Anyone upgrading their 12v Flooded Batteries to Lithium 100Ah 12v?

[aboyz]

Can someone give me their experience upgrading from a regular 12v flooded batteries to a lithium 100Ah 12v?

How much batteries does it store up to? is it double?
How fast does it charge? 2x faster?
what model did you go with and why?
Is it worth it to upgrade to lithium?

I saw two main players for lithium batteries:

https://www.amazon.com/LiFePO4-Volt-...5184690&sr=8-4

and

https://www.amazon.com/Renogy-Batter...5184971&sr=8-6

Ofcourse there is a big priciing difference.. Since Renogy is good for their solar panel. I would think they make great lithium batteries?

Please share your thoughts..

thank you again.

[chriscowles]

Originally Posted by aboyz

Can someone give me their experience upgrading from a regular 12v flooded batteries to a lithium 100Ah 12v?
...

Please share your thoughts. ...

https://www.forestriverforums.com/fo...play.php?f=218

[ependydad]

I switched to lithium batteries a few years back and documented it here:
https://learntorv.com/battery-upgrade/

[aboyz]

Originally Posted by ependydad

I switched to lithium batteries a few years back and documented it here:
https://learntorv.com/battery-upgrade/

thank you will check it out.

[Fork in the road]

It is my understanding that there is a very good chance that you would have to upgrade your converter as well, since most stock converters are not capable of charging a lithium battery to it’s maximum capacity.

[johnshoe]

Battleborn 100Ah 12 X2 in my 2016 Forester, new Progressive industries Converter (direct replacement), Victron Smart battery monitor. It works very well, batteries outdo the lead acid batteries by at least 4X, they are much lighter weight, charge times are very fast, good for 10,000 charges, 10 year waranty. What's not to like.

[snoopy1]

For starters, they are NOT plug & play by no means. Seems this has been the main topic lately as a lot of dealers are offering that they are 'plug & play". I have been following RVTravel.com for a while now. One of the contributors is Mike Sokol & he is by far an expert in anything thats electrical +. Here's a link that should answer ALL your questions!
Snoopy
https://www.rvtravel.com/rv-electric...ebcast-review/

[TimVWulp]

For a better price than Amazon go to battles born battery site. 10% sale right now. Price for 100 amp hour battery is 899.00.

[Luke Moseley]

Is it worth it to change to lithium? After kicking this around myself I decided to stick with flooded batteries. Here's why. I did not want to have to upgrade my converter. The lithium batteries are quite expensive and most importantly, I do not dry camp but stick to campgrounds, state parks, etc. If i were into dry camping, I'd definitely consider a lithium/solar upgrade.

Originally Posted by aboyz

Can someone give me their experience upgrading from a regular 12v flooded batteries to a lithium 100Ah 12v?

How much batteries does it store up to? is it double?
How fast does it charge? 2x faster?
what model did you go with and why?
Is it worth it to upgrade to lithium?

I saw two main players for lithium batteries:

https://www.amazon.com/LiFePO4-Volt-...5184690&sr=8-4

and

https://www.amazon.com/Renogy-Batter...5184971&sr=8-6

Ofcourse there is a big priciing difference.. Since Renogy is good for their solar panel. I would think they make great lithium batteries?

Please share your thoughts..

thank you again.

[chriscowles]

Originally Posted by Fork in the road

It is my understanding that there is a very good chance that you would have to upgrade your converter as well, since most stock converters are not capable of charging a lithium battery to it’s maximum capacity.

If you have solar panels, it's not necessary to upgrade the converter. The solar charge controller will top off the batteries. The inability of the converter to do so is why you should upgrade it, without solar power.

[Rimo]

I wanted to change to lithium for 2 reasons, more Ahrs total and more useable Ahrs. I, too, had some concern about the limits of my current inverter and using the Auto Gen Start which is a great feature, that was the only limit. I went from 80Ahr total and 40 useable to 200Ahr to nearly 160 useable. 4 batteries to 2 Battleborn. They were drop in ready, just added Victron Monitor, with it I could monitor the batteries and manually start the generator as needed. I have a Magnum inverter but it doesn’t AGS with Lithium due to lithium discharge profile but my next step is to replace the controller from the ME-RC to a ME ARC 50, then the AGS will work. It’s a cheaper fix than changing the inverter.

