ITech World Lithium battery

[drover]

Originally Posted by Mousie

Easy to remember if lithium has cobalt chemistry, then fire risk. LiFePO4 does not. I am right into lithium and surprisingly the Jeep taps out at 14.1-14-2 charging which is ideal for lithium. End result the battery may never fully charge as in 90% plus but who would care as a cranking battery given they have near no internal resistance and would maintain a higher voltage level compared to AGM. Better to slightly undercharge than over and risk a BMS shutdown at 14.6v whilst driving. Will have a peek at the alfaobd and see if we can play!

Im sure AlfaObd can adjust max and min and recently I saw the setting for alternator output but can't find it again but I'm sure it was less than the Lithium as the AGM doesn't like it either... The genuine battery advises do not charge above 14.5 so should be good.........

[Gapcooper]

You have plenty of determination Drover, kudos to you. Yeah, the Lithium is expensive but I think worth it. I have 2 in the van and they are great. With the Jeep the original AC Delco AGM lasted 6 years and it wasn’t dead, just getting a bit lazy, so I replaced it with the same brand, 3 years old now and getting a bit iffy, occasionally lazy to crank and then it will throw a heap of codes relating to CAN bus and low voltage errors. Clear them and all is well for a while, then it will repeat a few weeks on. I have had the battery load tested and it comes up good. Time for a new battery. Interested to see if you can find the alternator adjust parameters?
Cheers

[LeCheese]

Originally Posted by Gapcooper

You have plenty of determination Drover, kudos to you. Yeah, the Lithium is expensive but I think worth it. I have 2 in the van and they are great. With the Jeep the original AC Delco AGM lasted 6 years and it wasn’t dead, just getting a bit lazy, so I replaced it with the same brand, 3 years old now and getting a bit iffy, occasionally lazy to crank and then it will throw a heap of codes relating to CAN bus and low voltage errors. Clear them and all is well for a while, then it will repeat a few weeks on. I have had the battery load tested and it comes up good. Time for a new battery. Interested to see if you can find the alternator adjust parameters?
Cheers

If you had an AC Delco branded in there that wasn't the original - the original is branded Mopar, can't recall who manufactures them. Unless it is Delco and that's what you were referring to - if so, disregard of course!

Got 6yrs out of my original

[drover]

My original just had the Mopar number on it nothing about who made it but OCT 2015 to Mar2023 is a good run in my book, the new one gets the same distance well that will be aorund the time I in a new vehcile.......... When the GEL's in the van die Lithiums are certainly on the cards, lighter by heaps and 2 x 200ah will give me plenty of storage, redundancy and my set up its just plug and play and a change of the solar reg algorithums so no need for extra panels or new solar reg......
On the road at the moment so be awhile till I check out if a reset of alternator parameters is possible ..... I don't fiddle with those sort of thing unless I'm at home...

Depending on usage and what power drains you have on the battery but an AGM shouldn't be getting lazy at that age unless short runs, lots of days sitting and or like a neighbour his fridge was running all the time and he was blaming his battery, duh !!!!! Still couldn't see why his battery was going flat, I walked away and let him buy a new battery..............

[genpk]

Originally Posted by drover

My original just had the Mopar number on it nothing about who made it but OCT 2015 to Mar2023 is a good run in my book, the new one gets the same distance well that will be aorund the time I in a new vehcile.......... When the GEL's in the van die Lithiums are certainly on the cards, lighter by heaps and 2 x 200ah will give me plenty of storage, redundancy and my set up its just plug and play and a change of the solar reg algorithums so no need for extra panels or new solar reg......
On the road at the moment so be awhile till I check out if a reset of alternator parameters is possible ..... I don't fiddle with those sort of thing unless I'm at home...

Depending on usage and what power drains you have on the battery but an AGM shouldn't be getting lazy at that age unless short runs, lots of days sitting and or like a neighbour his fridge was running all the time and he was blaming his battery, duh !!!!! Still couldn't see why his battery was going flat, I walked away and let him buy a new battery..............

Did anyone ever buy the Itech lithium battery for the cranking and if so , how did it go ?
Also wondering how it would perform with the Anderson plug with the caravan having 2 deep cycle batteries- do they co exist ok ?

[drover]

Since the OP date I have delved deeper into the World of Lithium as I went from GEL to Lithium in my van, in the van it works brilliantly as I had set up my system to eventually be suitable for lithium if I went that way so didn't have to spend anything extra...........

.... In this research I also found that the one big decider other than cost, that says to stay away from a lithium cranking battery in my Jeep is the simple fact that these batteries temperature is crucial to charging, charging below 0c or above 30c will kill them, just destroys them, so is not wise to do....... also the new regs for batteries means you would have to make the battery compartment sealed (air tight) so it cannot vent into the cabin and must vent to outside.... Fire hazard and toxic fume hazard, yes they will vent when they get too hot and LiPo4 will emit toxic fumes if damaged just won't ignite............... Also if the alternator has a hissy, as they do, imagine the pain as over $1000 is destroyed........... I think jump starting could be a major issue as well..... In my van I can easily shut down the charging if the temps go too high or too low...

In these Jeeps the battery gets a flogging just running the vehicle I wouldn't want it to try and run anything extra ............. in fact most of these modern electric everything the batteries cop a flogging...

[Mousie]

All very good points Drover especially the rule changes of late and the one thing that would stop me from putting lithium as a crank, is the BMS inside the Lithium Battery and its ability to handle the high and varying nature of cranking amps. They simply detect an over amp condition and disconnect the batt from its BMS. Your dead in the water as zero volts to the car following.

To highlight this point, I run 4 x 100 Lithium (12v config) in the van and I need more than 1 batt in circuit to overcome the inrush current (and therefore BMS switch off) to my inverter on first switch on (in rush is just pre-charging the capacitors).