Lithium batteries for Tvan MK3

[travelpro]

Has anyone changed their Fullriver DC105-12 batteries for Lithium batteries and if so does the wiring or Redarc battery charger need to be upgraded?

[monktm]

What charger do you have ? More details needed

[Boofhead]

http://camperledaustralia.com.au/power-mate-120-lithium-battery-120a-free-shipping-proven-reliability/

These say they use standard battery charger.

[Gumb]

That's about 5 times the price of an AGM, so not for me. They'll eventually be viable but not yet.

[robstevens]

I'm in the process of changing over the batteries.

The Fusion brand of Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries is what Track use themselves (apparently). You can google search to find the best deals on these, try searching for:

Fusion v FLP 12v 100

The best deal I've found so far is: $1132 from: https://www.batterybusiness.com.au/store/product_detail/fusion-v-lfp-12-100-lithium-battery-12v-100ah

The Redarc DCDC charger you will need is either the BCDC1225D (if you only have one battery in the Tvan) or the BCDC1240D (if you have two).

* Note that only the Redarc chargers ending in"D" are specified for Lithium Iron batteries as well as all the other types. These ones use a control wire to set the charger to the correct battery chemistry.

The best deals for Redarc chargers can be found on ebay:

BCDC1225D: $415
BCDC1240D: $525

Hope this helps.



PS: As to the comment that they are 5 times the price of AGM, well I've posted this before, but here goes again:
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The "worth" of Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries is :

1. You can discharge them down to about 20% remaining charge, and they don't die. In comparison, you can't discharge a normal battery below 50% or else it will die. (maybe not immediately, but it's life will be greatly reduced). This means you get a lot more discharge time before running out of juice than with a normal battery. As an example, if your Fridge is consuming 1 Amp per hour and you have a 100 Amp Hour battery, then with Lithium Iron, you'll get 80 hours use, with Lead-acid, you'll get 50 hours use.

2. Recharging a Lithium Iron Battery to fully charged takes a lot less time than AGM - they can basically take whatever current is available, and will recharge using a constant current until max voltage is reached. In comparison, a Lead Acid battery takes less current the closer you get to fully charged, and this slows down the recharge process considerably.

3. You can discharge and recharge Lithium Iron batteries thousands of times before they stop working, in comparison, an AGM will last a few hundred times at best.

4. Weight. Lithium Iron 100 Ah batteries weigh about 12kg. Lead Acid ones come in at over 30kg.

Yes, they cost more.  But when working out the cost-benefit of Lithium, take into account the above differences as well - it makes the choice a bit more even than you might first think...
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[TimH]

We had Lithiums fitted to our new Mk5.
The ones TT used are the 90Ah version (V-LFP12-90).
There may be a space limitation on using the 100Ah ones. Let me know if you want battery measurements.

Fusion say that you can use a standard AGM charger. However it may not be the most efficient charging method.
AGM charging would have stages of charging (bulk, absorption & float) whereas I believe that the Lithium chargers charge at a constant rate until charged (I know it's more complex than that).
So whether you change your charger probably depends on whether you want the quickest charging possible or a prepared to allow more charge time.

I too thought that Lithiums are hugely expensive.
However my view was that it would provide enough extra battery capacity so that I would not have to worry about lack of power if we had a few days of rain that limited charging potential.
Like buying an extra water tank. Nice to have but probably not vital.

Easier decision when starting from scratch. It would be a harder decision justifying swapping out existing AGMs if they are still good.
Tim

[luke]

Yes, they cost more.  But when working out the cost-benefit of Lithium, take into account the above differences as well - it makes the choice a bit more even than you might first think...
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The 'free' capacity (maximum discharge) was one of the main factors for us, and the second was that storage is lot easier. They don't have charge memory or discharge issues, so when we get home from a trip, we just turn it off, and leave it sit until the next time we need it. (No trickle charge, etc)

[Gumb]

That's certainly valid information and a good reason to look at buying lithium but my two batteries have never been below 80% so I still can't justify the cost. On our 7 week trip last year we never had a shortage of power and the Tvan was running an EvaKool fridge the whole time. If we did get to the point where we needed a boost and the extra solar panels weren't working due to cloud cover, I'd just hook up the car for a while but that wasn't required. While travelling, the Redarc 1240 pumps it in very quickly.

[Eelezy]

Also consider lead crystal batteries which tvan also sell. They can be charged with a standard charger and amazingly can be discharged to zero. I will go over to one when our fullriver one fails....have a look online at them...interesting!
Chris

[robstevens]

Yes Lead Crystal look good - just one downside is the weight - the same as an AGM / Lead Acid battery.

[Gumb]

I don't worry about the weight, it's where it should be and that's behind the axle so it's actually having a slightly negative influence on ball weight and that helps the payload in the tug.

[robstevens]

Very true. However every extra kg has some effect of slowing your progress up a long hill!

[Gumb]

Not with a Paj as the tug Rob 

[boobook]

Very true. However every extra kg has some effect of slowing your progress up a long hill!

True but two Lead acid batteries also have the advantage that they reduce that heavy towball weight by about 15kg. That's the one thing stopping me going Lithium.

[wigan48]

Check out this web site for info on lithium battery systems .
Enerdrive.com.au .