Changing varta 92 ah battery for a 150ah lithium in g c 600

I don’t just the panels, when it needs speed you can charge to 100% from a normal 220v socket in about an hour, or from a 12v socket while I’m driving all 3 options are better than relying on a single 175w solar panel that VW offer from the factory - It works for me anyway and the cost was about £1,200 all in !


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Clearly works for you..but relying on charging from a 240v outlet rather defeats the point of an off grid solution for us
The cost of a replacement 150 Ahr lithium battery, and a 50A dcdc charger plus installation around 1500 quid...so not much different. Currently we are using in France and with fridge on continuously plus general living electricity draw we have never had the battery below 60% charge. Solar from the vw panels provides reasonable top up and drives between stops dumps 50A (600w)/hour driving. Not hooked up to a 240 v supply for about a week now.
The panel shows 100% battery SoC at all times !...and despite the dire warnings of electrical shutdown when 30plus amps of draw has occured (through the KFG)...this hasn't happened to us as yet
 
Clearly works for you..but relying on charging from a 240v outlet rather defeats the point of an off grid solution for us
The cost of a replacement 150 Ahr lithium battery, and a 50A dcdc charger plus installation around 1500 quid...so not much different. Currently we are using in France and with fridge on continuously plus general living electricity draw we have never had the battery below 60% charge. Solar from the vw panels provides reasonable top up and drives between stops dumps 50A (600w)/hour driving. Not hooked up to a 240 v supply for about a week now.
The panel shows 100% battery SoC at all times !...and despite the dire warnings of electrical shutdown when 30plus amps of draw has occured (through the KFG)...this hasn't happened to us as yet
I concur. It's a no brainer.
 
This one works in the dark!

 
Yes at present although I do have a 15 amp victron lithium charger in the cupboard ready to fit. So far it seems unnecessary. I'm still at the testing stage.
Hi,
Did you get fitting the Victron charger? I had a look at the Dometic charger fitted as standard under the passenger seat and have noted an extra wire, a thinner gauge, blue wire going into a connector plug, which branches into four wires? Do you know what the blue wire is for?

Many thanks.

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Victron charger fitted and charging the Lithium via a Wago in the technical cupboard
(+ 7.5amps).

With the under seat charger, fuse six removed (supply to leisure battery), when on hook up it still charges engine battery and low amps.
 
Looks like you also have an inverter - the 3 wire connector -blue/black/red. That’s not a UK option so can’t help with that unfortunately. The 4 wire connector to the EHU charger is leisure battery/starter battery/-ve & signal wire for KFG which outputs 12Vdc when 230Vac is present.
 
J'ai ajouté une batterie LiFePO4 de 100 Ah dans le placard arrière avec un convertisseur CC-CC de 30 A connecté à l'arrière de l'interrupteur d'isolement que j'ai remplacé par un interrupteur 1-2-off. Donc, essentiellement, la batterie AGM d'usine charge ma batterie au lithium. Les paramètres du CC-CC sont tels qu'il arrête la charge lorsque l'AGM tombe à 80 %. Tout est contrôlé via l'application Victron.
Cela signifie également que le solaire continue de charger la batterie AGM et que celle-ci charge à son tour le lithium lorsque le véhicule est stationné, et lorsque l'alternateur roule, il charge l'AGM qui à son tour charge le lithium.
J'ai cette configuration depuis presque un an maintenant et elle fonctionne bien. J'ai toujours sélectionné l'interrupteur d'isolement de la batterie sur le lithium, ce qui donne déjà une capacité utilisable bien plus importante que l'AGM.
Cette configuration fonctionne bien si vous n'avez pas besoin de 230 V « hors réseau », ce qui ne me dérange pas.
Bonjour Monsieur T, avez-vous des photos et des schémas de votre montage ?
Bien cordialement
Julien
 
Hi, I have tried this myself, I have an eco tree lithium battery which I've used on a previous motorhome.
So .....
You can do it, however there are some things you need to be aware of ...

You can simply swap out the battery under the bonnet (Habitation) battery with the Lithium battery.
Everything will work, as with the AGM battery .....

EXCEPT FOR ..

The Battery charge indicator on the control panel will show the battery as being 'full' pretty much until it isn't, this is something that you can't change (without re-coding the vehicle software) which is not easy to do.
The lithium battery will ONLY charge when the 'fast charge' button is pressed on the dashboard.
The Lithium battery will drain very quickly (20+ amps) as soon as the engine is stopped after it has been on charge using the method above.
You MUST stop the engine, switch off the ignition and then it will stop discharging.

