theboondork's RV blog

I'm glad that's over

9/6/2017

Boondocking at Glendo state Park Wyoming

My boondocking spot at Glendo State Park Wyoming. It sure feels good to get out of the Walmart parking lot and get back into nature. Do I detect a little bit of Autumn creeping into the trees

I am finally boondocking someplace besides a Walmart parking lot. I'm back in Glendo state Park Wyoming where I stayed on my way to Montana about a month ago. The difference is when I stayed here the first time the campground was almost full, and now so far I'm the only one here. I like that much better.

All of the worry and concern over what batteries to get for the Arctic Fox was settled night before last just before I went to bed. Northern Arizona wind and solar, a company that I bought all my solar panels and my Trojan batteries from was having a Labor Day sale and I wanted to buy some batteries before it was over. So I made a command decision, hopefully that I won't regret, and ordered four 100 amp hour Battle Born lithium iron batteries.

The decision came down to either AGM's or lithium iron. I knew I didn't want to go with regular lead batteries again, partially because of the never-ending watering problems, but it was difficult to choose between the other two. I had spent several days living in Walmart parking lots which gave me plenty of time to do enough Internet research and weighing everyone's recommendations on the good and bad points between the two, that I was approaching information overload and it seemed like the more I read the more confused I became. And I think the only thing that saved me from weeks of research and confusion was the deadline of the holiday sale. I was forced to make a choice.

A source that helped me with my indecision was different boating websites. Now I'm probably the last RVer in the country to discover this but there's a lot of people that live aboard their boats and have the same interests and the same kind of problems that RVers have except a lot of their problems could be the difference between life or death so some of the things they buy for their boats are the same or similar things that RVers buy except the boating stuff is often much higher quality because failure can lead to disaster under some boating conditions.

And I guess because of that boaters have been using various types of lithium batteries before most RVers ever thought about it. It's pretty obvious that electronic equipment on a boat is more than just a dashboard full of pretty lights, that stuff has to work, so I'm sure they want the best batteries that money can buy and it seems like a lot of them are going to lithium iron.

I would have to say that the two main things that kept me leaning towards the lithium iron batteries was the weight savings and the alleged longevity of the batteries. The weight thing speaks for itself. What RVer isn't interested in saving a big hunk of weight? The longevity thing is a bit more iffy. If the batteries works like there supposed to they should be the last house battery I will ever have to buy. There supposed to outlast most any lead acid battery by several times over and unlike lead acid batteries which get weaker and weaker over time, the lithium irons are supposed to maintain most of their strength until near the end of their life expectancy. At least that's what they say.

The batteries are being delivered to my daughter's house and will be here Friday and I should be back at my daughter's house by then also. This has been a big expense and I sure hope it's worth it, but like most other things, only time will tell.

Here's a link to a "Gone with the Wynns" article on lithium batteries I think it explains the economic reasons behind them clearer and more succinctly than I ever could.

theboondork

18 Comments

Vall&Mo link

9/7/2017 03:02:21 am

Hi Tom,

Congrats on the new batteries! We weren't aware of those Battleborns, but have just checked and they seem very interesting due to their plug-and-play compatibility with existing 12V lead-acid systems; albeit as they advise they won't work optimally unless you reprogram (or replace) the charging system, the fact that they have a built-in BMS should at least protect them from damage; and the 3-year warranty is certainly reassuring.

Can you share how much you were able to snag them for during the Labor Day sale? Right now they are being listed on the AW&S website at $899 for a 12V/100Ah unit, not cheap when compared to an equivalent 4x3.3V/100Ah traditional (eg CALB, Winston, etc) LiFePO4 set which can be had for about $520... but as it saves you from having to worry about (and spend on) BMS selection, integration, etc it's clearly worth it.

The only thing we find questionable about these Battleborns is that they quote (on the spec sheet PDF you can download from AW&S for example) their available capacity at 100% of the nominal charge (ie, 100Ah for a 100Ah unit); the accepted best practice with LiFePO4 is to stop draining them at 15%, and stop charging them at 95%, which gives you 95%-15%= 80% of available capacity (much more than the 50% you get from lead-acids, but still not 100%). Trying to get 100% from them would probably shorten their lives significantly...

