Lithium coming to luxury line for 2022?

[Gonna_Wander]

The King Aire now has a lithium battery option for the 2021 models. What are your thoughts on wether Newmar will provide that option to the rest of the Luxury line next year?

By the way, does anyone know what the price of the lithium option is on the King Aire?

[tom chelbana]

The video we watched stated that all King Aires in 2021 model year would have lithium batteries. If not 2021 by 2023 at least all high line model mostly will have them.
Newmar Man

[Ann n Gene]

They will make them nicer, with more features and gadgets that you want every year AND go up on the price, only thing we know for sure! That and King Aire went UP $350000 for 2021.

[Rev. Roy]

The lithium batteries are standard on the 2021 King Aire. I asked a sales person if I could delete it and save money and he looked at me surprised and said "I don't think so." When he asked why I wanted to do that I repiled, "Does Newmar really think that people buying a million dollar plus motorhome are going boondocking?" I think it is more trendy than needed for many people. I do know that the King Aire price went up 30%.

[RandDescape]

Originally Posted by Rev. Roy

The lithium batteries are standard on the 2021 King Aire. I asked a sales person if I could delete it and save money and he looked at me surprised and said "I don't think so." When he asked why I wanted to do that I repiled, "Does Newmar really think that people buying a million dollar plus motorhome are going boondocking?" I think it is more trendy than needed for many people. I do know that the King Aire price went up 30%.

I think they were making the case that they allow use of 2 of the AC units off the batteries now (was 1 on the 16 traditional batteries). So that may mean on a hot summer day they won’t have to have the generator running for the roof AC even if they don’t have a solar roof.

- Richard

[4x4]

If I had the $$$$ for a new King Aire I would definitely want the Lithium batteries as long as they are in a temperature controlled environment. Once you've had the Lithium batteries you would never want to go back to lead acid.

[SteveUpp]

Originally Posted by 4x4

If I had the $$$$ for a new King Aire I would definitely want the Lithium batteries as long as they are in a temperature controlled environment. Once you've had the Lithium batteries you would never want to go back to lead acid.

I have a 2019 New Aire. I have replaced the AGM batteries with 1200AH of Lithium batteries, added 1620W of solar, and added a transfer switch so that I can use my inverter to power either A/C unit, or cooktop or dishwasher or washer/dryer. My wife is driving right now and I'm on my laptop while we're on the expressway. We have the front A/C running off the inverter without the generator running and without a slow start added to the A/C (yet). The NA has one 3000W inverter so I can't power all the heavy draw appliances in the coach simultaneously off the inverter. It is mostly sunny at the moment and we're pulling in 1250W solar, pulling 400W out of the Lithium battery, and pulling approximately 500W out of the alternator.

We do like to boondock- which is why we did all of this, but I'm very happy with how it all works together even when we're driving along the highway.

For the manual transfer switch that lets me switch the source of power for the A/Cs and other heavy draw appliances, I installed this switch in the bedroom closet underneath the cabinet with the main load center breaker panel on the wall of the closet.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

With a flip of the switch now I can choose the source of power (either the inverter or the Shore/Generator) for 6 different circuits in the coach. The one trick is that you have to disable Load Shedding via Silverleaf when powering the A/Cs from the inverter because the energy management system shed's the A/C's without shore power or the generator detected at the main incoming transfer switch next to the power cord reel.

[bstabile]

Very nice setup!

[Generator]

Great info. Would you mind answering a few questions? I am just starting the process of switching to LiFePO4 batteries. My application is much simpler than yours. I'm looking at 8 Battleborn BBGC2 100Ah batteries because they fit exactly in My 2018 New Aire's battery tray. There's no room inside the NA 3343 for batteries. I'll probably install a small electric heater and insulate the battery compartment somewhat. No solar now, but I might think about it in the future. Here are my questions.

Did you change the Xantrex SW3000 charging profile from the factory programmed AGM settings? If so, did you use a "custom" profile? What settings did you use?

Were you able to modify the NADP's SilverLeaf system to continue to monitor and control the Xantrex Inverter/Converter? Did that require some interface with SilverLeaf? Any tips here?

The NADP alternator is rated for 450 amps. How are you keeping it from trying to supply full charging current to the LiFePO4 bank? Your bank could try to take 1200 amps of charging current from the alternator if not limited. Are you using an isolator or a DC to DC Charger? Have you had any issues with the alternator overheating?

Any other pitfalls of switching to LiFePO4?

Thanks

[dmp1991]

Originally Posted by Rev. Roy

When he asked why I wanted to do that I repiled, "Does Newmar really think that people buying a million dollar plus motorhome are going boondocking?" I think it is more trendy than needed for many people.

