Jasgeer
New Member
Hi! I am new to this forum and I thought I would post my project in the hope of getting some good ideas to avoid mistakes and missed opportunities. Allow me to plunge in and we'll see where this goes. I would appreciate pointing out any holes in my thinking.
I recently purchased a 2015 Leaf battery pack on Ebay with the goal of using some of the modules on my travel trailer to replace by 5 year old deep cycle batteries which have greatly diminished Amp-hr capacity. I had learned about the Leaf packs on other websites and forums, then followed the listings on Ebay until one came up which seemed like a good deal (2015, under 30K miles, from the NW and no damage to the battery area). I don't know if they are Lizards or not. From measuring the existing location of the storage batteries that mount inside the tongue of the trailer between the front of the trailer and the propane tanks, I should be able to fit ~20 batteries with 2 sets of 10 in parallel and the sets in series. The bus bars would either be on the top or back. That's over 600 Amp-hrs which is considerably more than I have ever had. I realize that I will need to charge the two modules in series to ~16-16.5V in order to achieve a reasonable charge on the Lithium-manganese-cobalt batteries. A side benefit of not charging to a full 4*4.17V=16.68V is that the cell cycle life will be longer. Although the voltage is higher than a traditional 12V battery, I have found Inverters which will accept an input of 16V and I have a 12V-12V switching charger which I can connect between the Li bank and the lighting circuits in the trailer. I imagine the electromechanical devices (like the furnace) won't care that the voltage is a little high. I am also an EE so if I have to gin up a special interface then that is possible although not desirable.
From watching Mortons on the Move: Go North and reading their website (including Q&A comments) I was intrigued to find out about using my Ford truck to charge the batteries while I am driving between campsites. My truck has dual alternators (as do many diesel trucks) and Ford essentially connects them in parallel, but there is some logic so that the Primary one comes on 30-60 seconds before the secondary. The wiring harness also has separate circuits for the outputs of the two alternators and I have read that some owners have separated the outputs so that the Primary is dedicated to recharging the two truck batteries and the secondary is connected to separate batteries for camping. In this way no isolator or relay is needed between the two battery circuits and they can be at different voltages. So from there it was a short mental leap to think that I could leave the Primary charging to mid-13 Volts and have the Secondary charge to ~16 Volts for the Lithium bank. However, I have found that no one makes a replacement internal regulator for the Ford 6G alternators above a Vset of 14.8V. Not to be deterred, I have found an external alternator regulator which adjusts from 12 to 16.5VDC but mounting an external regulator to a 6G is a custom job and I found only one reference to someone doing it. Has anyone here done it?
I will also probably end up installing 2-4 100Watt solar panels (perhaps 2 on the roof and 2 portable ones on the ground) through a MPPT capable of charging to 16-15.5VDC.
I'm sure I glossed over a lot of details, but what do you think?
Please let me know if I posted this to the wrong area.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Lithium-manganese-cobalt modules from 2015 Leaf battery pack, Ford Powerstroke F250 with dual alternators and travel trailer
I recently purchased a 2015 Leaf battery pack on Ebay with the goal of using some of the modules on my travel trailer to replace by 5 year old deep cycle batteries which have greatly diminished Amp-hr capacity. I had learned about the Leaf packs on other websites and forums, then followed the listings on Ebay until one came up which seemed like a good deal (2015, under 30K miles, from the NW and no damage to the battery area). I don't know if they are Lizards or not. From measuring the existing location of the storage batteries that mount inside the tongue of the trailer between the front of the trailer and the propane tanks, I should be able to fit ~20 batteries with 2 sets of 10 in parallel and the sets in series. The bus bars would either be on the top or back. That's over 600 Amp-hrs which is considerably more than I have ever had. I realize that I will need to charge the two modules in series to ~16-16.5V in order to achieve a reasonable charge on the Lithium-manganese-cobalt batteries. A side benefit of not charging to a full 4*4.17V=16.68V is that the cell cycle life will be longer. Although the voltage is higher than a traditional 12V battery, I have found Inverters which will accept an input of 16V and I have a 12V-12V switching charger which I can connect between the Li bank and the lighting circuits in the trailer. I imagine the electromechanical devices (like the furnace) won't care that the voltage is a little high. I am also an EE so if I have to gin up a special interface then that is possible although not desirable.
From watching Mortons on the Move: Go North and reading their website (including Q&A comments) I was intrigued to find out about using my Ford truck to charge the batteries while I am driving between campsites. My truck has dual alternators (as do many diesel trucks) and Ford essentially connects them in parallel, but there is some logic so that the Primary one comes on 30-60 seconds before the secondary. The wiring harness also has separate circuits for the outputs of the two alternators and I have read that some owners have separated the outputs so that the Primary is dedicated to recharging the two truck batteries and the secondary is connected to separate batteries for camping. In this way no isolator or relay is needed between the two battery circuits and they can be at different voltages. So from there it was a short mental leap to think that I could leave the Primary charging to mid-13 Volts and have the Secondary charge to ~16 Volts for the Lithium bank. However, I have found that no one makes a replacement internal regulator for the Ford 6G alternators above a Vset of 14.8V. Not to be deterred, I have found an external alternator regulator which adjusts from 12 to 16.5VDC but mounting an external regulator to a 6G is a custom job and I found only one reference to someone doing it. Has anyone here done it?
I will also probably end up installing 2-4 100Watt solar panels (perhaps 2 on the roof and 2 portable ones on the ground) through a MPPT capable of charging to 16-15.5VDC.
I'm sure I glossed over a lot of details, but what do you think?
Please let me know if I posted this to the wrong area.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Lithium-manganese-cobalt modules from 2015 Leaf battery pack, Ford Powerstroke F250 with dual alternators and travel trailer
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