Conversion to LiFePo batteries

[HangOutdoors]

@FSH 210 Sport You do know the Fish won't know the difference

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

@FSH 210 Sport You do know the Fish won't know the difference

LOL! This is true HOD…this is true.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Update:

It’s been a bit, and a lot of work since my last post.

In the end I went with 100Ah Battle Born Batteries for both the trolling motor and an upgraded house battery.

These batteries have the internal heating that I need for the shoulder seasons here in the upper Mid West. The internal heating has to have a small wire attached from the positive post to a 4mm screw on top of the battery to initialize the heating function, from there it is automatic in that once the internal temperature of the battery reaches 35* the heaters turn on, then turn off at 45*, the heaters run off of the batteries‘ own power, while consumption is not heavy it is there. According to bb‘s literature, a fully charged battery in an insulated battery box will have enough power to run the Internal heating for 4 days. Also, the bb‘s BMS will not allow the battery to charge if it is too cold. The down side is that if the battery is left in the cold without a charger hooked to it, it will run the battery down to where the BMS will cut off the battery at 10.8 volts. I was hoping to find a fully automatic heating system in a battery, the ReLion does have a fully automatic heating system that is powered off of the battery charger, but it’s BMS will not stop charging if it is too cold, and most importantly the ReLion heated batteries cannot be connected in series. So, the way I look at is that the on board chargers will be plugged in all the time anyway so it is not an issue.

The other thing I found out yesterday was that you cannot have an AGM start battery and a LiFePO4 house battery and leave the OEM DSVR relay as it comes from the factory. The resting voltage of the LIFePO4 battery is above the DSVR‘s activation threshold of 13.4 volts, causing the relay to close paralleling the AGM and LIFePO4 battery. And, since the voltage is higher on the LiFePO4 battery it will start trying to charge the AGM. So, you have to cut the little red wire in the back of the DSVR relay and hook it up to either a manual switch or an ignition hot to activate the DSVR relay. Since I had just added some switches for the new bilge pump and raw water washdown pump, I also had installed a spare which I used for the DVSR supply voltage… works like a charm. Going forward I will be adding a time delay TD relay with 5 minutes of delay after the ignition switch is turned on to allow the AGM start battery to come up to and go higher than the LiFePO4 battery, once the AGM comes up to either equal to the LiFePO4 battery, the charging systems will start charging the LiFePO4 battery.



Note: Something else I discovered about the BEP DSVR, you know how their literature says that it will charge the start battery first? Well that is partly true because the DVSR relay will be open after floating for a while and using the house battery to power stuff. As it turns out, the DVSR will close if either of the two connected battery banks sees a charge voltage.



So here is my new house battery configuration. I had to put a plate across the oem depression to mount the larger battery box to.







That 30A ckt breaker feeds the new 12V buss I installed underneath the center console to feed the power to my retrofitted switch panel and the switches for the new devices.. I’ll cover that more in depth in another post but here are some pics.










I just re purposed the OEM switch panel that held the jet wash and cruise assist, I moved the jet wash to the left and put the cruise assist where the jet wash was. In my mind this will make it easier to use the cruise assist as well.

Here’s how the stock panel looks.



This was as far as I got last night.. I got the ckt breaker mounted for the trolling motor, as well as a Victron energy bluetooth shunt that will allow real time viewing of the trolling motor battery bank.


Yes, that area is a PITA to work in.

I’ll post back again after my first voyage of the season in a few days… if it all works out like I think it will, this will be a bit of a game changer, at least a tripling, if not quadrupling of the house battery power, and at least 250% increase in the trolling motor bank.

Special thanks to @mrcleanr6 @HangOutdoors and everyone else for their input.

Oh, almost forgot, got this from Minnkota yesterday.

 

[HangOutdoors]

Update:

It’s been a bit, and a lot of work since my last post.

In the end I went with 100Ah Battle Born Batteries for both the trolling motor and an upgraded house battery.

