Lithium (LiFePO₄) House Electrical - 3 month review

It was just over three months ago that I replaced my AGM-based house battery with a Lithium-based (LiFePO₄) battery and related components. It was an enjoyable process, which also allowed me to iterate on the cabinet that consumes the extended cab portion of the Tacoma, in an effort to better organize storage of the stuff we bring along on trips.

Having now used the system over the course of 21 nights on six different trips, I think I'm in a pretty good place to give my first impressions - both of the components, the system as a whole, and the cabinet I built to house the whole thing.

Overall First Impressions

I'm super impressed with the amount of power that the system can provide. The AGM-based system was great, and gave me the confidence to run my fridge in camp without worrying that I'd drain my starting battery, but I knew that I needed to charge the AGM battery every day - or even more frequently if I was charging high-power items such as laptop or drone batteries - to keep it from running down too low. The Lithium-based system is completely different. I can run the fridge, charge the camera, phone, laptop, and drone batteries at will and still use less than 10% of the system charge per day. And, the insight + control that I have over the various components - all via Bluetooth - is fantastic; it has eliminated the worry that I would have with the AGM system, since I never quite knew how much power I had in reserve.

Things I Like

1. The battery capacity. The 12.8v, 280Ah Wattcycle battery (now sold in a 314Ah variant for the same price) is a magnificent beast. It weighs almost exactly the same amount as my much less powerful, 70Ah Northstar 24F AGM battery, takes up only a bit more space, and provides what feels like unlimited power. As I noted above, I can use it heavily for multiple days - even an entire 5-day trip - without ever charging it, and it still has plenty of juice for a few more days.
2. A real Battery Monitoring System (BMS). Previously, I had a voltmeter that would tell me the state of my house (and starting) battery by means of a voltage readout. With a scale that ranged from 11.8-13.1v - indicated by a series of green, yellow, and red LEDs - it was crude at best. A real BMS - especially tied to a Lithium-based battery - gives a State of Charge (SoC) for the system that is human readable: 0-100% charged. This is fantastic, and what we are all used to with our phones, laptops, and other electronic devices these days. It completely eliminates guessing about whether there's enough juice to last through the night (or day) (or next several days). It's a game changer.The new system has two BMS', which is probably overkill. The first is built into the battery and is monitored via a WattCycle provided app (on both iOS and Android). The other is a Victron SmartShunt, also monitored via Bluetooth on iOS or Android - along with all other Victron devices - in the Victron Connect App.Being two separate components, I was curious to see if they would remain "in sync" with each other. In general, they have. While one may report 63% SoC and the other 61% or 65%, they are always within a few percent of each other, which builds confidence in both.

   

   This battery is a beast.

3. The Victron ecosystem. I hoped this was something that I would like, and it is. My first introduction to Victron was via the SmartSolar MPPT controller that I installed to the AGM-based system and maintained when I moved to the new Lithium-based system. I now have three Victron components that show up in the Victron Connect App (SmartShunt, Orion XS DC-DC charger, SmartSolar MPPT controller) and it is a pleasure to see all the pertinent information - from the entire system - by opening a single Victron app on my phone, rather than switching between several apps to get the whole picture.

   

   The Victron Connect Dashboard allows me to see a high-level overview quickly and drill in as needed to the entire system.

4. The recessed fast-USB A/C chargers. I had USB chargers installed in the previous system, and they worked fine, but they were (a) slow and (b) I was always worried that the cables would get tweaked since they poked out past the front of the storage cabinet. These new chargers provide up to 65W each, which not only charges devices like my phone more quickly, but has also eliminated my need to use an inverter and a plug-in fast USB charger for higher-power components such as my laptop and drone battery charger. And, the positioning of the chargers - set back from the edge of the drawer by about two inches - means that the plugs are now protected from inadvertently sheering them off as things are moved around inside the cab.

   

   These have mostly eliminated my need to use my inverter.

5. Organized storage for commonly used gear. The new cabinet allowed me to build a cubby where I store the drone, solar panels, and hiking packs that I use commonly on trips. This has been great to get them out of foot wells as well as the other spaces in the cab where we store items such as backpacks and layers of clothing that are used at various times throughout the day.

   

   Well-organized gear storage in the lower cubby.

Things I Don't Like

1. 1. The wooden cabinet still needs a bit of optimization.
      • The pull-out shelf rattles a bit more than the previous case. This is likely just a matter of tightening up the slides a bit in order to sandwich the door; an easy fix.
      • Being a bit wider and having a flat top where we store our belongings means that the water bottles now either (a) encroach on our backpacks, or (b) our backpacks fall out/over the rest of our gear. I'll need to work out a way to store the water bottles, so they are easily accessible and yet also allow more room for the backpacks. I have some ideas.
   2. I need a better way to plug in power pole connectors. I don't use power pole connectors for many things in the system, but I do use them to connect the solar panels to the SmartSolar MPPT charge controller. Previously I did this by plugging directly into a pigtail on the MPPT, which could be easily accessed by pulling out the drawer to which it was attached. In the new configuration, the MPPT is mounted to the wall of the cabinet, so accessing the pigtail is more difficult and prone to tweaking other connections in the system. As such, I'm going to work on a way to make this connection more modular and secure.
   3. No direct-jump of my starting battery from the house battery. Previously a Blue Sea ML-ACR allowed me to directly link (connect) the house and starting batteries together when I wanted to charge them both at the same time, or use one to supplement the other - useful when jump starting myself, winching, etc. I have no ability to link the batteries any longer, which hasn't been an issue yet, and I have a Lithium-Ion jump pack but is something I'm still a little antsy about.

 

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