Adding a lithium batt to my dual AGM + ACR setup

[jeegro]

Here's what I'm currently running:

• Dual Odyssey 68ah under the hood, linked with a Blue Sea ML-ACR. 34 amps of usable house energy is not cutting it for me.
• Blue sea 1830 battery monitor
• Morningstar Sunsaver MPPT 15
• CTEK 25amp charger, hardwired
• Alternator runs at 14v (200 amp claimed, but very dubious)
• 200 watt solar fixed. Looking to add a 120w portable panel

• Xantrex prowatt 600, with the relay hooked up to the CTEK, so I get automated battery charging and 120v on-board (I rarely use the latter feature)
• Dometic 65l fridge
• 12k winch
• Dual compressors (60 amp draw)
• Other various loads and tons of fuse panels

For the lithium, I'm looking at adding either a Redarc BCDC 40amp, or the new Redarc Manager30. The Blue sea 1830 has a beautiful screen, and I'd like to keep it, but it's technically not designed for a lithium battery. Blue sea support says using the TPPL profile has worked for customers. In selling the Morningstar, ctek charger, and 1830 monitor, the cost trade-off of the Manager30 is kind of worth it over the BCDC + buying a lithium charger.

I would keep the ACR setup and dual AGM's, to run the winch, and vehicle. Starter, alternator, and BCDC cable on AGM #1, vehicle power cable and winch on AGM #2.

For the lithium battery.. I'm looking at the BattleBorn 100AH... thoughts?

Some questions

- How to keep the AGM's in good shape? Ideally I could feed some of the solar and AC input (from the Manager30) to the AGM's, but I don't think this is possible? I think what I have to do is keep the CTEK around, and charge the AGM's periodically.

- OK to run 2x30amp compressors off of the lithium? It would complicate wiring a lot if I had to run them off the AGM's.

 

[dreadlocks]

I love my BB 100AH, I just wish it was cheaper so I could get a second.

Your AGM's should always be parked fully charged off your alternator, thats all that you can do for those is ensure they are always charged up.. mebe a small battery maintainer for off season storage but thats about it.. when they finally die, replace em with good ole cheap FLA

I pull 100A outta my BB, i think your compressors would be fine.. beware, you cannot estimate state of charge based off the lithium voltage.. and your gonna want a way to monitor that expensive lithium to ensure your treating it well.

 

[jeegro]

I love my BB 100AH, I just wish it was cheaper so I could get a second.

Your AGM's should always be parked fully charged off your alternator, thats all that you can do for those is ensure they are always charged up.. mebe a small battery maintainer for off season storage but thats about it.. when they finally die, replace em with good ole cheap FLA

I pull 100A outta my BB, i think your compressors would be fine.. beware, you cannot estimate state of charge based off the lithium voltage.. and your gonna want a way to monitor that expensive lithium to ensure your treating it well.

Agreed on needing a good battery monitor. As I said, I have the Blue Sea 1830, which is a great unit. Nice screen. And it's made specifically for my panel - pic attached. But it's not designed specifically for lithium batteries, hence me looking at the Redarc Manager30. Some say consolidation is bad, but for me I have too many wires and components, and I think the Manager30 would fit the bill perfectly, except for messing with the beauty of my panel:


You'll see a yellow vertical line on the meter... blue sea has since sent me a new one


I don't think the Manager30 monitor would fit on my panel though...

 

[dreadlocks]

Manager30 looks nice but ************************ that price..

Try to take advantage of the fact you can charge the BB @ 50A til its full, that'll take you from 5% to 100% in ~2h.. I've got a 25A house charger now, I'm not satisfied knowing I could charge it up in half the time I am now.. so I'm looking at either a 40A or 50A charger now so I can run generator even less.. I'm in a trailer so no alternator to go off of, but for you faster charging means less need to drive.. you can go cruise for an hour or two and get back to full, do it.. hell of a lot better deal than driving for 6-8h+ to get your AGM's back to full.

Seems to me to be a better deal to pay less for the BDBC and get another ~140W of charging capability.. I'm not a big fan of AIO units, now if one thing fails you loose everything.. I subscribe to the Unix Philosophy, a tool should do one thing and do it very well.. much better than having a tool that can do multiple things, but poorly.

 

[jeegro]

Manager30 looks nice but ************************ that price..

Try to take advantage of the fact you can charge the BB @ 50A til its full, that'll take you from 5% to 100% in ~2h.. I've got a 25A house charger now, I'm not satisfied knowing I could charge it up in half the time I am now.. so I'm looking at either a 40A or 50A charger now so I can run generator even less.. I'm in a trailer so no alternator to go off of, but for you faster charging means less need to drive.. you can go cruise for an hour or two and get back to full, do it.. hell of a lot better deal than driving for 6-8h+ to get your AGM's back to full.

Seems to me to be a better deal to pay less for the BDBC and get another ~140W of charging capability.. I'm not a big fan of AIO units, now if one thing fails you loose everything.. I subscribe to the Unix Philosophy, a tool should do one thing and do it very well.. much better than having a tool that can do multiple things, but poorly.

Yeah - agreed. I've been thinking about it some more, and while the Manager30 looks nice, it'll require me to re-fabricate my breaker panel... and yes, price tag. The screen looks hard to read as well.

As long as I'm OK using the Blue Sea 1830 to monitor the lithium, then I'll continue with that and get the BCDC1240D. Since the 1830 doesn't have a specific lithium profile, my impression is it may lose accuracy over a few thousand cycles, and require a manual reset, but it'll definitely count the amps accurately in the meanwhile with the shunt.

I should probably get a low voltage disconnect? Possibly a Blue Sea Remote Battery switch hooked up to the 1830's relay output. Since my dometic won't shut off until 12.6 volts (in HIGH mode)

The rest seems pretty straightforward... I don't think I need anything else besides some cables and connectors.

 

[jeegro]

I think I can skip the AC charger as I'm in San Diego and have this deployed whenever I'm parked:

 

[jeegro]

Ordered the BCDC, BattleBorn (FYI there is a 10 day lead time on the BB's at the moment, not mentioned on website), and a Victron Smart BatteryProtect to handle the low voltage/SoC cutoff. My Blue Sea 1830 monitor has a relay output I can use to trigger it.

Couple questions:

- If I wanted to also run a Victron BMV-712 (unlikely), can the Blue sea 1830 shunt and victron shunt be wired in parallel? They're both 500A/50mV shunts

- Does it matter if the BCDC and Loads are connected through a single cable to the battery? e.g. Battery ---> Blue Sea SafetyHub100 ---> BCDC (60A fuse) & Battery load switch (150A fuse). This would allow for a single cable to the battery, plus allow me to tap off always on fused power for the battery monitor. The alternative would require multiple components: dual terminal fuse block, battery switch, always on fuse block, and two cables off the battery. OR, two separate Midi fuse folders, fuse panel, battery switch.

- Do I want a battery switch to also disconnect the BCDC from the battery, or just a single battery switch between the battery and loads?

 

[dreadlocks]

not in parallel, you can put two shunts in a series tho..

not at all as long as that single cable can handle the cumulative load

I have a master disconnect that disconnects everything, its good to know everything off when in storage.