02/11/2024
Todays topic is Solar on your RV. I will break this into several parts
While most people probably think that they dont need it, let me share with you what I have done on mine.
My motorhome came with 4 lead acid batteries and no solar at all. I now have 4 -100 amp hour lithium batteries and 640 watts of solar, which is a modest size configuation.
The reason that I upgraded to lithium was that with the lead acid you have to keep track of the water levels, a real pain, not so with lithium, totally maintenace free. They are lighter and you can put them pretty much anywhere you want. The most important reason, at least for me, is that I no longer have to worry about over charging or running them completely dead, which will ruin lead acid batteries. They also will last longer, over 10 years. They come with a BMS (battery management system) which shuts them down before they run completely out of power and also when they are fully charged so no damage is done to the battery. With lead acid batteries you start damaging them once you go below 50% of their capacity where Lithium you can use all of the capacity. Charging is also better, with lead acid they have to be charged in stages and take many hours to get fully charged with Lithium you can charge them at the full rate they can accept until they are full. For instance since I have 4 batteries wired togther I can charge them at a max rate of 200 amps, I dont have a charger though that can go that high but mine will go 150 amps so that will charge them very quickly. Of course you dont get that high of a charge with solar unless you have a very large system, more on that later.
One more thing about lead acid batteries is that the faster you draw power, the more amps you pull, out of the battery the less you will get. for example lead acid batteries are rated at a discharge rate of 10 hours which means that the 200 amp hours its rated at is assuming it will be over 10 hours of discharge. If you draw the power out over a shorter period like 8 hours you wont get 200 amp hours out of it it will drop to say 125. Now this is just an example I didn't look up any of the stats so these are not accurate. Please look them up to see for yourself.
Lithium batteries dont have this issue you can draw as fast as you need and you will always get the same capacity to use.
My daughter has a 5th wheel that had 1 - lead acid battery and when her power would go out the battery would only last a few hours running her furnace and lights. I swithed it out to the same size in lithium and she has gone twice as long without running out of power.
Just switching out your lead acid for Lithium will make a huge difference even if you dont add solar.
Look for my future posts to get more details on what I have done with my system