These batteries have the internal heating that I need for the shoulder seasons here in the upper Mid West. The internal heating has to have a small wire attached from the positive post to a 4mm screw on top of the battery to initialize the heating function, from there it is automatic in that once the internal temperature of the battery reaches 35* the heaters turn on, then turn off at 45*, the heaters run off of the batteries‘ own power, while consumption is not heavy it is there. According to bb‘s literature, a fully charged battery in an insulated battery box will have enough power to run the Internal heating for 4 days. Also, the bb‘s BMS will not allow the battery to charge if it is too cold. The down side is that if the battery is left in the cold without a charger hooked to it, it will run the battery down to where the BMS will cut off the battery at 10.8 volts. I was hoping to find a fully automatic heating system in a battery, the ReLion does have a fully automatic heating system that is powered off of the battery charger, but it’s BMS will not stop charging if it is too cold, and most importantly the ReLion heated batteries cannot be connected in series. So, the way I look at is that the on board chargers will be plugged in all the time anyway so it is not an issue.

The other thing I found out yesterday was that you cannot have an AGM start battery and a LiFePO4 house battery and leave the OEM DSVR relay as it comes from the factory. The resting voltage of the LIFePO4 battery is above the DSVR‘s activation threshold of 13.4 volts, causing the relay to close paralleling the AGM and LIFePO4 battery. And, since the voltage is higher on the LiFePO4 battery it will start trying to charge the AGM. So, you have to cut the little red wire in the back of the DSVR relay and hook it up to either a manual switch or an ignition hot to activate the DSVR relay. Since I had just added some switches for the new bilge pump and raw water washdown pump, I also had installed a spare which I used for the DVSR supply voltage… works like a charm. Going forward I will be adding a time delay TD relay with 5 minutes of delay after the ignition switch is turned on to allow the AGM start battery to come up to and go higher than the LiFePO4 battery, once the AGM comes up to either equal to the LiFePO4 battery, the charging systems will start charging the LiFePO4 battery.

View attachment 175061

Note: Something else I discovered about the BEP DSVR, you know how their literature says that it will charge the start battery first? Well that is partly true because the DVSR relay will be open after floating for a while and using the house battery to power stuff. As it turns out, the DVSR will close if either of the two connected battery banks sees a charge voltage.

View attachment 175062

So here is my new house battery configuration. I had to put a plate across the oem depression to mount the larger battery box to.

View attachment 175063

View attachment 175064

View attachment 175065

That 30A ckt breaker feeds the new 12V buss I installed underneath the center console to feed the power to my retrofitted switch panel and the switches for the new devices.. I’ll cover that more in depth in another post but here are some pics.


View attachment 175067

View attachment 175068



View attachment 175070

I just re purposed the OEM switch panel that held the jet wash and cruise assist, I moved the jet wash to the left and put the cruise assist where the jet wash was. In my mind this will make it easier to use the cruise assist as well.

Here’s how the stock panel looks.

View attachment 175071

This was as far as I got last night.. I got the ckt breaker mounted for the trolling motor, as well as a Victron energy bluetooth shunt that will allow real time viewing of the trolling motor battery bank.

View attachment 175073
Yes, that area is a PITA to work in.

I’ll post back again after my first voyage of the season in a few days… if it all works out like I think it will, this will be a bit of a game changer, at least a tripling, if not quadrupling of the house battery power, and at least 250% increase in the trolling motor bank.

Special thanks to @mrcleanr6 @HangOutdoors and everyone else for their input.

Oh, almost forgot, got this from Minnkota yesterday.

View attachment 175074

Fantastic Job. Battle Born's are solid batteries and a good choice.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Fantastic Job. Battle Born's are solid batteries and a good choice.

Thanks HOD! It has been a long road getting to this point… I had no idea when I started it was going to be this involved. I’ll post a bit more in a separate post about the manual DVSR set up.

 

[mrcleanr6]

Nice! Glad to see you have all the details worked out. Its little things like the dsvr that you dont even think of when making this switch.

 

[Ericd]

Ha…after reading thread I’m glad I grabbed two Bass Pro lithiums along with the Minn Kota last month. Nice to know they are pretty good!

