2017 Journey Lithium Install

[AlexP]

I had a 04 Itasca Meridian that I bought in 11. I found many many posts on the web about all sorts of things to fix / improve with it. It was totaled in a Hail storm last spring. Replaced with 2017 Journey 36M. I guess these are just coming off warranty or there are far fewer of them, because I find far fewer posts describing this unit. Anyway I am trying to put some breadcrumbs for others to find.

In 2012 I had outfitted the 04 with 740Watts of solar and 440Ah of Lifeline, and that unit had a propane fridge. This 2017 has residential fridge and loads of loads.

So this unit sat on dealer lot for a year then first owner didn't use it very much barely 15,000 miles in less than 4 years. The 6 105AH Napa batteries were nearing the end, and I was at my son's house and had access to tools, so seemed a good time to upgrade to lithium.

I was looking for where to place them. The location for the current AGMs was both too hot and too cold for lithiums to perform well. I thought about the compartment just behind the inverter, but my weights are very unbalanced. The passenger side is 1400lbs heavier than the driver (full wall slide, fridge, washer dryer). So I settled on an area between the inverter compartment and the wet bay. There is an area there that is about 24 inches wide, 12 inches deep and about 17 inches high. Hard to get to and no so useful for storage. This doesn't balance the passenger side as it keeps the weight in the center, but at least it doesn't make it worse.

Then came the hunt for batteries that would fit in the space. I settled on the Lithionics GTX 315Ah. I could fit two of them there. It also looked like if I got crazy I could build a platform on the drivers side to slide another two in, but that is just a pipe dream this was expensive enough.

Now my Magnum MS2812 did not support LiFePo. But Lithionics does support a CV/CC charge profile, and the inverter had a firmware level that actually supported this function. The remote did not. But a new remote is 10% the price of a new inverter and this is a pretty capable inverter. To natively support a LiFePo profile, I would have needed to replace the inverter which I did not do.

The Original owner did buy the optional Zamp Solar PWM controller with a 100Watt panel. With a residential fridge this is not a winning combo. But it does have a setting for LiFePo, so that was a no brainer.

Now I went back and forth a few times, whether to do a DC-DC charger or replace my existing BIM with one with Lithium circuits. I read up on my Delco Remy 160 amp alternator and figured I would take a chance as I really didn't want to have to reengineer all the other benefits of the BIM. Like the automatic charging of chassis batteries if I stay a long time somewhere, and the ability to tie chassis and coach together in the case of something bad happening. I may regret that in time. Time will tell.

So first at the back of this space behind the inverter (which is not super easy to access), I installed two 600 Amp bus bars. I used a utility knife to cut away the sealant where the inverter cables go through the floor. Then I pulled the 4/0 cables that go from inverter to batteries up through their hole in the bottom, cut them with a hack saw, installed lugs and connected it to the bus bars. Then through the holes that that cable went through I pulled the two 4/0 cables from the main 12V panel which did go to old battery bank up and again cut and lugged and attached to bus bar. I then sealed up the hole again with caulk (Forgetting that the solar controller has a dedicated #8 wire that goes to the negative battery terminal. I later pushed that through the semi cured caulk and sort of make a caulk mess.)

With that in place I put the two 315Ah Lithionics batteries in place, and I had enough extra 4/0 wire to put lugs on and connect them first to terminal 300Amp fuses and then to the bus bars.

Then there was some struggling to install the BIM, which is in a compartment behind the electrical cord compartment. I had wanted to remove the old and just put the new one in its place. My old BIM was a different style than the new one. (Both from Precision Circuits) The setup is such that the BIM is in the center and connected to each terminal are the shut off relays and then they are connected to large fuses. So there are very large wires and lugs connected in 6 places: house 3 and chassis 3. And the distance between the lugs of the two BIMs were different. Well by flipping one of the fuses and modifying the other with a Dremel, I was able to get the new BIM to fit in the space. However it was now going to be held in place by nothing but two relays, and the 4/0 cables looked like it was going to be way too precarious. Felt this was less that a great solution. What I ended up doing was taking the old BIM and removing the BIM circuit so I could still mount the 4/0 cables, but would never activate. Then on the opposite wall I mounted the new BIM and ran 1/0 cable nine inches to the now inactive old BIM.

