Mobile radio powering down intermittently with Renogy Battery

[James86004]

I was wondering if someone could help me solve this puzzle. My systems is:

2023 Defender
Renogy 100 Ah house battery fed by Victron DC/DC charger set up to charge lithium batteries.
Refrigerator and Yaesu FTM-300DR running off house battery.

The radio would intermittently shut down. It would work fine for about an hour first thing in the morning, then by the afternoon it would get so bad we started using our handheld.
For our next trip, I substituted my Kenwood TM-281A. It would also shut down intermittently, although at least it would beep when it did, and then turn back on by itself. I am ruling out the radio. The refrigerator seems to work fine.

Finally, we pulled an old Odyssey AGM deep cycle battery from our other rig and substituted it in, and changed the Victron DC/DC charger profile to match. The radios now work perfectly.

Does anyone have a theory about what would cause the radio to shutdown with the Renogy battery? We are looking to get a big lithium battery bank for our Sprinter and have crossed Renogy off our list, but are also unsure what battery brands we can trust.

 

[Buddha.]

I would check the voltage at the radio. Maybe you’re getting some voltage drop there?

 

[James86004]

Every time I looked at the voltage display on the FTM-300 it read over 13 volts.

I have a theory the Renogy BMS occasionally momentarily disconnects power. I'd need a datalogger to confirm that.

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[Dave in AZ]

I was wondering if someone could help me solve this puzzle. My systems is:

2023 Defender
Renogy 100 Ah house battery fed by Victron DC/DC charger set up to charge lithium batteries.
Refrigerator and Yaesu FTM-300DR running off house battery.

The radio would intermittently shut down. It would work fine for about an hour first thing in the morning, then by the afternoon it would get so bad we started using our handheld.
For our next trip, I substituted my Kenwood TM-281A. It would also shut down intermittently, although at least it would beep when it did, and then turn back on by itself. I am ruling out the radio. The refrigerator seems to work fine.

Finally, we pulled an old Odyssey AGM deep cycle battery from our other rig and substituted it in, and changed the Victron DC/DC charger profile to match. The radios now work perfectly.

Does anyone have a theory about what would cause the radio to shutdown with the Renogy battery? We are looking to get a big lithium battery bank for our Sprinter and have crossed Renogy off our list, but are also unsure what battery brands we can trust.

Ahh, it is an infection. I've been told that a Defender will constantly break down, and infect everything in it to break down too, until cost reaches 3x purchase price

 

[jonyjoe101]

are you sure the renogy is getting fully charged everytime? One thing about lifepo4 when they are nearly depleted they will drop too much voltage when a device needs power, this might cause the device to shutoff due to low power.
Besides voltage how are you monitoring the SOC of the lifepo4? you need a coulomb counter to get an accurate SOC. The battery will read 13 volts almost all the time until it is completely depleted.
What i'm thinking the radio is using more peak power than the fridge, thats why it shuts off.
If the battery is fully charge and your still having problems, you might need to get a voltage stabilizer. The voltage stabilizer will keep the voltage from dropping to much everytime the radio is used.
One way to check if the battery is getting fully charge is to check the voltage at the battery terminals while its charging, it should reach 14.4 to 14.6 volts when its almost fully charge. If its only getting up to 14.3 or less its not getting fully charge. The battery terminals is the only accurate place to get the reading.

 

[James86004]

I can sometimes connect to the battery via Bluetooth and their "DChome" app. It is a pretty unreliable connection, but when it works it shows it charging and the state of charge. The radio seems to work better when the SOC is below 50%.

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[rgallant]

Both those radios ideally want around 13.8 volts to operate optimally, the amp draw is between 11 and 14 amps on hi power transmit, .5 on receive. If the Radio only dies during transmit it is an amp draw issue.

If the radio just shuts down my bet is that Renogy cannot provide the required power, to both the fridge and radio. It could be you just got a bad battery as your setup appears to fine based on your testing.

 

[James86004]

Both those radios ideally want around 13.8 volts to operate optimally, the amp draw is between 11 and 14 amps on hi power transmit, .5 on receive. If the Radio only dies during transmit it is an amp draw issue.

If the radio just shuts down my bet is that Renogy cannot provide the required power, to both the fridge and radio. It could be you just got a bad battery as your setup appears to fine based on your testing.

I thought that might be it, but it shuts down whether or not it's transmitting. I have watched it shutdown after several minutes of radio silence.

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[rgallant]

@James86004 I would suspect the battery then, given it works just fine with the Odyssey AGM