I tried it for a few months and I've now re-fitted the original AGM battery as the lithium battery just created other problems which I felt weren't worth the benefits.

So, in short, yes, a direct replacement is possible if you're happy to put up with the issues above.

I've added a second battery in the rear cupboard by changing the battery isolator to a 1, 2 & 1+2 selector switch, it then increases the capacity by 100% so around 100ah which is fine for 2 nights off-grid, using fridge and lighting, TV, charging devices etc.

If you need more than this 'off-grid' time you can have a lithium system fitted which replaces the charging (DC-DC) MPPT if you have solar, and so on, but they come at quite a high premium.

Hope this is helpful to you in some way.
Hi. Were you able to deplete ( empty) the lithium battery to 0 % or only half or 90 Amp?
 
Hi. Were you able to deplete ( empty) the lithium battery to 0 % or only half or 90 Amp?
Hi, sorry I've not got back to you sooner, yes you can, I set mine a 10% baseline, this will help preserve the longevity of the lithium.
I've been trying using both batteries at the same time with some success, however, it is very important to know that only discharging. NOT CHARGING. As the charging profiles are quite different and the OEM cables are not up to it.
Having both batteries connected at the same time can extend the off-grid experience, to around 2-3 days, this is achieved because the lithium standing voltage is slightly higher than the AGM it will deplete the lithium battery first, it will keep the AGM topped up to 'float voltage' so when the lithium is depleted the AGM simply works as it would without modification.
It is very important to understand that I charger the Lithium battery separately on a dedicated charger.
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CHARGE BOTH BATTERIES AT THE SAME TIME ON THE SAME CHARGER,
It won't end well.
I'm trying a few options before I make the final installation.
It would be good to hear other peoples experiences.
 
All solved by using a small father/son outfit near Wantage, Off grid Power Solutions.
Replaced leisure with a 150Ahr LiFePO4 battery, replaced split charge relay with victron 50A DCDC charger and reprogrammed Votronic MTTP solar controller to Lithium. All work completed in a matter of hours. Battery has a bluetooth output to monitor charge/draw and level.
All works impressively well. Battery charge level around 60% on installation, by the time I had driven home (3 hours) the battery had soaked up the 60 or so Amps required to be fully charged. They did the whole job in a few hours and with no new holes drilled etc it would be possible to reinstall the old set up should you ever wish to do so! Not sure what the GC control panel will make of this but I will report back after our upcoming trip to France.
Photos below

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Hey Leeb, love your solution. Just waiting out my warranty before changing. Any other tips or issues? Is it still working fine? No need to push the extra charge button on the dash I presume? Thanks, Graeme.
 
Hey Leeb, love your solution. Just waiting out my warranty before changing. Any other tips or issues? Is it still working fine? No need to push the extra charge button on the dash I presume? Thanks, Graeme.
All works pretty well. We had a few issues with the victron dcdc charger not detecting that the alternator is up and running on occasions. Various changes to the charger settings were made but didn't solve the issue completely. I plan to add a votronic D+ simulator to the system this spring. This little gizmo detects vibration of the engine block (alternator running) and activates the charger...simple! No need to find voltage changes etc.
Absolutely no need to push any buttons...when charger is active a 150Ah battery is fully charged from dead in 3 hours of driving....this, of course, is around 3 times the stored, useable, power you currently have available.
 
Update: after working out what we ‘need’ and taking into account what we ‘want’ my current solution is as follows. I bought an eco-worthy 280ah lifepo4 battery and a 20a mains powered lifepo4 charger, total was £475 delivered, this is in the rear near side cupboard, it fits diagonally on the floor, almost perfect fit. I’ve replaced the 12v isolator switch in the cupboard next to it, this is now a 1, 2, 1+2, off switch, this leaves the original GC wiring intact, no mods other than the switch change. The battery was fully charged before we went off on our 4 night off grid adventure over the bank holiday weekend. I don’t have solar, so, this was purely on battery, the the eco worthy battery that is, so not using the AGM has battery at all.
We ran everything we ‘needed’ and everything we ‘wanted’’. Fridge was on all the time, heating overnight when it dropped cool, TV, lighting, awning light etc, charged all our devices of which there are a few, exactly as if we were on hook up. The hot water / heating was done on gas of course but the fans are 12v.
So, conclusion is, we used 30% of our battery capacity which I can see on the batteries Bluetooth app, it was at 70% (soc) when I switched back to the AGM before we left. So, let’s say around 95ah in total.
I’m now happy that we could comfortably have enough 12v off grid power for over a week. Happy days. Oh, I simply ignore the GC onboard battery gauge, which shows 100% charged all of the time, simply look at the app on the phone to check the eco worthy battery level.
I have to say also that the app, albeit a little basic, is very good, and the battery BMS is excellent, perfectly balanced cells we were achieved using the mains charger.