One other thing you might find interesting is to put some kind of venting on your battery compartment; Battleborn's BMS has temperature cutoffs which will protect you from instantly damaging them, but "acceptable" higher temps during charge/discharge will still significantly shorten their lives over time, as the Technomadia folks have reported.

All in all, an admirable setup, congratulations again! We look forward to your future reports about installing and using them.

Cheers,
--
Vall&Mo

thedoondork

9/7/2017 01:19:06 pm

Thank you Vall&Mo. I'm a simple man, with simple needs, and simple skills, plug-in works just fine for me.

I already have a MorningStar 60 amp solar controller which is fully adjustable so there shouldn't be any problems there. But I'm not sure about The charger that came with the Arctic Fox. I so seldom turn it on that I don't know anything about it, I guess I'll have to read the owners manual. And as for the alternator on the truck, the wires going back to the trailer are so small that I doubt if much of any charging would be getting to the batteries

I paid about $850 each for the batteries which is still a heck of a lot of money for a battery. the other ones I was also looking at were made by Relion which have a great reputation but there over $1200 each for a hundred amp hour battery. I'm not sure what you get for the extra few hundred dollars but buying four of them was going to amount to a lot of money compared to the Battle born batteries

I'm not sure why it says you can use 100% of the charge because everywhere on the Battle Born web site says 80% only. But that's a good example of what I was talking about when I said the more I read the more confused I got. It seems like you can find all kinds of numbers on these LiFePO4 batteries and the deeper I got involved in it the more difficult my decision became.

The temperature parameters for these batteries have been one of my main concerns [besides the price] because even though I try to stay in places where it doesn't get too hot or too cold I have still stayed in 90° heat and some 30° cold along with some snow. Sometimes my best efforts to avoid these extremes doesn't always work. So determining the placement for these batteries has been taking up a lot of my limited brain capacity.

So far my choices are to put them in the front storage compartment of the Arctic Fox and in the same large ice chest that my partially deceased batteries are in at the moment, or put them in the storage area under my bed, which sets right over the top of where my batteries are now. The front storage compartment is not heated but all the wires are already in place to do the job. Under my bed would keep the batteries at a more even temperature but I will have to buy some cables, really big cables.

If the batteries are delivered on time, the first pictures should be coming out Friday.

Tom

9/7/2017 08:06:48 pm

Hi Tom,

From what I've heard of the Morning Star, I think it's fully programmable and you should be able to set it exactly as you need to work with the new batteries.

Thanks for the price info on the batteries. Yes, it's a bundle... But could become inexpensive in the long run if they can be made to last the full 2000-5000 cycles they are supposed to.

Regarding the thing about using 100% vs 80% of LiFePO4 battery capacity, I've seen conflicting information too. The best I've been able to figure is that if you use 100% (ie, use them right up to their low charge / full charge limits) the number of cycles they will last will be in the low 2000 end of that 2000-5000 range, and if you stop charging before or at 95%, and stop draining before or at 15%, then their total life will be nearer the upper range of 5000 cycles. This is just an educated guess on my part, tho... Perhaps if you ask the folks at NAW&S they would be able to clarify?

I think you are heading the right way by considering installing them under the bed... That's very close to what the WheelingIt folks did, after reading the Technomadia report (they installed their LiFePO4 batteries in a closet in their motorhome's bedroom) . In case you haven't seen the WheelingIt posts, they are very detailed and informative, the first one can be read here: http://wheelingit.us/2016/02/24/the-big-beastly-solarbattery-upgrade-part-i-why/

Good luck and again please keep us posted,
--
Vall (Mo got a cold and went to bed early tonight).

theboondork

9/8/2017 07:55:35 am

I'm hoping since I have more usable amps than I used to have I will never be looking at the bottom of my battery capacity. I'm also hoping that since these batteries are supposed to charge quicker than lead acid batteries, that the 5 or 6 Amps that I often get out of the solar panels even on a cloudy day will keep me out of the bottom of the batteries.

I'm leaning towards putting the batteries under the bed. My biggest concern there is heat. Since I seldom run my air conditioner I'm a bit worried that it might get hot enough under my bed to be a problem for the batteries. I wonder if these LiFePO4 batteries put out any heat while they're charging or discharging? I've never read anything about that.

