battery that provides 125AH and that is what I decided to buy. Very seldom do we camp where it is going to be below freezing during the day for many days at a time. When we have encountered such conditions we have driven to lower elevations to warm everything up.

[Winterbagoal]

Originally Posted by dkoldman

For that kind of money I can buy my own portable windmill farm to carry with me

I think for what the tax would cost for 2 of those, I can find me 2 very nice AGM batteries with high amp hours. I will start my research. Brands that come to mind are Interstate, Optimata & Duracell?

Good luck with the FLA options. Far too much maintenance and worry, for me. Been there, done that.
For me, the peace of mind is worth it. I don't even monitor them. It's not worth my time. They are bulletproof.

[AJMike]

Originally Posted by Winterbagoal

Good luck with the FLA options. Far too much maintenance and worry, for me. Been there, done that.
For me, the peace of mind is worth it. I don't even monitor them. It's not worth my time. They are bulletproof.

I agree, but of course there are sealed wet cell batteries as well and they are maintenance free.

For us, even one regular boondocking night, with the fans my wife likes to use to keep the RV bedroom cool, the compressor fridge and the DVD she wants to watch before we go to sleep uses enough power to drop our old OEM wet cells well below 50%, so the Lithium batteries are pretty much essential.

[Winterbagoal]

Originally Posted by AJMike

I agree, but of course there are sealed wet cell batteries as well and they are maintenance free.

For us, even one regular boondocking night, with the fans my wife likes to use to keep the RV bedroom cool, the compressor fridge and the DVD she wants to watch before we go to sleep uses enough power to drop our old OEM wet cells well below 50%, so the Lithium batteries are pretty much essential.

"there are sealed wet cell batteries as well and they are maintenance free"
In my opinion, having a reliable power source with almost zero voltage drop over 90% of the discharge cycle, means not just maintenance free, but worry free. "so the Lithium batteries are pretty much essential".

[al1florida]

Originally Posted by dkoldman

I will need to look for the battery tube? I am now 100% certain that I have been putting too much distilled water in it. That distilled water is cheap; so I was trying to ensure that did NOT underfill given I had gone through all of that trouble to get to it

After you take the cap off of the battery, just look down the hole. The tube just extends down about 1". Using a flashlight you will see the metal plates down in the acid water mixture.

[Old Navy]

Originally Posted by dkoldman

I will need to look for the battery tube? I am now 100% certain that I have been putting too much distilled water in it.

In another life, I maintained several large banks of commercial FLA cells for remote microwave communication stations. Water was only added to adjust specific gravity, and that was very little. The water level in my 6V FLA's has not changed over the past 3 months. If your batteries require water frequently, something is wrong, probably overcharging.

[dkoldman]

Originally Posted by Winterbagoal

"there are sealed wet cell batteries as well and they are maintenance free"
In my opinion, having a reliable power source with almost zero voltage drop over 90% of the discharge cycle, means not just maintenance free, but worry free. "so the Lithium batteries are pretty much essential".

Ok, I thought I was clear that AGM batteries with an upgraded Group was all I needed, but not I am getting confused again.

Are AGM considered sealed wet cell batteries that are maintenance free, or is that another type of battery option between standard FLA and AGM?

How do you define discharge cycle? 12 hrs, 1 day, 2 days week etc?

For me it has been 9 hrs (10:00PM - 7:00AM), In future, I will change to 10 hrs to stop at 8:00 AM

For me 50% is defined as 12.2 volts

When we are where what we called boondocking (not necessarily in the middle of some large National Forest by ourselves we turn on the AGS Onan EC-30

So every night at about 8:00 PM the generator starts and runs right up to 10:00 PM and turns off. Batteries are usually 13.1v or so well above 100%

After 10:00 PM we run the below
- Outside Fridge
- Inside lights LED
- at least one TV
- Chargers are connected (phone etc.)
- Wifi extender is connected
- vent fan(s) may or may not be running

So the next morning the battery is usually between 12.0v and 12.2v. The Generator wakes us up and runs about 2 hours until fully charged and the cycle will repeat at 8:00PM the next night

So to keep this simple my goal is to find a battery that ....

#1 Maintenance free (No water no checking)
#2 Has more capacity AH (i.e. Ideally I would like to go 24 hours before battery drops below 12.0v or at least make it 12-18 hours; so I can increase my quiet time from 9:00 PM 10:00AM

[dkoldman]

Originally Posted by Old Navy

In another life, I maintained several large banks of commercial FLA cells for remote microwave communication stations. Water was only added to adjust specific gravity, and that was very little. The water level in my 6V FLA's has not changed over the past 3 months. If your batteries require water frequently, something is wrong, probably overcharging.

I have owned 20+ Cars & SUVs, 4 boats, and 3 motorcycles and until I got a RV; I never put any water in ANY battery From reading these forums, which I have; other RV owners put the fear of God in you that you need to keep water in the batteries !!! But until now, I never heard of how to properly check the water level I suspect I probably never had to add anything? But that is not my nature, if I go through the trouble to get to the batteries and get those caps off, some water was going in I know my water level was nowhere near being lower than 1 inch from opening certainly no metal plate exposed, I would have seen that for sure.

