Winterizing lithium batteries
How do I winterize my lithium batteries or do I have to. The temperature is starting to drop at night. I read if fully charged they only lose 3% per month.
Forum Discussion
This is the first winter for my lithium batteries. I bought a temp stick to monitor the temps in the battery compartment. https://tempstick.com/ Temp Stick I added a WiFi line to the rv to read temp and solar plus battery info remotely. But I’m not sure how to deal with winter.
I won’t take the batteries out. The wiring is far too complex and too much work to just disconnect.
So far the low temp in the compartment has been at night so solar is not charging the batteries. We had one night at 30° but the compartment was 35°. The batteries have a constant load of about 9 to 11 watts. So the batteries are rarely below 95% charge. I could turn off the DC power but then could not monitor remotely!
I bought a battery warmer pad for the compartment even though it was not recommended for lithium batteries. It is thermostatically controlled to turn on at 35 but does not turn off unless the temp reaches 80°. It means once it turns on it won’t go off unless I control the extension cord with WiFi. I’m not sure why the upper shut off temp is so high. Instructions say to unplug it if the battery is warm enough.
So with my system not charging the batteries in the cold and having them depleted 10% is an issue over winter.
I won’t take the batteries out. The wiring is far too complex and too much work to just disconnect.
So far the low temp in the compartment has been at night so solar is not charging the batteries. We had one night at 30° but the compartment was 35°. The batteries have a constant load of about 9 to 11 watts. So the batteries are rarely below 95% charge. I could turn off the DC power but then could not monitor remotely!
I bought a battery warmer pad for the compartment even though it was not recommended for lithium batteries. It is thermostatically controlled to turn on at 35 but does not turn off unless the temp reaches 80°. It means once it turns on it won’t go off unless I control the extension cord with WiFi. I’m not sure why the upper shut off temp is so high. Instructions say to unplug it if the battery is warm enough.
So with my system not charging the batteries in the cold and having them depleted 10% is an issue over winter.
