Best Rv batteries

[1Longbow]

What would you rate as the best Rv batteries for dry camping. Name brand,reason. Thank you

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Try this on for size...

In this day and age a person is given NO CHOICE but to exist in ignorance. Additional information about a product or service is contrived to be seen as a caveat and therefore weakness

Manufacturers and government alike strive to keep constituents ignorant and sated with perceptions that any participation is unwarranted and a waste of their time. It is almost unbelievable the amount of resistance to active participation to learn about the reality of consumerism and it's effect on individual financial health.

"Let's gossip. No mental challenge. What? Read? You must be joking. Images shouting on a screen have more impact and entertainment"

A disbeliever are we?

Go to a news site. There is text to read and a talking head repeating the same information only with emphasis on certain words and phrases. These emphasis cannot be translated into words? Sure they can. But the sources of the manipulation realize a majority of the populace want their reality shouted into their skull along with images.

Simplify. Distill. Summarize. Minimize. Distract.

It takes six months (?) without television or radio (silence the voices) to realize just how insidious verbal emphasis versus the written word can be. Once spoken words dissipate, the written word does not. i.e. text messaging versus the telephone.

[Itinerant1]

Almot wrote:

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Why doesn't the dash have any instruments?
"We aouldn't want to worry you"

Keeping customers in bliss of ignorance is indeed a long-standing tradition of batteries manufacturing.

There is some BMS in $900 box, and it does some cells management. This is all they are going to tell you 🙂

In this day and age a person chooses to live the life of an ostrich.

[Itinerant1]

Mex, A couple components of the EMS (energy management system) of Elite GBS batteries which comes as a package if a person didn't want to peace meal the bms are...
*CPU: Central hub of the system, powered by 12 volts DC, controls alarm output signals, measures current, calculates state of charge, outputs video signal, detects ground fault conditions.

*Four cell sense board string x5 daisy chained, simple easy installation connected to the prismatic cells, measures voltage and temperature of each cell, performs cell balancing.

On the display screen there's the cell voltage/ temp screen or switch to the battery pack voltage, charge/ discharging current, SOC.

With prismatic cells a little more work in the initial install but more control over all and if a cell ***** out it can be replaced. If down the road individual cell/ cells need rebalancing easy enough to do unlike dropins.

[Almot]

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Why doesn't the dash have any instruments?
"We aouldn't want to worry you"

Keeping customers in bliss of ignorance is indeed a long-standing tradition of batteries manufacturing.

There is some BMS in $900 box, and it does some cells management. This is all they are going to tell you 🙂

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Itinerant1 wrote:
Do you mean like this?

/?/

[MEXICOWANDERER]

900 dollar lithium batteries do not have any kind of cell management? Oh how wonderful this all sounds.

Why doesn't the dash have any instruments?
"We aouldn't want to worry you"

[Almot]

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Too bad someone does not offer a 4 column stacked LED chips gauge that lets a person see what each module is up to.

To avoid unnecessary stress caused by looking at all the imbalanced cells, you would also need a BMS capable of managing each unit separately at voltages as low as 80-85%. Because factory batteries don't have this - not $900 100AH boxes. On practical level, you "have" to bring it to mid-upper 90s or it won't balance. This is a trade-off btw shortening overall battery life and risk that some cells would age sooner than others.

Charging it to 99% once in a while and trying not to go over 85 SOC rest of the time - maybe... I wonder how many users are even aware of balancing and this 30-80 thing.

[Itinerant1]

Do you mean like this?

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Too bad someone does not offer a 4 column stacked LED chips gauge that lets a person see what each module is up to.

[Itinerant1]

Elite GBS 500ah (4s5p)

[MrWizard]

Itinerant1

how big/ many ampHrs is you Battery bank

[Itinerant1]

Almot wrote:

Itinerant1 wrote:

Last thing when advising to use 90-30% or 80-20% or whatever % how about putting that in voltages I'm curious to see what you would actually set your parameters to. We are talking about Lifepo4 cells so it should be easy to figure this.
*If* you have perfectly matched cells.

To whatever the curve says it's 30 or 80% for your particular battery. Perfectly balanced at 80% they may or may not be, depends on (usually undisclosed) behavior of particular BMS.

Okaaayy...I'll give you a rough idea though, 80% is roughly 3.45v (13.8v) & 30% roughly 2.95v (11.8v).

This is using 3.65v (14.6v) as 100% seeing that no one recommends going over that and you see dropins using 14.4-14.6v as the balance voltage which also reset the 100% capacity display. Which I think we agree is a little high with no benefit.

I've been using 14.1-14.2v (87-90%, "my 100%" on the display) which keeps the cells fairly close in balance and enough to reset the SoC to match the batteries. The lowest I've seen and recorded after 3-4 days of living off the batteries is 3.20v (12.8v) with the inverter showing 12.5v drawing 144a. That would be 55% of battery bank but my SOC showing 30%.
I'm comfortable with that depth of Disharge before I start thinking of hooking the generator up if no sun is in the forecast.

Using roughly 40% capacity of the bank and staying out of the shoulders/ knees is still easy in an fractional C life of rv living.

[Almot]

Itinerant1 wrote:

Last thing when advising to use 90-30% or 80-20% or whatever % how about putting that in voltages I'm curious to see what you would actually set your parameters to. We are talking about Lifepo4 cells so it should be easy to figure this.
*If* you have perfectly matched cells.

To whatever the curve says it's 30 or 80% for your particular battery. Perfectly balanced at 80% they may or may not be, depends on (usually undisclosed) behavior of particular BMS.

[Itinerant1]

Almot wrote:
2oldman, BMS does protect from severe overheating, among other things.
What it doesn't "know" is that cycle life shortens significantly when running 10-99% cycle and/or using it (or even storing) at temps over 85, getting progressively worse all the way to 132.
https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

Heat and cold isn't that big a deal if you plan accordingly during installation. Having a way to see cell temps and voltages is a plus. During the past 3 summers seeing ambient temps up to 90-95 I have not seen a cell temp above 80f, 65-75f cell temps seems to be the norm during summer. These are in a front compartment with no special cooling.
With cycle life claims of 2,000 of actually using the entire stored energy of the battery or 4-7,000 cycles with psoc(only time will tell). If you lost a little life out of them will you actually notice?
If a person can't figure to get out of 132f temps the battery is the least of the problems. 😉

Last thing when advising to use 90-30% or 80-20% or whatever % how about putting that in voltages I'm curious to see what you would actually set your parameters to. We are talking about Lifepo4 cells so it should be easy to figure this.
*If* you have perfectly matched cells.
3.65 (14.6v)
3.60 (14.4v)
3.55 (14.2v)
3.52 (14.1v)
3.50 (14.0v)
3.45 (13.8v)
3.40 (13.6v)
3.37 (13.5v)
3.35 (13.4v)
3.30 (13.2v)
3.25 (13.0v)
3.20 (12.8v)
3.15 (12.6v)
3.10 (12.4v)
3.05 (12.2v)
3.00 (12.0v)
2.95 (11.8v)
2.90 (11.6v)
2.85 (11.4v)
2.80 (11.2v)
2.75 (11.0v)