[sctheis]

Originally Posted by aboyz

I saw two main players for lithium batteries:

https://www.amazon.com/LiFePO4-Volt-...5184690&sr=8-4

and

https://www.amazon.com/Renogy-Batter...5184971&sr=8-6

Of course there is a big pricing difference.. Since Renogy is good for their solar panel. I would think they make great lithium batteries?

While Renogy makes lithium batteries, the link that you have is for their AGM battery, that is why the huge price difference. Their AGM battery is in the $200 range vs their lithium battery is around $900, only slightly cheaper than the Battle Born.



Sam

[PhilFromMaine]

Most, if not all lithium batteries, are made in China and basically just relabeled with the European and North American company labels. The real differences are in their battery Management Systems.

The 10,000 complete recycles (from near zero to fully charged) warranty is for 100 percent charge. After the 10,000 recycles, you still get 80 percent of the original capacity. You cant beat lithium batteries.

Make note here, there are many different types of lithium batteries. We are talking about LIFEPO4 batteries.

WFCO (SP?) now produces a battery converter that charges all types of batteries including LIFEPO4. I don't know the answer, but it would seem odd to me if their "stock" converter isn't LIFEPO4 compatible. I replaced my WFCO to their LIFEPO4 compatible for 230 dollars.

[phillyg]

Lot of lithium conversions on sailboat forums.

[Comanchecreek]

My research showed that the Battleborns were probably the best. Go to YouTube and look at Will Prowse's videos on the different batteries. He tears them apart and gives you a good run down on what's good, and what's not. I regularly google Battleborn's and can get a good idea of the current going price. I bought mine through Northern Arizona Solar, but haven't seen a price that good since. Educate yourself on them before you spend the big bucks. They are not all the same.
Regarding the changeover of the converter, I contacted Progressive Dynamics about needing to change my converter, and they said there was no need as my converter has a button that increases the voltage for 2 hours, and that should be adequate for charging LifePo4's. It will depend on what you have, but I would contact the converter manufacturer before you change it, and see what they have to say about it.

[TitanMike]

Originally Posted by PhilFromMaine

Most, if not all lithium batteries, are made in China and basically just relabeled with the European and North American company labels. The real differences are in their battery Management Systems.

Actually, in some cases only the cells are manufactured overseas and the battery assembled and tested here in the US.

This is the case with Battleborn. This puts quality control in THEIR house rather than far, far away.

[pgandw]

Originally Posted by aboyz

Can someone give me their experience upgrading from a regular 12v flooded batteries to a lithium 100Ah 12v?

How much batteries does it store up to? is it double?
How fast does it charge? 2x faster?
what model did you go with and why?
Is it worth it to upgrade to lithium?

I looked into the upgrade, and decided that cost of the upgrade is not justified by our usage model.

The geek in me wants to spend the money on the new toys, but reality is I can't justify it. We have 2 Costco/Interstate GC-2s (210AH) on the tongue, along with a PD 4135 converter. I would love the lighter weight of 2 100AH LiFePO batteries, and effectively doubling my capacity. And I know a good BMS would keep the batteries going for the life of my trailer.

But we do at most 20 nights a year dry camping. After I retire, and we (assumption) go to half time camping, maybe 100 nights of dry camping - that's still at most 50 cycles/year on the batteries (my current batteries will do 4+ nights before reaching 50% SOC with no solar or generator). Even assuming only 400 cycles before I lose noticeable capacity on the flooded batteries, that's still 8 years at a cost of $200 ($95 ea at Costco last time).

Just our numbers, your usage case will be very different. My underlying assumptions are that we are not going to dry camp in the same spot for more than 4 consecutive nights, and that we will not dry camp when/where temps are more than mid 80s during the day. Hope this helps your planning.

Fred W
2019 Flagstaff T21TBHW A-frame
2008 Hyundai Entourage minivan
camping Colorado and adjacent states one weekend at a time

[Comanchecreek]

Originally Posted by TitanMike

Actually, in some cases only the cells are manufactured overseas and the battery assembled and tested here in the US.

This is the case with Battleborn. This puts quality control in THEIR house rather than far, far away.

