RV Lithium Battery Warning - Cold Weather Storage

Protect your batteries with these tips. Cold weather can affect lithium ion batteries if not used correctly. In this video we will go over some steps you can take to safe guard your investment and keep them operating for years. Thank you for watching fullmoonadventureclub.

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Today we are going to be talking about Lithium Ion batteries and provide a warning for cold weather storage. The batteries I'm talking about today are for RV applications, lithium iron phosphate batteries. I do not know if this applies to lithium ion batteries found in most electronics, these are the big guys used for RV applications (100 amp hour batteries).

They have a very good temperature tolerance range, upward of 120° F to maybe around -4° F. When you get below 32° F you can still discharge the battery, but you can’t charge the batteries. It does damage to the cells when it is below freezing and energy is added to the cells. It’s nothing dangerous but it will dramatically cut down the life cycles of your lithium ion phosphate batteries.
There are a couple ways to get around this. The cool thing about lithium ion batteries is if it is too cold to use you can just turn on some lights in the RV, use some power and it is going to warm itself up while its being used and energy is being pulled out of it. Leave the lights on for an hour, check the temperature again and it may be able to hit the charging cycle and put power back in. A good way to check the temperature of the batteries is with an infrared heat gun or temperature gun. Point it at the batteries and it will tell you exactly what the temperature of the casing of the battery is.

If you have your batteries installed inside the RV, say in a cabinet, there's a really good chance they will be fine while you're using the RV because you are using the furnace to heat the RV. The problem is when you use an outside storage bay. A great way to monitor the temperature of these outside storage bays is to use an indoor/outdoor thermometer with a remote. These are relatively inexpensive and it shows the inside temperature where the main display is and then you have a remote sensor which you can put anywhere you want. You can put that in the bay with the batteries and have a nice readout of the battery compartment as well as the internal temperature of the RV.

What are some solutions for keeping that area heated if you are going to be in really cold conditions? A heating block would be a decent solution; it is mounted to the wall and creates radiant heat. Some have thermostats, some do not. A 12-volt heating pad would also be a good solution. You can put them down there to heat the batteries until they are above freezing and able to take a charge.
Another thing to go over is storage of the battery when leaving the RV unattended. I would take them with you. Pull them out, they are light weight and easy to move around. They weigh 70% less than lead acid batteries. Put them inside your house where it is warm until you are ready to go camping again, and then reinstall. If you are going to be leaving them and your temperatures are between 0-32° Fahrenheit and they are not plugged in or being used, they are fine. They will be okay in that climate, but I would rather take them with me as they are very expensive. Your batteries will last longer because you are not going through so many cycles and discharging the batteries and shortening their lifespans.

Those are some tips and tricks for your lithium ion battery storage; hopefully it saves you some trouble and keeps your batteries going for a long time. I like these batteries, they work great and are light weight. They produce 100% power until they’re dead. If you are going to store them, do so at 50-70% capacity to make them last longer as they are not designed to be stored at 100%. Last thing, if you have solar hooked up you may think you're not charging the batteries but perhaps your solar is charging them. If you have a lot of solar running into your batteries while you're away and it dips below freezing there is a possibility that you could be doing some damage. I hope that helps you out and keeps your batteries running a long time.

Thanks for watching and happy camping!

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Видео RV Lithium Battery Warning - Cold Weather Storage канала fullmoonadventureclub