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Replacing the Chassis batteries - Lithium?

Both of my batteries (chassis and house) are now dead.  I intend to replace the coach batteries first.  These are 12v rated @ 1,450 CCA and 245Ah.  Would this be a good time to replace them with lithium instead of the standard AGM deep cycle?  We are considering replacing the house batteries with lithium's soon.  There are 4 at 300Ah each. 
Any recommendations?  Thanks very much.
Julie & Z

Country Coach Life
2006 CC Affinity 45' c-13 525

Re: Replacing the Chassis batteries - Lithium?

Reply #1 –
If it's not too late:)! A set of LifeLine 8D's AGM's for House and Chassis duty, has been use by many CC (And other's too.) owner's over th e years. For chassis duty, I'd stay with AGM's. You most likely have X's 2 8D's for your chassis batteries. Another option, to go go with X's 4 Grp 31 AGM's. They're a lot easier weight wise to install! (But if having them installed by someone else, nothing wrong with 8D's, and no need for extra cabling. For house duty. Think about how you use your coach. If you boon dock quite a bit, a shift to Lithium is not a bad way to go. (Faster recharge, safe deeper discharges, less weight, high DoD life cycles.) SOK 206A Lithium's have been getting good reviews. Well built, and if ever required, maintenance can be done to replace BMS and individual cells. Another popular battery is he LifeBlue, and they had a Cold Weather version, for if you camp in below 32F temps frequently. (Starlight Solar in Yuma, has helped many I know get set up with LifeBlue's. And they come sizes up to 300A.) BattleBorn's are another popular battery, and 100A so your talking 2 of these to do what the SOC 206A does, and or 3 of them to do what a LifeBlue 300A does. Finally LifeLime has brought a Lithium battery out now too. I have not read reviews on them yet, but LifeLine has a stellar reputation, and my bet is they will be good performing batteries. (I saw a few of them about 6 months ago when I picked up X's 8D for Chassis Duty in our Magna.).  I'll stop here... But lots of money for lithium, and heck AGM's too:)! It really depends how much you boon dock, on if the Lithium are worth the costs to you for your usage...

Best of luck to you,
Smitty
07 Magna 6755
04 Allure Sold to a nice new owner! Now enjoying a 07 Magna Rembrandt 45' ISX600 #6775
"We're ONDROAD for THEJRNY!" (Toad and Coach license plates, say Hi if you see us!)

Re: Replacing the Chassis batteries - Lithium?

Reply #2 –
Note the charging characteristics of lithium are different than AGM/lead batteries. So you would need to determine if your inverter is capable of getting the most out of lithium. Also lithium would pull too much current from your alternator so you would need to modify that circuit as well. We went with 600AH of LifeBlue cold charging batteries and they are great. Added 1600 watts of solar, and very rarely need to run the genny. As Smitty said, you need to determine if you will be boondocking much, I doubt I would switch to lithium if hooked up most or all of the time.
2001 Affinity #6012

Re: Replacing the Chassis batteries - Lithium?

Reply #3 –
I have recently been researching this exact same thing. Thanks for the post @sbeers that is quite informative. Would love to know more about your system if you have a link or want to post some more. Same goes for anyone else whos upgraded to LiFEpo4 batteries.

There is also Lithionics.com USA made, very pricey but customize-able in your form factor to many different Amp Hour models. As an added bonus their Battery Management System is also customize-able for different temp ranges and plays nice with our SilverLeaf. Incidentally, they are the OEM manufacturer for NewMar which also uses SilverLeaf coach controls