Lithium battery...change converter?

CanadianTabber

I am contemplating replacing our flooded battery with a litium battery.
Will the standard converter/charger work or does this have to be replaced with one for litium?
Thank you!
Brent

RMo

The standard charger will work to a point, but won't fully charge a lithium battery.  to fully charge the battery you'd need to have a lithium-specific converter (or one that will charge either lead acid or lithium) or add solar or add a separate AC charger.  However, the standard converter will give a lithium battery a decent charge (up to 95% in our T@b 400) which could be all you need and is actually better for battery life, but it will take longer to charge than a lithium-specific charger.  Many folks/experts also recommend disconnecting the lead acid charger after the lithium battery is charged - so that could be a real hassle.  Unless cost is a big object, I'd get a lithium-specific charger.

Marceline

The standard converter doesn’t bring a lithium quite up to a full charge but it gets close. If you have solar with a controller that can be configured for lithium IMO you don’t really need to swap the converter. I’m just going to wait for my converter to die before making the change. If you don’t have solar I’d say that would be a better use of your money than changing the converter. 

CanadianTabber

Thanks RMo and Marceline,
I have the standard solar and Victron controller on my 320s, so I guess It will work if I drop in a lithium battery...don't really want to drop more coin if I dont have to 

Thanks for the comments!

Brent

Marceline

CanadianTabber said:

Thanks RMo and Marceline,
I have the standard solar and Victron controller on my 320s, so I guess It will work if I drop in a lithium battery...don't really want to drop more coin if I dont have to 

Thanks for the comments!

Brent

It should be possible to configure your Victron controller for a lithium battery. 

AnOldUR

Marceline said: It should be possible to configure your Victron controller for a lithium battery. 

What about charging from 120V AC, would that have to be reconfigured also?

RMo

AnOldUR said:

Marceline said: It should be possible to configure your Victron controller for a lithium battery. 

What about charging from 120V AC, would that have to be reconfigured also?

The 120 AC charging is via the converter so that’s where the converter upgrade would be required for a full charge.  A stand-alone charger set for lithium could also be used to do an AC charge - that could be useful on cloudy days when the existing solar isn’t doing the trick, or you just want to make sure you have a full charge before leaving home or a commercial campground.

ChrisK

RMo said:

The 120 AC charging is via the converter so that’s where the converter upgrade would be required for a full charge.  

Is there an upgrade path for the current converters to make them lithium compatible or would it require a separate lithium charger?

CharlieRN

ChrisK said:

RMo said:

The 120 AC charging is via the converter so that’s where the converter upgrade would be required for a full charge.  

Is there an upgrade path for the current converters to make them lithium compatible or would it require a separate lithium charger?

I don't believe that the WFCO in the T@B can be configured for battery types; at least the one on my 320 BD can't. That may not be too much of an issue if you have a solar setup.

Lithium batteries need only an occasional charge to 100%, I believe to allow the Battery Mgt System to balance the charge among the cells once in a while. I think even as infrequently as once a month or so is OK - check Youtube for some of the Battleborn or Will Prowse videos on the subject. As others have indicated, if you have factory solar you can change the setting on the Victron controller for Li, which may be enough.

RMo

ChrisK said:

RMo said:

The 120 AC charging is via the converter so that’s where the converter upgrade would be required for a full charge.  

Is there an upgrade path for the current converters to make them lithium compatible or would it require a separate lithium charger?

You can buy a WFCO converter that has a switch setting for lead acid or lithium.  You’d “just” have to replace the existing and rewire all the connections and breakers at the converter end.

dsfdogs

I swapped out the standard WFCO (8735) for the new lithium compatible 8735LiS. My local dealer did it for me. It was a whole new box; WFCO said they did not offer "just the guts" to swap. I do not have solar, so previously to charge to 100%, I used a Noco10. 

ChrisK

RMo said:

ChrisK said:

RMo said:

The 120 AC charging is via the converter so that’s where the converter upgrade would be required for a full charge.  

Is there an upgrade path for the current converters to make them lithium compatible or would it require a separate lithium charger?

You can buy a WFCO converter that has a switch setting for lead acid or lithium.  You’d “just” have to replace the existing and rewire all the connections and breakers at the converter end.

That's no big deal for me. My converter died a couple years ago and I replaced it. Just moving wires is all it is.

tphaggerty

Progressive Dynamics has a “just the guts” (only rewire the converter part, not the whole panel) replacement. There are quite a few posts about doing the swap. Pretty easy and not that expensive. I did it a while ago anticipating a swap to Li, which I will be doing shortly since I just got my Renogy batteries on a killer sale! However, I’m not sure I would do the converter swap now if I hadn’t already done it. I’ve installed solar and the solar controller can be set to Li and will top up the batteries regardless of the 110v converter, so not sure it is worth it, although I’ve been told the PD charger is higher quality than the WFCO. 

My understanding is that LiFePo batteries don’t really like being 100% full all the time, and the standard WFCO charger profile will leave them somewhere around 90% (or so) when “full”. So it seems like the combination of the WFCO “standard” charging and solar Li profile charger should be just OK.

However, LiFePo batteries can take a much higher charge rate than AGM batteries. It is known that the WFCO charger almost never goes into the “boost” profile, so charge times using it (vs a Li specific charger) will likely be much longer for depleted batteries. I think this can be a real issue if you charge using a generator, again, there are other threads that discuss this.

BrianZ

We use a 150AH lead acid, but for what this worth, I noticed our extra charger (Noco Genius 7200) that we sometimes use for a more thorough charge on either T@B or TV battery also has a Lithium battery mode..