600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Topic: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation (Read 5986 times) previous topic - next topic

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #25 – September 24, 2019, 10:22:39 am

David,

Sterling Waterproof Battery-to-Battery Charger Remote

The remote display shows charging stages, input volts and amps and temperature (at the charger) and output volts, amps and temperature (at the batteries), battery voltage as well as alerts and alarms. You can turn on or off the audible alarm.

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #26 – December 29, 2019, 12:11:41 pm

Roger,

When I got back from a week of boon docking (just generator) in CO this summer, I had concluded that some charging upgrades would be nice before any more of that. Started researching this forum and found your very thorough post about installing surplus solar panels and associated equipment. Great post. Thinking your step by step account will align well with my U295, same length and year as your coach. Anyway, about to start with this same B2B charger you have, but want to keep expansion in mind. I can't seem to find the post I mention and really want to review it again before I get going with this. Could you put up a link to that? Was under the coach yesterday and noticed the conduit into the compartments from the rear looks a little snug. I can't remember what all you fought to run through there, but If I should, I want to at least consider fishing other wires through for future use along with the B2B wiring (solar, more battery capacity, etc.).

Steve Busenbarrick
2001 U295 3610 - 2015 Jeep Wrangler 2dr
Benton, LA
Benton, LA

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #27 – December 29, 2019, 01:04:32 pm

Steve,

Not Roger but this may be the one you are looking for.
600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Mike

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #28 – December 29, 2019, 01:36:06 pm

Thanks. Looking for something older. From right after the big first push of his major power upgrades. I think he'll know what I'm talking about when he comes on.

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #29 – December 29, 2019, 10:47:17 pm

Steve, Maybe this one.
A Second House Battery Bank, Solar Panels, 2 New Inverters

I ran extra 4/0 cables from the the front end at the back end of the bay where the batteries, fuel tank, LP tank and in my coach the AH are through the center bay roof cable way, into the space over the tanks in the wet bay and out under a frame member, through the cable guides around the differential and transmission to the area at the end of bed in the engine bay.

Going the other way would be tough. I removed the center bay roof cable cover and tidied things up to make the cables easy to thread through there. The hard part was over the tanks and through the fairly small opening in the rear bulkhead which leads right into a frame member. I used a fiberglass rod used for fishing wires to move a cord with a big nut on the end through the space and opening and when I released the nut it pulled the cord down. The small cord pulled a 1/4" rope through and then with that the cables. My neighbor fed the cables with lots of wire lube. I got very dirty under the coach pulling the wires from that end. Ran the neg cable first through the cable guides over the differential and transmission. Then the positive cable with the corrugated cable cover where needed for abrasion resistance. Use high quality strong cable ties, lots of them.

The rest of it is mostly mechanical, installation and common sense, use switches and fuses where you should. Don't skimp on any safety item.

This step used a Sterling zero voltage drop smart ProSplitter instead of a diode isolator. Charging the house batteries, the 8D battery set and the L16 battery set wen through this. When I switched to Lithiums I needed a smart safe way to charge them. I now have no isolator. The B2B charger uses power from the alternator to charge the Lithiums using a multi step Lithium friendly charge profile.
With adequate solar charging you could probably get by with a 60 amp B2B. With your OEM LN alternator you still need an excite and sense with but with out a diode isolator you can back the voltage down to 13.8 volts or so.

Let me know if you have questions. Another Forum member is midway through this process in just one step. Alan Ferber at Bay Marine Supply can help with all of the parts. Justin Cook there is another good resource. Be sure you mention you are on the Forum. There are discounts available.

Roger

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #30 – December 30, 2019, 01:11:53 pm

Roger,

Thanks. That's what I was looking for. As I've observed in your other traffic on here, a very thorough and helpful response. So much more than I asked for.

After studying these posts, I still may have questions or need advice and will PM those, if you're willing to entertain them. Just starting this and thinking the 120A B2B is what needs to come first in my case, but hope to slog ahead to adding 900ish watts of solar, etc. as coach bucks become available.

Thanks again!

Steve

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #31 – December 30, 2019, 06:17:37 pm

Steve, glad to help.

Roger

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #32 – January 03, 2020, 11:35:29 am

Can't say enough good things about Bay Marine!