While LiFePO4 (lithium) batteries do meet many of the needs of boondockers, they have benefits that are useful when you aren't boondocking too. For example, they're completely maintenance free, they are warrantied for a much larger number of cycles (so lasts longer before you need to replace them), they suffer much less damage to the battery's internals if you run it down toward 0% state-of-charge, and they are lighter to boot.

So, for example, if the King Aire previously had 16 AGMs at 6v x 100AHr, that's 9.6KWHr of power storage. And probably weighs 1200 lbs, and lasts a couple years if used regularly. If you instead put in 8 LiFePo4 12v x 100 AHr batteries, it weighs approx 300 lbs and lasts approx 10 yrs. You save almost 900lbs and your batteries last 3 times longer.

[SteveUpp]

[QUOTE=Generator;5384358... Here are my questions.

Did you change the Xantrex SW3000 charging profile from the factory programmed AGM settings? If so, did you use a "custom" profile? What settings did you use?

Were you able to modify the NADP's SilverLeaf system to continue to monitor and control the Xantrex Inverter/Converter? Did that require some interface with SilverLeaf? Any tips here?

The NADP alternator is rated for 450 amps. How are you keeping it from trying to supply full charging current to the LiFePO4 bank? Your bank could try to take 1200 amps of charging current from the alternator if not limited. Are you using an isolator or a DC to DC Charger? Have you had any issues with the alternator overheating?

Any other pitfalls of switching to LiFePO4?

Thanks[/QUOTE]

Generator - lots of great questions. I did modify the settings on the Xantrex inverter/charger to meet my battery (Lithionics) recommended settings. Battleborn is a little different. They have documented their recommended settings here: https://battlebornbatteries.com/char...po4-batteries/ But the brief answer is Bulk and Absorb 14.4V and Float at 13.6. Yes you want to set this in the 'Custom' setting.

If you are replacing the AGMs with LiFePO4 your Silverleaf system will handle this just fine. Set the battery bank capacity to 800AH and I recommend setting the Absorbe time to .5hrs, although I didn't see that mentioned in the Battleborn doc. These batteries will eagerly take charging current till they are almost full and then the voltage will raise to 14.4 pretty quickly. No reason to keep the batteries at 14.4 in absorb for very long so a .5Hr absorb phase is all you need. It really should be shorter to be honest. I actually did a full firmware upgrade on my TM102 module because the Lithionics EMS communicates battery status to the Silverleaf system and a software upgrade was required. I posted about this here: https://www.irv2.com/forums/f103/sil...re-479597.html

As far as the alternator goes. There is a battery bridging solenoid that connects the house battery and coach battery together based on voltages and RPMs and other factors. The lightening bolt that shows up on the silverleaf home page shows when the battery bridge is engaged and current is flowing between the two 12V systems. From my experience the bridge limits the amount of current flowing and you never get close to overloading the Alternator. I know this because I can monitor the current flowing in/out of the Lithium battery bank. I think I've seen about 40A going across the bridge even when I've had large draws on the house side. You can always contact Silverleaf to find out more information.

You will need to seal up the battery bay to retain more temperature control and reduce dust and water intrusion while driving. Newmar doesn't seal that bay so this turned out to be my biggest challenge.

I highly recommend that you purchase a Victron Battery Monitor (I have the 712) and install it while you are installing the batteries. The BMS gives you much more granular visibility into the state of charge of the batteries. The silverleaf system really only monitors the voltage, but LiFePO4 doesn't decrease voltage as pronounced as AGMs so its not an accurate way of measuring the battery's charge state. It works off of bluetooth so you don't necessarily have to install the display device inside the coach. I installed it in the bay next to the battery bay.

[paul65k]

Originally Posted by Generator

Great info. Would you mind answering a few questions? I am just starting the process of switching to LiFePO4 batteries. My application is much simpler than yours. I'm looking at 8 Battleborn BBGC2 100Ah batteries because they fit exactly in My 2018 New Aire's battery tray. There's no room inside the NA 3343 for batteries. I'll probably install a small electric heater and insulate the battery compartment somewhat. No solar now, but I might think about it in the future. Here are my questions.

Did you change the Xantrex SW3000 charging profile from the factory programmed AGM settings? If so, did you use a "custom" profile? What settings did you use?

Were you able to modify the NADP's SilverLeaf system to continue to monitor and control the Xantrex Inverter/Converter? Did that require some interface with SilverLeaf? Any tips here?

The NADP alternator is rated for 450 amps. How are you keeping it from trying to supply full charging current to the LiFePO4 bank? Your bank could try to take 1200 amps of charging current from the alternator if not limited. Are you using an isolator or a DC to DC Charger? Have you had any issues with the alternator overheating?

Any other pitfalls of switching to LiFePO4?

Thanks

Stay tuned.....rumors have BB coming out with new batteries this year that incorporate internal heating elements......