As far as charging, I never have charged my batteries other than what the Alternator, Shore Power or Generator would do.

I think I will NOT water for a while and focus on my next progression of batteries which will be AGM Maintenance Free. Maybe by not checking any more and putting any more water in them; they will burn up and force me to replace them sooner

[al1florida]

Originally Posted by dkoldman

Ok, I thought I was clear that AGM batteries with an upgraded Group was all I needed, but not I am getting confused again.

Are AGM considered sealed wet cell batteries that are maintenance free, or is that another type of battery option between standard FLA and AGM?
I am not aware of "maintenance free" batteries that are true deep cycle batteries. The ones I know about are "marine batteries" or engine starting batteries that you find in cars/trucks. AGM batteries are sealed batteries.

How do you define discharge cycle? 12 hrs, 1 day, 2 days week etc?
For a RV'ers use I don't know of a standard for
a discharge cycle. For the battery mfg they take it down to certain level, usually 25%, 50%, 80% discharged and then charge it up. After X number of cycles they determine the capacity left in the battery. The farther discharged the battery the fewer number of cycles occur before the battery losses a percentage of its capacity.

For me it has been 9 hrs (10:00PM - 7:00AM), In future, I will change to 10 hrs to stop at 8:00 AM

For me 50% is defined as 12.2 volts
12.2V for a battery in a no load status and the battery has been left in the no load for 15-30 minutes to stabilize from whatever load it was under, is about 60% full. A 5 or 10 amp load will give a lower voltage making you think it is farther discharged that it really is.
A 20amp load distorts the reading even more.

When we are where what we called boondocking (not necessarily in the middle of some large National Forest by ourselves we turn on the AGS Onan EC-30

So every night at about 8:00 PM the generator starts and runs right up to 10:00 PM and turns off. Batteries are usually 13.1v or so well above 100%
At this point you are seeing the "surface charge" voltage. If you leave the battery with a 1 or 2 amp load for 15-30 minutes you will then see about what the true charge level is.
If your battery was down to 12.2 or so when you started charging and you only ran your generator for 2 hours you probably only got your battery up to 80%-90% charged. A lot depends on you charger and several other variables. Bottom line is that it takes 4-12 hours of charging to go from 50%-60% full to 100% full.

After 10:00 PM we run the below
- Outside Fridge
- Inside lights LED
- at least one TV
- Chargers are connected (phone etc.)
- Wifi extender is connected
- vent fan(s) may or may not be running

So the next morning the battery is usually between 12.0v and 12.2v. The Generator wakes us up and runs about 2 hours until fully charged and the cycle will repeat at 8:00PM the next night
As written above you are not getting your batteries fully charged in just 2 hours.

So to keep this simple my goal is to find a battery that ....

#1 Maintenance free (No water no checking)
#2 Has more capacity AH (i.e. Ideally I would like to go 24 hours before battery drops below 12.0v or at least make it 12-18 hours; so I can increase my quiet time from 9:00 PM 10:00AM

I added several comments highlighted in blue to specific statements in the quote above.

I need to add, that while I have pointed out that you are not getting your batteries back to fully charged with 2 hours of generator time, that MAY be OK.
-- If you are dry camping/boondocking for only a few days (less than a week) and then go back on shore power for 12-36 hours to get your batteries back to 100% then you are not destroying your batteries.
-- If you are boondocking 10- 20 times a year for 4-7 days at a time with your charging schedule then your battery plates are sulfating (building up a sulfate coating on the plates) and your capacity will be noticeably lost after a year or two or so. Maybe even sooner.

If you are boondocking quite a bit each year then the only way to really know how far discharged and equally important it how close to 100% charged your are getting your batteries is to have a battery monitor that measures and tracks the amp hours (AH) in and out of the battery pack.

With the monitor you will know just how far discharged your batteries are and how well charged the batteries are getting with your charging times.

What some people do, that boondock a lot and use lead acid batteries, is to run the generator for a couple of hours in the morning and then have enough solar to get the batterie up to about 97%-100% on a sunny day.

I know you have no plans to install solar. That is fine, I am giving an example of what some boondockers do.

For folks who do lots of boondocking/dry camping having lithium batteries eliminates the need to get to 100% charged, plus several other pluses.

Here are two excellent monitors:
Best Battery Monitors for RV's, boats,off-grid cabins, vanlife

https://www.victronenergy.com/batter.../bmv-712-smart

The Victron has bluetooth communication to your smart phone to check the status. The Trimetric has a display you mount inside your RV.

Here are two links with very good basic info about RV 12V electric systems that is well worth reading:
The 12volt Side of Life (Part 1)
The 12volt Side of Life Part 2

[moabdds]

We recently did our first real trip since I installed my solar system last spring. I installed 4x250 watt solar panels, a 3000 watt pure sine wave Victron inverter, and 3x100 ah Battle Born lithium batteries. We went to Yellowstone NP and Grand Teton NP for just over two weeks, returning home the end of September. While it was warmer there than usual, we still needed to leave the furnace on all night with the thermostat set to 62 degrees. We never ran out of battery power in two + weeks and never once needed to run the generator or plug in (which was a good thing, because there were no campsites available in Yellowstone or Grand Teton then, with or without power!)