Give my best to Mo. Tom

Tim

9/7/2017 01:39:05 pm

Hi Tom - Hate that this happened to you, but it's really interesting to see the process you're going through on the battery selection. When I daydream about going full time RVing, I've thought about what type of batteries to get. Lithium definitely seems like the way to go, but the price has always seemed prohibitive. To me, $850 a battery is getting down to the point where it makes a lot of sense.

I'm looking forward to seeing more on your new battery installation and your thoughts on these particular batteries as time goes on.

BTW, the time for me to make some big decisions is quickly coming up (I have to either commit to renewing my lease in about a month, or move on with my new life). Life in an Arctic Fox is sounding better all the time.

Tim

9/7/2017 04:09:12 pm

I'm still trying to get over the shock of what these batteries cost, but since all batteries last for years it looks like it will be a long time before I find out if my decision was the right one or not.

I know that there must be a lot of people who look at my life and think it must be terrible to live the way I do. Traveling alone with no place to call home, living in a trailer for crying out loud, and if all that wasn't bad enough I don't even stay in nice RV resorts where there are swimming pools and bingo on Friday nights, I live out in the desert with all of the creatures that crawl, slither, and bite.

And I understand why a lot of people feel that way, but were all different and that's why there are so many different ways to RV or be a full timer. But as I've mentioned in my blog before, if I won the lottery tomorrow, not a little one but one of those giant $400 million dollar lottery's, I wouldn't change my life at all. I would still live in the Arctic Fox, I would still boondock in the desert and the national forest and I would still travel around going wherever I want to go.

And why would I continue to live that way? Because I'm happy. And $400 million dollars and the things it could buy would not make me happier. Would I be any happier driving a million-dollar Prevost motorhome and staying in hundred dollar a night RV resorts? No way, you couldn't pay me to live like that. I'm happy now and no amount of money could make any happier.

I don't know if living the full-time life would be as good for you as it is for me, but it sounds like you're in a situation where you could easily and painlessly give it a try. Start with a small inexpensive RV of some kind, take it to someplace warm, and spend the winter living in it and see how you like it. You can always go back to being a normal person again.

You know the Arctic Fox is a big heavy trailer that needs a big heavy truck to pull it and that may be too big a bite for someone just starting out in the RV lifestyle. Remember the Arctic Fox is my third fifth wheel not my first. I think the Arctic Fox 27 – 5L is a great full-time, live aboard fifth wheel, but I'm not at all sure it's a great first timer RV.

Whatever you decide always remember... Time is the most valuable thing in your life, and unlike money once it's gone you can never get it back.

Tom

9/8/2017 08:51:58 am

Hi Tom,

Happiness is all that really matters. If you're happy, I don't think it matters what others think (although many people are probably envious of your situation and lifestyle, more than anything).

The full-time RV lifestyle would probably be good for me, but more than likely I could be very happy living in a house or condo (if I pick the right one). I'm generally pretty happy no matter the location or housing (we moved a lot up until high school, so I learned to adapt pretty quickly). That's part of the problem -
happiness can be found in a lot of different situations (although there are degrees of happiness). But, I think going full-time would open up my horizons and allow me to see things in the US that I wouldn't otherwise see or experience.

I was aware that the 27-5l GVWR is 13,400, which would mean a minimum of an F-250 diesel or equivalent (and a 350 would probably be better). I've fluctuated on the type and size of RV to get if I do full-time and have researched and still considering Class B's, Class C's, small trailers, and fifth wheels. For fifth wheels, I keep coming back to the 27-5l, but still haven't made up my mind on any of these issues.

I agree on the limitations of time. Every day that goes by when I hear of some celebrity, friend, or acquaintance passing away or having serious health issues in their 50's, 60's, or 70's, makes me all too aware that time is passing and our time on this planet is finite. For example, one of my friend's wife (both retired in their 60's) has been struggling with a brain tumor over the last year and it has dramatically changed their lives and what they can do; we never know what is around the bend.

Gosh, on that morose note, I guess I should stop writing :)
Looking forward to hearing about your battery transition and your trips this fall and winter!

