Battle Born LiFePO4 batteries

[SCOTTinNJ]

Originally Posted by powerwiz

Probably your best bet to use these things is to wrap the battery in a cold weather wrap which will help some if you can. I would also keep in the truck safely stored your old batteries perhaps to use when its to cold to charge the lithium ones. You could bring the lithium ones inside and charge them with a battery charger then swap them out again.

Sounds like a pain but a fully charged lithium battery in cold weather will always exceed the performance of other style batteries.

I would mount mine inside the trailer in the front hatch. Then repurpose the battery box for other use.

[battlebornli]

Li-ion should not be floated. However, after they are charged they very slowly relax down to 13.6V over many hours. Therefore, by setting the float to 13.6V or lower, the charger is not actually doing anything because the pack will be at a higher voltage than the float. 13.8V is a little high for float and in the long run may degrade capacity.

In terms of charging, the pack will charge if you apply a voltage between 13.6V and 14.6V. But since voltage is the "driving force" for pushing current into the battery, it will take much longer to charge at low voltages. We recommend a charging voltage of at least 14.2V for reducing charge times. Also, 14.4-14.6 is optimal for allowing the cells to balance during the charge cycle.

[battlebornli]

Originally Posted by powerwiz

That depends how there constructed internally and who they went with for that material. Way back Apple had some of the thinnest laptops because they had helped develop a process to layer the lithium like a ribbon in the battery case resulting in maximum surface area use. Old school laptop batteries in some cases simple had a bunch of AA batteries all connected and a shell put around it.

That is correct! There is actually quite a bit of open space inside the packs. There are a variety of cell formats, including cylindrical, pouch, and prismatic. We use more smaller cylinders in our design than other packs, which means we can pack them in tighter. Cell phones, laptops, drones, etc. use pouches, which are the most efficient use of space. However, for big packs like ours, we also need to take heat transfer into account and packing them in too tightly could cause thermal gradients and non-uniform degradation.

[Rocinante]

Right, so if we decided to go with BB batteries I'm thinking we might need a different converter as well. We have the Progressive Dynamics 4655. Here are the specs. It's not programmable:

• BOOST Mode 14.4 Volts - Rapidly brings RV battery up to 90% of full charge.
• NORMAL Mode 13.6 Volts - Safely completes the charge.
• STORAGE Mode 13.2 Volts - Maintains charge with minimal gassing or water loss.
• EQUALIZATION Mode 14.4 Volts - Every 21 hours for a period of 15 minutes prevents battery stratification & sulfation - the leading cause of battery failure.

[battlebornli]

Originally Posted by Rocinante

Right, so if we decided to go with BB batteries I'm thinking we might need a different converter as well. We have the Progressive Dynamics 4655. Here are the specs. It's not programmable:

• BOOST Mode 14.4 Volts - Rapidly brings RV battery up to 90% of full charge.
• NORMAL Mode 13.6 Volts - Safely completes the charge.
• STORAGE Mode 13.2 Volts - Maintains charge with minimal gassing or water loss.
• EQUALIZATION Mode 14.4 Volts - Every 21 hours for a period of 15 minutes prevents battery stratification & sulfation - the leading cause of battery failure.

We love the Progressive Dynamics product. This particular converter will work fine. The "Normal charge" mode only charges to 13.6V which, as noted earlier, will charge the battery, but takes longer to get to full charge, and never goes through a balancing process. The "Boost" mode charges up to 14.4V, which is exactly where we want to be. In order to activate boost mode, the battery needs to fall below a prescribed voltage. So if the batteries are getting empty, they will automatically be charged in boost mode. Even if you never get to boost mode, the charger goes through "equalization" every day, which brings the battery up to 14.4V allowing the cell balancing process to occur. So this converter should not need to be switched out.

[Rocinante]

That's helpful, thanks. One another note, it's easy to put the PD4655 into "Boost" mode with the simple press of a button on the panel. So, we could do that from time to time as well.

[Mgieselman]

I was curious as to what's inside a 12v LiFePO4 battery. I think if Battle Born are made the same way then there should be no downside to having internal BMS (ie Battle Born) vs external (ie Victron).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEe_F9jY-cM

[Mattirs]

How do one know how much power is left in the batteries when the BMI is internal?

[fran&frank]

A good battery monitor like a Victron BMV-702 can tell you about the status of your battery, even with an internal BMS, once its programmed correctly for your battery. It can't tell you about the status of individual cells though, like some monitors and bms can.

[SCOTTinNJ]

Originally Posted by battlebornli

We love the Progressive Dynamics product. This particular converter will work fine. The "Normal charge" mode only charges to 13.6V which, as noted earlier, will charge the battery, but takes longer to get to full charge, and never goes through a balancing process. The "Boost" mode charges up to 14.4V, which is exactly where we want to be. In order to activate boost mode, the battery needs to fall below a prescribed voltage. So if the batteries are getting empty, they will automatically be charged in boost mode. Even if you never get to boost mode, the charger goes through "equalization" every day, which brings the battery up to 14.4V allowing the cell balancing process to occur. So this converter should not need to be switched out.

Isn't one of the qualities of lithium that it has a very flat voltage curve? So how discharged does it need to be to force the boost mode?

I'm specifically asking because the Boondocker charger I'm looking at does not have, best I can tell, a way to force boost mode. Without a depleted battery it seems like I'd be charging at 13.6 volts constantly, which is no different than the stock charger at least before the Boondocker floats.

[BoldAdventure]

Fascinating stuff.

[lewster]

I'm staying OUT of this one!!

[SCOTTinNJ]

Join the fun!

[Starstream]

After several email exchanges with Denis from Battle Born, I am convinced these batteries fit our needs and future needs.

I like the idea of not having to replace our current equipment. Battle Born are modular which really helps for budgeting.

[Gsmblue]

Definitely added to my list of potential upgrades in 2018.

[BoldAdventure]

But they aren't actually Battle Born are they? They weren't really forged in the heat of battle.

[Rocinante]

Ah, c'mon, they fight the Demons of Discharge every day. That's gotta count for something.

[battlebornli]

Originally Posted by Mattirs

How do one know how much power is left in the batteries when the BMI is internal?

Although the battery management system is inside the pack to make sure that the cells are never operating out of spec, the battery state-of-charge can always be monitored externally. There are a number of battery monitoring systems available that range from simple voltage monitors to charge counters.

[battlebornli]

Originally Posted by BoldAdventure

But they aren't actually Battle Born are they? They weren't really forged in the heat of battle.

They were produced in Nevada, which is the "Battle Born" state. Nevada became a free state under Abraham Lincoln in 1964 during the Civil War.

[BoldAdventure]

Originally Posted by battlebornli

They were produced in Nevada, which is the "Battle Born" state. Nevada became a free state under Abraham Lincoln in 1964 during the Civil War.

I know, I read your about page. I thought maybe you were a veteran owned company at first.