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An affordable way to fit Lithium Batteries?


Dr Bob

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9 hours ago, nicknorman said:

How do you ensure your LAs are properly charged and hence don’t get sulphated? Obviously I “get” the benefits of Li, but by keeping a large bank of LAs you seem to be retaining their undesirable features. In the scenario you described in OP you have used most of the Li and a fair bit of the LA. Of course the Li are easy to charge quickly. But you are still left with having to charge for hours in order to fully charge the LAs. Either that or they will sulphate from being left for long periods only partially charged. The way you describe it as a “top tank” doesn’t seem quite right. On discharge the Lis discharge first, then towards the end of the Li delivery the LAs start to contribute. But on recharge the Lis recharge quickly and hence first, the LAs lag way behind in becoming fully charged. So it is not a reversible system. (I am looking for a word that describes a system that runs in a mirrored way when it runs backwards, to the way it runs when going forwards. Does “palindromic system” exist as a descriptive phrase?)

Nick,

 interesting challenge.

It seems quite simple in practice. If say the LA's are down by 20% and the Li's down by 80%, the charge will go into the 'top tank' and charge the Li's but they will then charge the LA's. That is the beauty of the system. The Li's will charge the LA's. The constraint may be that the Li's charge to 100% but if you have 160Ahrs of them, that is 160Ahrs that can be used to charge the LA's. If the system equillibrates at say 13.10V overnight, then the LA's are charging (albeit slowly). Given a normal useage of up to 150Ahrs out per 24hrs, then a  160 Ahr Li battery should enable the LA's to be kept full.

With our system, as soon as I see us near 80% charge on the Li bank, I isolate it for the day and then the LA bank is getting a 14.4V charge from the alternator.

I have not seen an issue with our system ie a similar amount of LA and LI capacity.

In the 'affordable' system I propose, then the LA's will get used more but should be fully charged from the Li bank and not spend days with less than 100% charge.

9 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

I’m inclined to say it doesn’t matter. (I’m not convinced received wisdom properly describes sulphation behaviour anyway. Batteries in my experience seem to degrade in noticeable steps. Fine for a while then suddenly not.). 

 

The Li batts in practice rarely discharge to  the point the LA start contributing so they get used far less anyway, they still get recharged slowly and continuously when they do contribute and so what if they Do get sulphated? They will still perform their fuction as an alternator load dump.

 

 

 

 

...but I dont think they are going to sulphate much if kept either full, or recharged every two to three days.

9 hours ago, ivan&alice said:

 

Great, I'll have a look into that. Is there any complication with using EV batteries, do you need any special battery management system or do the units come with a BMS?

 

This sounds like a very fair objection to the hybrid system... interested to hear @Dr Bob's thoughts.

EV batteries are fine, but you do need to sort out a BMS system.

See original thread for the details of how to do this. Lots of solutions at all sorts of different costs.

 

See above post on NN's question.

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9 hours ago, ivan&alice said:

How essential is it to have a load dump? Are pure Li systems deficient in this regard - why can't they simply have systems that cut the charge from the alternator at the right point?

 

 

If you dont have a dump load, then where does the alternator power go to on overcharge?

You need to start at the begining and read through the original thread mentioned in the first post.

You can do it without a dump load, but then the BMS has to be bullet proof and be able to shut down the charge sources. The dump load is far easier and far cheaper.

Your question shows that you dont understand the basics of how to DIY as BMS. Read through the original post and the link in that post and the links that that post takes you to.

Once you get up the learning curve, it becomes very easy.

8 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

I understand the idea to be that the LAs get the tail current from the full LFP battery, so you fast charge the lithium and bulk charge the LAs for an hour or 2.

 

When you stop the engine, the lithium discharges into the lead acid bank for the next few hours, taking them up to fully charged.

That's what I think happens.

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1 minute ago, Dr Bob said:

Once you get up the learning curve, it becomes very easy.

 

Possibly the hardest bit is forcing yourself to put aside all you know about LA batts. Virtually none of it applies to Li, starting with cell voltage. 3.2V for Li not 2.1V. 

 

Other major diffs to take on board are never charge to 100%, never charge below 0c, never leave on float charge, partially charge as and when you like, they don’t care and don't don’t sulphate.

