Conversion to LiFePo batteries

[mrcleanr6]

Yes victron has a couple things. The gauge which uses the shut. This is the ones i mentioned before. The 702 and 712. Both you can also read via app and bluetooth. The other is just the snart shunt. No gauge with that. Shunt only that you can pair with your phone.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Respectfully, you may be over thinking it. Throw some trackers in, save some dough and you should be fine for many years to come. People I have spoken to, whom fish day in and day out, for a living, swear by them.

You are probably right! And that fits in with my KISS mantra..However, I’m a planner, and I have some big plans and trips planned where in I won’t have access to utility power for days on end, and remember my troller deploys at the push of a button, so I need to know when the batteries are going to give up the ghost… I do not doubt the folks who say they have had no trouble with the Trackers.. also read some reviews wherein folks had trouble with them, took them back to Bass Pro / Cabela‘s and walked out with a replacement.

 

[HangOutdoors]

Grab 6, put 2 each in parallel and then each 2 bank in series for 36v.

 

[HangOutdoors]

Or, can't you figure out a way to put a solar charger on them?

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Or, can't you figure out a way to put a solar charger on them?

I’ve looked at that as well… the trick becomes wiring the solar panels in series then a 36 Volt controller. I appreciate the suggestion!

On the topic of an extended outing away from utilities.. being able to manage the battery resource accurately begins with having an accurate picture of remaining battery power, and or power in terms of watts used. Even a day of fishing / boating knowing what is left in the tank so to speak would be useful on my 14 hour outings which could easily turn into 16-18 hour outings at my local lakes. With 16 hours of daylight each day in the summer that would be easy to do.

I do not think I mentioned this earlier… I asked the Relion tech guy if putting one of their 60Ah batteries in as my house battery and leaving my lead acid starting battery would be okay and he said yes. It would be great if they had a starter or dual purpose battery in the group 24 size but I did not see that yet. Relion also makes a 50Ah group 24 size in their LT or low temperature series of batteries.

 

[mrcleanr6]

@HangOutdoors for your guys application i think i would have to agree that this is an unnecessary deep dive in to the lithium world. However, knowledge is power, see what I did there lol. Seriously though it can never hurt to be an educated consumer and this turned into a fun and hopefully informative thread for others down the line. I will say for other lithium applications, believe it or not, we have barely scratched the surface.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

@HangOutdoors for your guys application i think i would have to agree that this is an unnecessary deep dive in to the lithium world. However, knowledge is power, see what I did there lol. Seriously though it can never hurt to be an educated consumer and this turned into a fun and hopefully informative thread for others down the line. I will say for other lithium applications, believe it or not, we have barely scratched the surface.

I agree that at least on the surface it’s overkill, but, overkill is under rated lol! I love learning new things, have ever since I was little. So now I will be able to make a good decision on which route to go. I’m really looking forward to having the Victron 712 set up so I can see what the battery bank is doing, as opposed to having the little battery symbol on the hand held remote of the I Pilot link….

Some folks like putting in a totally zoot stereo system on their boats, or a NEMA 2000 back bone, for me having a great battery set up and being to meter it is even better. I’m also a bit different in that at least in my perspective I use my systems for much longer duration than others. With my current set up I will go out and troll non stop until the battery bank is depleted, if it’s windy it might be 6 hours, not windy possibly 8 hours. And once the battery bank is depleted I’ll fire up the engines and troll for another 4-6 hours, sometimes longer during the summer. I’ll also sometimes act as a bit of a charter for my friends who know they can’t shoot me a text while I’m out on the water and I’ll come pick them up at the dock anytime I’m out on the lake…. This summer I’m hoping to have some late afternoon into evening dinner cruises where I’ll be using the troller to haul us around the lake while everyone eats and generally has a good time hanging out or fishing or watching the stars. Fun stuff!

Keeping in mind that our charging systems are the permanent magnet type, PMG, and that their output is always at maximum with excess charging current being shunted to ground via the regulator, adding a lithium house battery will mean that if the engines do need to be run to put a charge on the house battery, that lithium battery will soak up all, or most of the leftover charge current the PMG is producing, that increases efficiency a lot.