I bought a Sterling 60amp charger a couple of months ago. Installed it in kind of a hurry and left the battery temp sensor in the box to hookup later. Being the brain dead idiot I am, I ended up throwing the box away with the sensor. Luckily I was in Pio Pico Thousand Trails just outside of San Diego and Bay Marine was close by. Called, talked to Justin and confessed my dumbness asking if I could buy just the sensor. Justin checked and found that they don't carry just the sensor since it's included with the charger but he said "I do have one on our test bench I'll send you if you want it". Told him I was in the area and would stop by and pick it up.

These guys don't really have a store front. They do all their sales over the web & phone. Drove up went in and the shop is just 2 desks manned by Alan & Justin with the warehouse behind a wall. Justin looked at me and said you must be Ken and handed me the sensor "no charge!". I talked to Justin & Alan for about 10 or 15 minutes about the forum and traded gossip about Roger & Don. Ha! (all good stuff!)

Two of the nicest guys you would ever want to meet. They are very generous with their time and their extensive knowledge. (and the 10% off their already reasonable prices is pretty awesome too!) I've seen Justin pitch in on some comments on the forum so they do read it.

Alan/Justin thanks for doing what you do!

I have no affiliation with Bay Marine other than being a very satisfied customer!

Bay Marine Supply

see ya
ken

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #33 – January 03, 2020, 11:52:26 am

Quote from: kenhat – January 03, 2020, 11:35:29 am

Alan/Justin thanks for doing what you do!

Thanks @kenhat !

We love what we do, so it's easy to do it well

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #34 – April 20, 2020, 07:39:13 pm

Just curious if there was a specific reason you went with the GC2's instead of the Group 31 BB's? Size? They are more expensive and not as easy to get to the lugs when positioned end to end. I'm getting ready to do a similar setup (without Sterling or solar right now) and was just wondering before I pull the trigger. Thanks!

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #35 – May 01, 2020, 09:52:13 pm

Quote from: DavidS – September 13, 2019, 10:07:46 am

Roger, can you post up a pic or add to the description of the Sterling display.. Any reason for the one you chose? I did not see it anywhere in the pics but you had mentioned you had one.. Just wondering..Thanks

I have a Sterling in our all-electric 2019 Promaster Camper Van with 200ah Battle Born, I never saw the need in the coach? They just upgraded the Sterling models a few months ago. mines rated at 60 Amps, but I pull about 48Amps while driving, 220A Alternator. Now Victron makes one, saw it at the Victron booth @ TinyFest in San Diego in February.

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #36 – May 01, 2020, 11:33:48 pm

GC2 size was selected because it fit in the space where my OEM batteries were. The standard BB Batteries have a different footprint and at most 4 would fit. A snug fit. The U320 has a bigger fuel tankd and less room than a U270 for example. Measure carefully. I got a Forum discount at Bay Marine on these batteries and all the other components. and when you buy six they ship on a pallet with only one hazmat charge instead on the same charge per battery. The end price was not much more to get the fit I wanted.

I removed all of the original racking and made a new much lighter weight rack to hold the GC2 batteries.

The 2001 with a slide has a truss under the slide. I cut out the fiberglass to make more holes for access. Added a volt meter and a switch for the battery heaters. High/off/low switch in the cab.

The Sterling B2B remote display is shown. I will take a picture on mine as installed. It shows start and house battery voltage and temps and more plus any error codes. I used an ignition powered source to turn it on with an additional delay timer. I started with the 120 amp version but it seems there is a software issue in that version somI swapped it out for the 60 amp one. My Lithiums get the maximum cycle life with a charge rate at 20% max. For 600 amp hrs that is 120 amps. You can (and I may do it) use two 60 amp B2B chargers in parallel.

Victron makes a similar device. It needs to have the negative cables installed as well as the positive cables. And I think these are only 30 amp max.

