Lithium Ion Batteries for RVs

[HughCJ]

I was reading on About RVing.com about Lithium Ion Batteries for RVs!. Very interesting information. Does anyone hear have any experience with them. Looks like they give a lot more power and a lot less weight.

Website: About RVing - RV LifeStyle - RV Travel Full Time RVing - RV Maintenance - RV Repair

HughCJ

[Stan.Birch]

Within my experience, lithium ion batteries tend to have

- high initial cost;
- a rapid self-discharge rate;
- a short useful service life;
- and a propensity to go BANG! when modestly mistreated!

I got a full ten years outta my first set of chassis/house batteries; and only replaced them at that point because of the additional demands during winter RVing. $300 a decade seems like good value to me.

[WheelingIt]

Lithium is definitely the future of RVing. They're already used in boating/marine and some RVers are doing early adoption. Probably the RV guys with most published info on this is Technomadia:

http://www.technomadia.com/2011/10/l...-rv-batteries/

It'll be a few years before we do this, but it's on our list!

[dsbear]

Be careful though as its not working so well for Boeing.

[WheelingIt]

Originally Posted by dsbear

Be careful though as its not working so well for Boeing.

Different kind of lithium batteries alltogether.

[dsbear]

Originally Posted by WheelingIt

Different kind of lithium batteries alltogether.

I don't believe so, both are lithium ion.

[WheelingIt]

Originally Posted by dsbear

I don't believe so, both are lithium ion.

The Dreamliner batteries are Lithium Cobalt cells, not Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4 aka LFP) which is what you'd be using in your RV. Given the looong design cycles in airplanes the battery specs were finalized many years ago.

[powerboatr]

Originally Posted by WheelingIt

Lithium is definitely the future of RVing. They're already used in boating/marine and some RVers are doing early adoption. Probably the RV guys with most published info on this is Technomadia:

Lithium Ion Batteries for RV House Systems / LiFePO4 | Technomadia

It'll be a few years before we do this, but it's on our list!

thanks for the link, very interesting indeed

[wardy]

Most (I think all) of the side radiator DP coaches have the coach batteries on the opposite side of the radiator to counter balance the weight of the radiator. If you take away more than half the weight with Lithium I would think you have a retrofit problem issue.

[WheelingIt]

Originally Posted by powerboatr

thanks for the link, very interesting indeed

Here's an even more detailed write-up. This is from a boater. Marine guys are already using lithium quite extensively (at least compared to RVers). This is a PDF document.
http://marazuladventures.files.wordp...batteries8.pdf

[wincrasher]

where would you even buy LiOn batteries for an RV?

[dsbear]

Thanks for the education. I stand corrected.

[WheelingIt]

Originally Posted by wincrasher

where would you even buy LiOn batteries for an RV?

Most of the lithium adoption is going on in boating right now, so marine sites or cruising forums are your best option for locating deals if you're not bulding the battery bank yourself (many people are DIY right now).

Here's an example for a pretty neat deal on 700AH battery bank for $560 (a few weeks ago I saw this same bank selling for $462! We were sorely tempted by that one!):
Balqon - Advanced Transportation Solution

The marine guys also sell lithuim-specific chargers.

More links to suppliers in this post:
http://www.technomadia.com/2011/11/l...-battery-cost/

[Technomadia]

Thank you for the links and spreading the education, Nina! (And she is absolutely correct.. different chemistry than the Boeing stuff.)

Here's a direct link to all of our Lithium Ion Phosphate information that we gathered for doing our own build (for anyone who wants all the details):

http://www.technomadia.com/lithium

We also have a video archive of a talk we gave on our battery system on YouTube that you can view:

Technomadia Lithium Ion Batteries for RVs - YouTube

- Cherie
PS. We have nothing to sell.. just sharing our own research from our own personal project.