 

Oh snd a Smartgauge doesnt work with them.  :) 

 

 

 

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Just now, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Possibly the hardest bit is forcing yourself to put aside all you know about LA batts. Virtually none of it applies to Li, starting with cell voltage. 3.2V for Li not 2.1V. 

 

Other major diffs to take on board are never charge to 100%, never charge below 0c, never leave on float charge, partially charge as and when you like, they don’t care and don't don’t sulphate.

 

Oh snd a Smartgauge doesnt work with them.  :) 

 

 

 

They sound ideal for you Mike.  Have you installed them yet or are you still using them as paperweights?

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2 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

You need to start at the begining and read through the original thread mentioned in the first post. 

You can do it without a dump load, but then the BMS has to be bullet proof and be able to shut down the charge sources. The dump load is far easier and far cheaper.

Your question shows that you dont understand the basics of how to DIY as BMS. Read through the original post and the link in that post and the links that that post takes you to.

Once you get up the learning curve, it becomes very easy. 

I don't know the basics, you are right. I'll read through the first thread :)

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4 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

Nick,

 interesting challenge.

It seems quite simple in practice. If say the LA's are down by 20% and the Li's down by 80%, the charge will go into the 'top tank' and charge the Li's but they will then charge the LA's.(1)

That is the beauty of the system. The Li's will charge the LA's. (2) The constraint may be that the Li's charge to 100% but if you have 160Ahrs of them, that is 160Ahrs that can be used to charge the LA's. If the system equillibrates at say 13.10V overnight, then the LA's are charging (albeit slowly) (3). Given a normal useage of up to 150Ahrs out per 24hrs, then a  160 Ahr Li battery should enable the LA's to be kept full.

With our system, as soon as I see us near 80% charge on the Li bank, I isolate it for the day and then the LA bank is getting a 14.4V charge from the alternator (5).

I have not seen an issue with our system ie a similar amount of LA and LI capacity.

In the 'affordable' system I propose, then the LA's will get used more but should be fully charged from the Li bank(4) and not spend days with less than 100% charge.

 

My numbered comments. Well actually they are nearly all the same issue:

(1) (2) (3) and (4) - I dispute whether a Li battery with a 13.7 or whatever voltage, will ever charge a parallel connected LA battery satisfactorily. Worse if the voltage is 13.1. It just isn't a high enough voltage. Of course there will be a degree of charge transfer but I suspect not enough to prevent sulphation of the LA battery in the long term. Can I suggest that you haven't had your system in operation for long enough  to know how the LA batteries fair?

 

(5) Of course if you continue to run the engine for a long time with the Lis disconnected, so as to recharge the LAs, then of course the LAs will be happy. But surely that negates the whole point of the Lis?

 

I come back to feeling that the best solution is a voltage regulated alternator set so as not to exceed the max voltage of the Lis - preferably an intelligent one that initially charges at a higher voltage until the Lis are at the desired SoC. Coupled of course with a solar system similarly configured

Edited by nicknorman
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WRT Nick’s post above, Gibbo once posted that 13.6V WILL fully charge LA batteries but...

1. It will take forever 

2. It will not counter sulphation and is so low that it will in fact permit sulphation to accumulate. 

 

So I believe that Nick’s points are valid. 

Particularly if we’re only talking about 13.1V. 

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14 hours ago, nicknorman said:

My numbered comments. Well actually they are nearly all the same issue:

(1) (2) (3) and (4) - I dispute whether a Li battery with a 13.7 or whatever voltage, will ever charge a parallel connected LA battery satisfactorily. Worse if the voltage is 13.1. It just isn't a high enough voltage. Of course there will be a degree of charge transfer but I suspect not enough to prevent sulphation of the LA battery in the long term. Can I suggest that you haven't had your system in operation for long enough  to know how the LA batteries fair?

 

(5) Of course if you continue to run the engine for a long time with the Lis disconnected, so as to recharge the LAs, then of course the LAs will be happy. But surely that negates the whole point of the Lis?

 

I come back to feeling that the best solution is a voltage regulated alternator set so as not to exceed the max voltage of the Lis - preferably an intelligent one that initially charges at a higher voltage until the Lis are at the desired SoC. Coupled of course with a solar system similarly configured

 

5 hours ago, WotEver said:

WRT Nick’s post above, Gibbo once posted that 13.6V WILL fully charge LA batteries but...