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #37 – May 03, 2020, 04:25:52 pm

Here is the Sterling B2B remote in my display panel. 2 Victron BMVs, 2 Digital Volt Meters, Victron Color CCGX panel

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #38 – September 06, 2020, 01:50:30 pm

Followup

We just finished 7 days dry camping at Gros Ventre in the Grand Teton National Park. Every night but two was in the 30s. The other two were upper 20s. One day (in between the cold nights) got to 45°, heavy clouds all day and rain most of the day. The other days got into the 70s and were generally sunny with some shade in the afternoon We have a residential refrig, 600 amp hrs of LiFePO4 Battle Born batteries. The AH was on for heat. We averaged about 3.6kw production each day except fot the rainy day. We started the week at 100% SOC and ended at 76%. Our avg daily consumption was about 2.8Kw. We were about 270 watts per day short in production vs use over the week. The lowest we got was 49% SOC. An all day rain was tough to overcome

No generator use at all.

We have been here before in sites with little or no shade and produced more than 5Kw. Without the afternoon shade or the rainy day we likely would have been back to 100% SOC. I have room for two more solar panels, time to start shopping.

It is nice to see this work for us. It would have been tough on AGM or GEL batteries, they are harder to finish charging and need to get back to 100% SOC every cycle. LiFePO4 batteries do not. We were using about 1/3 of our capacity everyday. Battle Born considers this 1/3 of a charge cycle and with as many as 5,000 cycles these batteries should provide many years of service. They are worth considering when it is time to change your AGM or GEL batteries. You need less total amp hours of capacity (because you can use all of the battery capacity and are likely to get twice or more the life compared to AGM or GEL batteries.

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #39 – December 29, 2020, 01:41:16 am

Hi Roger

Nice install. I'm thinking 600 AH BB Batteries with similar Victron Charger/Inverter and battery monitor when we move to the new the 34' U270 coach. I currently have 300AH of BB Batteries and 800 W of solar on the roof in my class C. That gives me plenty of charge and power in this smaller RV and we rarely run the generator.

How is your experience with 1200 W of solar for your 600 AH batteries? Would you have put more on the roof if you were to do it again or is the 1200 more than enough for you daily needs? We are mostly off-grid and don't anticipate installing a residential fridge. If I can get away with 1200 W I'm inclined to do that rather than load up the roof any more than I have to.

Thanks

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #40 – December 29, 2020, 11:19:00 am

I think you'd be fine with 1200w & 600ah. As long as you have decent sun exposure you should be able to fully recharge every day, and possibly go for several days depending on how conservative you are with your usage. I'm doing fine with 1065w and 400ah of BB's, and I do have a residential fridge. I like keeping my roof a little more accessible than it would be with more panels.

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #41 – December 29, 2020, 11:34:59 am

Our 1200 watts of solar will recharge the watts we use from our 600 amp hrs of LiFePO4 batteries on most days. Sun angles, clouds, partial shade from trees and lots of other factors come into play in that equation.

After a week in the Tetons on solar and battery alone with some shade every day and one all day rain we ended up about 2000 watts short of what we used. If it had been only a partial day of rain we would have broken even.

So I am considering adding 2 more panels, maybe 600-700 watts. That does a couple things, makes some shade and a rain day in a week easy to recover from and probably will add a few weeks on either end of the season where we are likely to get enough solar to be self powered without a generator. How much you can get on the roof depends on panel size and arrangement and how much room you want to leave for access. The newer 60 cell panels are shorter and can be higher power than my 300 watt panels.

We are in an RV park in Alabama now, plugged in. We are using land line power for the residential refrigerator, run one or two diesel cycles a day on the AH, otherwise off, inverter/charger is off, my small smart charger is off. Very little other land line use. We are cycling between 100% SOC and 90% SOC day to day. We're back to 100% before 10AM today.

As long as your daily watts used are well within your battery capacity with enough reserve to get through a rain day you have enough. For many with an LP refrig 400 amp hrs seems to be enough.

Make sure your max charge rate is not more than 20% of capacity for maximum battery cycle count. This can be as high as 5000 for Battle Born batteries. 100% to 50% and back to 100% is a half cycle. For the same use, a bigger battery set will use smaller cycles, more life and more reserve.

So far this experience has been better that I expected in every regard.

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #42 – December 29, 2020, 11:44:44 am

We are at 1140 watts and 400ah. RV fridge. We have a 50" 4K tv and use the microwave and latte maker in the morning but never start the generator. All lighting is LED. We do shut off the inverter at night or when gone from the coach for any length of time. Even in winter, we are at float before noon. Overcast takes only a little longer. AGM batteries are going on 12 years old and still working fine.

