Are your LiFePO4 batteries ready for the falling temperatures

[MichaelT]

Lithiums don’t need any more mollycoddling than lead batteries. The BMS will stop them charging when too cold. They don’t mind being stored long term when not fully charged, they don’t need 10 to 16 hours of charging (unlike Gel). All batteries need some care, it is just a different type of mollycoddling.

Yes I don't worry if it's below zero or 30c and never did with any other type of battery. I know if I need to charge up ill be in the van using it so this time of year heating is on 24*7 so no need to worry.

 

[cyberyacht]

Wow ... Have you got lunar solar panels then?

No, it just saves getting up at frosty o'clock in my jim jams to turn them off. They were down to zero and +1C first thing this morning.

 

[Lenny333]

My Roamer LifePo4 is set to charge down to zero from the factory, then cut off and not start charging again until it reaches 5C (see picture)

As this is how it came from the factory, I don’t really want to mess with the settings but I’ll bow to those with greater knowledge if anyone has any comments…?

 

[Fat Albert]

I have two temp sensors for charger and solar controller. My question is, what stops the large amount of amps being sucked up by discharged lithium batteries when the engine is started and the alternator is in play?

 

[ChrisL]

I have two temp sensors for charger and solar controller. My question is, what stops the large amount of amps being sucked up by discharged lithium batteries when the engine is started and the alternator is in play?

The BMS should turn off charging when the battery temperature is too low.

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[Fat Albert]

The BMS should turn off charging when the battery temperature is too low.

Ok thanks for the info

 

[carolyn]

My Roamer LifePo4 is set to charge down to zero from the factory, then cut off and not start charging again until it reaches 5C (see picture)

As this is how it came from the factory, I don’t really want to mess with the settings but I’ll bow to those with greater knowledge if anyone has any comments…?



View attachment 996127

This is helpful. We must download the app. We have been fretting today as our leisure and cab batteries have been lower than we thought they should be. We have a Consort like you plus their lithium. Cab went down to 12.15 on multimeter. 12.2 on the Phantom app.

Went for a drive and the cab one is OK but the leisure one is still only 12.7V but the BMS says 100% charged (97% before we left) . Never occurred to me to check the voltage before we left as the % was OK. Hopefully it’s the cold. Dan not around until Monday, worrying that things aren’t working as they should re keeping cab topped up.

 

[Lenny333]

This is helpful. We must download the app. We have been fretting today as our leisure and cab batteries have been lower than we thought they should be. We have a Consort like you plus their lithium. Cab went down to 12.15 on multimeter. 12.2 on the Phantom app.

Went for a drive and the cab one is OK but the leisure one is still only 12.7V but the BMS says 100% charged (97% before we left) . Never occurred to me to check the voltage before we left as the % was OK. Hopefully it’s the cold. Dan not around until Monday, worrying that things aren’t working as they should re keeping cab topped up.

Hi carolyn

I’ve got ours plugged in to EHU on the drive using a 3pin to 16A adapter and that keeps the vehicle battery topped up as well as the leisure batteries. Our phantom graph is below…

 

[Vanman]

Maybe we need a couple of lead acids to run a small heater?

 

[carolyn]

Hi carolyn

I’ve got ours plugged in to EHU on the drive using a 3pin to 16A adapter and that keeps the vehicle battery topped up as well as the leisure batteries. Our phantom graph is below…



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Thanks. I think we just assumed we’d not need to. When we had our IH vans we just had a single gel battery , one solar panel and a battery master and never plugged it in all winter. Just assumed it would be fine and it was!

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[Minxy]

Lithiums don’t need any more mollycoddling than lead batteries. The BMS will stop them charging when too cold. They don’t mind being stored long term when not fully charged, they don’t need 10 to 16 hours of charging (unlike Gel). All batteries need some care, it is just a different type of mollycoddling.

Ours have never been mollied it coddled! The only treat they get is a bit of Ehu every couple of weeks or so to keep them charged if the solar isn't doing it's job which it usually is. What we don't do is have to keep checking the weather, the state of charge, turn the solar on and off etc, way too much faffing.

 

[Lenny HB]

I have two temp sensors for charger and solar controller. My question is, what stops the large amount of amps being sucked up by discharged lithium batteries when the engine is started and the alternator is in play?

My B2B is set to not charge below 5°.

 

[Lenny HB]

It's good that someone has reminded folk about mollycoddling their lithiums... I'll stick with my gels as hubby would fret endlessly if we changed!

