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Need New batteries?
I know this subject has been beat to death, My Lifelines are pushing 10 years old and need to be changed, My inverters I replaced in 2019 to two 2812 Magnums, I have a Victron 712 monitor, 25 percent of the time we dry camp, What is the advantage of Lithium Batteries?? And I heard I would have to replace the Magnum controllers. I have 4 8D Lifelines 255 amp hours apiece, I hear Lithium’s don’t like Hot or Cold? Are they getting cheaper? What the pros and cons?? Batteries on bottom not much clearance on to of batteries.
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11 Replies
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Art, battery and Solar technology is a very fast evolving technology with batteries and hardware getting less expensive with more features. For you to switch to lithium, you just need to change your charge profile. there are companies with drop in replacements to 8D batteries. My system is 100% Victron, When my 4 8D lifelines age out, i will for sure replace them with LifePo batteries. I like the LiTime brand but there are many out there. Make sure you buy LifePo batteries and not Lithium Ion.
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Art,
If you stick with Lifelines, I have a sale going on, see the Ad I just posted. Contact me for pricing.
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Mike what is the difference between LifePo batteries and Lithium Ion.???
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Art, I installed LiFePo4 house batteries about 5 years ago. I replaced 4 8D Lifeline (superb batteries) with the Li for a variety of reasons and despite the outrageous cost I am very happy.
The difference between Li and AGM is significant, with some positive benefits and some minor negative concerns.
I compared how I used the AGM to how the Li performed and found my AGM would get me to a point where I needed to recharge in about 12 hours. With the same current draw the Li batteries would go about 19 hours. It needs to be understood I am not ever going to use autostart so I cannot speak to how to have that feature installed with Li batteries.
Unlike with my AGM we can go all night without even having to think about a potential need to recharge, even with multiple devices drawing current all night. We still have ample battery power available in the morning to make coffee, light lights, run a lot of water, see some tv, etc. There were times with the AGM my voltage dropped low enough to cause me to start the generator or the engine. But Li batteries have some downside.
First, and most important, if you rely on autostart instead of relying on voltage you need to use amp hours as the means of measuring when a recharge is necessary. There are devices to do that available. A Li battery holds a relatively high voltage until its state of charge gets low, at which point voltage drops precipitously. It drops so fast the conventional autostart might not catch it fast enough to prevent battery shut down.
The batteries do not like cold temps and unless you manually control the charge rate, your alternative is to keep them warmer than 30F. I made a heated box for mine and when it is bitter cold out that insulated box has a 250 watt heater to keep it about 50F.
My coach has Outback inverters and I leave them set so they cycle between charging and “silent” mode. The downside to that is if I am on shore power and the inverters are keeping my Li batteries charged, due to the silent mode the batteries could drop to a low state of charge before the Outbacks resume charging so unless that is understood someone can assume batteries are fully charged, when in fact they are not.
All is not bad however. My bus has an alternator that charges both house and chassis batteries and the setting for voltage on that alternator is 27.7. Both sets of batteries are happy at that voltage. Also my Outbacks were set to a 28V charge voltage so again the house Li batteries are OK with that voltage.
A final benefit to is I saved about 350 pound of weight by replacing my house batteries. As to their life, since I rarely let my batteries fall below 50% SOC the charts from Relion show I am good for about 14,000 charge cycles meaning they likely will outlive the bus.
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For me it is safety.
Key Differences Between Lithium Ion and Lithium Iron Batteries | EnergyLink
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Art, unless your battery bay gets over 140F living where you live, temperature won’t be an issue for you.
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What do you guys think of these batteries Lipo4 Iron which is safer,They had a black friday sale $4490 apiece $18000 for 4 280 amp hours, Have not bought go to do research 1st?? they will have another sale
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I’m so bummed, I could always depend on Jon for a 5 year battery maintenance sale, now those damn Lithiums have taken my sale away. Oh never mind, I never made any money off him anyways.
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Don’t believe Tom. I spent so much money with him he could afford to buy 7 Prevost coaches.
And those Li batteries at the price shown are a steal. Is the price for real??????
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That’s the one Art.
2000 Featherlite H3-45
2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee
Leesburg, FL -
Art, now you have 2 battery threads going.
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