Two questions for y’all.
1: anybody ever run a lithium battery? I bought a pretty sweet 100ah 12v LiTime brand trolling motor battery that even comes with its own blue tooth app. It has kicked but for me and being a CCP produced battery was under $300, and only weighs 22#! Would be sweet to try one for automotive stuff it claims a 10 year lifespan.
2: What’s the best top mount battery conversion setup out there now? I despise side posts but don’t remember ever seeing a good top mount setup for these trucks.
so the little I know about these batterys is it's all about the internal bms. c rating of the cells is what discharge load they can handle. there's more expensive high discharge cells and cheaper low c rating. usually for stuff like your tolling motor or solar back up. but really unless you're cranking on your truck for 5 mins straight, even a low c cell bank shouldn't blink at a 4 sec start up. but then you get to the bms, they range all over the place.(unregulated and made by the cheapest price China electronics always do) some cut off at 100amps, which might not start your consistently. others in "cranking" marketed battery are more like 350 to 500amps. either way they will all open the contacts before it overheats. charging can be interesting. if you use one for a trolling motor, or anything that will charge from a proper lithium charger it will be current limited as well as stop at the full voltage. if any one cell is over max voltage, it will open the internal contactor. in a cranking one for a car, if the bms is good, meaning much more expensive, it can limit the current your alt can put back into it. if it's not designed to be in a car, it will take full charge from your alt right after starting. which isn't great, but still might be OK unless it causes over temp or something. usually lithium battery likes to be charged at 1C. which means say your 100amp hour battery will max charge at 100amps. it will still be happier longer with say 30amps
good thing is you most likely have a lifepo4 type of cell chemistry. they don't catch fire when something happens. short maybe throwing it in a hot enough fire, you might get a little flare up. but they just out gas till dead. I'm wouldn't run out and breath the smoke thou. all our lithium equipment has that type cells, if one has thermal run away, the official process is to drive it or push it out of the way and let to go till it stops, no need to call the fire department or anything. then request a new one under warranty be shipped in.
freezing cold Temps are bad for them. discharge is fine, in fact if they get super cold won't crank your car just like a lead acid. but just the act of trying warms the battery internally. and as it warms up it will come to life.(just don't burn your starter out holding the key to long)but you can not let them be recharged below 32deg.(lifepo4 type) it strips something inside the cell itself, and takes major life off it. but again the bms designed for cars will stop charging until cell Temps come up.
you can build some DIY stuff, or know it's limits and run your trolling motor battery but the best brand name in car batterys is anti gravity battery. it's basically what all the race car guys run these days. weight is free hp and they sell a 10lb battery that will start a big block. but probably wouldn't run your subs for 10mins haha. they sell normal sized car batteries too, but last I looked they are like 900$ and weight about 15 lbs. which sounds ridiculous but if you look at something like my c6 the oem battery is over 50lbs, is right in the front of the car so it hurts turn in and it's pushing 200$ these days. more for a opmtia, which is normally what I run. parts to compensate for that 40lb difference in lap time would be more costly than the battery.
if you run it let us know how it goes.
sodium cells will be on the market within a year or 2 and while slightly heavier for the same capacity, only a few lbs. is much happier at cold and hot Temps and is going to end up half the price. they have figured out how to make them with salt, no lithium and no expensive metals like cobalt and things. they also don't catch fire. the weight and size is what your probably won't see it in say a tesla but solar grids, industrial equipment, small under hood cranking batteries are all good places for it.
batteries are currently on the time line of about the Ford flat head engine. they work but the real stuff is coming when we hit the ls junk yard turbo build on e85 things will be wild. no clue how far out that is.. but there's no stopping it.