Quote:
Originally Posted by coralcruze
Wow great job. Do you plan on expanding the battery bank down the line and if so is weight management an issue when considering this?
|
Thanks for asking.... good question.
The LiFeP04 battery pack is about 1/6th of the weight of a comparable lead/acid battery system. This small battery pack weighs about 45# and stores 230AH (about 184ah of USEABLE energy @ 80% of rated value). A comparable lead/acid battery pack would have to be 4x 6V golf cart batteries @ 75# each (wired 2 batteries in series and 2 pairs in parallel) rated @ 400AH for the pack. That would give you about 200 useable AH @ 50% of rated value. That battery pack would weigh about 300#.
200ah @ 300# = 1.5# per ah
184ah @ 45# = .24# per ah
This LiFeP04 230AH battery is about the same weight as the original single 85AH battery that came with the trailer new. So, in reality, I am actually closer to design specs than I was with 2- 6V golf cart batteries that weighed 150# and reduced the trailer's tongue weight by about 70#.
Having said all that, I do plan to expand my solar array from 200W to 400W if I can't get this battery pack fully charged by about 3:PM each day. That all depends on my consumption of course.
The biggest reason for the LiFeP04 battery is it's longevity (about 10-15 years) compared to lead/acid batteries @ around 5-6 years.