Ecotree 110A lithium & B2B install 2008 ih Fiat PVC (1 Viewer)

[Bobby-gg]

Guys, I was another lucky recipient of the half price offer Ecotree lithium battery deal and, as I'd been preparing my vehicle over the last few year's to make the jump to lithium it couldn't of been timed any better.






As a bit of background, we bought our van in summer 2019 and found out at our first 3 night festival that the leisure battery wasn't performing as expected.


As such, I spent the first lockdown making various improvements, including running 50mm cables directly from the alternator to the battery and then 16mm cables via a new split charge system to the battery bypassing the onboard cbe charger, a victron 30A mains charger to replace the 16A cbe mains charger and a Halfords 100Ah efb battery to replace the original Everexceed st-12135 battery which weighing in at 40kg almost give me a hernia removing!


This worked well enough for our limited trips out during 2020 but the next upgrade to be installed was squeezing in the biggest solar I could on the limited space roof, which I managed to get a victron 175watt panel on, with a victron smartsolar controller.



Then, a raspberry pi was connected to allow remote monitoring of the system when the van has a WiFi connection.


All this worked well, and proved to be acceptable during 2021's festivals and wild camping but was pushing the limits if using off grid too long.


So now that I had the opportunity to upgrade to lithium I was doing my research into a B2B charger to allow full use of the system and initially I was looking at victron gear since everything else is victron, but I changed my mind to try a votronic B2B as victron only do a max 30A and they don't include a temperature monitor for cold temp cut of - I ended up getting a votronic isolated 45A charger.


So, with the forecast looking quite good yesterday I started by removing the drivers seat as I wanted to mount the charger under the seat, I've never seen a vehicle seat so heavy, I really struggled lifting it out, but once out I could see how I could fit the charger.






Two rails were fitted, to hold the charger off the floor slightly as there is a fan mounted under the charger as well as another at the front, main 16mm cables were ran directly from the vehicle battery, correctly fused and sense wiring added to both batteries to allow the charger to function in voltage sensing mode for optimal performance













The leisure battery is located in the bottom of the wardrobe behind the drivers seat, and is rather awkward to remove and replace but once you've got the knack it's relatively easy.













All fitted, connections double, and even triple checked, start the vehicle and getting a nice healthy 14.49 volts at the vehicle battery and over 30A charging the leisure battery.
But, I have made a slight connection mistake in that I've connected the temperature sensor to the positive terminal of the battery rather than the negative, I'll strip the wardrobe out again tonight and swap it over










Time will tell how this system will perform and our next off grid festival isn't until the end of April for fully testing it, but I'm fairly sure that the more capacity, and a better charging ability will be absolutely perfect for us and with the expected increases in energy price's, we should be able to book more non-electric site's in the future

Thanks to the guy's at Ecotree for making this possible and their first class service in making recommendations to meet my requirements

 

[SeanF1]

Looking good. Well done. What sort of festivals do you attend? How much time off grid we're you getting with the Halfords battery? Cheers. Sean

 

[Bobby-gg]

Looking good. Well done. What sort of festivals do you attend? How much time off grid we're you getting with the Halfords battery? Cheers. Sean

Festival's, anything that takes our fancy really, music, food, motor racing, a bit of everything really.

Pre solar, we could just about manage 3 night if we were really careful with our usage, post solar 3 nights easily in good weather, and just about 3 nights in poor weather.

Now I'm hoping that we can do two nights pre festival off grid/non electric, drive to the festival and fully charge the battery, 3 nights festival without issue, then say maybe, 2 more nights non electric on the slow journey home

 

[Chrisvh]

Great job. I installed a Votronic 50A B2B as I was not getting enough charge into my 2 x 100A batteries. It has been a brilliant addition and increased our flexibility.
Thanks for taking the time to write it up and add photos. Always a great help to those of us who are a little technically challenged.

 

[Bobby-gg]

Great job. I installed a Votronic 50A B2B as I was not getting enough charge into my 2 x 100A batteries. It has been a brilliant addition and increased our flexibility.
Thanks for taking the time to write it up and add photos. Always a great help to those of us who are a little technically challenged.

It's the first time I've used votronic and I'm really impressed with it, and the instructions are clear and consisce, a nice change from other manufacturers

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[Lenny HB]

Nice job and really good to see you doing the job properly with all the right gear.

 

[Bobby-gg]

Nice job and really good to see you doing the job properly with all the right gear.

Thanks Lenny HB, I'd read and researched a massive amount of information on here to ensure that I would be using the system to it's optimum.

Thank you to everyone who has already installed lithium and paved the way to ensure we all know what we are doing

 

[Marauder]

.
Just don't go anywhere cold . . . .

apparently Lithium won't charge if their environment is below 5 degrees C !
.

 

[Tombola]

.
Just don't go anywhere cold . . . .

apparently Lithium won't charge if their environment is below 5 degrees C !
.

old thread BUT <2 degrees is my KS energy ones, for low cut off. Operating temp from -20 to +50

Also usually the batteries are inside the van for most average users so low temps arent a problem, and a heat mat is advised if needed, powered from the batteries.

 

[Stewen]

I'm just about to go lithium ( Lifepo4) and was going the Victron b2b route until I saw this thread... Votronic seems a better bet to get the max Amps into the Ecotree. Thanks for sharing. If I may ask, what size are the mounting brackets you used for the charger? Also, do the cables from the vehicle battery route through to the drivers seat below the cab floor? Would it just be a case of fishing them through? tia

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[Bobby-gg]

I'm just about to go lithium ( Lifepo4) and was going the Victron b2b route until I saw this thread... Votronic seems a better bet to get the max Amps into the Ecotree. Thanks for sharing. If I may ask, what size are the mounting brackets you used for the charger? Also, do the cables from the vehicle battery route through to the drivers seat below the cab floor? Would it just be a case of fishing them through? tia

Personally, although I really like victron stuff, I prefer the voltronic B2B for exactly the same reason as yourself, plus they have the temperature monitor on for winter camping.

The brackets were some cut down rack mounted equipment brackets I had lying around, and the beauty of using then was the ability to use the rack mounted nuts to fasten the B2B in.
The cables from the vehicle battery, to the B2B, then to the leisure battery were ran under the floor mat alongside existing cable runs, to keep everything as short as possible

 

[Guigsy]

.
Just don't go anywhere cold . . . .

apparently Lithium won't charge if their environment is below 5 degrees C !
.

It's less of an issue than you'd think. How often are you using the van when the temperature inside the van is less than 5C and you need to charge it? Sure, it might go below 5C when the van isn't being used, but they retain their charge really well and you can still safely draw power from them down to -20C. If you pick the van up from storage when its really cold, it won't be long on the drive back before the inside is warm enough for the B2B to start piling current into it. As long as the battery (ideally) and/or all the chargers (B2B, solar, mains) have built in protection to prevent charging when freezing, the battery shouldn't get damaged.

 

[Jimbohorlicks]

.
Just don't go anywhere cold . . . .

apparently Lithium won't charge if their environment is below 5 degrees C !
.

I have an Ecotree 100AH lithium with a bluetooth bms and built in heater pad,which automatically comes on when the temp drops to around 5 deg C .
Yet to see it working at low temps as installed in March and thankfully has not been cold enough yet.
The BMS app shows the state of charge,charge/ discharge rate and temperature.
Very happy with the battery so far.