Lithionics LiFEPO4

[gregmchugh]

All I can say is that for many years AM Solar has been the go to place for RV owners looking for well designed solar upgrades, many get the system installed by them or by one of the installers they recommend across the company and some people do their own installation with parts purchased there.

I would expect a minority did their own install and might be the same minority that would assemble their own lithium battery system.

How many computer buyers build up their system from parts, which is no more complex than putting together a lithium battery system?

I will still contend that the majority of RV owners will purchase a lithium battery system rather than build one themselves even knowing that it is costing more to do it that way...

[wincrasher]

Came across these guys (Relion) from a video the Wynns posted. I think they installed 3, 300 AH size 8D's on their new boat. Never heard of this company, but they seem to be a bit cheaper. Very little info and no claims that they have a BMS, yet their is over and under voltage protection of some kind.

Shop 12V Lithium-ion Batteries For Your Product | RELiON Online Store

[wincrasher]

Well, the battery and solar projects are preceding on my new bus. Last week I ordered a Lithionics 600 AH battery. I have 1200 watts in panels delivered along with a FM80 Outback controller.

I got a really sweet deal on the battery by dealing directly with Lithionics, as well as engineering support if needed.

In my dealings, I've learned a couple things should you want one of their units. Each one is assembled by hand with top grade US components - not Chinese cells. The electronics are DOD grade. They assemble each battery at their plant in Florida, and they run tests on it so they can program the BMS and give you a set of performance curves specific to your battery along with a user manual. The BMS is set so that it shuts off the battery at 10% SOC. You have the option to alter that to anything you wish. So that is your failsafe from wrecking the battery if you don't have your auto genstart set correctly or you aren't getting solar. There is a physical "start" switch on the casing to restart the battery or to isolate it if you needed to. On the sample curves they showed me, it's typical that this unit gets 611 AH. FWIW, they told me that they helped develop the charge profiles on the Magnum inverters (which I have), so that it's about a perfect match to this battery as you are going to get.

I should have it in early January. Very excited to get it installed.

[wincrasher]

I got my battery today. Very impressed with it - it's a quality piece of kit. Attached is the curve from the performance tests they ran.

They set the BMS for 10% shutoff. That is measured internally on SOC. It equates to 12.2 volts seen externally. They recommend setting the charger to come on at 12.4.

[cruising7388]

Originally Posted by wincrasher

The electronics are DOD grade.

I assume that DOD is the specification equivalent of Milspec. If so, it's more significant that one might think. A few years ago, I had a Xantrex Prosine 2.0 charger/inverter that not start up when when the unit temperature dropped well below freezing. If the ambient temperature increased, the unit would come alive. If the unit was up and running it was indifferent to ambient temperature, probably because of internal heat generated during operation.

My initial thought was that it was some component lead or solder joint contracting causing some open circuit rather than an out of range component value. But when I queried a senior engineer at Xantrex, he acknowledged this condition was indeed temperature related since the chips and devices used on the circuit boards for the unit were not Milspec rated (which he indicated would continue to operate at wider temperature extremes). Engineering called for Milspec but the marketing pencil pushers said nyet because of the increase in production cost.