Lithium LifePo4 12v Batteries - Time For An Upgrade?

[Dellmassive]

You are aware that US2000 it’s a 15s and the US5000 it’s a 16S, probably you know already, they are not to be in the same system.

we run Pylontech US2000C + US5000 - both 48v units and approved to work with each other. - we have 8 in a stack (26.4kwh)

( but i think the older 2000 EXTRA units are different )


Pylontech show the compatibility list as including US5000, US2000c, US2000 - but ask for the latest FW version and US5000 to be the master - which ours is, and the Us2000c units down stream.

PDF

we also run "Battery View" SW to keep an eye on things. . ( here 100% soc @ 51.1v)




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and have already had a US2000c open for a BMS replacement. - which was fun.

3 cell packs in these. (51v 100% soc - so 17v each pack - (10cells 3.6v each, so - 5s2p i think)





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[Raul a/3]

I have managed to stay away from them for myself, and built with seplos kits. Runs same CAN protocol as pylontech for victron coms.

So only the older US2000 had the 15S then. Still pricey in my opinion. In our house we use two 16s 280ah EVE in plywood boxes made myself with two JK bms 200a. No coms, all control is on the GX for synchronised charging and low disconnect set on the inverters. We been running with this set up since march 2023, and charging the car as well to.

 

[Dellmassive]

I have managed to stay away from them for myself, and built with seplos kits. Runs same CAN protocol as pylontech for victron coms.

So only the older US2000 had the 15S then. Still pricey in my opinion. In our house we use two 16s 280ah EVE in plywood boxes made myself with two JK bms 200a. No coms, all control is on the GX for synchronised charging and low disconnect set on the inverters. We been running with this set up since march 2023, and charging the car as well to.

nice, - you should add your setup over here:

Solar Sheds & Other Non-t6 Solar Projects - How We Done It -

Solar Sheds & Other Non-T6 Solar Projects - How We Done It - @Pete C requested it, so here it is . . . . . Dell, What do the batteries in your shed power ? I too have a solar powered shed - perhaps we should have a separate thread for sheds :) Pete Lets Post here any NON - T6 related ECO...

www.t6forum.com

weve started to add in the Domestic PV install stuff.

 

[Raul a/3]

Nice one, I missed this section somehow. I will post some photos later on.

 

[Soundz]

I’ve recently installed two Eco-worthy 100 ah batteries with a Eco worthy battery monitor to my van and they seem to be working ok but I have not used the van with this set up yet for camping, my first time will be the spring T6 meet this year.
I have been charging my Jackery 1000 power station from the Eco worthy batterys and using this in my garage, I also have fitted an isolator from my Victron charger, my Sterling B to B and my Victron solar set up so that no charge can go to batterys when below freezing.

John.

John, however good the tech is, having manual disconnects seemed wise to me................... I went away from the automated on my victron orion B2B and there's a DP isolator on the PV

the victron B2B can pick up. my old t5's alterantor voltage it is so clever .............................and start charge IE it senses the engine is running...................... but wot if it's cold and me BMS with cold charge protection is maybe going AWOL? Same with solar a dual pole isolator allows me time to breath and ask experts

My roamer BMS has charging on at -5C the lads at Roamer have been fantastic customer care wise. I MUST add I can't emphasize how good Roamer are

I guess beyond seeing what Roamer talk me through when they get my battery back, my pragmatic thoughts are , ??????????????

should we just rely on a BMS for low temp charging disconnect protection with lith Iron Phosphate cells.?????

should those amongst us, that use victron gear IE smart mppt's older orion B2B's with no low temp charge protect also be using a smart battery sense with temp sensor as back up???????????????????? ( also just be simple and have manual cut off's in place)

I'm simple, I built in switches for me to manually cut charging, many reasons I guess probably insecurity and possibly distrust of technology .

WTF do I do if it breaks..................that kind of mindset.

since replying to John above I read the rest of this thread and my Q's became reinforced if ya like

I am utterly a layman........................................................ the one thing I take in all this is Li FE PO4 doesn't like cold charging.tis fine discharging probably beyond what we will see in blighty bar the far north or what's coming as we keep breeding like wabbits and screw our planet up completely

So if we are going to use this batt chem which costs the environment ,but gives us such longevity, such astounding off grid power

how do we really protect those cells

is a BMS with low temp disconnect enough??


