Anyone w/ Lithium LifePO4 House Battery Bank Conversion Experience

[HereAndNow]

I have a 2012 Lagoon 450 with 5 - 300ah AGM house batteries. Ready for batteries and plan to go pre-manufactured LifePO4 with 4 - 300ah units (possibly with internal BMS - Battery Mgmt System). Searched the forums here and what I was able to find was a lot about safety, insurability of vessel, meaning of "drop in", fires, "home" built batteries, etc.. So that has already been covered.. Hoping to gleen some feedback from those that have already replaced a similar setup with LifePO4. Real world experience from those that have experience with the product..

If you have done a similar conversion on your vessel, I would like to know the brand installed, approximately when installed, battery sizes and if you have had a good or bad experience with the product and/or mfg.

Truly appreciate any information on your experience.. Thanks!!

Cheers!

[Wood]

I installed 560AH in a 2p4s configuration last summer.

The cells are supposed to be Ganfeng, but are unmarked. So far so good. All 8 cells tested above 280AH and seem to be working well together. I can tell that one of the paralleled pairs is not as strong as the others when under charge > 100amp.

I initially installed a BMS123 Smart that had various issues, some self created. I replaced it with the REC ABMS.

I can tell that the REC ABMS active cell balancing is far superior to the BMS123 Smart balancing. The REC balancing keeps the cells well mannered when charging > 100amps.

I am still fiddling with the BMS OVP & PVP additional hardware to get it working right with the REC ABMS.

I also have 8 280AH EVE cells [long story] that I tested and now have stored @ ~ 30% SOC.

There is a wealth of information here with links to installations by folks far more talented than I.

[newhaul]

Lots of good information in this thread.

https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...ey-201795.html

Most of us that made the switch have built our own systems so we know it inside and out.

However I have heard good things about battleborn batteries .

Do a forum specific search

Did a quick Google

https://www.google.com/search?q=crui...iw=962&bih=601
All specific to this forum

[Flod]

2 seasons with 200ah Winston cells. 123bms and sterling alt-to-batt charger. Works great and is the best upgrade I have done to the boat

[AntiqueTri]

I installed 3 lifeblue 300 ah with internal bms a year ago and they have been perfect. Wonderful replacement for 5 225 ah lifeline agms which died of old age. I just dropped them in and changed the charging profiles. So far they have "cycled" once and should be good for about 1000 more years at this rate. I run everything except aircon/heat and water heaters off of them with 1kw of solar panels.

[Act Three]

My wife and I upgraded our bank of eight 100 amp six volt lead acids that were wired in series and parallel and provided about 200 usable AH. They were over four years old and we knew when we bought the boat we’d be replacing them.

We replaced them with six DakotaLithium 170 AH 12 volt batteries that now provide 1020 total and perhaps 800 usable amp hours. This season we have not been below 75%. We do have two 240w solar panels, a 6kv generator and shore power when we are in the marina. We basically did a couple 4 day runs and a week in addition to normal 2-3 day trips. Were very happy with the soft starts for the air conditioners During July and August.

The installation was above my pay grade so I had pros do it. New busses and wiring from batteries to the busses, I had a good size victron inverter that was re used but that was one of the few items reused. New mppt’s, VictronConnect battery monitor.

Overall happy and can’t wait to get down to the islands to really try it out. If you search RyanandSophie sailing (YouTube), he is an owner of the company and they do provide a code for a discount.

If you have specific questions please let me know. I would expect that you should not plan a “drop-in” solution.

Matt

[B28_Majic]

I have done this a bit differently and used a 250Ah lithium as house on my vessel and left the engine batteries as AGM. My vessel did not have a house and as I am running one of my 12v air conditioners on the vessel, wanted to have a dedicated house. There were some changes needed but mostly because of the fact that there was no house bank present.
When replacing the house with lithium on customer's vessels with our 125Ah or 250Ah "drop in" Lithiums, we add a charger capable of charging the lithium batteries (or reprogram existing inverter/charger if it has the capability). I do not talk about changing setting on battery chargers are there is only one charger that I know of that can charge 1 bank as lithium and 2 banks as a different chemistry. We then need to think about charging from alternators as we do more installations on powerboats which we accomplish with DC to DC chargers from Sterling Power that can put out up to 120A.
These systems can be as simple or as complicated as you decide to make them.

[jbinbi]

Don’t know about the rest of your electronics. And don’t know how much of a project guy you are. Some love to do the project, others just want it done. But look at either the victron batteries, they make a 300 ah, or battleborn has a great rep. There are many other choices but a lot may depend on what else you have. On my 380 I had 550 of solar into 2 victron controllers, victron inverter charger, and if I go li I was considering using their batteries

[Randy P]

I’m converting my house bank from 2 FLA 100AH to 2 Battle Born Lithium (LiFePO4) 100AH batteries next year. I’ve found excellent response from BB as well as guidance on setting up my system, which still will use a 100AH FLA starter battery. BB batteries come with 10 year warranty, built in BMS, and excellent build. I think all the LFP batteries on the market are powered by cells from China, but the build of BB is done in Nevada, including testing, etc. If you want another source of info you can hunt down a young YouTuber Will Prowse who has a series of videos on solar, LFP, components, etc. He’s an EE and a bit over-enthusiastic for me, but his evaluations are not product ads. Have fun.

[dannc]

FYI, I would suggest reading, https://marinehowto.com/lifepo4-batteries-on-boats/, before installing a LiFePo system.

Later,
Dan

[Randy P]

Yep. Did that.

[more]

Originally Posted by Flod

2 seasons with 200ah Winston cells. 123bms and sterling alt-to-batt charger. Works great and is the best upgrade I have done to the boat

3 season with 200A Winston cell no BMS( whay use BMS on 3,2v cell i use QNBBM Lithium Battery Equalizer balancer lifepo4 6-10A balancing

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by more

3 season with 200A Winston cell no BMS( whay use BMS on 3,2v cell i use QNBBM Lithium Battery Equalizer balancer lifepo4 6-10A balancing

Cheap insurance

[rgleason]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Cheap insurance

https://www.aliexpress.com/i/1768384410.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/i/32840722043.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/i/4000748...67d3350dqMTCxX


Description of Balancer
https://www.evlithium.com/lithium-battery-balancer.html

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by rgleason

https://www.aliexpress.com/i/1768384410.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/i/32840722043.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/i/4000748...67d3350dqMTCxX


Description of Balancer
https://www.evlithium.com/lithium-battery-balancer.html

Issue ; Not even water resistant. Really not a good idea for electronics on a boat in a saltwater environment without adding protection accordingly. Why not spend the same on a good bms that is . The one I have shown and linked to several times has active balancing as well as HVC and LVC built into the unit not to mention its waterproof .