Don't need any mollycoddling if you install them with the right equipment.

 

[rod_vw]

We have a Roamer lithium battery in the van and this is what they say about charging their batteries in cold conditions.

 

[Minxy]

Don't need any mollycoddling if you install them with the right equipment.

You offering Uncle Lenny?

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[Pausim]

What we don't do is have to keep checking the weather, the state of charge, turn the solar on and off etc, way too much faffing.

Neither do I.

 

[AdrianChen]

Neither do I.

Nor me - (but I do sneek a look at the van from home while its in storage) - Had more trouble over the years with FLA and AGM than I have had with Lithium!

 

[Minxy]

Neither do I.

Judging by what a fair few people have said on here though you seem to be in the minority.

 

[AdrianChen]

Judging by what a fair few people have said on here though you seem to be in the minority.

When you get new toys, it's nice to look after them!

 

[Gaston aires]

So, on the Fogstar app you can switch off charging and discharge. Will this do the trick ?

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[bigtwin]

So, on the Fogstar app you can switch off charging and discharge.

You can switch them independently of one another.

Will this do the trick ?

What trick?

If you are concerned about charging at low ambient temperatures then one way of protecting them is to isolate the charging input via the battery App.

LiFePO4 specific chargers can usually be set such that they wont charge at low temperatures.

Ian

 

[Cush]

Am I being too blazé about the lithium batteries. Surely the under temperature protection parameters in the bms will protect them, and prevent charging and the heated batteries will do exactly that by using the charge current. I fear people lay be “getting wet before it rains”. Have a look at your spec sheet for your battery of you are worried.

 

[JockandRita]

Judging by what a fair few people have said on here though you seem to be in the minority.

Ours are not molly coddled either Mel, and are without heaters and Bluetooth.
The built in functional BMS and B2B. temperature sensor to the batteries, will dictate when charging takes effect, and at what amperage. All the Victron gear communicates with each other, and is set at a low of 5°C. Almost like "plug and play" if you like.
For us, it was pointless paying an extra £120 - £150 per battery, for technology we don't need.

Cheers,

Jock.

 

[Pausim]

So, on the Fogstar app you can switch off charging and discharge. Will this do the trick ?

My Roamer has the same options in the app for switching off charge and discharge but the BMS will stop it charging when too cold anyway. It also has a button on the battery that shuts the battery down, which is what I used when I last left the van in storage. This has the advantage of turning off all the battery systems, including the bluetooth, which means virtually no loss of charge whilst laid up.

 

[carolyn]

We’re even more confused now. We downloaded the Roamer app yesterday which was east and the leisure battery shows it to be 98% charged and the voltage 13.27V which is much more what we expected it to be. It’s switched off from charging as it’s so cold which is as it should be.

We have the BMS 700 Victron which after my panicked drive on friday read 100%. It settled to 97.8% yesterday so much the same as the Roamer app. I said I understood the up and down buttons so pressed them. The victron app says the leisure battery is 12.6V so completely different to what the Roamer app says. This is the day after driving. So now we’re really confused.

I am going to phone Dan at Consort tomorrow because the only way of checking the starter battery is with the multimeter or the moving intelligence Phantom app. We know he said he’d set something so that 1amp would go from the leisure battery to the starter battery to protect it. I didn’t think it would let it go as low as 12.15v before it dud that. ( on another thread someone thought theirs went down to 11.9 on the app before it suddenly went up to 12.3). I remember the moving intelligence app is inaccurate though, sometimes it matches and sometimes it does’t when Nick checks annoyingly.

I want to be sure I ask the right questions. Lenny HB I’ve highlighted you Lenny as I’m afraid you’re the one who knows how to make it basic enough for me to understand! We are going to Panama on 7th Feb for 5 weeks so won’t beable to access van and don't have anyone to do it. We could plug the van in on the drive but I’m not sure if that’s OK. Never worried about this before and certainly didn’t think we were going to have to with lithium!

We are happy to upgrade bits if that’s the best plan. We are in no way criticising Consort I hasten to add. We feel we got what we paid for. We were under great time pressure when we picked up the new van with Claire’s wedding and our big trip. We didn’t even have 4 weeks. We were lucky AshVanBitz squeezed us in for a strikeback growler.

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[SteveE]

We’re currently away in the van and was scrolling MHF looking for some help, then spotted this thread… hopefully someone can help, or point me in the right direction.

We’ve been on EHU since Friday evening, all working fine… we’ve had the heating running quite a lot using combo of gas and electric to keep the van at a comfortable temperature.

