Ramblings of a Techno-Viking

All in the subject.

All in the subject.

another year has passed. Update please. In southern CA, who would you purchase from again? Thanks

As I have mentioned before, I left the alternator charging alone and do not consider it a significant source of charging of my LiFePO4 bank.

Do you charge at all from the alternator on the engine? If so do you have a modified alternator and/or regulator?

Thanks, George

The price point just keeps getting better and components and even complete system are available but with an operating temperature and storage temperatures just slightly under freezing these remain difficult to install. I anticipate full timing but my batter bank isn't in a heated location, and even if it were and I wanted to over winter somewhere, pulling the batteries as part of the storage process isn't an attractive prospect. So for me this is the biggest blocker on paper so far.

We went with LFP last year on our current 5th wheel. Older son is in the solar/wind business and designed and fabricated our current system (former system/trailer/pickup are in a wrecking yard near Mexico City. We were in a 70 care pileup between Vera Cruz and Puebla, Mexico). This is 1420 W of solar (6 x 235 watt panels). These are ganged 3 in series to they go to controller at around 90 V. The battery suite is 4 batteries of 4 cells each for a battery suite of 180 Amps at 54 V or approximately 9600 W-hours. We generally run refrigerator during day with AC and at night if it will be sunny the next day (are down -3000 W-hours in morning if we do this). Run the micro-wave in preference to propane stove since there is no added cost. Wife uses a 55 W heating pad on her back every night and we have used A/C for up to 3.5 hours on battery suite/solar. It is definitely the way things will go as the prices go down

LiFePO4 chargers aren't readily available because it's a chicken-and-egg problem: Why build an LFP charger if no one is using LFP cells? And why buy LFP cells if no one makes an LFP charger?

And the reason they're not more popular? They're not popular

I think the RV manufacturers would have to take the first step, but they really want to keep costs down. Very few install even AGMs.

We have almost the same LFP cells! Mine are 260Ah ThunderSkys, manufactured in late 2010, bought used/abused from Balqon in late 2012. I noticed a disappointing 20% capacity loss after my first year, even though they were VERY gently cycled.

Hopefully your new cells will fare much better.

I didn't visit any of the museums when I was there. I was too busy photographing the approximately three million historical markers, and still didn't get them all.

Please make not this statement in the lithium battery brochure.

http://www.balqon.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/36_36bms_brochure_balqon.pdf Page 4.

" Operation of batteries in a relatively high SOC (State-of-Charge) percentage (between 100% and 30%), increases battery life and system reliability. This approach has two main advantages. First, the battery cycle and calendar life is significantly extended based on high SOC percentage. This follows from operating the battery away from over-discharge conditions, where side-reactions that change the internal functional structure of the cells are more likely to occur. Second, the battery is operated in a SOC region where it is capable of sustaining higher incoming or outgoing power rates. "