I swapped over to a BB battery last year. While I did not shop around all that much (I now hear that Trojan has a LiFePo4 that works at a lower temperature) I liked the size, usable AH, Plug and play and usable cycles (~3000) of the Battleborn batteries.
Considering many/most truck campers have three charge sources: AC/DC converter, Solar charge controller and umbilical cord from the truck, I looked at the first two and their compatibility with the BB.
The Progressive Dynamics 45A AC/DC unit can be replaced with a Li native one which has ONE output voltage, namely 14.6V however when pressed with the concept of their battery getting that voltage for weeks/months constantly at a time, Battleborn advises that doing that is not the optimum solution. With this information in hand I simply left the stock PD6045 installed and then focused on the solar charge controller.
As luck would have it, the model controller I have has both a Li setting and a custom setting that can be adjusted to the specific requirements of the BB battery. I just set it to the Li setting and one of these days I'll dig out the manual for both (BB and controller) and setup the custom setting.'
The charge line from my truck is stock and as such is fairly useless with or without a LiFePo4 battery installed. While upgrading the wiring is on my project list I'd also employ a DC-DC regulator to the 14.6V that the BB wants.
Considering that most flooded AGM or otherwise batteries have ratings of 300-800 usable cycles I figure the BB will last at least 3x as long as a flooded battery.
I later ran into a user on Facebook that was able to source LiFePo4 cells in China and a decent PMS on Ebay and was able to setup there own 240AH LiFePo4 battery for about the same cost as a single Battleborn 100AH battery.
While it is debatable if I would of gone through all that effort, making your own is always a viable option.
- Mark0.