I just removed the old Taytronics inverter and replaced it with a sine wave 1500 watt and an old Trace 1500 watt for a back up. Just turning the Taytronics on really dropped the voltage plus you could hear the hum throughout the coach. The new Chinese inverter can remain on with very little idle current. The Trace is also very good and with the setting at pulse, almost no idle current.

Our coach is 36 feet and the panels were purchased we got home from buying it in 2008. The newer panels are much more efficient and we could have 1700 watts up top with the smaller footprint of the new panels.

Usually, about 65% continuous of inverter RMS rating is the figure for maximum life.

If you frequently camp where shade reduces the output of the panels then the more the batter.

The old style inverters (heavy-transformer) will triple the start up wattage while the newer pure sine wave (weigh nothing) will double the start up wattage for a limited amount of time. I have a couple of switches so I can switch between inverters when I want to start a small compressor.

Pierce

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #43 – December 29, 2020, 01:24:42 pm

For Joe Allen's question about the steel supports.

Could they be cut to allow easy access to the space behind. And then construct strong attachments to re-position the steel support so it could do its job.

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #44 – December 29, 2020, 01:37:59 pm

Thanks, Pierce, Roger and Bdale. I usually use between 20 and 25% of my 300ah daily and generally fully charged up by 11:00, so It seems like 1000 to 1200 with 600AH BB should be fine. I don't expect to be using computer, TV, micro or Instapot anymore than I do now, so the real variable will be how much more the lights (will be going to 100% led) and Foretravel internal coach systems draw over the current class C. I'm guessing the the auto-leveling, and other internals, along with the luxury if using the propane furnace a bit more often than we do is going to be the greatest draws. We've been are full time and very spoiled by the solar/BBs.

The biggest issue is forgetting to give the generator a run once a month or so.

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #45 – December 29, 2020, 04:51:32 pm

I just ordered two Lithionics GTX315s for ours. We had 600aH of AGM & 740w on our fifth wheel and it was just barely enough. Any shade during the winter pretty much meant the generator was coming out. I figure between the added draw of the FT and the residential fridge, 630ah of lithium should still be plenty but I'll have room to add a 3rd battery if I really want to get crazy. Hoping for 8x180w panels on the roof but we'll see... I don't want racks to elevate them above the AC/Vents and un-shaded space on the roof is at a premium with the wineguard traveler in play.

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #46 – December 29, 2020, 05:12:07 pm

Elliott,
Ours are about 1.5" above the roof, just enough to allow air and the flex electrical conduit underneath. The wattage is a maximum and rarely reached in real work conditions. The cooler the panel is, the greater the output. 36 or 48 volt panels would be great and minimize the resistance loss down to the controller. I made most of our roof mounts. Easy and the finished product is tidy. No wires visible.

Pierce

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #47 – December 29, 2020, 05:18:18 pm

Quote from: Barry & Cindy – December 29, 2020, 01:24:42 pm

For Joe Allen's question about the steel supports.

Could they be cut to allow easy access to the space behind. And then construct strong attachments to re-position the steel support so it could do its job.

In the 9l-01 coaches with a slide there is a steel truss abou 8" high that extends from the from bulkhead to the rear just under the floor and just inside the bays. This is primary structure, don't alter it in any way. I remove much of the fiberglass skin inside and out to allow for access. In this space sized as it is the only way to get six batteries in there is to use the GC2 size. Measure very carefully, it can be an expensive error if you do not.

And for forward wall of the battery space supports the fuel tank. The back wall has all of the big 12v wiring connections on the other side. And the inside wall supports both sides and has the AH on the other side.

Work with the space you have.

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #48 – December 29, 2020, 05:25:24 pm

If you ever want to get your hand under the panel to attach nuts and bolts then 2" or more is helpful. Minimize the effects of shade by wiring all of the panels in parallel. Some argue you can save a few bucks on wire costs with series wiring but that comes at a major performance degradation in partial shade. A few bucks on wire cost is insignificant compared to the whole project.

Re: 600 AH Lithium Battery Installation

Reply #49 – February 26, 2021, 03:43:54 am

Great review. We just installed 500 amps of Battel Born ourselves. I was amazed while driving the 1800 miles, from San Jose to Nachodocious, that we did not need to turn the generator on an ounce! The engine recharged the system while driving. It charges so fast!

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