271 Ah upgrade
I'm sitting in the camper now on our shakedown voyage with the new 271 Ah LifePo4 battery I built from 4 3.2 cells I bought from China. This is working out so well that I'm seriously considering build...
Forum Discussion
StirCrazy wrote:
any info on the cells or how you built them?
Sure. I bought the cells from RJ lithium. It takes about a month for them to arrive and it is nerve wracking waiting for them. I bought the BMS(which is a mandatory component) from Overkill Solar You can find him on Amazon and reddit, let google lead the way to these resources.
As far as assembly is concerned, I read a lot on diysolarforum.com and watched a bunch of Will Prowse videos on youtube.
One thing I would do differently if I could is bite the bullet and build a 24 volt battery instead of a 12 volt battery, mainly for big inverter loads(microwave).
As it stands I think the MW situation will still be OK once I get an inverter installed.
When I installed my Lifeline batteries I had to remove the battery tray in order to fit them in the battery compartment and the wires were a pain in the ass to deal with. Since I'm using less space in the compartment for the LFPs I put all of the load/charging leads on posts at the rear of the compartment and then connected them to posts in the front for the battery to connect to. I also added a shunt for a battery monitor so I can get an accurate assessment of my state of charge. A voltage gauge just won't cut it since the cells hang out at 3.3v most of the time.
When I have some more time I'll write up a post with the steps I took, the tools I needed and the pictures I took.
I spent a little more than I would for a single 100ah battle born but I've got 271ah and excellent monitoring and it wasn't that hard to do. Patience and planning is key.
