Fitting Lithium

I would be interested in your opinion, I have been considering just dropping in a 100ah LiFePO4 Battery, there seems to be a lot of conflicting info out there ,

My camper is fitted with an EBL 119 power block which will give 20 amps @13,8v or there about while driving and 18A from mains charger while on hook up neither of which will fully charge the lithium very quickly but on the other hand will not do any harm with the BMS cuting in to avoid any over charging issues, I also have 100w of solar with an MPTT controller with Lithium setting to top off the charging .

Have any of you guys just dropped in a LiFePO4 without making any other mods, ie not fitting a BtoB or changing the mains charger ? If so how has worked out re charging or other problems in the real would so to speak .

Dont worry about over charging it....The BMS takes care of over/ under charging. The only problems you'll encounter with your current set up is not enough solar to charge it fully.....100 watts is definitely not enough unless you live in Arizona!.....Best of luck with it and let us know how you get on

Got around to dropping in the battery today the first thing of note is the difference in weight which is topical ATM , all seems ok showing 13.5v even when I applied a load , I will need to invest in some way to monitor the state of charge as the battery display on the vans panel is of little use with this type of battery. But with the solar I don't see it going to low that often so long as it gets a bit of sun every few days .

, Picked this one based on this review , went for one without the ancillary as recommended.

It would be good if you could report your thoughts as you monitor it over the next few months. I’ve been thinking about installing two of them but so far the cost has prevented me. I would be interested to see how you get on.

Yes...Exactly that.

I am not by any means an expert but just a enthusiastic hobbyist but when something pricks my interest I like to do a deep dive into the subject and educate myself as much as possible, when you drill down into the world of LifePO4 batteries V lead acid it is a fascinating subject, my conclusions are with the exception of cost LifePO4 batteries are better in every way and an absolute game changer for leisure use. This will not be news to most of you I'm sure.

My options to increase my Amp-hours to 100 useable AH was to replace the 80ah lead acid with 2 new ones @ a Weight approx 60kg and approx 300/400€ for the pair or take a punt (with due research) on one like I have shared above (many others are available) for a similar cost to the lead acid with hopefully the same output weighting in @ 13kg. Time will tell but even if I get 3000 cycles (6000 are claimed) @90AH it will have been a sound investment and an interesting experiment .

Where in the South is the best place to get Lithium batteries and who know how to fit them.

ecoflow delta if you wana spend that sort of money , looks the total off grid answer,

Not in the South but Leisuretechnicalsolutions in Lisburn come highly recommended. Last time I was up that way Simon walked me thought a retro fit they were doing on a van, the cost was a bit more than I was would be prepared to pay but it was a very tasty set up .

My OP was more about a diy solution in an effort to over come the hi cost of a Lithium install.We are not looking at a total off grid setup just your average weekend and 3to5 week summer trips.

The first question we should ask do we really need to switch, keeping in mind that most well looked after lead acid batteries will last 3 to 5 years. I'm sure that many will have batteries that have lasted even longer, my point being if your bank is in good order why would you change , like most new things I suspect the cost of lithium will fall as it becomes more popular going forward.

As has been pointed out already the first port of call regardless of your battery chemistry should be a good solar array and a mppt solar controller, an investment in a good smart mppt over a pwm is well worth it and will help to future proof your set up .

To BtoB or not BtoB, most vans will not be set up to drop in a LifePO4 battery our van is 2 years old and only has AGM and GEL settings, This will still charge the battery on the GEL setting but not fully and because the Lithium will quickly charge to over 13v the charger will think it is fully charged and throttle back on the output to float giving very little charge the mains charger will react the same. In our case the solar has full charged it over the last few days but with only 100w it will be interesting to see how to manages in low light. I will most likely add a BtoB charger going forward but we are going to see how things go before we invest , I have seen some reports of going BtoB without a charger there are also reports of some bad outcomes from doing this,

Anybody know if you can add to a lithium battery at a later date if needed or does the 2 batteries need to be new at same time similar to lead acid ?......be woful handy if a 2nd could be added at a later date

Thats another big plus for Lithium batteries John is that you can add another ( Same type ) at any stage without any problems to performance whatsoever. I'm on the SOK Battery Forum and that question gets asked every few days....No issues at all.

@panda
Thanks for that info,
Good to know,

I just went down this road thanks to John (panda) . A bit early but so far so good thanks again John

@eirebus, you should give a call to.
https://www.apuljackelectronics.co.uk.
They offer on their website, repairs and upgrade, on Schaudt Elektroblock EBL 220
Lithium Upgrade FBC-SCH-022-LI
Lithium upgrade for the internal charger
£75.00.

You could always take a little holiday.

http://www.aandncaravanservices.co.uk/lithium-batteries.php

Who do you believe although, it is dated 2019

It would be interesting to get RoadPro’s take on it as they are the experts in England.

I read that article before....Look at it like this....How many EVs made today are running with AGM or GEL Batteries as opposed to Lithium???...I dont know any..