1. It will take forever 

2. It will not counter sulphation and is so low that it will in fact permit sulphation to accumulate. 

 

So I believe that Nick’s points are valid. 

Particularly if we’re only talking about 13.1V. 

 

I agree with Nick and Tony.  You will not prevent sulphation unless you get the voltage above 14.5 volts.

 

Desulphation is about voltage, not current and most effective at 15 volts or higher depending on battery type and temperature.

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1 hour ago, cuthound said:

 

 

 

I agree with Nick and Tony.  You will not prevent sulphation unless you get the voltage above 14.5 volts.

 

Desulphation is about voltage, not current and most effective at 15 volts or higher depending on battery type and temperature.

 

15 hours ago, nicknorman said:

My numbered comments. Well actually they are nearly all the same issue:

(1) (2) (3) and (4) - I dispute whether a Li battery with a 13.7 or whatever voltage, will ever charge a parallel connected LA battery satisfactorily. Worse if the voltage is 13.1. It just isn't a high enough voltage. Of course there will be a degree of charge transfer but I suspect not enough to prevent sulphation of the LA battery in the long term. Can I suggest that you haven't had your system in operation for long enough  to know how the LA batteries fair?

 

(5) Of course if you continue to run the engine for a long time with the Lis disconnected, so as to recharge the LAs, then of course the LAs will be happy. But surely that negates the whole point of the Lis?

 

I come back to feeling that the best solution is a voltage regulated alternator set so as not to exceed the max voltage of the Lis - preferably an intelligent one that initially charges at a higher voltage until the Lis are at the desired SoC. Coupled of course with a solar system similarly configured

 

7 hours ago, WotEver said:

WRT Nick’s post above, Gibbo once posted that 13.6V WILL fully charge LA batteries but...

1. It will take forever 

2. It will not counter sulphation and is so low that it will in fact permit sulphation to accumulate. 

 

So I believe that Nick’s points are valid. 

Particularly if we’re only talking about 13.1V. 

Nick, Tony, Cuthound

Whilst I agree that sulphation is a killer to LA's, it all depends on how you use the battery.

If you look at the chemical reaction in the battery, aqueous ions react with the solid electrodes. Whilst the basic chemistry is simple, the actual reaction is complex due to Liquid/solid issues. The solid electrodes are made up with a complex pore structure and that introduces steric hinderance to the chemical reaction which in turn changes the activation energy for the reaction dependent on where in the pores the reaction is taking place. Lets look at a battery having a range of accessible sites. The most accessible at the outside of each pore will be the first to give up it's electrons when a 100% SoG battery has a load - on the discharge cycle. Lets call them the '100' sites. As the first 10% of sites give up their electrons, they will be the least sterically hindered. We then get down to the '90' sites. These will be sites a little down the pores and it is a little more difficult for the aqueous phase to get down there. We then discharge to the '50' sites, when we get down to 50% SoC and these sites will be significantly sterically hindered. Ok that is the discharge side.

Once we start charging and put our 14V on the system, the first sites to react are the ones with the lowest activation energy, ie the '100' sites at the end of the pores. The '90' sites charge next and finally the '50' receive enough energy to convert ...and crucially are the last to convert. If you only charge to 98% SoC then the 2% not charged are the 2% in the '50' sites ie ones that are very sterically hindered. These sites do need a good oooomph to get them to react......ie 14.5V?????? That is chemistry for you!

I agree then that for a reasonably discharged battery ie 50% discharge, you do need 14.4+V to get the charge in. If you dont then these sites due to the steric hinderance will sulphate easily as there will be little transfer of reactive reagents up those narrow pores. It may be these inaccessible sites will never receive enough charge to recover...ie why equalisation is needed.

The important thing then in assessing whether a LA battery will sulphate is to look at how deep the discharge is. I would argue that where an LA battery is only ever discharged to 80% then these high voltages are not needed to remove sulphation. A good theory? My experience supports that theory. I had 3* newish flooded LA's when I bought the boat May 2017. Added 3 * sealed. Ran 6 months with an alternator charging at 13.9V max. Put a Sterling AtoB on, which raised that to 14.1-14.2V and ALWAYS dropped down to float far too early. The solar MMPT also dropped to float. My batteries were never charged at over 14.2V and rarely went under 80% and never went under 75%.