 

[84rzv500r]

I have AntiGravity in my Harley for 18 months now and its doing great... you guys got me thinking now I could just swap the 4 (2x2) Group 29's I have now for 4 100Ah LI's and save over well over 140 lbs... that one beach barbie... and a cooler full of beer... its the $350 per battery that slowing me down might be a service life play here as well.. I (the AR210) gained about 250 Lbs with this MR-1 conversion including the full fuel load weight. This would offset most of that and if I went with 2 slightly bigger LI's i could get 200Lbs back

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

I was going through the Ulterra manual this morning and saw this that I had not seen before…. Just a FYI for those with MinnKota trolling motors. To me this doesn’t make sense electrically speaking…watts are true power, Voltage X Amps=Watts. I’m going to grab Chumly and go see Mr. Whopee because I must be missing something…

 

[mrcleanr6]

reading that, as i understand it, basically the minnkota motors aren't 100% duty cycle over 85% throttle. basically they want the battery voltage to die down fast enough to protect their motor rather than making the motors more robust with a 100% duty cycle at full throttle. not exactly the best policy in my book. they should make a better product.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

reading that, as i understand it, basically the minnkota motors aren't 100% duty cycle over 85% throttle. basically they want the battery voltage to die down fast enough to protect their motor rather than making the motors more robust with a 100% duty cycle at full throttle. not exactly the best policy in my book. they should make a better product.

I had not considered duty cycle…that’s a great point. That would also explain the tech csr’s frustration when I pointed out the conflict with electrical theory, and questioned why there was no such limitation with lead acid batteries.

I posed this question to my old electrical engineering manager as he is always up for a challenge, I’m betting he will probably come back with the same thing you suggested, duty cycle.

Even with that limitation the LiFePO4 batteries are still on the table since I have rarely manually used level 9 or 10. I have however seen the motor go to level 9 for brief periods while trolling into a head wind, with longer level 8 operation, but mostly in a good wind it stays around 7 or 7&1/2. Since the prop speeds are in half integer increments, ops at level 8&1/2 or 85% will be at the high end of operational capabilities of the trolling motor to maintain a heading. In high wind conditions I usually just go back to the main engines… I’ll leave the troller deployed so I can use spot lock if I catch a fish and cut thrust on the mains.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Went and checked out Ionics batteries today… I found their website to be rather disappointing. While they do have bluetooth monitoring, and it “appears” that the BMS will cut off battery charging if the temperature is too cold, when compared to Antigravity or ReLion the Ionics are lacking in documentation on how the BMS operation when compared to Antigravity or ReLion.

There was also no number to contact lithonics directly, only to contact one of their sellers, this is another point that I found disappointing. So far the only company that has a phone number and actual well motivated and knowledgeable employee’s is ReLion.

So far the only battery that I have come across with a BMS with an automatic internal heater is the ReLion LT battery. The Battleborn can be bought with an internal heater but it has to be manually actuated.

So ReLion still is in a commanding lead over the other brands.

 

[mrcleanr6]

If you are referring to lithionics then they are the top of the top. You wouldn't even want to consider them in your lineup for what you are doing. Their bms alone is around $2800. The batteries can get upwards of 8-9kea. I believe that was a 300 or so ah 24v. The system for my boat with them is $80k. Their stuff is just on a whole different level. Its the only company that has approval for use aircraft in US.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

If you are referring to lithionics then they are the top of the top. You wouldn't even want to consider them in your lineup for what you are doing. Their bms alone is around $2800. The batteries can get upwards of 8-9kea. I believe that was a 300 or so ah 24v. The system for my boat with them is $80k. Their stuff is just on a whole different level. Its the only company that has approval for use aircraft in US.

Thanks for setting me straight on the correct battery! DOH! I see what you mean by lithionics being top notch.. they do have an internal BMS group 31 battery, 12V 130Ah, however after talking with them this battery will not work for my application. They get high marks for someone answering the phone..

 

[HangOutdoors]

Why do you need a heater? The Relion Batteries charge into the low temps, far below when you would be using the boat. Unless I misread the specs sheet. This is on the standard battery.

 

[mrcleanr6]

Thanks for setting me straight on the correct battery! DOH! I see what you mean by lithionics being top notch.. they do have an internal BMS group 31 battery, 12V 130Ah, however after talking with them this battery will not work for my application. They get high marks for someone answering the phone..

