Converted RV to Lithium LFP battery

[jfaberna]

My 3402RL was built before LFP was even thought about in RVs. But when it came time for a replacement of the pair of 6v golf cart batteries I'm was using, LFP seems to be the best and, in some cases, cheapest solution.


The old batteries had a capacity of 210Ah but since you can degrade lead-acid batteries quicker if you discharge them more than 50%, I really only had 105Ah.


I recently had my Norcold 1210 RV Fridge converted to a 12VDC dual compressor fridge by JC Refrigeration to fix it's problems but as I knew my DC power needs were going to increase. But for the increase of DC, I have no need for propane while traveling down the road along with a lot of other gas fridge safely items. And the main good news is the fridge now works like a residential fridge with absolute temperature control and a freezer that gets to -7 degrees F.


I tested running the fridge while on battery and it was going to use about 55Ah from sundown to sunrise, so to do any boondocking I was going to increase my DC power capacity.


I couldn't bare the cost of going with the industry standard Battle born so I watched a lot of you tube videos of experts tearing apart the cheaper batteries to see who built them like Battle Born. I found that Litime made a well constructed 230Ah battery and I could get it delivered to my door for $649. Compared to the Battle Born 270Ah at ~$2500.



So I went with Litime and started the upgrade which had to include replacing my Progressive Dynamics lead acid only converter to a new one that was lithium only. Luckily the new converter is a simple module replacement inside my old power panel.


My wiring was a mess inside my battery compartment so I upgraded that at the same time. I also had JC Frigeration upgrade my solar to 500 watts when they did the fridge upgrade. (I'm not climbing on that roof)


When it came to the wiring I needed higher capacity wiring as I hope to add an inverter later. I also needed a few buss bars and some fuse holders and fuses. Luckily Victron make the Lynx Distributor with all that built into one package that is about the same price as all the buss bars, fuses and holder in a neater package.


Below is a picture of the new installation.

[jfaberna]

For those who like details:

My 500 watt solar via the Victron 100/30 charge controller can recharge the battery up to 30 amps DC. Most of the time I see around 25 amps until absorption stage is reached. So my overnight drain can be replaced with solar only in about 2-3 hours depending on the sun's position.

One morning I tested before the sun came up and plugged up to shore power. The new Progressive Dynamic converter charged at about 45 amps DC and that reduced as it got closer to the "full" state. The AC amps on the inverter measured about 12 amps so a Honda 2000 generator could have done it.


The battery has a 200 amp BMS so it can provided what would be needed to run a 2000 watt inverter at full power, hence all the 4/0 (0000) AWG cables.

So I'm guessing I have about 150Ah beyond my fridge for items like CPAPs, lights, furnace fan and TVs via the inverter.

I think we are good to go for overnights at Harvest Hosts sites and somebody's driveway.

[Foldbak]

Nicely done. The price of lithium is dropping. So many different manufactures.