When last checked end March (22 months) my capacity was maybe 95% (conservative estimate). Very little sulphation.

Now, where does this put us with Li's. Well in my current set up, I work between 30% and 80% SoG on the Li's so the LA's are never put under load except the top 5% of capacity which is readily recharged. You can see that when you use the Nesspresso machine. It takes 150A for around 45 secs. I can see current going from both the Li's and LA's (I have 2 BMVs). After it is turned off I see 15A going from the Li bank to the LA bank which decays quickly to zero after 5 mins. (More evidence that the '100' sites charge very quickly with little effort). I very much doubt ANY sulphation of the LA bank is happening.

In the case of the 'affordable Li' set up, I would be running my system to use maybe 200Ahrs and so your LA's wouldnt be down below 80% SoC. If you were worried, then just isolating the Li's once a week and charging on a long run would give the LA's 14.+V charge.

I agree, I wont know about mine for quite a while.

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7 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

 

 

Nick, Tony, Cuthound

Whilst I agree that sulphation is a killer to LA's, it all depends on how you use the battery.

If you look at the chemical reaction in the battery, aqueous ions react with the solid electrodes. Whilst the basic chemistry is simple, the actual reaction is complex due to Liquid/solid issues. The solid electrodes are made up with a complex pore structure and that introduces steric hinderance to the chemical reaction which in turn changes the activation energy for the reaction dependent on where in the pores the reaction is taking place. Lets look at a battery having a range of accessible sites. The most accessible at the outside of each pore will be the first to give up it's electrons when a 100% SoG battery has a load - on the discharge cycle. Lets call them the '100' sites. As the first 10% of sites give up their electrons, they will be the least sterically hindered. We then get down to the '90' sites. These will be sites a little down the pores and it is a little more difficult for the aqueous phase to get down there. We then discharge to the '50' sites, when we get down to 50% SoC and these sites will be significantly sterically hindered. Ok that is the discharge side.

Once we start charging and put our 14V on the system, the first sites to react are the ones with the lowest activation energy, ie the '100' sites at the end of the pores. The '90' sites charge next and finally the '50' receive enough energy to convert ...and crucially are the last to convert. If you only charge to 98% SoC then the 2% not charged are the 2% in the '50' sites ie ones that are very sterically hindered. These sites do need a good oooomph to get them to react......ie 14.5V?????? That is chemistry for you!

I agree then that for a reasonably discharged battery ie 50% discharge, you do need 14.4+V to get the charge in. If you dont then these sites due to the steric hinderance will sulphate easily as there will be little transfer of reactive reagents up those narrow pores. It may be these inaccessible sites will never receive enough charge to recover...ie why equalisation is needed.

The important thing then in assessing whether a LA battery will sulphate is to look at how deep the discharge is. I would argue that where an LA battery is only ever discharged to 80% then these high voltages are not needed to remove sulphation. A good theory? My experience supports that theory. I had 3* newish flooded LA's when I bought the boat May 2017. Added 3 * sealed. Ran 6 months with an alternator charging at 13.9V max. Put a Sterling AtoB on, which raised that to 14.1-14.2V and ALWAYS dropped down to float far too early. The solar MMPT also dropped to float. My batteries were never charged at over 14.2V and rarely went under 80% and never went under 75%.

When last checked end March (22 months) my capacity was maybe 95% (conservative estimate). Very little sulphation.

Now, where does this put us with Li's. Well in my current set up, I work between 30% and 80% SoG on the Li's so the LA's are never put under load except the top 5% of capacity which is readily recharged. You can see that when you use the Nesspresso machine. It takes 150A for around 45 secs. I can see current going from both the Li's and LA's (I have 2 BMVs). After it is turned off I see 15A going from the Li bank to the LA bank which decays quickly to zero after 5 mins. (More evidence that the '100' sites charge very quickly with little effort). I very much doubt ANY sulphation of the LA bank is happening.

In the case of the 'affordable Li' set up, I would be running my system to use maybe 200Ahrs and so your LA's wouldnt be down below 80% SoC. If you were worried, then just isolating the Li's once a week and charging on a long run would give the LA's 14.+V charge.

