Are lithium batteries worth the cost?

Avid Fox wrote:

otrfun wrote:

Avid Fox wrote:
I can carry two group 29s in my AF1150.

Are they worth it?

We just built a 200ah LifePo4 battery pack that fits inside a group 24 battery box for approx. $750 purchasing cells and BMS from US distributors (~$550 purchasing from China). I've easily gotten ~160ah out of this battery pack under high loads (>100a) discharging from 100 to ~20% SOC.

You could easily fit two of these in your truck camper. This could provide you with 320-360ah of unrestricted, usable power without stressing the battery. LifePo4's can be discharged down to almost 10% SOC under extremely high loads with only a .2v to .3v voltage drop (lead cells drop 2-3 times as much). With proper cabling you'll have zero worries about low voltage inverter alarms.

With 320-360ah you could power a typical 10k-11k truck camper a/c (120vac, 10-11a) for at least 3 hours (100 to 20% SOC) with the compressor running 100%. With the compressor cycling you could probably get 4-5 hours. Amazing performance from just two, small group 24 sized LifePo4 DIY battery packs!

And what do you use for charging them? Are they in a truck or RV which use DC charging sources?

We have one DIY 200ah LifePo4 battery pack (group 24 size) mounted in our truck camper. We have enough room for two group 29's just like you. However, 200ah is plenty of power for us.

Some feel lithium specific chargers are necessary to safely and fully charge LifePo4's. I respectfully disagree. Any converter/charger that can produce 14.4v to 14.6v will charge LifePo4 batteries to 100% with zero issues. We use the standard OEM Progressive Dynamic 45a converter that came with our truck camper new. We manually select the 14.4v bulk mode with the Charge Wizard and let it do its thing. It produces a full 45a of charge current for nearly 90-95% of the charge cycle. It tapers down for the last 5-10%. A lithium specific charger isn't going to do any better. Although it's not really necessary, we manually select a 13.6v float charge when the charge cycle is complete.

We also have the ability to charge our LifePo4 battery pack with a Renogy 40a dc to dc charger we installed in our truck camper (it's powered by the alternator in our truck). It produces 39-40a of charge current. We can use both the OEM converter and dc to dc charger at the same time to charge our battery pack at 85-90a. This allows us to charge a nearly depleted 200ah LifePo4 battery (10-15% SOC) to 100% in approx. 2 hours.