Yes they are way overkill for you. I never bothered to look at their smaller batteries. Didnt even know they had a gp31. There is a price sheet on oceanplanetenergy.com. I think you will be fine with relion or any of the final ones you have it narrowed down to.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Yes they are way overkill for you. I never bothered to look at their smaller batteries. Didnt even know they had a gp31. There is a price sheet on oceanplanetenergy.com. I think you will be fine with relion or any of the final ones you have it narrowed down to.

Thank you!

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Why do you need a heater? The Relion Batteries charge into the low temps, far below when you would be using the boat. Unless I misread the specs sheet. This is on the standard battery.

View attachment 170622

Here is an example of why I’d “like” to have the internal heater. Last year I was doing a walleye tournament in April. Daytime highs in the low 30’s, overnight temps got down into the high teens. Other competitors were having to dip their rods and reels into the lake in the morning to get the ice off of them… I had numerous other occasions in the shoulder seasons where the temps were below freezing by the time I got home from the lake and plugged in the chargers. These are edge case scenarios, but, with an internal heater that‘s automatic I don’t have to worry. Believe me, I don’t want to spend that extra dough, but I don’t want the batteries to get damaged by charging in low temps. The BMS controls the heater so that the internal temp doesn’t just get to say 33*, it warms up to around 44* then turns the heater off and starts charging. If the temp drops to I think it was 36* the charging stops and the heater turns back on until the temp comes back up to 44*. ReLion conducted their tests by putting their batteries in a cold chamber at -4*F and left them for 24 hours. The charge tests were then conducted in the same cold chamber at -4*F, it took 1.5 hours to bring the internal temp up to safe charge temps, and then began charging. Throughout the test the internal temp dropped below specs, the BMS turned off the charge and turned on the heaters again, this happened twice during the charge test before the batteries were fully charged.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Went and checked out Ionics batteries today… I found their website to be rather disappointing. While they do have bluetooth monitoring, and it “appears” that the BMS will cut off battery charging if the temperature is too cold, when compared to Antigravity or ReLion the Ionics are lacking in documentation on how the BMS operation when compared to Antigravity or ReLion.

There was also no number to contact lithonics directly, only to contact one of their sellers, this is another point that I found disappointing. So far the only company that has a phone number and actual well motivated and knowledgeable employee’s is ReLion.

So far the only battery that I have come across with a BMS with an automatic internal heater is the ReLion LT battery. The Battleborn can be bought with an internal heater but it has to be manually actuated.

So ReLion still is in a commanding lead over the other brands.

Update: One model of the battle born battery has an internal heater, the internal heater uses the batteries’ own power to drive the heater, when the permissive wire is attached from the positive terminal to heater activation terminal. It is temperature regulated by the BMS from 36* to 44*. If the permissive is on, I assume that the battery will continue to heat itself until the BMS cuts off the battery. This seems like a bit of recipe for disaster. The low voltage cut off on the Battle Born once activated needs a jump start from another battery for the BMS to close the internal switch to reactivate the battery.

So when a battery charger is hooked up to the battery a portion of that charge current is going towards running the heater, as well as charging the battery.

The ReLion‘s internal heater on the other hand is only employed when charge current is applied to the battery and the BMS calls for heating. The ReLion uses the charge current only to run the heater until the internal temp is within spec, then turns off the heater and starts charging the battery.

ReLion still has a commanding lead.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

This is a bit long but i thought it was time well spent. I like seeing this kind of testing in controlled environments, and then introduce variables within the same controlled environment, special thanks to Mr. Stout my High school biology teacher for teaching all of us the scientific method.

I’m surprised that the lead acid batteries, Flooded and AGM, did not meet their rated performance by a sizable margin, which helps to explain why folks who switch from lead acid to LiFePO4 are so amazed at the Li performance since the LiFe batteries perform at 105-107% of their rating, while the lead acid batteries performance is 10-15% less than their rating. This would become even more pronounced as the cycle number starts increasing as the lead acid batteries capacity starts to degrade rapidly while the LiFe batteries performance would not start to degrade for at least another 1000-1500 cycles.

The part I liked the most was the testers rating the batteries in KWh’s, true power / true work being performed, instead of Ah’s. I can see why the lead acid batteries would not like this as the KWh rating would be 40-50% less than the LiFe.