My three batteries are in the outside compartment right behind the entry door, along with the two solar controllers (I have my panels set up in two banks of 500w each) and the inverter all in the same compartment. When I ran the wiring for my solar monitors and battery monitor, I found that there was open space over the grey tank that allowed me to feed the wires directly into the cabinet below the sink and mount the monitors on the side of the cabinet by the entry door. Since this was not sealed space, this tells me that my battery compartment can get at least some heat from the living space. I'm looking at adding a remote thermometer to that compartment to monitor the cold temps in the winter and heat in the summer to make sure I don't have problems either way. The 3000 watt inverter supposedly generates some heat, as do the solar controllers, so we'll see.

Having a system that size allows my wife to run my her hairdryer or the microwave with no strain on the system. We'll get to try it out again in Quartzsite in January. So far, very happy with the investment.

[al1florida]

Originally Posted by moabdds

We recently did our first real trip since I installed my solar system last spring. I installed 4x250 watt solar panels, a 3000 watt pure sine wave Victron inverter, and 3x100 ah Battle Born lithium batteries. We went to Yellowstone NP and Grand Teton NP for just over two weeks, returning home the end of September. While it was warmer there than usual, we still needed to leave the furnace on all night with the thermostat set to 62 degrees. We never ran out of battery power in two + weeks and never once needed to run the generator or plug in (which was a good thing, because there were no campsites available in Yellowstone or Grand Teton then, with or without power!)

My three batteries are in the outside compartment right behind the entry door, along with the two solar controllers (I have my panels set up in two banks of 500w each) and the inverter all in the same compartment. When I ran the wiring for my solar monitors and battery monitor, I found that there was open space over the grey tank that allowed me to feed the wires directly into the cabinet below the sink and mount the monitors on the side of the cabinet by the entry door. Since this was not sealed space, this tells me that my battery compartment can get at least some heat from the living space. I'm looking at adding a remote thermometer to that compartment to monitor the cold temps in the winter and heat in the summer to make sure I don't have problems either way. The 3000 watt inverter supposedly generates some heat, as do the solar controllers, so we'll see.

Having a system that size allows my wife to run my her hairdryer or the microwave with no strain on the system. We'll get to try it out again in Quartzsite in January. So far, very happy with the investment.

Nice setup. Three times as many solar panel watts as battery amp hours will keep those batteries very well charged. Probably keep them charged in lightly cloudy days or shady campsites where you only get a couple of hours of sun as well.

[moabdds]

Battle Born told me they recommended 200-250 watts of panels per 100 ah battery, so I am over-paneled by 250 watts. I don't have to worry so much about tilting them to get max efficiency, etc., and they still charge pretty quickly. I divided them into two separate banks for two reasons. First, two 40 amp solar controllers are considerably cheaper than one 80 amp controller, and second, if one of the panels get shaded for some reason, it only degrades the output of that bank of two panels rather than all four panels.

Since I bought the panels used from a business in Phoenix, I only paid $95 per panel, instead of $400 each for new ones. The panels were 4 or 5 years old and were tested and certified before the sale, and since the average effective life expectancy of a panel is 25 years, I expect the used panels will outlive both my RV and myself. I really am not planning to be driving a then 25-year old motorhome around when I'm 90!

[hoosierrun]

Originally Posted by AJMike

Well, of course this would happen after I bought my batteries. Story of my life ...

On the other hand I don't suppose I have to worry about this too much given where I live.

I don't think you will have to worry about it. In fact, I have my rig equipped with Battle Born Lithiums and glad I didn't get this option. It is just more parasitic draw.

[Elkman]

The 'RV' panels like those from Zamp are a rip-off. No special requirements for a RV panel from those for panel mounted on a roof of a building and so special construction to optimize output when there is some shading. Panels should cost $1 per Watt and many do and many do not.



The main advantage of the AGM over FLAT type batteries is that they can be laid on their side which makes them popular for marine applications. When batteries fail prematurely it is from overcharging or by having them deeply discharged and frozen.

[AJMike]

Originally Posted by Elkman

The 'RV' panels like those from Zamp are a rip-off. No special requirements for a RV panel from those for panel mounted on a roof of a building and so special construction to optimize output when there is some shading. Panels should cost $1 per Watt and many do and many do not.

Presumably all 100 watt solar panels produce 100 watts, but more efficient panels mean they can be smaller and thus able to fit into less space and for me that makes any higher price potentially worth while.

I have 3 SunPower flexible panels on the roof of our Fuse and they appear to be very efficient - so much so that I have seen their output exceed the rating, and so I can live with their costing a bit more than the standard panels.

As for the Zamp flexible panels, they are the same SunPower panels that you can buy on Amazon for about $190 but have the leads re-wired for the Zamp connectors. Zamp sells them for more than $600 and that just seems outrageous to me. Still, you can buy them from Amazon and use a gender-bender to connect them and you are good to go.