[DON]

Ok Jon, when you set up your conversion thread, include the inverter make, model, and parameter changes.

I’m curious as to how many of the current inverters can either output the higher voltage required for charging or even accept the higher voltage supplied by the Li-Fe-P batteries.

[ed]

Dthomas – With your autostart at 22v you’ll be buying batteries again prematurely, especially the Chinese ones. Suggest you set your autostart to at least 24v.

[Mike]

The charge profile for lithium is very easy with programmable chargers. Essentially you want 14.2 bulk, same for absorption but only an hour and float it around 13.5 or not at all.

Some issues to concern yourself is that the alternator is the best charging source for lifepo4 batteries as it is possible to drop huge Amps in to them in a short period of time. The issue is that the alt will cook the lithium in short order if you charge them hours on end when full. So it’s best to use a high voltage disconnect that will disconnect once they ramp up over 14.2. However you can’t just disconnect an alternator as that will fry your diodes. The solution to that is to have a agm battery inline to that circuit to take the spike. The engine or alternator start battery works perfectly here with a mosfet or diode bank separator.

But outside of that I would advise that you look at using victron inverters / gear. They all work with lithium batteries and their own battery BMS units talk to the inverters to do high and low voltage cut offs. They are top notch and stand. Behind their batteries and gear.

[Dick]

I have Outback inverters and a battery equalizer by Vanner. (my house is a 12/24 volt house) I have been assured that as long as I make certain my charge current and voltages are what Relion wants I am good to go.

I have a Liberty watchdog that can handle the autostart, but I have never used it and do not plan to ever use it, but I will set the sensing to autostart the generator at 11.8 volts as specified by Relion.

These are advertised and claimed to be drop in replacements so I intend to treat them as such.

As to my alternator its output is 27.7 which is a maintenance charge and in the case of Li is actually OK without the problems associated with AGM batteries if consistently charged at that level. The alternator is 270 amps, and since I will use 4 Li batteries I am well below the 100 amp max charge specified.

I have pressed the Relion rep very hard on this subject and am confident I will be well within the parameters for both charging and current draw.

[Dick]

Chad. Yeah. Can’t believe it’s been that long. Send a mail to mj-brooks@hotmail.com and we’ll chat.

[Joe]

Just cautioning none of these are true drop in replacements. If they were then you wouldn’t have to change anything. There are also temperature issues as you cannot charge below freezing ( some have heaters on them to counter this. I believe relion might. ) but there are also low voltage and high voltage cutoffs to handle. Just various things that lithium has that other batteries don’t.

[Archived]

Jon: how do you go about setting the generator start threshold voltage on the Liberty Coach installed WatchDog? Do we have the same WatchDog?

[Archived]

The Liberty Watchdog has a voltage sense wire and my plan is to add a resistor to the circuit so at an actual 11.8 volts that is the ideal auto-start voltage for the batteries the voltage from the sense wire to the Watchdog is 10.9 volts.

One of our members made that change many moons ago and he set it so the resistor had the auto-start voltage at about 12.2.

[Fred F.]

Anthem, you make it sound like there is a lot to do, but in reality the adjustments (if I actually need to make them) are really no different than if I switched from gel to AGM. I will verify my settings and just adjust if needed.

I do not have to do anything to the auto-start voltage because I will never use it. But the next owner might, so I will reset it.

Every battery out there regardless of type is going to have positives and negatives (no pun intended), no more or less than any other. A huge benefit of Li is Tom would not have blown the tops off his new batteries when they were hit with high voltage because the Li would have shut down, a safety feature not available on other types.

And as soon as practical I will install a means of measuring amp hours used (battery fuel gauge) because a volt meter is no longer sufficient for determining the SOC.

[AL]

Float charge with Relion is not an issue according to the factory. My particular new Magnum inverter has a full setting that shuts off float when batteries are at the set voltage then turns it back on float as needed.

[Gerald]

Here’s the link to the thread about installing a resistor in the watchdog setup: LINK

[al]

As someone who has built lithium battery packs and used drop ins as well on boats, motorcycles and rv. It’s not that simple. They want you to believe it is – which is why they are selling them and advertising them that way. If there wasn’t an entire track load of history’s of people destroying lithium battery banks – then you would see why. One of the largest discussions which has gone for 10 years is in the cruisers forum. It’s 673 pages long or even longer. If you have the time you should read it.

but the reality is that lithium is NOT just another battery chemistry. The cells that make it up are different voltages and even different from the majority of other lithium cells. But you just want to throw out everything you know about lead acid as lithium is different. It’s life is reduced if you keep it at full charge. Whereas an agm needs to be at full charge to retain its life. It has windows and charge and discharge cut offs. It is different. You might not have issues getting it to work like your previous agm set. But you could also have lots of problems depending upon how you operate them.

dont get me wrong. I love lithium technology I use it in a lot of places. I’m just saying it’s not worth losing 10k battery bank over one incident.

[Archived]

Well, let me put in my two cents and say that I agree with Jon and Anthem. I’m not planning on making this long so I’ll be brief. I installed (5) Relion 300RB (all in parallel) batteries in my 1999 Country Coach two years ago and have had zero problems. They dropped right in place of my Lifeline’s and the (2) Magnum 2800 inverter/charger were changed to accommodate a different charging profile. After working with both Relion’s technician and engineer directly we settled on a float voltage of 14vdc. Don’t use 14.2 as that is for a single battery. I installed two heaters in my battery bay, one to heat if it’s close to freezing in that bay and one set to just use as a fan (but also a heat backup) if it gets too hot. I monitored the batteries’ temperature using a Sensor Push Bluetooth enabled temperature sensor but the bay is about 30 degrees above ambient because the bay also houses the two inverters and 12vdc disconnect so it’s hard for them to get below freezing.

I could not get the batteries to stay in a constant current mode as long as I felt that they should be before going to a 14vdc float voltage so charging took a bit longer than expected. There was a lot of finger pointing between Magnum and Relion and it was good enough for my purposes so I dropped it.

[Per]

Award winning battery alternative!

[Mike]

Andy,

Relion’s charging instructions state float at 13.3 – 13.8. Is the lack of constant current the reason for a 14 float? What voltage do you charge bulk/absorption?

Glad you chimed in here, now we’re hearing from someone with actual Relion Lifepo4 experience.