Tim

9/8/2017 11:10:39 am

Very often when I'm traveling I see something I would like to take a picture of but I can't because there's no place to park the trailer or its too dangerous to pull over beside the road with a big trailer.

If I ever decided to get a different RV for full timing it would be a smaller RV. Something easier to deal with in parking lots and backin camping sites.

What I have to do now if there's something I want to see is find a place to camp, unhook, and then go see things. It's times like that that I really wish I was in a van. But when it's raining and I have to spend a lot of time indoors I'm glad I've got a lot of room to walk around in. Decisions, decisions.

Tom

9/8/2017 09:22:49 am

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your reply. Here is some more info that could apply to your setup, from what we have been able to gleam since we started researching this a couple of years ago:

1) Regarding hitting the bottom of the batteries (while discharging):

a) the ideal would be to avoid hitting the top too (while recharging). Certainly the built-in BMS on the Batteborns will prevent them from hitting 100% (if it didn't, they would die after just a couple of charges), but the ideal would be to avoid it going past 95% (that would help to make the batteries last more towards "high" 5000 cycles instead of the "low" 2000 cycles it would last otherwise).

b) the best way to keep an eye on the depths of discharge and recharge (as well as on the number of cycles, total capacity, etc) would be if the built-in Battleborn BMS offered some kind of
user interface (like an external display or even some kind of app you could run on your smartphone and query the BMS via bluetooth, as other vendors offer). I didn't see anything on that regard on the Battleborn docs nor site, but perhaps you can enquire NAW&S about that. But even if that is not available, I think you can use your current battery monitor (you have a Trimetrics, IIRC) to at least make sure it's not going over the limits... Again I would ask for NAW&S for help in these matters.

2) Regarding the batteries warming up during charging, I do not think they should warm up too much: any generated heat would have to consume current, and that would reflect as inefficiency during the charging process; Battleborn doesn't quotes these batteries' efficiency so we can't be sure, but I've seen other manufacturers quoting from 92% up. Battleborn does quote (in the PDF manual) how the BMS reacts to high temps: above 150F it simply cuts off all charging and discharging. This is good and needs to be done to avoid catastrophical failure (including thermal runaway which could lead to a fire), but from what I've read is not enough to maximize battery life. Perhaps you could put some kind of vent/fan on the side of your bed to exhaust the air (which would replace of with cooler air) and avoid it getting too warm in there: that way, the batteries would have to warm all the air inside the 5er instead of just the air in the enclosed space before starting to get warm themselves. This is what we're planning to do on our future setup. Again, it would be great if there was some kind of interface to the BMS to let you keep an eye on the batteries' temperature.

Perhaps all these details and worries are not really necessary, and if you just install the batts in a well ventilated, not too exposed place and let the charger and the BMS do their stuff, they will perform and last well enough, ie, at least the 2000 cycles minimum that is commonly cited for LiFePO4 with minimal care. But I noticed Battleborn's warranty is not that great (just 3 years, which even if you cycled then daily would mean just a little over 1000 cycles -- we've seen some other sellers offering 5 to 10-year warranties), so these details could help you extract as much as possible from your battery investment.

Mo is getting better (actually reading this with me as I write it), and thanks you for your concern.

Cheers,
--
Vall.

9/8/2017 02:08:39 pm

Thanks for all of the information, I have a lot to learn about this new "to me" technology having spent most of my life learning how to deal with lead acid batteries.

I'm making a list of questions to ask Battle born when I call them next week, I figure I would go straight to the source since NAW&S probably gets their information from them anyway. But maybe you can answer a question for me since you seem far more informed about this than I am.

What exactly is a "cycle"? I thought I had read that a cycle is a discharge down to 80% and then recharging back to full. But if that's the case what is a discharge down to 50% and then a full recharge called? And how does that small discharge affect the limited number of cycles that the battery has. But if a cycle is a recharging after ANY depth of discharge [ DOD ], then to a full timer like me, the number of cycles a battery has simply represents the number of days it will last because it's going to be discharged by some amount every night.