This morning our Fogstar 230ah battery is at 60% SOC and the control panel is no longer showing any incoming power. Weirdly the fridge is still running on 240v and the Truma control panel is showing we have power coming from the EHU.

I’ve checked the consumer unit and all looks fine, also checked the EHU bollard and that looks fine too. I’ve swapped to a different socket but no difference.

We’re heading home later today so it’s not an immediate problem, but keen to try and resolve this whilst I’m in the van and have access to EHU, so any help would be appreciated.

Battery/cell temperatures all look fine in the Fogstar app.

Thanks

 

[Pausim]

We’re even more confused now. We downloaded the Roamer app yesterday which was east and the leisure battery shows it to be 98% charged and the voltage 13.27V which is much more what we expected it to be. It’s switched off from charging as it’s so cold which is as it should be.

We have the BMS 700 Victron which after my panicked drive on friday read 100%. It settled to 97.8% yesterday so much the same as the Roamer app. I said I understood the up and down buttons so pressed them. The victron app says the leisure battery is 12.6V so completely different to what the Roamer app says. This is the day after driving. So now we’re really confused.

I am going to phone Dan at Consort tomorrow because the only way of checking the starter battery is with the multimeter or the moving intelligence Phantom app. We know he said he’d set something so that 1amp would go from the leisure battery to the starter battery to protect it. I didn’t think it would let it go as low as 12.15v before it dud that. ( on another thread someone thought theirs went down to 11.9 on the app before it suddenly went up to 12.3). I remember the moving intelligence app is inaccurate though, sometimes it matches and sometimes it does’t when Nick checks annoyingly.

I want to be sure I ask the right questions. Lenny HB I’ve highlighted you Lenny as I’m afraid you’re the one who knows how to make it basic enough for me to understand! We are going to Panama on 7th Feb for 5 weeks so won’t beable to access van and don't have anyone to do it. We could plug the van in on the drive but I’m not sure if that’s OK. Never worried about this before and certainly didn’t think we were going to have to with lithium!

We are happy to upgrade bits if that’s the best plan. We are in no way criticising Consort I hasten to add. We feel we got what we paid for. We were under great time pressure when we picked up the new van with Claire’s wedding and our big trip. We didn’t even have 4 weeks. We were lucky AshVanBitz squeezed us in for a strikeback growler.

If you have a Roamer Smart battery I would simply turn it off completely. If you are worried about the engine battery while you are away you could put a trickle charger on it, lots of people do this on their cars when going away.

 

[TrudeandDall]

H

My Roamer has the same options in the app for switching off charge and discharge but the BMS will stop it charging when too cold anyway. It also has a button on the battery that shuts the battery down, which is what I used when I last left the van in storage. This has the advantage of turning off all the battery systems, including the bluetooth, which means virtually no loss of charge whilst laid up.

Having a simple button to switch the battery off is a great asset. The OPS batteries from Offgrid also have this button..

 

[carolyn]

If you have a Roamer Smart battery I would simply turn it off completely. If you are worried about the engine battery while you are away you could put a trickle charger on it, lots of people do this on their cars when going away.

I don’t understand why I’d want to start messing around with my lithium battery. It’s under the seat. This sounds like an additional complication but thankyou. It doesn’t charge between 0 and 5 degrees.

My old gel plus one solar kept everything charged over winter, that was a 2019 van with a fancy alarm. I’m sure the 240a lithium can . I’m just worried it’s not set quite right and I don’t understand the monitors etc. They don’t agree with one another.

 

[MichaelT]

We’re currently away in the van and was scrolling MHF looking for some help, then spotted this thread… hopefully someone can help, or point me in the right direction.

We’ve been on EHU since Friday evening, all working fine… we’ve had the heating running quite a lot using combo of gas and electric to keep the van at a comfortable temperature.

This morning our Fogstar 230ah battery is at 60% SOC and the control panel is no longer showing any incoming power. Weirdly the fridge is still running on 240v and the Truma control panel is showing we have power coming from the EHU.

I’ve checked the consumer unit and all looks fine, also checked the EHU bollard and that looks fine too. I’ve swapped to a different socket but no difference.

We’re heading home later today so it’s not an immediate problem, but keen to try and resolve this whilst I’m in the van and have access to EHU, so any help would be appreciated.

Battery/cell temperatures all look fine in the Fogstar app.

Thanks



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Is battery charger on or has a fuse for it blown?

Is the battery set to allow charging in the settings page?

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