Battleborn LiFePO4 Experience

elbolillo

Just spent 5 nights in Northern Minnesota. Wanted to share my experience that might help those who are thinking of upgrading their batteries. We have a 2021 Tab 320s with the roof solar. I have installed two 100 ah Battleborn batteries installed in the tub along with an external Victron Solar controller MPPT 100/30 to power a Renogy 100w solar suitcase. On Thursday around 12:00pm we had 100% charge. The site we were on had a fairly open tree canopy and the days that were sunny (Thursday and Friday) allowed for some charging via the roof solar panel. I decided to not use my external panel this time. The refrigerator was running the entire trip, we were not stingy with the usage of lights, Fantastic fan, water heater, and charging of iPhones, watches, iPads, and MacBook. By the time we broke camp on Monday, the batteries were down to 53%.

After arriving back home, with the Tab parked in our driveway with good sunshine, the batteries are back up to 100% with just the use of the rooftop solar. My takeaway is that being able to not worry about babying and constantly monitoring the batteries is golden for me. I know that I have plenty of overhead battery capacity and could easily go more than a week bondocking even in areas with not much sunshine.

kottum

Same two 100 ah Battle Born battery setup here in our 2022 Tab 320s BD, without the solar suitcase. Very happy with it, best upgrade we have ever done in some 50 years of camper experience.

Doug/2022 T@b 320s BD/2021 Honda Ridgeline

rcuomo

Just ordered Renogy 100Ah battery and upgraded controller for my Renogy 100w suitcase. Upgrading from 67Ah lead acid that powers my 1500w inverter. Looking forward to see if I get similar results. Just off three day trip and suitcase does well on existing setup but would like to run Bodega fridge/freezer without worrying about sun conditions. 

CharlieRN

I upgraded our 320S BD to dual BB 100Ah batteries this spring. We also have a Renogy 100W solar suitcase from last season when we needed something to help us out with the single 80Ah flooded cell that came with the T@B.

We have yet to do any serious dry camping with the new batteries, but based on the positive experiences reported by others with similar setups, am confident we have enough capacity to see us through a few days. Our first trip this summer will feature back-to-backs at Harvest Host locations, which will give us some idea of the potential.

Dutch061

I have 4 in our 2020 400 BDL, well worth the effort and money to make this upgrade. Of course, it depends on "how you camp".

Double check your "charged voltage, tail current, and charged detection time" to make sure that you are not getting a false 100% SOC. At 53% SOC, you had used somewhere around 94 Amp hours, depending on your drive, it seems unlikely that you reached a trues 100% SOC but may well have. 

I have mine set as follows:
Tail Current .5%
Charged Voltage 14.2
Charged detection time 5 minutes

With these settings, mine has worked perfectly.

Brad

elbolillo

Dutch061 said:

I have 4 in our 2020 400 BDL, well worth the effort and money to make this upgrade. Of course, it depends on "how you camp".

Double check your "charged voltage, tail current, and charged detection time" to make sure that you are not getting a false 100% SOC. At 53% SOC, you had used somewhere around 94 Amp hours, depending on your drive, it seems unlikely that you reached a trues 100% SOC but may well have. 

I have mine set as follows:
Tail Current .5%
Charged Voltage 14.2
Charged detection time 5 minutes

With these settings, mine has worked perfectly.

Brad

Brad. What would lead you to believe that the batteries were not charged to 100%?

My setting are the recommended BB settings of:
Charged voltage - 14.2
Tail current - 4%

Charged detection time 3m

my current charge is 99% and the voltage is showing 13.4 which is right on the money. 

Dutch061

Unfortunately for me, the BB recommended settings didn't work as well as I wanted, so that is when I took the deeper dive to better understand how the BMV-712 is resetting the SOC to 100%. The BB settings were too easy to obtain with clouds passing by. Again, not saying they are wrong, but those settings didn't work well for me. 

Basically, with your settings, when the battery voltage is above 14.2 with an amperage input of less than 8 Amps (4% of 200 Ah) for 3 minutes, your SOC is set to 100%. With my settings, you need 14.2 volts and less than 1 Amp (.5% of 200 Ah) for 5 minutes. This is a very big difference. 

Now on to why I mention it may not have been fully charged. 

I can't remember how many watts the solar is on a 320, but for the sake of simplicity let's call it 150 watts.

150/14.2 (14..2 being the Charged voltage setting - using 14.6 takes it closer to 10 Amps) is just over 10.5 Amps. 94 Amp hours divided by 10.5 Amps is 8.92 hours. So, it would take nearly 9 hours with 150 Watts operating at 100% efficiency to raise the SOC from 53% to 100%.

