Roadtrek 190 Popular Lead Acid to LiFePo4 Battery Upgrade - Installing Lithium Batteries in an RV

2004 Roadtrek 190 Popular Lead Acid to LiFePo4 Battery Upgrade - Installing Lithium batteries in a motorhome.
The batteries I installed were: ECO-WORTHY 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery Deep Cycle Battery with BMS, 3000+ Cycles, that are claimed to be Perfect for a Trolling Motor, RV, Camping, or Off-Grid System.
The lithium battery weighs 24 lbs whereas, the lead acid deep cycle battery weighs 48 lbs.
Total time to replace both = 3 hours, which included cleaning the compartments, cables, breaking the rusted battery tie downs, taking off remaining rusted bolts with heat, running to auto-parts store to get new tie-downs and installing new batteries. If everything was in good shape then it would have taken 30-45 minutes.
So far, the new lithium batteries are working well and charge just fine with the Wet Cell setting on my stock Tripp Lite RV612ULH. Note, the other possible setting is Gel Cell.
Disclaimer: I’m not a mechanic but stuff keeps getting old and breaking so I do my best to fix it and upload a video to hopefully help others who need to do the same. Occasionally, I just upload random things that I’ve done or that interest me and these help no-one but at least I can find them again. Thanks for visiting!

[@Salrodz]

Pb blaster is good stuff! Thanks again for pointing out your video 😊

[@genechann9191]

How is this working for you? There were some very negative reviews on Amazon.

[@ChanceSummer]

Thanks for the question. Like anything I guess there are some pros and cons. Pros are mainly never need to top up and no overflow corrosion, no risk of toxic fumes and much lighter (1/2 the weight). Downsides with lithium batteries of any kind is they go from full power to off (no power) when they drop below a certain voltage so it’s really hard to know when you are full or almost empty. The existing battery gauge in the wall is not working well to judge remaining power. I think I need to supplement it with a real digital voltage meter. Also, I don’t winter camp and haven’t tested this yet but apparently the battery manual says not to attempt changing if it is -20 outside or also if the battery itself is at zero F. So, if you are winter camping I suspect you’ll need warming blankets for the batteries. Not unheard of, but not stock. For my summer camping needs however, I give them a 9/10 with the 1 off for price. They are still double the cost of lead acid. Not sure why people would give bad reviews on Amazon though. Hope that helps.

[@genechann9191]

Encouraging. I did order a couple of the batteries. Just FYI Eco-Worthy does make a battery monitor. Is there any issue starting the generator on house batteries?

[@ChanceSummer]

Nice, thanks for the info, I’ll look into the monitor. I don’t have a generator on my unit so let me know how it goes. I don’t expect there would be a problem though.

[@davidmoody2112]

What about alternator charging? Won’t it fry the alternator if the battery is low or did you install a dc to dc charger to limit the amps?

[@ChanceSummer]

Great question. If you zip ahead to 15:29 in the video you’ll see that this particular RV uses a Tripp Lite converter, which the alternator also runs though.

[@montanadan2524]

I don't believe current in-rush will a issue however, the charge profile for lithium batteries is different than that of a lead acid battery. Perhaps this charging mechinism has the capabilities to charge lithium house and the lead acid engine but it would have to be a fairly new system not what came stock in 2004. At the end of the day, even if you mix batteries or charge at incorrect voltages, most systems will still work but the economics justifying lithium is out the window.

[@ChanceSummer]

Thanks for the insightful reply! I’m no engineer, and all I did was swap out my deep cycle lead acid RV batteries for these LiFePo ones and it’s been 2 summers and working great. I just came back from 4 days with no power at the campsite and still had 3/4 battery left (3 battery indicator lights on instead of all 4). Normally a stay like that would have eaten up all my lead acid battery juice. Charging via plugging into house power or when driving (via alternator -> RV power inverter) does not appear to be a problem. It’s all stock Roadtek circa 2004. The only real downside to LiFePo is winter / cold temp charging. Apparently, anything below 0C / 32F is not great for it and won’t charge at all at -10C - but I’ve never tried.

[@montanadan2524]

@@ChanceSummer Yeah, you got me pegged - I am a Eletronics engineer. What you did if fine but you will reduce the overall life of your lithium batteries charging them with a system that is setup for lead acid. The good news is even if you half the life of your batteries doing so, I bet they are still good for five years. Relating to the cold weather charging you were referring too - most reputable lithium manufactures include a builtin Battery Monitoring System (BMS) that detects and prevents cold weather charging, you may want to check on that as not all vendors include that feature.

[@autumnthomas970]

Promo-SM 😋

[@ChanceSummer]

Thanks for the comment. Not sure what it means haha. If you mean promo like promotion then no, I wasn’t paid by anyone to make it or advertise the batteries. If only I was that popular. I just make videos that I think others would be interested in because I’m interested in the job at hand. Thanks for watching.