I could use some battery suggestions

[Whatthefak]

What are you guys using? Why?

I'm looking at a largish set up not exact on my needs yet, but ac is one of them so I'm going to drop alot on batteries. My budget isn't endless but I expect to spend as much on my panels and batteries as I did my bus.

I'd love to come across a cheap electric car li battery pack

Like to here from people actually doing it what you use, what you'd like to have, what you'd do different

Thanks!

[john61ct]

http://www.skoolie.net/forums/showthread.php?t=22124

[bus-bro]

Gee, the debate on running an ac powered by solar on a bus has been run before. A decent generator beats the expense of solar for that application. You could probably engineer a solution, but it would be 10x the cost of a generator.

If your going to put $10k plus into solar, whatever you do don't cheap out on the bus. A $2k rust bucket = wasted money.

[Whatthefak]

I know I'm not going to have endless power with solar, I plan on having a generator also but I would like to run less gas/propane in my rig

Just looking for the best way to do it

[BurlKing]

Originally Posted by Whatthefak

I know I'm not going to have endless power with solar, I plan on having a generator also but I would like to run less gas/propane in my rig

Just looking for the best way to do it

I've seen a couple people use the electric car packs, most recently aaronsb of 'brocoli bus.' sort the conversions by views and his will be towards the top if you cant find it.

from what i've read from him and others it's the way to go. some time down the line i'll go that route too.

[ComfortEagle]

Originally Posted by Whatthefak

I'd love to come across a cheap electric car li battery pack...

This. I overpaid for my Volt pack, but it had literally 270 miles on it, and was 2 hours from my house, and blah, blah...

An inexpensive Nissan Leaf pack, or maybe a Gen1 Chevy Volt pack should still be findable? All the lithiums will require a BMS, but otherwise are maintenance free.

If you can wait a few months, I will have finished converting my Gen2 Volt battery pack into eight 48V batteries producing 18.4 kWh. I will be running my AC from solar.

If you've read my forum thread, it may look confusing... but please know that I am almost thru the conversion and once I get the additional parts I have on order and get the system mocked up, I hope to write a smoothed over DIY with lessons learned and step by step conversion recommendations.

[john61ct]

For now the various lithium options are either crazy expensive, require advanced engineering type skills, and/or are very risky. Stick with lead.

Flooded GCs are cheap and last longest.

The best battery value by far is Duracell (actually Deka/East Penn) FLA deep cycle golf cart batteries, 2x6V, around $200 per 200+AH pair from BatteriesPlus or Sam's Club.

How many pairs depends on your energy budget in AH per day, and your location's solar weather factors, and how often you run your genset.

Each pair weighs 130lbs.

[Twigg]

Originally Posted by john61ct

For now the various lithium options are either crazy expensive, require advanced engineering type skills, and/or are very risky. Stick with lead.

Flooded GCs are cheap and last longest.

The best battery value by far is Duracell (actually Deka/East Penn) FLA deep cycle golf cart batteries, 2x6V, around $200 per 200+AH pair from BatteriesPlus or Sam's Club.

How many pairs depends on your energy budget in AH per day, and your location's solar weather factors, and how often you run your genset.

Each pair weighs 130lbs.

I was looking at those the other day, and while I was there a guy came in and bought 6 of them.

Not much doubt the Trojan is the better battery, but at that price, Sam's Club is hard to resist.

[Whatthefak]

I was just looking at those!

I did read both of the builds from comforteagle and aaronsd but li seems pricey

I'm probably going to spend 1600 on a few old school lead

[ComfortEagle]

Lithium haters...

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by Twigg

Not much doubt the Trojan is the better battery

Personally I think the gap has been closing over the past few years.

All else being equal I would not pay more than 10-15% premium for regular Trojan over Deka FLA. The specialized RE series are muchmore robust though.

Crown, Superior and US Battery maybe 20-25%.

Rolls Surrette are by far the best.

That's pretty much it for the NA market.

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by ComfortEagle

Lithium haters...[emoji2]

Not at all. Just hard to justify a decades-long ROI on the price difference.

For a portable power pack, or any use case where weight is critical then sure, LFP is the only way to go.

[Whatthefak]

Originally Posted by ComfortEagle

Lithium haters...

I don't dislike lithium at all!
I'll install an li bank in a heartbeat if you wanna send me one