lifepo4 longevity

[wayno]

Well, what a wealth of information you are, glad you got back and shared your thoughts.

Thought I'd drop in during a break from our travelling to update my lifepo4 systems in case some may be interested. My portable 120amp lifepo4 pack is now 17 years old, house and bus packs, 16 years old.

My portable pack is used almost daily when home as it runs many thing in the workshop and as backup on the road, which has allowed me to have power wherever we are and away from the bus. Last year the portable pack begun to show signs of age, not fully charging and dropping below 13v during use. Originally put that down to age, but noticed the charge controller in the workshop didn't seem to be working at times and upon inspection discovered water has got into the wires from the panels, rusted the connections and wasn't charging properly. After fixing that problem the pack still didn't seem to be holding charge, so adjusted the charge controller from cut off at 14v to cut off at 14.14v to see what happened. After a few days of that charging formula, which meant it charged to 14.14, then restarted at 13.6V the pack was registering full 120amp capacity. Then I disconnected it and let it sit for a few days, checking the voltage each day and discovered it was still registering as fully charged.

Was very happy with the results and after another year, the pack still has 100% capacity with no voltage drop. It's the same with my house and bus packs, which are 1 year younger, they are still performing perfectly on my original charge parameters. What has really surprised me is, have 3 spare 50amp cells which have never been used or charged and they still sit at 3.2v after 17 years. They sit on a shelf in the workshop and have been ignored for years so was surprised to see they still retained their original voltage, which to me is a great sign of their longevity and reliability.

A couple of years ago purchased a makita 16inch 36v chainsaw and then a 14inch 36v makita after seeing what the 16inch could do. Now have ditched my 3 husquvana petrol chainsaws and use the Makitas for dropping trees and cutting them up. Which means life on the road is even more simple, because can cut wood with little noise and they are simply amazing. Now Makita have released 40v chainsaws including an 18inch 40v saw, which will purchase when they have been out for a year and the bugs fixed. They are simple amazing and have made life so much easier capable of dropping huge trees which require wedging to ensure they drop in the right places.

I will be looking at the chainsaws in the near future. I agree, the minimal noise is an advantage when wanting to prevent a heated discussion with an ill informed greenie from the city. Like your thinking. I was in the Grampians, had a permit and started cutting up a dead fallen over Black Butt. Within minutes, I had a women abusing me for doing so. Wanted to see my permit, acted like some sort of self appointed land cop. My brother told her to take a good look at her own property, very serious erosion due to the number of rabbit warrens. I figured asking for permission to shoot a few of them probably would not be a great idea. So we got our fire wood and left.

Wayno

[native pepper]

Terry, got my makita saws because have a lot of makita battery tools and ebay batteries, those Ego ones sound good and expect they will only improve. Don’t have a clue about flow batteries will be interesting to see how they go, battery technology is sure moving pretty fast and soda ion batteries may be the next big thing if they can get them right and have read they may have solved the one problem holding them back.

I agree Dot, love all animals even the snakes here, they are cool and don’t hassle the animals or us. There’s one big black tiger who would be close to 2m long and when it’s out it lies on one of the tracks in the bush and doesn't move when I come past, it’s been here for a long time and the dogs always take a detour when they see it. Our resident rooster defoliated our blueberry bushes the other day which really pissed me off, it’s been here for many years and didn’t realise they lived so long, now it thinks it’s a dog and lies around with them and tries to follow them into the house.

My dogs go everywhere with me and are my only family and wonderful companions. Bindi is slowly learning to live with one eye, she was chasing sticks the other day and not looking where she was going on her right side and ran into a tree bowling her over, which must have hurt as kelpies tend to run flat out. But she jumped up and got the stick, slowed her down for the day and noticed since she now runs swinging her head from side to side so she can see. Dax was watching her when she hit the tree and not sure but looked to me like he had a big grin on his face and if he could laugh would’ve, the rest of the walk he kept the same expression wagging his tail and wandering along at a slow trot.

Learnt age is catching up with me the other day, took my car in to get a modification plate for my long range fuel tanks and had a couple of hours to spare so decided to walk to the big shopping center, thinking it was about 1klm. Turned out walked 6 klms on concrete footpaths which haven’t walked on for many years, resulting in very sore legs and have spent the last couple of days admiring the ceiling in my lounge. Today heading for a band practise, thought it was all over but bass player got a couple of gigs, so we have to put together a repertoire to suit.