I agree, I wont know about mine for quite a while.

Bob I am sure your LA s will be fine JohnV has been doing what you are doing for nearly as long as I have, his LA s were old but still in good condition, they are now a year older and still in good condition. His bank rarely drops below 12.8 volts so in theory they are always fully charged, anyway time will tell if he and you are right, but you have both set off in the same place with used LAs so fingers crossed for a long and happy relationship with your batteries

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17 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

 

 

Nick, Tony, Cuthound

Whilst I agree that sulphation is a killer to LA's, it all depends on how you use the battery.

If you look at the chemical reaction in the battery, aqueous ions react with the solid electrodes. Whilst the basic chemistry is simple, the actual reaction is complex due to Liquid/solid issues. The solid electrodes are made up with a complex pore structure and that introduces steric hinderance to the chemical reaction which in turn changes the activation energy for the reaction dependent on where in the pores the reaction is taking place. Lets look at a battery having a range of accessible sites. The most accessible at the outside of each pore will be the first to give up it's electrons when a 100% SoG battery has a load - on the discharge cycle. Lets call them the '100' sites. As the first 10% of sites give up their electrons, they will be the least sterically hindered. We then get down to the '90' sites. These will be sites a little down the pores and it is a little more difficult for the aqueous phase to get down there. We then discharge to the '50' sites, when we get down to 50% SoC and these sites will be significantly sterically hindered. Ok that is the discharge side.

Once we start charging and put our 14V on the system, the first sites to react are the ones with the lowest activation energy, ie the '100' sites at the end of the pores. The '90' sites charge next and finally the '50' receive enough energy to convert ...and crucially are the last to convert. If you only charge to 98% SoC then the 2% not charged are the 2% in the '50' sites ie ones that are very sterically hindered. These sites do need a good oooomph to get them to react......ie 14.5V?????? That is chemistry for you!

I agree then that for a reasonably discharged battery ie 50% discharge, you do need 14.4+V to get the charge in. If you dont then these sites due to the steric hinderance will sulphate easily as there will be little transfer of reactive reagents up those narrow pores. It may be these inaccessible sites will never receive enough charge to recover...ie why equalisation is needed.

The important thing then in assessing whether a LA battery will sulphate is to look at how deep the discharge is. I would argue that where an LA battery is only ever discharged to 80% then these high voltages are not needed to remove sulphation. A good theory? My experience supports that theory. I had 3* newish flooded LA's when I bought the boat May 2017. Added 3 * sealed. Ran 6 months with an alternator charging at 13.9V max. Put a Sterling AtoB on, which raised that to 14.1-14.2V and ALWAYS dropped down to float far too early. The solar MMPT also dropped to float. My batteries were never charged at over 14.2V and rarely went under 80% and never went under 75%.

When last checked end March (22 months) my capacity was maybe 95% (conservative estimate). Very little sulphation.

Now, where does this put us with Li's. Well in my current set up, I work between 30% and 80% SoG on the Li's so the LA's are never put under load except the top 5% of capacity which is readily recharged. You can see that when you use the Nesspresso machine. It takes 150A for around 45 secs. I can see current going from both the Li's and LA's (I have 2 BMVs). After it is turned off I see 15A going from the Li bank to the LA bank which decays quickly to zero after 5 mins. (More evidence that the '100' sites charge very quickly with little effort). I very much doubt ANY sulphation of the LA bank is happening.

In the case of the 'affordable Li' set up, I would be running my system to use maybe 200Ahrs and so your LA's wouldnt be down below 80% SoC. If you were worried, then just isolating the Li's once a week and charging on a long run would give the LA's 14.+V charge.

I agree, I wont know about mine for quite a while.

 

I worked with batteries all of my working life. Mainly lead acid, but also nickel cadmium and nickel iron. I also witnessed an aluminium air battery prototype. Unfortunately i have no relevant experience of lithium ion (except in phones and my 13 year old iPod ?).

 

Whilst you are correct that a lead acid will sulphate most quickly if fully discharged and left in that state, sulphation starts immediately the battery begins to discharge.

 

The longer the sulphate is left before recharging, the harder it becomes to remove, and only high charging voltages will remove the last of it, and then only if it has not had the opportunity to fully harden.

 

I suspect that your lead acid battery will gradually sulphate over a period of a year or two if not regularly fully charged.

