So we have officially begun this RV lithium battery upgrade the uh the front of the
airstream is where all this is going to live the batteries the the hub of the new electrical system
it's going to be a lot of work getting this project off the ground
and seeing it through completion but man is it going to be worth it.
Batteries have gotten so much better in the past few years. I mean having a quality battery storage
system is crucial for us to be able to travel and work remotely so in this video I'll be
revamping the battery bank in our Airstream and in the process I'll help you understand what
makes lithium batteries so superior for RVers and adventurers like us who prefer to be off the grid.
My wife, dog and I are Coloradans and we absolutely love spending time in outdoors.
In fact that's where we're happiest when we're traveling and exploring the farthest reaches
of North America with our home on wheels. As a photographer and a filmmaker, it's crucial for me
to be able to camp and spend long periods of time in the wilderness. That means our
home on wheels must be self-reliant and comfortable when we're off the grid.
At the heart of all this is our electrical system. It keeps our water pumping the furnace blowing our
appliances running and it powers our mobile office which is also crucial because that's
what allows us to work remotely and keep this lifestyle we love going.
Up front on the tongue of the trailer are the old AGM batteries that
you know we've had for about six years they've they've served us well,
but it's time to put these out to pasture and replace them with something much much
better. Here we go... oh gAHHH!
SON OF UH!
How are they so heavy? It's astonishing how much these weigh!
Now this video is sponsored by RELion. A U.S. based company who's been
putting up some very impressive specs on their lithium batteries. They've provided
the batteries here so that i can make this video get my hands dirty and show you what a lithium
battery bank looks like and how it performs and for anyone interested this is a pretty sweet deal
they've allowed me to hook you up with a 10 discount which is over $100 off per battery so
should you need any lithium batteries of your own. Check out the discount code in the description
while i was researching the battery options for this upgrade i found that there are three big
reasons why lithium technology is so superior to anything else really that's available right now
number one is the usable capacity to weight ratio
simply put lithium batteries are about half the weight of AGM or traditional batteries. So roughly
the same capacity battery bank will weigh half as much with lithium or you can get about twice
the capacity for the same weight as the AGM alternative. So that's what i'm doing now.
I'm doubling the power capacity to 600 amp hours and i'm maintaining the exact same trailer weight
this weight savings is a massive benefit for someone with a van or truck camper or a small
trailer like ours the less weight we're carrying the easier it is for us to go places and so it's
really that simple and the difference in usable capacity is really worth mentioning on paper
you might think an agm battery with the same capacity will give you the same amount of
usable power but that's not the case i can use at least 80 percent of the lithium capacity
but only 50 percent of AGM or lead acid capacity.The depth of discharge is far
greater therefore more of the lithium battery is usable with half the weight see what i'm saying
so that leads me to the next point this one really gets me excited lithiums are nearly
100 efficient when charging which is really ideal for solar systems and when you need to
fill up your batteries in a short amount of time like like we often do let's rewind back
about a month ago to December where i was running into this exact problem with our AGM batteries.
Okay, so here's the situation! We're off-grid camping out here in the Mojave Desert. It's
December it's been pretty chilly at night and my wife does not like to freeze so we've had
the furnace running quite a bit in the night just to keep the inside temperature around 55
degrees - which is a reasonable temperature. You know, not overly indulgent. Well it's decimating
our batteries the good news is you know there's there's plenty of sunshine out here in the desert
so with our 520 watts of solar panels on the roof we shouldn't have a problem recharging right wrong
you see with the agm batteries we have there comes a point where it doesn't matter how many watts
of solar you have because they only rapidly charge until they're eighty percent full so
um at that point they require a long and slow period of absorption see the meter here in the
bulk charging stage the batteries are taking about 30 amps and that's great but after a short time
they absorb less and less to this point where you can see we're at about 94 full but we're
only able to take about four amps now so at that low amperage it takes about five hours to bring
the AGM's back up to 100 state of charge so in the winter the days are just too short and too
cold to make up this energy deficit unfortunately that means that i have to dive into the back of
my truck all the way in the back is the is the generator pull it out and it's just a pain
if you have a generator like ours it puts out 2000 watts but it'll just be running and running and
running while the battery is only sipping a few amps per hour until it reaches a hundred percent
and so the big difference with lithium batteries is that initial bulk charging stage where it can
charge really rapidly and almost go all the way to full before entering that absorption
phase these rely on batteries will take up to 100 amps in the bulk stage which just seems insane to
me traditional batteries just can't handle that fast of a charge rate the third big advantage
with lithium battery banks is they're much better at powering high current loads like a microwave
an air conditioner or an induction cooktop with traditional batteries you'll lose as much as 40
capacity at high loads and as the capacity drops so does the voltage and the wattage and that just
complicates the problem another important thing that i should mention is longevity the the rely
on lithium batteries are rated at a life span of 6,000 cycles and they carry a seven year warranty.
So while yes, they are expensive up front, they will last you so much longer in the long run
and perform so much better than AGM or traditional batteries it took me eight long days of cutting
and crimping and tightening to complete this upgrade and that doesn't even account for the time
i spent planning and sourcing the components but i revamped our entire system, whereas you might
have a different situation. Maybe you just need to swap the battery right from the same compartment
and then in that situation all you need to do is retune your battery charger to handle lithium
but also there are many qualified insured RV electricians out there nowadays thanks to
what seems like the RV revolution this was a huge undertaking for me personally but
now that it's about finished i'm really glad that i did it i'll be
less anxious about replenishing the power we need to keep going and we'll have the ability to use
more of the appliances that make life a little bit easier and a lot more enjoyable in a few weeks
i'll post a follow-up video to let you know how this experiment has been going i think it's going
to be good if you have questions drop them in the comments below and don't forget about that 10
discount code that i'll put in the description thank you guys
for watching i hope you got something out of the video and i will see you down the road!