I might have probs with my Roamer 230 gen 2 SB,

can I just double up and add the lads at Roamer have been amazing.jees I get replies at 8PM at night.we don't live in a perfect world we all know that, but when something doesn't go quite right and folks are there when they shouldn't be grafting.in this world that is a rare rare thing

thanks Steve and Elliot

bye

stu

 

[NicolasH]

Finally got our leisure battery system updated today after buying the parts during Black Friday. I thought I'd share our setup. We have a Fogstar Drift 105ah LifePO4 battery connected to a Ablemail 30a Dc to DC charger and a Victron Blue Smart 12/30 EHU charger. We also have a PV logic 150w solar connected to a PV Logic MPPT Pro controller. Now looking forward to a few days away in early spring.

 

[tomek12]

Did I mention i bought a ECO-Worthy Lifepo4?

this was OCT/NOV 2023. . . . but looks like i missed doing the post?

100Ah 12.8v


View attachment 226139

I want get the same one is good battery?

 

[Dellmassive]

I want get the same one is good battery?

its a basic cheap battery with missing features . . .

it has NO LOW TEMP Protection,

it has NO APP for BMS SOC or monitoring.


so no i wouldn't recommend this battery as you need to spend extra money getting a separate shunt for SOC etc and dealing with low temp charging protection.

i would go for a battery that has these features built in.




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see details here:

Lithium LifePo4 12v Batteries - Time For An Upgrade?

Did I mention i bought a ECO-Worthy Lifepo4? this was OCT/NOV 2023. . . . but looks like i missed doing the post? 100Ah 12.8v Right, so getting back to this. . . ECO-WORTHY 100Ah Lifepo4 while abroad sunning it up in Spain for a while this popped up. . . £279.99 seemed like a good...

www.t6forum.com

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[davecdjt]

I don’t know if this is the best thread to ask the question. I have a ‘traditional’ AGM leisure electrics install with a 130 w solar panel on the roof. It gives me 12v power off EHU and 240v on EHU. If I replaced the AGM installed under the drivers seat with a LiFePO4 would I need to add/change anything else to get 240v power to run coffee machine, kettle, induction hob etc when off grid? I bought a EcoFlow River 2 Pro to give me this facility but am wondering if I can get more out of the leisure install without robbing a bank? I think the 2 images below show what was spec’s and installed. Thank you in advance for your help.




Found the photos of the install

 

[Bigsidavies]

You would need an inverter to give you 240v from your 12v battery. But this then introduces the decision of how much power you need so you can choose the correct inverter and then size the cables accordingly.

 

[Grim Reaper]

You would need to change the charging profile on the CTEK D250SE from AGM to Lithium, I can't see the battery charger clearly, but it too would need to have a lithium charging profile to allow the battery to be charged correctly when on EHU

 

[BikerPa]

I don’t know if this is the best thread to ask the question. I have a ‘traditional’ AGM leisure electrics install with a 130 w solar panel on the roof. It gives me 12v power off EHU and 240v on EHU. If I replaced the AGM installed under the drivers seat with a LiFePO4 would I need to add/change anything else to get 240v power to run coffee machine, kettle, induction hob etc when off grid? I bought a EcoFlow River 2 Pro to give me this facility but am wondering if I can get more out of the leisure install without robbing a bank? I think the 2 images below show what was spec’s and installed. Thank you in advance for your help.

View attachment 243481

View attachment 243482

There's no inverter on that spec so you won't be able to power mains items from any LB.
Also conider that even single induction hobs are rated at ~800W for the 'portable' single Vango low wattage one & so you need to build in 'headroom above that' to run one

 

[roadtripper]

I don’t know if this is the best thread to ask the question. I have a ‘traditional’ AGM leisure electrics install with a 130 w solar panel on the roof. It gives me 12v power off EHU and 240v on EHU. If I replaced the AGM installed under the drivers seat with a LiFePO4 would I need to add/change anything else to get 240v power to run coffee machine, kettle, induction hob etc when off grid? I bought a EcoFlow River 2 Pro to give me this facility but am wondering if I can get more out of the leisure install without robbing a bank? I think the 2 images below show what was spec’s and installed. Thank you in advance for your help.

View attachment 243481

View attachment 243482

It's possible but you'll be robbing the bank as you'll need a serious investment in likely a double battery (or massive seat base battery) and either a lot of driving with a high capacity DC-DC or substantial solar to keep them charged. So the only thing you have that would be really re-used would be your 240v EHU.

See my post with some numbers here:

Should I ditch the Sargent? Please help

I’m wanting to upgrade my power set up in my camper. I’m wanting to be able to run for at least a week off grid. Off grid I would run my fridge, and tv for a couple hours at night. The water pump occasionally and the diesel heater very occasionally. I’m in the process of buying a 2000w inverter...

www.t6forum.com

 

[Salty Spuds]

General consensus is that unless you're prepared to invest mucho money & space, then using 12V to provide meaningful power is a non-starter. To do anything worthwhile & not just a gimmicky gadget, you'll need some serious Lithium battery capacity, Inverter, cabling, Solar, B2B & all the other gubbins to go with it.
Plenty of discussion on the forum regarding same.