[T1 Terry]

Looking at doing some hands on testing of the soduim ion cells to see if they might be a substitute for the LTO cells I lost in the workshop fire as an extended range traction battery for the Prius.
Looking at getting some 200Ah sodium ion cells to see if they can do a similar job for house batteries as the Winston LYP cells that have worked so well for us when the business was using these for off grid as well as RV installs.
I doubt they'll have the cycle life, but trying to freight lithium cells has become prohibitively expensive these days, $160 to get 1 x 160Ah cell and 1 x 100Ah cell from nthqld to SA is no longer financially viable

T1 Terry

[Greynomad]

After I lost all my lithium cells in the workshop fire, including the brand new 55Ah LTO cells, I've been looking at the sodium ion cells as a possible alternative. Even though they claim they are cheaper to make because the materials are plentiful, they are still more expensive to buy because the developers need to recover their R&D costs.
The plus side for the sodium ion chemistry, the transport issues may be sorted once the information is made available and accepted by the freight mobs.

T1,

Keep us posted!

[T1 Terry]

After I lost all my lithium cells in the workshop fire, including the brand new 55Ah LTO cells, I've been looking at the sodium ion cells as a possible alternative. Even though they claim they are cheaper to make because the materials are plentiful, they are still more expensive to buy because the developers need to recover their R&D costs.
The plus side for the sodium ion chemistry, the transport issues may be sorted once the information is made available and accepted by the freight mobs.

T1,

Keep us posted!

Still waiting for my test samples to arrive, but I will be posting the results on this forum and the electric vehicle forum .... and probably the cruising boat forum in their "new technology" section.
I still think the Winston LYP cells make great house batteries, but the nonsense regarding anything with lithium in the name has poisoned the market place and I'm just over trying to argue with idiots that shine seats and learn from Google with zero knowledge to sort the nonsense from the facts, then make stupid rules regarding battery installation ... as I said, I'm over it .....

T1 Terry

[supersparky]

I found this on fbk today. It's a kinda pleasant surprise to find an article that explains lithiums and doesn't do the scaremonger waffle that some would have you believe about LiFeP04 batteries. An interesting read I reckon.

https://www.caravancampingsales.com.au/ ... ns-142957/

[T1 Terry]

The article of 48v systems looks interesting, I'll have to find some time to read it through and digest it, but it could be an interesting move away from the traditional 12v. It does have it's own issues, inverters must have a pre charge circuit for one, the inrush current will vaporise a piece out of a battery cable lug if you attempt to simply bolt the cable to the battery ..... touching between the positive and negative has virtually no affect unless you have wet hands, but 48v bits Switches have issues with the higher DC voltage, they tend to arc across the contacts and either stop working or weld themselves closed so you can't turn them off .... and a few more issues as well

T1 Terry

[supersparky]

I reckon that Peter with the lizard Oka had a 48v AGM system, so it is doable. Might have to consult some de-rating charts to get the right switches etc.

[Noggins]

The article of 48v systems looks interesting, I'll have to find some time to read it through and digest it, but it could be an interesting move away from the traditional 12v. It does have it's own issues, inverters must have a pre charge circuit for one, the inrush current will vaporise a piece out of a battery cable lug if you attempt to simply bolt the cable to the battery ..... touching between the positive and negative has virtually no affect unless you have wet hands, but 48v bits Switches have issues with the higher DC voltage, they tend to arc across the contacts and either stop working or weld themselves closed so you can't turn them off .... and a few more issues as well

T1 Terry

I have used in similar circumstanced Mercury switch Gear, although not for many years now, so I have no idea if they're still available


Ron

[T1 Terry]

The article of 48v systems looks interesting, I'll have to find some time to read it through and digest it, but it could be an interesting move away from the traditional 12v. It does have it's own issues, inverters must have a pre charge circuit for one, the inrush current will vaporise a piece out of a battery cable lug if you attempt to simply bolt the cable to the battery ..... touching between the positive and negative has virtually no affect unless you have wet hands, but 48v bits Switches have issues with the higher DC voltage, they tend to arc across the contacts and either stop working or weld themselves closed so you can't turn them off .... and a few more issues as well

T1 Terry

I have used in similar circumstanced Mercury switch Gear, although not for many years now, so I have no idea if they're still available


Ron

With the whole mercury toxicity think, I can't imagine the powers that be ticking the box for those to be an acceptable substitute
I was thinking along the lines of mini solid state relays or even mosfet switching so Bluetooth switches could be used and eliminate the wiring hassles, 4 x 12v LEDs in series? although they make multi voltage LED lights now so the whole lot might be incorporated in the fixture .... who knows what's going to be available in the near future ... if it's not already on the market now ......

T1 Terry