Upgrade 2020 Allegro Bus to lithium house batteries

[michaelt0120]

I'd like to know if anyone has swapped out their flooded lead acid house batteries for lithium in a 2019 or 2020 Allegro Bus. What was your experience and what all did you have to do make the upgrade happen?

I know there are some unique complications in these model years due to Tiffin's integration of power/battery management into the Spyder network. I'm particularly interested in knowing if you had to disconnect the RVC Bridge and go with the ME-ARC Magnum remote control to be able to configure the inverter for lithium, or did you just modify the custom battery absorb/float/equalization settings to lithium specs in Spyder?

Did you install the Magnum AGS module or did you find that the Spyder AGS functions still worked (at least for the HVAC loads) after disconnecting the RVC bridge?

How did you handle the merge solenoid functionality? I've had a Spyder tech tell me that the chassis/house battery merge won't work right between a FLA chassis battery bank and lithium house batteries because of the differences in voltages. He suggested it would be best to physically cut the auto merge wire running into the G8 module to disable the auto merge and prevent any damage to the batteries. He also suggested that I use a trickle charger to maintain the chassis batteries if I'm worried about that during long stationary periods.

If there is anything that I haven't mentioned that you encountered and had to deal with, please let me know. Thanks much!

[thegats1]

Originally Posted by michaelt0120

I'd like to know if anyone has swapped out their flooded lead acid house batteries for lithium in a 2019 or 2020 Allegro Bus. What was your experience and what all did you have to do make the upgrade happen?

I know there are some unique complications in these model years due to Tiffin's integration of power/battery management into the Spyder network. I'm particularly interested in knowing if you had to disconnect the RVC Bridge and go with the ME-ARC Magnum remote control to be able to configure the inverter for lithium, or did you just modify the custom battery absorb/float/equalization settings to lithium specs in Spyder?

Did you install the Magnum AGS module or did you find that the Spyder AGS functions still worked (at least for the HVAC loads) after disconnecting the RVC bridge?

How did you handle the merge solenoid functionality? I've had a Spyder tech tell me that the chassis/house battery merge won't work right between a FLA chassis battery bank and lithium house batteries because of the differences in voltages. He suggested it would be best to physically cut the auto merge wire running into the G8 module to disable the auto merge and prevent any damage to the batteries. He also suggested that I use a trickle charger to maintain the chassis batteries if I'm worried about that during long stationary periods.

If there is anything that I haven't mentioned that you encountered and had to deal with, please let me know. Thanks much!

Nearly all of this is way over my knowledge base. But I do have a simple battery maintainer for the chassis batteries that works wonderfully. Red Bay installed it. I don't know the model. It's in storage and would have to extend the bedroom slide and pull out the drawers to see it.

[Evan]

Hello Michael.

Has anyone ever answered your question? I know it what’s some time ago but it is spot on for my situation and really need the answers. Please…

[michaelt0120]

Never got a legitimate answer to these questions.

[obeone]

Hi michaelt0120,

I have a 2019 RED 37BA and have upgraded the house batteries to lithium last summer 2021. My rig is using the Magnum remote ME-RC50 panel ver 2.8 which doesn't have direct lithium settings. I am using the CC/CV settings which are working fine as far as I can tell. My rig also uses the Magnum AGS. All of which is working great.

I was looking for a real drop in solution. I went with 4 - 12v OWL Max 2 batteries from Big Battery.

Several reasons for that choice:
1) Lots of power each battery is 228 amp hour for 912 total.
2) They fit my battery tray at 21” x 20.5” and height of the basement.
3) I was able to use the existing battery cables. I used the combiner box that they also sell. The RV cables connect to the combiner box and the combiner box connects to all of the batteries.
4) The weight ended up about the same as the 4 factory flooded lead acid golf cart batteries.

I did disable the battery merge feature. So my house batteries are limited to charging via shore power, generator and/or solar. The Tiffin Battery Merge Spec – 08.16.2016 (which I believe is a Spyder module) appears to be hard wired for a lead acid profile. I am still running the AGM chassis batteries. I don't believe connecting these batteries of different chemistries would be good. Plus I don't think it would be good for the coach alternator (the lithium batteries would likely pull too much power). So I unplugged the line from the power control module to the merge solenoid (which can be easily plugged back in if needed). Now I sometimes see that the coach thinks the merge is engaged but without the solenoid it doesn't really happen. I was thinking of installing a DC to DC charger but I haven't really found it necessary. The house batteries have so much power that keeping things running while on the road is not an issue.

I am working toward being able to run one of my a/c units off of battery. I have recently upgraded the Magnum Inverter/Charger to the 3000w hybrid model. I am in the process of installing a soft start on the a/c and a switch to move the unit over to one of the inverter circuits when I want to run it off of battery.

Here are some pics of the battery install.

[SamKVA]

Originally Posted by michaelt0120

I'd like to know if anyone has swapped out their flooded lead acid house batteries for lithium in a 2019 or 2020 Allegro Bus. What was your experience and what all did you have to do make the upgrade happen?

I know there are some unique complications in these model years due to Tiffin's integration of power/battery management into the Spyder network. I'm particularly interested in knowing if you had to disconnect the RVC Bridge and go with the ME-ARC Magnum remote control to be able to configure the inverter for lithium, or did you just modify the custom battery absorb/float/equalization settings to lithium specs in Spyder?

Did you install the Magnum AGS module or did you find that the Spyder AGS functions still worked (at least for the HVAC loads) after disconnecting the RVC bridge?

How did you handle the merge solenoid functionality? I've had a Spyder tech tell me that the chassis/house battery merge won't work right between a FLA chassis battery bank and lithium house batteries because of the differences in voltages. He suggested it would be best to physically cut the auto merge wire running into the G8 module to disable the auto merge and prevent any damage to the batteries. He also suggested that I use a trickle charger to maintain the chassis batteries if I'm worried about that during long stationary periods.

If there is anything that I haven't mentioned that you encountered and had to deal with, please let me know. Thanks much!

My Magnum ME-RVC module failed a couple months ago and when they sent me a new one, it was the ME-RVC-L. After the easy swap of modules, I realized the Spyder panel settings for the inverter/charger now has a " Lithium" option. Not sure if that does anything to the charging pattern between house and chassis batteries for the different chemistries and I don't have any options to change the settings independently. There's some chatter that Spyder has a software upgrade to fully support a Lithium house upgrade and some to the contrary but I have not confirmed that with Tiffin or Spyder directly.

Sam

[ekim]

I'm starting down this path too. The Spyder panel allows for setting the absorption and float voltages. If these can be set on the Spyder panel then maybe there's no need for an upgrade?

I think it's as "simple" as:
1) Find battery/bms (must support loads, gen starting, etc.)
2) Ensure inverter can be programmed properly and do so
3) Deal with auto merge (disable the auto part and leave the manual part).
4) deal with battery temp (enclose bay, add heater if needed)
5) Install batteries

Note: You can remove 1 pin from a G8 cable to disable auto merge while retaining manual merge.