 

[Stay Frosty]

Renogy 2kw inverter for £209 at the moment, 200 odd amp Fogstar lfp for about £700, not sure whether the 250se will charge lfp but with some heftier cables and fuses a grand would get you into the game... might be a bit of a nightmare trying to get the battery and bits under the drivers seat in particular.

 

[roadtripper]

Renogy 2kw inverter for £209 at the moment, 200 odd amp Fogstar lfp for about £700, not sure whether the 250se will charge lfp but with some heftier cables and fuses a grand would get you into the game... might be a bit of a nightmare trying to get the battery and bits under the drivers seat in particular.View attachment 243485

They will need to get a new 240v charger as that CTEK will not charge a LiFePo - the 250SE will but at only 20A and if you intend to consume power at the rate 240v heating appliances will that's just not going to cut it so that will need replacing as well as (likely) the cabling to cope with higher draw.

At the end of the day @davecdjt you have what looks like a solid and tidily installed lead acid based system. If you wanted to broadly double your run time then replacing your lead acid battery with a good quality 100Ah sized LiFePo is very doable. So long as you have the 250SE you just need to change one wire to tell it to use lithium profile and you'd need to change the 240v CTEK to something like the equivalent Victron that is Lithium capable.

If you want to run >1kw 240v loads there is a lot more that needs to be done. Maybe stick to the Eco Flow and get some additional solar panels to help top it up?

 

[davecdjt]

It seems like it might be a bit of a monster project. . I don’t know whether the cost vs benefit analysis might point towards ‘don’t bother?’
I don’t have an induction hob of any sort so maybe I’ll stick with gas cartridges and buy another gas hob (perhaps Cadac safari chef compact 30) to supplement my current single burner hob. I’ll keep using the EcoFlow and it’s 160W portable solar panel in addition to my installed gear to keep us going.
We haven’t done any extended road trips in the van yet so I don’t know whether what I have will be enough. I just wondered if I could get a lot more without spending a lot more? I know that equation doesn’t generally work on a T6.

 

[davecdjt]

They will need to get a new 240v charger as that CTEK will not charge a LiFePo - the 250SE will but at only 20A and if you intend to consume power at the rate 240v heating appliances will that's just not going to cut it so that will need replacing as well as (likely) the cabling to cope with higher draw.

At the end of the day @davecdjt you have what looks like a solid and tidily installed lead acid based system. If you wanted to broadly double your run time then replacing your lead acid battery with a good quality 100Ah sized LiFePo is very doable. So long as you have the 250SE you just need to change one wire to tell it to use lithium profile and you'd need to change the 240v CTEK to something like the equivalent Victron that is Lithium capable.

If you want to run >1kw 240v loads there is a lot more that needs to be done. Maybe stick to the Eco Flow and get some additional solar panels to help top it up?

Thanks. I’m already there on the additional solar panel. I do have the CTEK250SE already. I’ve just realised that the photo of the drivers seat base is not my van. I thought that was the photo I’d been sent of my install but I don’t have a diesel heater.

 

[roadtripper]

It's not so much the cost (as @Stay Frosty points out that's getting more affordable all the time) it's the logistics of getting everything in. It means you have to design your electrics and space around the need to have high power off grid 240v - it's doable but you'd want to be very sure that's something you will need to do. If it's only 1 or 2 nights a year and you're on EHU other times it's probably much better served by your Eco Flow (or using a mocha pot)

You are going to be drawing about 100A DC for each 1Kw of AC load - that's well into the region of non trivial. And you will need 100Ah of LiFePo for that load - lithium is good but it has limits. So kettles and coffee machines are going to need 2 x 100Ah batteries or a 200Ah one - and then you will need a reasonably bulk 2Kw inverter - and as you will be drawing 100-200A you will want all those very close as you will need to cable them with significantly sized cables.

When you consider replacing that charge you will need to look at 50A DC-DC chargers, again those will need significant cables and ideally shorter runs.

So you end up with quite a lot of physical kit with significant current flowing that means you need to keep them together.

 

[Stay Frosty]

My thinking with the leisure electrics when I realised why my Redline conversion had killed two successive lead acid leisure batteries (no B2B just split charge relay and less than stellar Sargent ec160 charger when on hookup) was to get a setup fit for purpose and that could actually be repaired or modified by myself.
The single box power station logic is an option but a Clayton that would deliver the equivalent power of my ghetto setup leaves me with enough change to get a set of Innovit Speed 20" wheels and tyres, sadly reality intervenes as usual and the Innovits are still a distant dream.