Lifepo4 Batteries. Looking for testimonials. What are your experiences with Lifepo4?

[somawheels]

It is very hard to find trustworthy information on the longevity and value of Lithium Iron phospohate batteries.
I have read information from people who are clearly biased toward FLA; it has stood the tests of time for so long, so it is hard to believe Lifepo4 is better value.
I also have read plenty of biased information from the marketing companies, who make Liepo4 seem too good to be true.

I have not found much information from people who have had real-life experience with Lifepo4 , so if you or someone you know has had first hand experience with Lifepo4 battery systems, I would love to hear about it.

Thankyou so much!

[Mike90250]

I salvaged 2 burned Li battery installations 2 years ago and replaced with FLA. Everyone is happy now. Owners were not informed, had no idea what was what till flames were shooting out of the battery shed.

[Ampster]

I melted a rebuilt Dewalt powertool battery after I replaced the cells with some higher powered Lithium cells. They were not LFP and had no BMS to protect them from overdischarge. For the next 10 years I used LFPs on an EV conversion, some electric bikes and a hybrid inverter all with BMSs. None of that was at temperatures at less than 10 degrees Celsius. What I like about Lithium is they can sit at various states of charge without degradation. They produce no gas or acid to corrode battery cables or nearby metal cabinets. They are very efficient and require very little maintenance if set up properly. I have acquired enough knowledge and experience with them that I can mitigate the risks that others see. It is all about where you are standing.

[somawheels]

I melted a rebuilt Dewalt powertool battery after I replaced the cells with some higher powered Lithium cells. They were not LFP and had no BMS to protect them from overdischarge. For the next 10 years I used LFPs on an EV conversion, some electric bikes and a hybrid inverter all with BMSs. None of that was at temperatures at less than 10 degrees Celsius. What I like about Lithium is they can sit at various states of charge without degradation. They produce no gas or acid to corrode battery cables or nearby metal cabinets. They are very efficient and require very little maintenance if set up properly. I have acquired enough knowledge and experience with them that I can mitigate the risks that others see. It is all about where you are standing.

Thanks very much for sharing Ampster. Have you had any LFP systems fail on you? How long have they lasted?

[Ampster]

Thanks very much for sharing Ampster. Have you had any LFP systems fail on you? How long have they lasted?

No none of them failed. I did inadvertently over discharge some through user error. They swelled and were unusable but the rest tested 90 percent capacity. I had purchased those used anyway so they didn't cost that much. They were Thundersky's and were used every day for two years but only 30%. When I sold that house I sold the batteries and the inverter. The bike batteries were used at least twice a week for 5 years.

[Sojourner1]

somawheels I can give my experience using LiFePO4 (actually LiFeMnPO4 "GBS prismatic batteries", added Manganese to the cathode material).

Setup on the 5th wheel is 12v 500ah (4S5P) lithium batteries (GBS LFMP battery system). 8 CTI 160 watt panels (1,280 watts), 2 series/ 4 sets. Each set goes to combiner box where all sets are in parallel. Panels lay flat on the roof. Magnum PT100 controller, Magnum 3012 hybrid inverter. There is a 7" display monitor and the ME-ARC 50 to read the performance/ settings of the system. A sub panel was added so everything in the 5th wheel except the water heater is running through the inverter.

We'll use anywhere from 150-200ah daily. Depending on solar/ loads daily harvest can be 3-7 kWh.

My primary charging is all done by solar. I've also used these settings since day 1 (April 2016).
Bulk 14.2v
Absorb 14.2v (10 minute event can't be turned off)
Float 13.6v (system cycles every day, doesn't sit stagnant)

If the SoC gets down to 30% I'll use a eu2000i generator for 2 hours to give a 200ah (40%) boost then let the solar do what it can the next day. In any particular year the generator hasn't been used more than a dozen times. The longest the batteries have been used in a PSoC has been 40 days bouncing between 28%- 90%.

There are atleast 1,174 30% +/- DoD cycles (or totalling 400+ full cycles on the batteries now). Some totaling 70% DoD after many consecutive days of rain/ overcast.

Using the Magnum inverter/ charger has sufficient programability along with the Magnum PT100 solar charge controller. Which follows the inverter/charger programming. If anything happens that would cause conditions beyond programmed limits the GBS Elite EMS CPU will disconnect the charge source or loads.

GBS Elite uses a per cell sense boards for voltage and temperature, top balancing per cell shunts, a system shunt for current monitoring and coulomb counting (BMS) and 2 high current protective relays.
- Over voltage (highest cell is over 3.8V after a 3 second delay)
- Under voltage (lowest cell is below 2.8V after a 30 second delay)
- Over current (current exceeds 10C for 10 seconds)
- Over temperature (highest cell exceeds 150f or 65c)
- Under temperature (lowest cell is below 32f or 0c, charging is not allowed)
- Ground fault (There a high voltage leakage greater than 2mA to the chassis pin)
- Unmanaged cells (The programmed number of cells doesn't equal the number of cells read)

When the batteries are at "my" full SoC they'll float and solar is powering the Norcold fridge, tv/ dvd, charging phones/ laptops/ tablet, fans. During the late spring, summer, early fall these items might be on starting as realy as 8-9am and still have the batteries full by 12:30pm or so depending on solar harvest. If the batteries get full great if not no problem they have performed just as well in a PSoC for long periods of time.

In this period of time I have had no issues with the batteries or the charging parameters, the system/ batteries have not been turned off since day 1.


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