Lithium Iron Potassium batteries. LiFePo

[afootorafloatLJ]

What are the pluses and minuses of the Lithium Iron Potassium batteries?

 

[M Rose]

What are the pluses and minuses of the Lithium Iron Potassium batteries?

Pros and cons LifePro4 batteries

Pros:

• Lighter than AGM or Lead Acid Battery of the same Amp Hour rated battery
• More usable energy without damage to the battery (translates to longer use cycles between charges)
• Flat voltage drop through 95% of the battery discharge rate
• Easy to add solar recharging

Cons:

• Expensive compared to conventional batteries
• Need special charging equipment
• Temperature sensitive
• Can’t be used as a starting battery

For Overlanding a hybrid battery system is your best bet. Replace the starting battery with a good quality dual purpose marine deep cycle battery, and add a Lifepo4 battery as an auxiliary battery inside an insulated box (preferably inside the cab with vents to the outside). You want your cons on a battery all to them selves, as LEDs and fridges cause RFI that your com devices can and will pick up.

I personally have two Marine AGM batteries mounted under my hood. One is the vehicle start battery, the second is for lights and fridge. I then have a 50 Ah Lifepo4 mounted inside the cab for my coms.

 

[GunRunnersActual]

What are the pluses and minuses of the Lithium Iron Potassium batteries?

Pros and cons LifePro4 batteries

Pros:

• Lighter than AGM or Lead Acid Battery of the same Amp Hour rated battery
• More usable energy without damage to the battery (translates to longer use cycles between charges)
• Flat voltage drop through 95% of the battery discharge rate
• Easy to add solar recharging

Cons:

• Expensive compared to conventional batteries
• Need special charging equipment
• Temperature sensitive
• Can’t be used as a starting battery

For Overlanding a hybrid battery system is your best bet. Replace the starting battery with a good quality dual purpose marine deep cycle battery, and add a Lifepo4 battery as an auxiliary battery inside an insulated box (preferably inside the cab with vents to the outside). You want your cons on a battery all to them selves, as LEDs and fridges cause RFI that your com devices can and will pick up.

I personally have two Marine AGM batteries mounted under my hood. One is the vehicle start battery, the second is for lights and fridge. I then have a 50 Ah Lifepo4 mounted inside the cab for my coms.

Just an FYI, Dakota Lithium now has starting batteries

 

[John and Mandi]

We've run both an AGM house system (200AH) and a lithium house system (150AH, currently what is in our rig). The big difference in our opinion is the AGM system is much more of a set and forget it. You should monitor your power but AGMs prefer to recover every day so leaving solar on and installing an Automatic Charge Relay (ACR) really makes it almost idiot proof. Most lithium batteries do not function well under daily small recharges (why your smart phone actually varies the daily charging and every now and then states it will fully recharge by 4AM - all software controlled). Battle Born has stated that their batteries can be utilized as a true drop in replacement for AGMs but we aren't willing to risk the $1,600 investment in the batteries alone. We installed an inline circuit breaker/switch to be able to disconnect our solar (between the panel and the charge controller) and we keep our DC to DC charger off and only switch it on when absolutely needed (haven't used it in a year). So while we have much more useable Amp Hrs, it does require more attention to make sure everything is performing optimally.

For full-time, it did make life a little easier as we could run down to almost 10% then recharge up to %100. Depending on the outside temps, we could go 5-7 days pretty easily and usually could recover with solely solar. We also carry a Victron battery charger so in a pinch we could grab an electric campsite for a night and use the charger to fully recover overnight. If we were building a system for mostly weekends and the occasional longer trip, we'd just go with a good quality AGM setup and save a lot of coin. Our single Deka 4D AGM lasted 6 years, 5.5 of those were fulltime use covering the 4 years we spent driving from Alaska to Argentina. It was installed underneath the van on a skid place (lithium should be inside or enclosed in a weather and somewhat climate controlled box). We lived at the coast, at over 14,000ft, and everything in between...sometimes driving from what would be called winter to summer in a single day. We are confident that our current lithium system would perform fine if we had them on that same trip but the current system cost more than double of our original, the difference amounts to a month of total costs on the road.

In this moment, if I were building a non fulltime rig I would put in an AGM (or a couple depending on what my energy needs were), Solar (matched to the AHs - 150-200W with an MPPT charge controller), a Battery Link from Blue Sea Systems (an ACR combined with a world battery charger), and a Victron Smart Shunt. The Battery Link is only for an entirely 12v system, something we highly recommend for overland rigs. You can run an inverter but it isn't intended to work with a system with a converter, which makes sense since it is also a battery charger. If I wanted the ability to utilize shore power I would split the incoming power source, one to the charger (Battery Link) and one isolated to a dedicated outlet (or power strip - we would just run an extension cord into our poptop). Simple, robust, and the entire system is much more affordable.

 

[afootorafloatLJ]

What are the pluses and minuses of the Lithium Iron Potassium batteries?

Pros and cons LifePro4 batteries

Pros:

• Lighter than AGM or Lead Acid Battery of the same Amp Hour rated battery
• More usable energy without damage to the battery (translates to longer use cycles between charges)
• Flat voltage drop through 95% of the battery discharge rate
• Easy to add solar recharging

Cons:

• Expensive compared to conventional batteries
• Need special charging equipment
• Temperature sensitive
• Can’t be used as a starting battery

For Overlanding a hybrid battery system is your best bet. Replace the starting battery with a good quality dual purpose marine deep cycle battery, and add a Lifepo4 battery as an auxiliary battery inside an insulated box (preferably inside the cab with vents to the outside). You want your cons on a battery all to them selves, as LEDs and fridges cause RFI that your com devices can and will pick up.

I personally have two Marine AGM batteries mounted under my hood. One is the vehicle start battery, the second is for lights and fridge. I then have a 50 Ah Lifepo4 mounted inside the cab for my coms.

Nice summary and thanks

 

[M Rose]

Just an FYI, Dakota Lithium now has starting batteries

Thanks for the heads up

 

[smritte]

Just an FYI, Dakota Lithium now has starting batteries

Lithium starting batteries have actually been around a long time. I cant remember when I first saw them but I'm thinking late 90's. They were very expensive but had the same output as your Lead Acid in half the space. The couple of people I saw with them fit two in the normal battery tray. Years later I didn't see them any more. Now that I understand Lithium's better, my guess would be lower life span due to 13 volt charging, extreme heat and cold or just cost.

 

[GunRunnersActual]

Dakota warranties their batteries for 10-12 years. You can do insulation on them to protect from the elements. Definitely need to get a proper charge controller like a RedArc BCDC