I use an ECOFLOW for the 240v, this is wired in to the GC mains via a Wago connection to the original input via a machine rotary switch, this has 1 output (to the input side of the ac fuse panel) and 2 inputs, 1 from the external mains socket and one from the ac output on the ECOFLOW, as it a fully connected / disconnected rotary machine switch, the pins on the input socket(external) are never live.
I simply unplug the mains charger under the passenger seat so as not to charge the AGM battery.
The ECOFLOW lives in the front of the utility cupboard next to the rear cupboard on the left hand side, again, it just fits (ECOFLOW delta 2), this give us around 45-60 minutes of mains power to run any high power mains items (air fryer) for example. This is enough for us, a few air fryer sessions over the weekend were done and 40% (soc) on the ECOFLOW at the end of the weekend.

This is purely for information on my experiences and requirements. I understand people may need more AC power and inverters and such-like can be used to accommodate this, but for us, it’s more than enough whilst not plugged in to the mains.
I’ve concluded from this that a 150ah battery would have been enough, however, there’s no doubt that a week or more 12v power would be available from the eco worthy battery and at the price it’s really good value.
Hope this is helpful,
 
Interesting solution....
Where did you source a wago connector? ...I am trying to get one socket live from an eco flow rather than the whole 240v loom. I aim to tap into one of the female connectors under the panel covering the water tank. This delivers power to one of the kitchen sockets
Follow up on my lithium replacement project.
The votronic D+ simulator fitted and now the victron dcdc charger is active whenever the engine is running. All working perfectly.
 
They are also available in White which are the socket circuits if you want to keep the colour coding.
This way it goes through the consumer unit, there’s some differing options on earth grounding using an ECOFLOW however from my experience there are no issue I’ve come across, the only metal that could come into contact with a live is the sink / hob, neither have any sockets nearby that could create a problem. Again, it needs to be safe, as I see it, it’s coming from a socket on the ECOFLOW through a breaker, so how it would short circuit is a mystery to me.
I am open to any feedback on this if I’ve not seen a potential risk though. Please do educate me if you have something I may not be aware of.
With regards the b2b, I have a sterling products unit (30a) which is fully programmable, I’ve yet to install this, again I’m wondering if it’s worthwhile if I can be off-grid for so long, surely there won’t be many occasions where we’ll be off-grid for more than 9-11 days(calculated based on real data), slightly less in the winter I’m sure, perhaps 6-7 days, but it’s so unlikely this will ever be something we do without getting a mains hook up for a night to recharge everything.
I often wonder if we’re trying to get everything we think we need, that we don’t actually need, maybe because it’s there to do? A bit like climbing a mountain, why would you climb it? Because it’s there!

On another note but related, using a lithium battery under the bonnet(hood for our US friends). As I see it, replacing the split charge relay (behind the battery, mounted on the side of the inner wing) with a b2b set at around 30-40a output would achieve the same thing, albeit 110-150ah would be the biggest that would fit there, it is possible using a Bluetooth / software / obd connection to change the profile to lithium from AGM for the habitation battery, I know this because I’ve already tried it, the output voltage sits at 14.6v, perfect for lithium.
Watch this space …
 
Interesting solution....
Where did you source a wago connector? ...I am trying to get one socket live from an eco flow rather than the whole 240v loom. I aim to tap into one of the female connectors under the panel covering the water tank. This delivers power to one of the kitchen sockets
Follow up on my lithium replacement project.
The votronic D+ simulator fitted and now the victron dcdc charger is active whenever the engine is running. All working perfectly.
Just a thought, as all the connections go to a ‘hub’ for want if a better word, won’t all the plug sockets become live when you apply power to one?
 
Just a thought, as all the connections go to a ‘hub’ for want if a better word, won’t all the plug sockets become live when you apply power to one?
If I disconnect the output to this one socket from the loom/hub...no
 
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