 

Yours is an interesting project, which will help inform many of us about lithium batteries performance over the longer term, so please keep us regularly informed.

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4 hours ago, Lingy said:

Check out this guys channel out.

Yup, quite interesting, but he didn’t tell us anything that we haven’t already discussed on this forum several times. His points about balancing is why Dr Bob and others only ever cycle between 20% and 80%, in fact usually less than that. 

 

This link (posted by someone yesterday) is far more informative imho. 

https://marinehowto.com/lifepo4-batteries-on-boats/

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12 minutes ago, WotEver said:

Yup, quite interesting, but he didn’t tell us anything that we haven’t already discussed on this forum several times. His points about balancing is why Dr Bob and others only ever cycle between 20% and 80%, in fact usually less than that. 

 

This link (posted by someone yesterday) is far more informative imho. 

https://marinehowto.com/lifepo4-batteries-on-boats/

Read that ages ago and fell asleep helf way through his innitial ramblings.It is 

far too much info for a newb like me.i find youtube far more easier to follow,hence saying check his content out.

 

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19 minutes ago, Lingy said:

Read that ages ago and fell asleep helf way through his innitial ramblings.It is 

far too much info for a newb like me.i find youtube far more easier to follow,hence saying check his content out.

The trouble is, listening to a fanboy such as him will leave huge gaps in your knowledge, and therein lay the pitfalls. 

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1 hour ago, WotEver said:

Yup, quite interesting, but he didn’t tell us anything that we haven’t already discussed on this forum several times. His points about balancing is why Dr Bob and others only ever cycle between 20% and 80%, in fact usually less than that. 

 

This link (posted by someone yesterday) is far more informative imho. 

https://marinehowto.com/lifepo4-batteries-on-boats/

 

26 minutes ago, WotEver said:

The trouble is, listening to a fanboy such as him will leave huge gaps in your knowledge, and therein lay the pitfalls. 

Exactly Tony, remember when I first posted my plans to never go below 20% or above 80% have no active BMS people doubted my sanity, well a year down the line I have given up plugging the puter in to check the batteries! The problem is that because the inbalance is so small by the time I get to read the cell voltages they have balanced! The batteries themselves are the same I pop the voltmeter on them and they are reading the same or .02 out which isnt enough to bother me, the fact is the batteries as long as you dont abuse them just stay in balance, now this is my Valence batteries others might or might not be different, but both my drive and domestic batteries are performing just how I hoped they would

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Seems like "fan boys" are also very keen on old tech lead batteries.

Not here to argue the toss just adding an opinion in an open forum.When i build some i will post about them.Any open minded people should Check out the yank fanboys videos.

 

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5 minutes ago, Lingy said:

Seems like "fan boys" are also very keen on old tech lead batteries.

You think? I didn’t hear him mention LAs once. Maybe he mentions them more in other videos?

14 minutes ago, peterboat said:

Exactly Tony, remember when I first posted my plans to never go below 20% or above 80% have no active BMS people doubted my sanity, well a year down the line I have given up plugging the puter in to check the batteries!

Indeed. Practical experience founded on a good knowledge base beats theory every time. 

 

I don’t think we should discuss that Yank’s compression case... :D

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1 hour ago, WotEver said:

Yup, quite interesting, but he didn’t tell us anything that we haven’t already discussed on this forum several times. His points about balancing is why Dr Bob and others only ever cycle between 20% and 80%, in fact usually less than that. 

 

This link (posted by someone yesterday) is far more informative imho. 

https://marinehowto.com/lifepo4-batteries-on-boats/

This is one of the 'must read ' docs if you are going down the diy route but the guy is ultra conservative and any one new to this needs to be aware of that. Have you read his articles on alternators or crimping cables? It's a wonder the world hasn't come to the end! That said, what he says on Lithiums is good. He is a lumpy water sailor though so his use of Li's is far more about alternator charging than massive real estate (>500W) of solar.......and I'd never have Li's on a lumpy water boat where you beat into 20 knot winds going crash, bang, crash, bang.....repeat for 3 hours.

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1 minute ago, Dr Bob said:

Have you read his articles on alternators or crimping cables?

Nope, I’ll go take a look at the crimping one now... I bet I agree with him :P

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