Upgrading an RV Battery Bank with Lithium (LiFePo4) Batteries

Camper Upgrades, Solar, ,

I upgraded our travel trailer’s 225AH (amp hour) battery bank with a 300AH lithium iron phosphate (LiFePo4) battery. This post will share why I made this decision, what I have learned about lithium batteries, some challenges of installation (it wasn’t a simple battery replacement), the significant differences between lithium and flooded lead-acid batteries, and the changes one may have to make to their own systems to maximize their installation.

The conversation is about large batteries (capacity greater than 100 amp hours) that are appropriate for RV use.

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A 4-day Backpacking Trip in the Anza Borrego Desert

Backpack Trip Report, Backpacking, Backpacking Gear,

A couple weeks ago I did a wonderful little desert trip.  

Something that I haven’t done in years is share a backpacking trip report gear list. This post will break that trend.

I want to share how I planned this trip, what gear I took, and why I selected each piece of equipment.

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4 Million: What’s in a Number?

General Talk

Today I received a message that this website’s software needed to be updated with a couple new versions.

Typical stuff. Software updates are supposed fix bugs, and more importantly to me, patch security vulnerabilities. So I installed the updates. As I usually do, I took a quick tour to ensure everything was working. At the bottom of the sidebar, I saw the Page View statistics.

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RV Maintenance: Holding Tank Monitor Replacement

Travel Trailer
Randy Quaid as Cousin Eddie in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

Our travel trailer came with the typical, not very good, holding tank monitor system.

RV manufacturers install holding tank monitor systems, built by a handful of different vendors, but most don’t work well.

With ours, the Fresh Water Tank was always accurate, the Grey Water usually okay, and the Black Water tank very hit and miss. Normally, I could guess how much was in the Black Tank, by comparing the fresh water remaining, versus the level of the grey.

Given we often camp for a couple of weeks at a time in remote places, it is important for us to know how much water we have, and how much waste water is in the Black and the Grey Water tanks. If one gets full, and we are not ready to go home, we might have to drive 100 miles to find a sanitary dump station.

Anyway the Fresh Water readings went bonkers on our monitor panel. Time to diagnose.

But first, a conversation about RV maintenance. Continue reading RV Maintenance: Holding Tank Monitor Replacement →

RV Maintenance: Zip Dee Chair Fabric Replacement

Travel Trailer

At 29 years and 6 months one of my Zip Dee Folding Camping Chairs had a fabric (actually a seam) failure. What a bummer! A few years ago I posted this review of the chair.  I figured the second chair might suffer the same demise. It was decision time.

I could buy a couple new Zip Dee chairs for $160 each. Given a 30 year life expectancy, based on the current chairs, that would be a dollar cost average of $5.33 per year. Keep in mind my two chairs have seen thousands of days in use.

Or I could buy a different brand of chair, which probably wouldn’t last as long, and wouldn’t fold down as compactly.

Or?

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