I've always used the number 100 Amps a day as what my normal average use would be but looking back on it I believe it would be far less than that. I didn't keep up with it in my normal daily life because it really didn't matter. I learned pretty quickly that my 260 usable amps from my lead acid batteries was plenty of amps to not have to conserve in any way even if I had a couple of days of cloudy weather. The only time I really thought about my amp use was when the weather forecast was for several cloudy days and then I would turn off my laptop when I wasn't using it and not use my desktop at all. So I think for the most part I'm only going to be using the top 10% of the batterys every day.

I like the idea of putting a fan and some vent holes under the bed, I've also got a remote temperature sensor that I could lay on top of the batteries.

I'm glad Mo is feeling better

Tom

9/8/2017 05:04:24 pm

Hi Tom,

Lithium batteries and assorted technology are very new for everyone -- me and Mo have simply been longer out there reading stuff and asking questions. And we must warn you that basically everything we think we know on the subject is "armchair knowledge" -- ie, gained asking questions and reading posts at forums and blogs and manuals and the like, and not backed by our own practical experience. So, caveat emptor, YMMV and you have been warned ;-)

That said, we think this field is still a long way from maturity, and a lot is not yet settled. This is the case with the "how to count a cycle" matter -- there are a lot of opinions but nobody we heard from knows for sure, nor can give solid, ironclad reasons for one answer or another. We've asked around and there are folks that define a cycle as every time you draw as much amp/hours from the battery as it has to offer (so, if you have a battery starting at 100%, then draw it down to 50%, then charge it up to 70%, then drawn it down to 20% -- 100-50=50%, plus 70%-20%=50%, and adding these two gets us 50%+50%=100%, so that whole discharge/charge/discharge/charge movement would have counted as exactly one cycle).

Other folks do the same but instead of 100%, use 80% as the "counting trigger" (remember we mentioned 95%-15%= 80% earlier?), so they would have counted the same movement above as 100/80 = 1.25 cycles (yeah, one and a quarter fractional cycles). Yet others just add a cycle every time the battery is recharged, no matter how much discharged it was when the recharging started, and no matter where the recharging takes it; in that view, the example above would have counted as exactly 2 cycles.

LifeBlue (A Battleborn competitor we just became aware of while doing some research on the plug-compatible players) has a BMS that counts cycles using the 80% rule we mentioned above, and it seems they consider it for warranty purposes. so they seem to be putting their money where that opinion is. You can see they talking about it here: http://www.lifebluebattery.com/the-smartest-lithium-battery/ (see the part that starts with "keep track of how many cycles").

I would be conservative and count a whole cycle everytime a battery is recharged -- therefore, as you mentioned, it would be a cycle every day, and at 2000 cycles minimum your lithiums would last you at least about five and a half years (and up to 13 and a half years if you can make them last 5000 cycles). This is why we think a 3 year warranty is kinda small (unless the batteries have been mistreated, of course -- but if I was Battleborn or any other maker, I would make the BMS log everything into non-erasable memory so as to be able to treat each warranty claim fairly).

Anyway, that's our 2 cents on the subject -- I would ask Battleborn themselves that same question and see how they define a cycle. If you do, please share their answers to that and your other questions on your blog, we would love to see what they think of the subject.

Cheers,
--
Vall & Mo.

9/8/2017 06:56:24 pm

Thank you for all that information. After all the reading I've done on these batteries I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that's not sure what a "cycle" is.

When these lithium companies compare their batteries to flooded lead acid batteries or AGM's they often say something like, lead batteries only have 4 or 5 hundred cycles. If that's the case we should only be getting a couple of years out of our lead acid batteries, but obviously that's not the case. I understand there's a lot of puffery involved in advertising but if they're comparing apples to apples with their definition of "cycles" then something doesn't add up.

I'll give Battle born a call first chance I get and see what they say, inquiring minds want to know.

Tom

9/8/2017 09:31:56 am

Hi Tom, and Tim,

We agree 100% with Tom regarding both the RV lifestyle (we would not do anything else even if we had billions in the bank) and the value of time as the ultimate irreplaceable resource. Tom worded it perfectly: if what we're doing is not making us happy, then we are wasting time -- and time is not only irreplaceable but also 'unpredictable' (in the sense of being impossible to predict how much of it any of us has left) so we better not waste any of it.