Is it possible? Yes, as I noted above but seems unlikely. It all depends on how direct the exposure of the sun was and for how many hours. 

For our 2020 400 BDL with 192 Watts, I typically use between 35% and 50% for a calculation due to direction change, clouds, etc. So mine would be 192/14.2 is jut over 13.5 Amps, but I have never seen is produce more than 8 to 10 Amps even on the "perfect day". So I typically figure 5 to 7 Amps max on any given day.

It is possible that you did get some charge from your TV, but most likely minimal due to the voltage difference needed to properly charge BB (and other lithium). When the charging voltage is lower than required by lithium, the amperage drops way off too.

If you are pleased with how things are working, then the simple answer is to leave it alone. I wasn't as I mentioned above which is why I set out to better understand how it works.

Again, this is based on my experience which maybe different than others. 

Brad

elbolillo

Dutch061 said:

Unfortunately for me, the BB recommended settings didn't work as well as I wanted, so that is when I took the deeper dive to better understand how the BMV-712 is resetting the SOC to 100%. The BB settings were too easy to obtain with clouds passing by. Again, not saying they are wrong, but those settings didn't work well for me. 

Basically, with your settings, when the battery voltage is above 14.2 with an amperage input of less than 8 Amps (4% of 200 Ah) for 3 minutes, your SOC is set to 100%. With my settings, you need 14.2 volts and less than 1 Amp (.5% of 200 Ah) for 5 minutes. This is a very big difference. 

Now on to why I mention it may not have been fully charged. 

I can't remember how many watts the solar is on a 320, but for the sake of simplicity let's call it 150 watts.

150/14.2 (14..2 being the Charged voltage setting - using 14.6 takes it closer to 10 Amps) is just over 10.5 Amps. 94 Amp hours divided by 10.5 Amps is 8.92 hours. So, it would take nearly 9 hours with 150 Watts operating at 100% efficiency to raise the SOC from 53% to 100%.

Is it possible? Yes, as I noted above but seems unlikely. It all depends on how direct the exposure of the sun was and for how many hours. 

For our 2020 400 BDL with 192 Watts, I typically use between 35% and 50% for a calculation due to direction change, clouds, etc. So mine would be 192/14.2 is jut over 13.5 Amps, but I have never seen is produce more than 8 to 10 Amps even on the "perfect day". So I typically figure 5 to 7 Amps max on any given day.

It is possible that you did get some charge from your TV, but most likely minimal due to the voltage difference needed to properly charge BB (and other lithium). When the charging voltage is lower than required by lithium, the amperage drops way off too.

If you are pleased with how things are working, then the simple answer is to leave it alone. I wasn't as I mentioned above which is why I set out to better understand how it works.

Again, this is based on my experience which maybe different than others. 

Brad

I definitely had an advantage of 4 textbook days for sunshine. My home's rooftop solar averaged 43.1kwh. And our Tab is perfectly situated to soak up the sun until late afternoon. Regardless, I appreciate the information you have provided and I will definitely check it out once we get more sun again. The past two days have been overcast.

Bayliss

@Dutch061, it would be interesting to learn what BB would conclude regarding your findings.  Have you considered submitting the information to them to see what they say?  I use the settings recommended by BB, so I would be interested for general knowledge.

Dutch061

I have not, and as mentioned my settings have been based on my experience. The more batteries you have, the worse 4% becomes. With 400 Ah, I am looking to reset anytime the Tail current is less than 16 Amps and the Charged voltage and Charged detection time requirements are met.

So, for me 4% is not a good number. .5% sets me at less than 2 Amps, which has worked great so far. If anything, it makes resetting the SOC to 100% more difficult which is preferred (to me) over a false reset to 100% SOC.

Having a "false sense of security" based on the SOC has caused me problems in the past. If you are in a location that you can use a generator (or have shore power available) it is not an issue. Unfortunately, I was in a location that neither was an option. 

Note: Part of my issue also is related to the 192 Watt Solar Panel capacity I have, ideally there should be 200 to 250 watts Solar Panel capacity per 100 Ah of battery as per Battleborn. I decided to add batteries rather than adding more stuff to haul and mess around with. I like to set it up and forget it, not have to be moving things around tracking the sun etc.

I think there are a lot of variables and Battleborn is providing "general settings" that work well for most people. I don't disagree with them, one of my variables that is not correct (as noted above) is Solar Panel Wattage. 

Brad