Newell Gurus

By the time your finished you will be the Newell Expert! You should help Newell transition over for some goodies on your coach!!

Hey Forrest wouldn't the rear battery compartment be a great place for an air hose on a retractable wheel... Just thinking.. Or a water hose on a wheel. I know it's the wrong side but might be easier than manhandling them all the time..

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Hallelujah! I'm done!
Finally got my crimpers and plugs and got the battery monitor going. Unhooked the last 2 lead acid batteries and hooked up the LiFePO4s. Turned on the system and I'm running on Lithiums.
Took a bit of figuring to set my old Freedom 2500 inverter/charger. The acceptance voltage was set at 14.4 which was too high for the BMS so it started beeping then shut the batteries down to protect them. At least I know the BMS works. So I ended up having to set the ambient temp at 90 to reduce the voltage. Now it goes up to 14.0 volts and the BMS is happy. So I should be able to keep this inverter.
Next step is to let the batteries run down to 20% state of charge then charge to see how long that takes. My inverter puts out 100 amps charge. Then I want to shut off shore power and see how long I can go on just batteries. That'll be next week.

Hey Forest, do you have a temp sensor?

Not on the batteries. From what I've been able to determine you shouldn't use any temp. correction. The ambient temp. factor I mentioned above was just to trick the inverter into using a lower voltage. If you have any opinions on this I'm interested in them. Like I mentioned earlier there is not much information on using these as house batteries.

Here are a couple videos showing how safe these batteries are. Scroll down a bit to the videos.

http://gwl-power.tumblr.com/page/3

Forest, the mining company that I worked for was a major producer of lithium. Lithium configured in a foil or liquid is extremely explosive when it comes into contact with moisture or water. It is much safer when configured in a solid form such as an ingot. While I know virtually nothing about how your batteries are configured, there may, and I stress may, be a safety issue if the internals are exposed to moisture of water. Perhaps you can answer this.

Chester watch the videos in the link I posted, very interesting. The chemistry of the lithium used in these batteries do not react when exposed to water. In fact immersing them in water is the recommended method.
Most of the fires or other problems have been with different chemistry such as Lithium Cobalt.
Like all new technology there is a steep learning curve and lots of misconceptions due to hear say. Yes other chemistries of Lithium batteries have had big problems but the LiFePO4 are very safe.
No problems answering questions, I'm satisfied with the safety of these.

Forest,

I am fascinated by your project and can't wait to see how it turns out! I did a little research and found a link that may give you food for thought....

http://www.batteryvehiclesociety.org.uk/...php?t=1825

The link talks about a small car that used this technology and that suffered a catastrophic fire. The gist is that one of the batteries faulted and the charger could not detect it so it charged until the fire started.

The technology that you are using probably accounts for this...but better safe than sorry.

Good luck with the project. We are all rooting for you!

Cheers,
bill

Forest,
I too am fascinated with your project and am also rooting for it to be a success. Taking the weight of my current batteries and picking up a compartment of storage would be a very good thing.

Wishing you good luck..........................