The case on my Battleborns says Nevada, but I understand that the cells themselves are probably made in China. From what I could determine, the issue comes in with how matched the cells are to each other, and that Battleborn carefully matches their cells for optimum output and input. Many of the cheaper units do not have matched cells which shortens the life and limits the functionality of the battery. Also the cheaper units use low quality BMS's with no low temperature sensors, which can cause the batteries to be ruined in the cold.

[Mikec557]

Originally Posted by aboyz

Can someone give me their experience upgrading from a regular 12v flooded batteries to a lithium 100Ah 12v?

How much batteries does it store up to? is it double?
How fast does it charge? 2x faster?
what model did you go with and why?
Is it worth it to upgrade to lithium?

I saw two main players for lithium batteries:

https://www.amazon.com/LiFePO4-Volt-...5184690&sr=8-4

and

https://www.amazon.com/Renogy-Batter...5184971&sr=8-6

Ofcourse there is a big priciing difference.. Since Renogy is good for their solar panel. I would think they make great lithium batteries?

Please share your thoughts..

thank you again.

We upgraded to lithium, but our circumstances were probably different than yours. We were full time, had 3 slides, one cpap machine that ran all night and a queen size electric mattress heated pad. Mostly we camped at full hookups. But we did a figure-8 road trip of the US, followed by a big oval covering other states. When you do that kind of travel mileage you're bound to boondock (defined as overnight without hookups) many times. I hated the fear that the two 80ish Ah marine batteries it came with might not be up to the task. Yes, I could have installed two 100 Ah FLA true deep cycles. That would have given us 100 usable Ah. But by using two 100 Ah Battleborn lithium batteries, we get about 200 usable Ah(s) (up from 40Ah of the 80Ah). Before we wouldn't use the TV and blu-ray player when "boondocking." Now, power is no concern. I knew (past tense because we sold that RV and moved all of it to the present rv) I could run the mattress pad all night, along with everything else.

Clearly that's not your average family camping scenario. But really, regardless of how you camp, it's the peace of mind that counts.

It's true some WFCO converter/charges will not charge lithium to 100%. They'll charge about 80-85% full. But as someone already pointed out, some of the new WFCOs do charge lithium to full. If your boondocking is more limited, maybe that's okay. I bought a Progressive (dynamics?) charger converter for lithium so I didn't have to worry. I also had 300 watts of solar. Now on this rig it's 320 watts of solar.

I think only you can decide if it's worth it to you. You're camping style and your budget will dictate the answer.

But if you're handy, you can keep all that equipment when you sell this RV and put it on your next one. Maybe with the exception of the solar panels. Too much work to take those off. But I took my Victron MPPT solar charge controller and put a cheap one on the camper when I sold it.

[NullPtr]

Originally Posted by aboyz

Can someone give me their experience upgrading from a regular 12v flooded batteries to a lithium 100Ah 12v?

How much batteries does it store up to? is it double?
How fast does it charge? 2x faster?
what model did you go with and why?
Is it worth it to upgrade to lithium?

I saw two main players for lithium batteries:

https://www.amazon.com/LiFePO4-Volt-...5184690&sr=8-4

and

https://www.amazon.com/Renogy-Batter...5184971&sr=8-6

Ofcourse there is a big priciing difference.. Since Renogy is good for their solar panel. I would think they make great lithium batteries?

Please share your thoughts..

thank you again.

I was considering this last season but instead purchased two of these and wired them in series:

https://www.vmaxtanks.com/XTR6-235-6...ry-_p_152.html

I chose them because I wanted to avoid a converter upgrade. I also liked that they can tolerate deeper discharge than typical lead acid batteries and that no heater is required to charge in cold temperatures.

https://www.vmaxtanks.com/assets/ima...0Discharge.pdf

We do a lot of 2-4 day trips to New England state parks which often have no hookups and tend to have a lot of shade without much opportunity for solar. So far, the performance of these batteries has been fine. I am having second thoughts however since these batteries are HEAVY. Having 150lbs over the hitch puts me way over my vehicles hitch rating. For short trips I don't worry about it, but on longer drives, I remove the batteries while traveling. I'm now trying to decide if I want to sell them and make the jump to lithium.

I'd say that, if your use case would benefit from them and you can afford them, you will be happier with lithium.