Cheers,
--
Vall.

9/9/2017 10:22:32 am

Thanks Tom, Vall,, and Mo,

Definitely giving me a lot to think about. I have a lot of decisions to make in the next several months and your comments have helped a lot. Because of some work things coming up in the next two weeks, I think the path will be more clear by the end of the month. Time is definitely a limited resource.

As far as the size of RV to get, I have even considered a van or Class B RV just to improve maneuverability. I fluctuate on that idea, but it's still a possibility. At this point, nothing is ruled out.

Busy weekend and busy next two weeks on trips, so keeping this short. Thanks again!

10/20/2017 06:30:01 am

Hi Tom,

I just posted about the Battleborns and your experience with them here:
http://www.rvforum.net/SMF_forum/index.php/topic,109633.msg987411.html#msg987411

Thought you'd like to know.

Cheers,
--
Vall.

10/20/2017 07:47:12 pm

Thanks for doing that. It never would've occurred to me to post my stuff on a different site, I always figured boring the readers on my site was enough.

I was just wondering do you by any chance have a blog, if not maybe you should consider it. You seem to be far more Internet savvy than I am.

Tom

10/21/2017 02:32:51 am

Hi Tom,

You're welcome, and your blog is anything but boring. Actually, after following many dozens of blogs over the years (and discarding most of them after a short while) yours is one of the very few we keep on following, and actually look forward with anticipation for the next post.

Regarding keeping a blog, well you could say we have some internet savvyness (long story here...) But keeping a blog, specially a great blog like yours, needs a lot of inspiration and takes a lot of work, and we're still on the process of retiring (we're shutting down our company here and downsizing our stuff so we can move into full-time RVing by year's end -- we leave our house on Dec 26th, so you could say the new lifestyle will be our Christmas gift :-)).

After that, we should have both the inspiration and the leisure for keeping a blog. We've had the domain MojaveDesert.org (we love deserts, and the Mojave was the first one we've ever visited) registered for a few years now; It has been pointing to a Google+ page where we infrequently post some stuff, and after we start full-timing, we will probably re-point it to some blog platform.

Cheers,
--
Vall & Mo.

10/21/2017 09:36:44 am

That's a great story, and one I can relate to, since I sold my restaurants when I retired. I can also relate to it by remembering when I was a few months away from selling my home and wondering how in the world I was going to get rid of all the stuff in that house and then be able to live a semi-normal life with only the meager possessions that would fit into the Arctic Fox. And since I can relate to that I'll bet there's a lot of other people out there that can also relate to it.

So the point of that is, this could be a great time to start a blog. I understand your very busy trying to rearrange your life to become a full timer, but if you look at the things going on right now in your life, those things could be a great foundation for your blog.

I kind of regret not building a better foundation for my blog, but like you I was very busy during that transition and unlike most folks I'm somewhat adverse to talking about the details of my life. Looking back on it I wish I'd started the blog earlier and put in more details about how challenging and heart wrenching changeing one style life for another can become.

What you're going through right now, as far as I'm concerned, is the worst part of becoming a full timer. You're dealing with stuff at this moment that most folks either can't do or are dreading having to do. This transition period you're experiencing is what a lot of people want to read about. This is the complicated part, this is the stressful part, this is the roller coaster part where you'll be happy one day and sad the next, this is where all the drama is.

Once you hook up the trailer and go wandering aimlessly down the interstate of life It's a lot harder to find something to write about. Think about it, most of the drama, most of the stress, and most of the challenges of a normal life are gone, vanished, left behind, once you hit the road, quite often, all you will have to write about is the mundane, the trick is to somehow make the mundane interesting. I'm still working on that part.

And one day you'll be doing just what I'm doing right now, sitting in the Arctic Fox, looking out the window at a lake with a few yellow trees scattered around it, only two other RVs in the whole state Park, wondering what the heck am I gonna write about today?

So if at all possible, try to find time to start your blog early because what you're doing right now is really the most interesting and challenging part of becoming a full timer. Everything else after hooking up and driving off is a piece of cake, after all even a boondork can do it.

PS... It might just be the best Christmas gift you ever get.

Tom

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