Club 80-90 Forums

Hi all, any with any experience on 100Ah (or larger) LifPos capacity recommendations / limitations ?

I currently have a 100Ah Lead Acid leisure battery under the rear seat, it's huge, heavy...and I believe now dead (<6V and not responding to charge) so I'm thinking it maybe time for an upgrade.

I'm loathed to get another Lead Acid at this point, but struggling with what the best pricepoint/spec to aim for is on LifPos.  Looks like Ecoworthy have their cheapest 100Ah lifpo at £310 at the moment, Renogy Core 100Ah £330.  Or I could build up a 230Ah unit from cells for just over £400 but is this just ridiculous overkill? (Extra capacity, but obviously larger/heavier/£100 more).

Or is AGM a more sensible halvway house?

From my usage guestimates I think a 100Ah would be enough to keep my Alpicool compressor fridge going for the day, but not enough much head room for future additions.

Thesedays, unless you are only keeping the van a few years it works out cheaper to go lithium, especially if you consider the size and weight improvements.

These batteries have comfortably twice the usable capacity of an equivalent lead acid battery. You can use almost all the AH without causing damage (with lead acid you need to stay above 50% at all times, really)

I have a 200Ah renogy battery in my T6, and the usual CRX50 fridge. Over a long weekend in summer with the fridge on, charging phones, LED lights etc I will use 60-80AH. I have never ever seen it go below 50%, even when using the inverter to run a coffee machine and induction hob. Oh - I tell a lie! once I got it down to 15% because it was freezing and I was running a bloody fan heater off the inverter for a couple of hours


IMO 100Ah would be fine.


You will need to sort out a dc-dc charger system. While you're at it, stick a 120+W solar panel on the roof and you can run the fridge indefinitely, all year round.

In the usual spirit of 'f##k it' purchases, I've ordered cells and BMS from Fogstar.

Off to France next Sat evening...lets see if I can get it in and panels up before then  .

The things I do for a cold beer...

ManicGTI wrote: ↑17 Aug 2023, 15:28 In the usual spirit of 'f##k it' purchases, I've ordered cells and BMS from Fogstar.

Off to France next Sat evening...lets see if I can get it in and panels up before then  .

The things I do for a cold beer...

Such a dangerous hobby. I've ended up with a Victron MPPT, Victron B2B charger, Victron Smart Shunt, 2 x 130W flexible panels on the roof and a 100Ah EcoWorthy LiFePO4 battery

If you're getting lithium you need the correct charger for it otherwise you'll bugger it.
You could start with one 100ah and add to it if need be. Depends how many things you have switched on and for how long. I've got a 130ah AGM under my bench seat with a 130w panel on the roof through an mppt controller and that seems to do me fine, although I dont run my fridge, just load it with ice packs. It's on the list to replace with a modern one....