 

[HangOutdoors]

Ha…after reading thread I’m glad I grabbed two Bass Pro lithiums along with the Minn Kota last month. Nice to know they are pretty good!

That is what I have. Works fantastic.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Nice! Glad to see you have all the details worked out. Its little things like the dsvr that you dont even think of when making this switch.

What made that even more interesting is the battery in my fluke meter decided it was time to give up the ghost.. I started getting all kinds of weird readings that had me really scratching my head…

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

That is what I have. Works fantastic.

If I wasn’t needing the heated part for the batteries I would have gone the Tracker / ReLion route. ReLion has excellent customer service, one of only two companies who actually answer their phones, and it appears they stand behind their product! And since you are buying them at Bass Pro / Cabela’s if there is an issue you can just take it back to the store.

So a word of info for you and @Ericd, if you ever run those batteries all the way down to where the BMS disconnects the battery, just remove the positive or negative, or in the case of a trolling motor unplug it from the boat mounted plug and the BMS will reset itself.

 

[Ericd]

If I wasn’t needing the heated part for the batteries I would have gone the Tracker / ReLion route. ReLion has excellent customer service, one of only two companies who actually answer their phones, and it appears they stand behind their product! And since you are buying them at Bass Pro / Cabela’s if there is an issue you can just take it back to the store.

So a word of info for you and @Ericd, if you ever run those batteries all the way down to where the BMS disconnects the battery, just remove the positive or negative, or in the case of a trolling motor unplug it from the boat mounted plug and the BMS will reset itself.

Thanks. Good to know.

 

[zipper]

A couple of articles on Lithium ion batteries that came across my news feed in the last few days. Just sharing

Accident Investigator Cites Lithium Liabilities

Barriers to Safe LI Battery Installation Too Great Even for Most Sea-Going Technophiles

loosecannon.substack.com

Battery Backlash: Nigel Calder Weighs In on LI Technology

'We Are Not Seeing a Rash of Lithium-Ion Catastrophes'

loosecannon.substack.com

 

[HangOutdoors]

Looks like lithium ion batteries in the articles. LiFePo4. Are lithium iron.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

I really don’t want to see this thread turn into a debate on the safety of LiFePO4 batteries. Obviously, I think they’re safe or I wouldn’t have installed them In my boat.

I will say it took me a long time to come around to LiFe batteries for my dirt bikes, after many years of watching people put the earlier versions of LiFe batteries in their dirt bike and all the issues they had with them, yes some burned up while others just failed, Shorai for example had an abysmal failure rate of 1 in 10, I finally put Anti Gravity LiFe batteries in my two all electric, meaning no kickstarter, dirt bikes. I had the same main issue then as I did when I started this boat project, the cold, but I was more concerned then about their ability to function properly at the first start of the day when temps were in the teens, and not about charging when it was that cold. The work around for the cold weather performance was that if the battery acted as flat when cold, a few seconds of engaging the starter, putting load on the battery generating a little internal heat, then waiting a minute to allow that heat to propagate throughout the matrix, then hitting the starter again had the battery acting like normal.

The difference in performance between the Anti Gravity over the lead acid Yuasa that came stock in my bike is nothing short of remarkable and I have had zero issues with them. As far as a harsh environment goes, dirt bikes are pretty near the top of the list in my opinion, at times very wet, shock loading and vibration is going to be greater than a boat would experience on a regular basis except for some really big water.

I like to think that with the proliferation of LiFePO4 batteries, big chain stores like Bass Pro / Cabela’s Tracker branded ReLion batteries being sold by other dealers that these battery manufacturers have gotten things, especially the BMS which keeps the batteries from exceeding design criteria sorted. Yes the BMS is a computer, not unlike the computers that manage our engines and drive trains in millions and millions of of land sea and air vehicles everyday. Can a computer fail? Certainly. Is it likely the BMS will fail catastrophically? Unlikely. I took @mrcleanr6 advice and checked with my insurance company as to whether or not there would be a denial of a claim if I had LiFePO4 batteries in my boat, and I got in writing from them that these batteries were not an issue with them.

