somewhereinusa Report post Posted September 27, 2019 I was never really happy with my lead acid house bank. 400 Ah of which I could only use 50%. I recently came across a really good deal on some Valence U27-12XP 12volt 138Ah batteries. They are used but, after getting the information from the internal BMS I find than none have 200 complete cycles of the 2000 or so available. So I now have 80% of 552 Ah. I've only had them operational for a couple of weeks but, I'm VERY pleased. At about the same time my inverter/charger died so I installed a Victron multiplus hybrid inverter and, I'm thrilled with it. It's fully programmable and the hybrid part works great. I often go to a place where I get 15A of questionable AC I had to be very careful of what I turned on or voltage would drop below 108. I was at the site for over a week and, within reason, I could turn on what I wanted. When the shore power is too low the inverter simply adds what is needed. When the power requirement drops it goes back to charging. Not even a flicker in the computers. I also got a good deal on 6 255 watt solar panels but, haven't gotten them installed yet. More to come. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dickandlois Report post Posted September 27, 2019 You might look at this post regarding the Lithium Battery use. If you have not been following it. Rich. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kutzpark Report post Posted October 2, 2019 I'm hopeful that you can help educate me on upgrading my house batteries. I have two 6-volt Lifeline AGMs that I'd like to replace with a Lithium house battery. Apparently they only come as 12-volt batteries, so I assume I only need one. I've been looking at those Battleborn 12-volt Lithium batteries. However, the two current AGM batteries are "housed" under the hood of my Sprinter (Roadtrek RS Adventurous). Has anyone fabricated an adapter cradle to prevent the smaller Lithium battery from flopping around in the engine compartment? Also, those of you with more experience might be able to help me avoid any pitfalls, but I'm hoping to install the Lithium battery first (soon) as a straight drop-in replacement, without doing any immediate upgrades of my charger/controller. Someday, I hope to upgrade those and install aftermarket solar panels. Does anyone have experience that shows this is a bad idea? Those batteries are expensive, so I don't want to do something stupid by charging them via shore power and frying the rest of my Roadtrek. Thanks for your help! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kaypsmith Report post Posted October 2, 2019 Consider using two lithium 12 volt batteries instead of one, this way you will take almost much room and will greatly increase your staying power. Only difference in wiring is the two 12 volts will be in parallel as opposed to in series like the two 6 volts. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
desertdeals69 Report post Posted October 2, 2019 The single 12 volt 100 amp Battle Born battery is the same foot print as the 6 volt AGM so you can install 2 in the same space. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
somewhereinusa Report post Posted October 4, 2019 The Battleborn liths, more or less, use the same charger parameters as AGMs, if your charger/controller works with AGMs it will work with liths. Check with Battleborn. You DO NOT want to charge lithium batteries when they are below freezing. I believe Battleborns have an internal BMS that prevents this. I have installed a heating pad under mine. Check the dimensions, as others have said two in parallel would probably more than double your usable amp hours. Any kind of bracket/cradle would be quite easy as long as the new batteries are equal to or same as your current batteries. There is tons of info available about the Battleborns. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kutzpark Report post Posted October 14, 2019 Thanks for the advice. I was actually thinking of the two 12V Battleborn Li batteries in parallel, but of course, that requires me to buy two batteries at about $1000/battery. But I appreciate the information about the charging parameters. I'm not currently wired for solar, so it's good to know I can just keep doing what I'm doing on traditional shore power hookups, and be able to travel twice as far on the charge. Sounds like the next stop is Oregon (no sales tax!) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
somewhereinusa Report post Posted December 9, 2019 Since the lithium batteries I'm using (Valence) don't have any protection built in (only cell balancing), I've designed a protection system. It will totally disconnect the battery bank from everything if things go awry. It will also turn on a compartment cooling fan or turn on a heat pad if called for. I have it bread boarded and the code written. For you coders out there mine is probably a bit clunky but, it works. Not really necessary but nice for a bit of bling I'm working on a screen to see what temps and voltages are. Also working on a data logger to see what triggered an event. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