With everything in place, I reconnected the chassis batteries and turned on the Lithionics. Then Lithionics had given me instructions for programming the Magnum CV/CC parameters, which I did. I set the Zamp Solar controller to LiFePo. And I made sure that the BIM made an audible click when the dash button was pressed.

Finally I took out the 400lbs of AGMs and took them back to NAPA for recycling. New ones are about 83Lbs each. So savings of about 250Lbs, and I seem to kind of already be at my Gross Axle weight on the rear axle, so any help is welcome.

I ran them down over about 24 hours with a fair amount of furnace use, which used about 50%. Then charged them back watching 125AMP go in the whole time from the Magnum, half on generator and half from the 50 Amp outlet.

Hope this is helpful to others.

Alex

[erstanfo]

Thanks for the update. I thought of the same area in my 2012 36M for LiFePo4 upgrade.

[creativepart]

Hey Alex, yes very helpful, I'm sure.

I did one of these installs in a 2017 Adventurer last April. I chose to use the existing battery compartment that was open to the elements and built a plywood box on three sides to surround the batteries. I also bought some of that rubber compartment sealing trim and trimmed out the opening where the battery compartment is open to the compartment door.

I chose to remove the BIM, add a D2D charger and then add a Trik-L-Start to keep the chassis battery topped up. Unlike you, I did lose that battery jumping function from the BIM/dash switch. But I figured I could jump the chassis battery the old fashioned way if necessary.

Even though we're in South Texas we kept running into freezing weather and while my 400aH of Renogy batteries (2-200aH batteries) have low temp charging protection, I decided to add heating to the batteries with flexible tank heaters so, they could be recharged below 40 degrees. So, far this year that's been 7 or 8 times with temps too low to charge without the heaters.

I sold my 4-NAPA Commercial batteries on Craigslist for $200 even though they were 5 1/2 years old and the buyer is still using them in his RV without issue.

I'd love to know your CC/CV settings for your magnum. I know they're for different batteries but many LFP batteries need similar settings. I have mine set currently to not apply any float charge (the Silent setting for float) and I've set voltage for when to start recharging at 13.2v. I upgraded my Magnum Remote to the ARC50 which has lots more settings, but no LFP profiles.

I have just 300w of solar and find this really does a great job of quickly recharging my LFPs. So much so, that when in a full sun location and on shore power that I turn the Magnum MS2012's charger off when sitting on shore power. My 12v loads drop me down to around 75% state of charge by morning (running the furnace, etc) and the solar tops me back up to over 95% before sundown each day. So, I see no reason to let the Magnum keep them at 100% all the time.

I've really enjoyed the extra power - running the generator very little when dry camping and no more generator needed at all for lunchtime microwave cooking when traveling, either.

Thanks for the recap of your system and your willingness to help others.

[AlexP]

CreativePart. I also do not have the revision for LFP. So I am also using CC/CV


So after setting CC/CV
Max Amps is set to 200 ADC (My bank is 630Ah)
Charge Volts is 14.4
CV Charge done 20 ADC
Max CC/CV time = 6.0 hrs
Set Recharge Volts = 13.4


LBCO 12.2


Hope this is helpful
Alex

[creativepart]

Thanks Alex. Some of those settings are pretty unique. Especially the “CV Charge done 20 ADC”. That means after the charger puts in 20 amps it stops charging, right?

I realize that Lithionics batteries are pretty unique as well and that you got these settings from them. I’m just going to have to think about the implications of some of these.

[creativepart]

Might I suggest that you put your RV information in your Signature in your Profile? It really helps when we can see the details of your motorhome in each post.

To do so, click on “User CP” on the top menu, right side. Then “Edit Signature” on the new menu on the left hand side of the page. Add your details as you want them shown and click “Submit.”

Then everyone will see what RV you are talking about in every post.