Having said all that, I’m looking forward to taking my boat out and enjoying the benefits of the 4 LiFePO4 batteries I installed on my boat.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Results after real world test.

Okay so first day on the lake this year was a bit cold and pretty windy, so windy in fact that the Ulterra could not hold 1.8mph heading into the wind, even at prop speed level 10. Going down Wind I had to use my 5’ drogue to keep from going to fast while the Ulterra‘s prop speed was around 5 which is / was perfect, this gave the troller the directional authority it needed to keep things going the way I wanted in even in the 30+ mph wind gusts.

House battery: As I mentioned before I had to wire the DVSR operating power up to a spare switch that I just installed. Not long after start up, perhaps 2-3 mins the AGM start battery was up to the same voltage as the new battle born 100Ah hose battery I had installed, so I actuated the switch and 10 seconds later the dvsr closed and the batts were paralleled. To make a long story short, I was running on the engines most of the day with the batteries paralleled, with both batts showing 14.4 volts on the connext screen. When I got home and plugged in the chargers the house batt went green in just a few minutes. I also had changed the start battery to an AGM as mentioned previously, what a difference in starting authority over the oem lead acid battery that had gotten tired over the last couple of years.

Trolling motor batteries: The main reason I started this whole LiFePO battery thing was to get more performance out of this battery bank, the less weight and NO acid was just the whip cream and cherry on top. First, I tested the deploy and stow functions at home a day before heading out and these functioned perfectly. There was some concern as the MinnKota tech rep told me there some problems reported when using Lithium batteries.

Consumption: I had installed a Victron energy smart shunt with bluetooth just ahead of the batteries in the head compartment. While I did see some reports of connectivity issues I had none. I can stand 20’ from the boat and there is still no issue. Here’s a couple of screen shots I took of the Victron app.



I’m sorry I didn’t get a screen shot of this meter while on the water.



After the bank had dropped to 86%, the above 1.6KWh had been consumed. I had set the discharge floor / depth at 80%, so basically I used 1/3 of the energy, and on a day when it was super windy. (Yes I said before that I had to use the engines, but before the engines were used, and after the wind died down some I was using the troller.) So, the initial discharge numbers are in line with a 2.9 to 3.0KWh of usable power at 80% discharge which is just fantastic. My old battery bank would have been done for the day in the same conditions.

So, so far so good on power these batts have!

When I got home I had an issue with the center bank not charging up from the MinnKota PC 330 charger. Long story short I had seen this problem before with the flooded lead acid batteries. I checked the voltage and it was only 13.65 compared to the other two batts of 14. 2 or so. I left my fluke meter hooked up and could see the voltage would climb to 13.7 then drop back to 13.4 then ramp back up to 13.65.

When I put this new battery bank in I made sure to clean all of the connections with 320 grit sandpaper, but from the aforementioned experience I knew there was some sort of connection problem. I took the battery charger leads off of the one side of the posts where the tie / series cables were landed checked them again for corrosion or anything that would prevent a low resistance connection and move them to the free side which had no other connections. Plugged the charger back in and the voltage came up quickly and within a few minutes that bank had gone green on the charger indicator lights. So my conclusion there was that even though the voltage was not up to where it should have been there was still a charge being delivered to the center battery. Interestingly enough, 13.6V is what BB states as the fully charged no load voltage level.

I mounted the heat enable switch for the house battery on the top of the battery box, and the trolling motors heat enable switch is ty wrapped to the oem loom for now until I can come up with some sort of small mount for it under the helm.



Conclusion thus far is that the batteries are working as hoped for. I will post back again after I‘ve had a really good test on the water.. I have two, two day walleye tournaments coming up and those should be a very good test for the batteries.

Thanks again for all who commented! I appreciate the support!

 

[adrianp89]

Cliff note me - what is the best battery for the money?

I currently run 2 6v golf cart batteries for the stereo but want to cut the weight. My NOCO charger will support lithium. I currently have 210aH with the batteries. Also what is the minimum I could do for starting battery?

