lifepo4 batteries

From www.vivaenergi.dk where I bought the thee Lifepo4 has this info( google translated):

The next days we will cruise and I will monitor the voltage. During the short stress test, there where no voltage above 13.9v but I would expect this to rise with full batteries.

If I turn off the Sterling the voltage will drop.

After a night connected to shore power with fridge as the main consumer on, the display on the remote shows 14.4 V and "ready".

 

We have now been using the new 300ah Lifepo4 Batteries for a week+.

They are a huge improvement over the old (3×75ah) lead batteries.

We were 2 dags/nights (total 40 hours) at an anchorage. When we left there was still 76% / 230AH left in the batteries.

We have a 100watt foldable Solarpanel we place ontop of the lazyjack that providede upto 50watt during a few hours it was sunny.

The new 80 amp Alternator and the Sterling Alternator to Battery Charger AB12130 ensured that the batteries were fully charged after 1.5 hours. The charge rate to the Lifepo4 batteries alone was 50-60 amps.

But this comes with the expence of heat. 60+ amps is 3 or more horsepower and the Alternator becomes really hot. Via the remote I can manually power off the AB12130 and the charges drops from 50-60 amps down to only 10 amps with is what you get without the Sterling in the loop.

I wrote a mail to Sterling-power because I expirences that the AB12130 sometimes when powered off displays "No Communication please wait" then it turns on by itselves.

There is also a need for better cooling of the engine room. Right now there is only an blower to extract hot air, but no fresh air inlet. Sterling recommads installing a fresh air inlet blowing to the backside of the Alternator where it sucks in air.

Below are pictures showing the lower part of the engine is 100 degrees Celsius and the V-belt (xpa982 Gates QuadPower 4) is 85 degress and the metal casing of the Alternator is a staggering 120 degrees.