I've got a friend whose van/trailer build I'm helping with. She wants to hook her battery bank up to a Sterling Power DC-to-DC charger thing (so it's powered off the van's alternator). However the catch is that in the winter, the trailer will be heated but not the van (unless she's driving it, obviously). However she wants to be able to drive to town, leave her trailer at the campground, but still charge her batteries with the alternator when she drives to town. That would require her to install the batteries in the van...which would mean that they'd be stuck in cold van in the winter, and would be subject to temperatures below freezing from time to time.
The main solution to this that I've seen is to get an insulated battery box and keep the batteries warm that way. However that would require even more power to heat the box, and I've seen mostly bad experiences on this website regarding this. Plus there was one thread where it sounded like the best thing for the batteries was to heat them as evenly as possible, meaning with a specialized electric blanket that wrapped the entire battery or even each individual cell. Such a heating system is expensive and not feasible for my friend.
So that brings me to the idea of a portable battery bank. She's more than willing to schlep a battery or two from her trailer to her van whenever she drives to town (and schlep them back when she comes back). However I'm not clear on what kind of issues this would present. I assume that before she removes the batteries, she'd have to flip a disconnect switch to avoid sparking when she removes the leads. Are there other concerns I should know about? These will be LiFePO4 batteries. Will moving them around, I don't know, shift the power cells around in a way that will decrease the life of the unit? Also, if this is a reasonable plan, what kind of battery connectors would facilitate easy removal and reinstallation of the battery?
The main solution to this that I've seen is to get an insulated battery box and keep the batteries warm that way. However that would require even more power to heat the box, and I've seen mostly bad experiences on this website regarding this. Plus there was one thread where it sounded like the best thing for the batteries was to heat them as evenly as possible, meaning with a specialized electric blanket that wrapped the entire battery or even each individual cell. Such a heating system is expensive and not feasible for my friend.
So that brings me to the idea of a portable battery bank. She's more than willing to schlep a battery or two from her trailer to her van whenever she drives to town (and schlep them back when she comes back). However I'm not clear on what kind of issues this would present. I assume that before she removes the batteries, she'd have to flip a disconnect switch to avoid sparking when she removes the leads. Are there other concerns I should know about? These will be LiFePO4 batteries. Will moving them around, I don't know, shift the power cells around in a way that will decrease the life of the unit? Also, if this is a reasonable plan, what kind of battery connectors would facilitate easy removal and reinstallation of the battery?