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Cliff note me - what is the best battery for the money?

I currently run 2 6v golf cart batteries for the stereo but want to cut the weight. My NOCO charger will support lithium. I currently have 210aH with the batteries. Also what is the minimum I could do for starting battery?

If your 210Ah / 2.51 KWh batteries are sla or lead acid your true ah / KWh is 50% of that at best, or 105Ah / 1.25 KWh. According to some independent testing I’ve see it’s more like 40% so 84Ah / 1 KWh.

Further if I read your post correctly you’ve got two 6V in series, when batteries are in series the Ah is not additive. The only time Ah are additive is if the batteries are in parallel.

If that is true then you only have 105Ah, 40% of that is 42Ah / .6 KWh

So with two LiFePO4 100Ah in parallel (62# total) and a depth of discharge of 80% you’re looking at 160 Ah / 2 KWh of energy. A significant increase, more than 300%. As well as a big weight reduction.

If you went with just one 100Ah LiFePO battery, 31# at 80% DOD, you’d have 80Ah / .97KWh. A 30% increase in power and a substantial reduction in weight.

If you don’t need the heated batteries like me I’d go with either Battle Born or ReLion (tracker branded at Bass Pro / Cabelas ) I’d give the nod to BB since they are made in Nevada with cells from China, every LiFePO battery out there uses China cells, and BB’s bms is better

Both of these companies have great customer support. Whereas companies like Dakota lithium take two days to get back to you via email, unless it sales then they’ll talk to you.

As far as starting goes ReLion has their 100Ah HP battery for a starting battery. These batteries are 12V only though, single use meaning you can’t parallel them.

Now, if you call BB and tell them what you want they may set you up with a start battery.

For my start battery I just put in an Interstate group 24 AGM that seems to work great.

Hope that helps!

 

[mrcleanr6]

thats great your finally seeing the benefits from all this research you have done over the past few months.

 

[Ericd]

So I forgot to charge the Tracker/lithium trolling motor batteries last night and went out fishing today. I used the motor a couple of days ago and would estimate about 3 hrs of medium/light use. After about an hour and half today the motor turned off as the batteries were out of juice. So 4 to 5 1/2 hours of use. Does this sound about right? The two Trackers are 100Ah.

 

[adrianp89]

If your 210Ah / 2.51 KWh batteries are sla or lead acid your true ah / KWh is 50% of that at best, or 105Ah / 1.25 KWh. According to some independent testing I’ve see it’s more like 40% so 84Ah / 1 KWh.

Further if I read your post correctly you’ve got two 6V in series, when batteries are in series the Ah is not additive. The only time Ah are additive is if the batteries are in parallel.

If that is true then you only have 105Ah, 40% of that is 42Ah / .6 KWh

So with two LiFePO4 100Ah in parallel (62# total) and a depth of discharge of 80% you’re looking at 160 Ah / 2 KWh of energy. A significant increase, more than 300%. As well as a big weight reduction.

If you went with just one 100Ah LiFePO battery, 31# at 80% DOD, you’d have 80Ah / .97KWh. A 30% increase in power and a substantial reduction in weight.

If you don’t need the heated batteries like me I’d go with either Battle Born or ReLion (tracker branded at Bass Pro / Cabelas ) I’d give the nod to BB since they are made in Nevada with cells from China, every LiFePO battery out there uses China cells, and BB’s bms is better

Both of these companies have great customer support. Whereas companies like Dakota lithium take two days to get back to you via email, unless it sales then they’ll talk to you.

As far as starting goes ReLion has their 100Ah HP battery for a starting battery. These batteries are 12V only though, single use meaning you can’t parallel them.

Now, if you call BB and tell them what you want they may set you up with a start battery.

For my start battery I just put in an Interstate group 24 AGM that seems to work great.

Hope that helps!

very detailed thank you. The 6v are 200ah each so series I’m still at that number.
Sounds like a single 100ah should be perfect. Thinking I can drop 100lbs by switching to single lithium house and start.