Are Battle Born Lithium (LiFePO4) batteries superior to AGM batteries for electrical system of campervans, RV, boats, etc? To find out, we replaced the battery bank of our campervan (230Ah AGM) for Battle Born Batteries (200Ah LiFePO4 Lithium) and we've been testing them FULL TIME since June 2019. Here is our review.
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1- Jumping to Conclusion
"Technology has come a long way. Going for Lithium (LiFePO4) these days is a no brainer as it provides more usable capacity in a smaller package. We, ourselves, upgraded from AGM to Lithium and we're glad we did. Highly recommended!"
What We Like
- HUGE weight saving over AGM!
- Reach 100% charge faster than AGM.
- Last many years more than AGM.
- Cheaper than AGM in the long run (that's right!).
- Built-in BMS for safe operation and self-balancing cells.
What We don't like
- The upfront cost is high.
- Cannot be charged below freezing temps (but can be discharged).
- We wished BattleBorn had a more detailed specification sheet. (specs are all over the place and hard to find).
2- Where to Buy Battle Born Batteries
3- Battle Born Batteries Specifications
BMS Parameters
The Battle Born BMS won't allow charge/discharge out of these values:
- High Voltage: 14.7V-15.0V
- Low Voltage: 9.0V-10.5V
- High Temperature: 135F
- Low Temperature: 25F charge / -4F discharge
- High Current CHARGE: 100A for 30s / 200A for 0.5s
- High Current DISCHARGE: 100A continuous / 200A for 30s
Discharge
- 100 amps continuous.*
- 200 amps surge current (30 seconds).
- 1/2 second surge for larger loads.
- Usable Capacity: 80Ah (80% D.O.D. is best for economics), but can be fully discharged without damage.
- Lifespan: 3000 cycles.
Charge
- Bulk: 14.2V-14.6V.
- Float: Not required, but 13.6V or lower won't hurt the battery (the BMS will turn off the charge).
- Current: 50 amps for maximum lifespan (but can be charged up to 100 amps).
- Profile: Same as AGM (can be charged with any smart charger with AGM settings).
- Automatic cells balancing.
Temperature
- Charge: 25 to 135F (-4 to 57C).
- Discharge: -4F to 135F (-20 to 57C).
- The BMS will not allow charge/discharge out of this range.
Others
- Weight: 31 lbs.
- Dimensions: 12.75in x 6.875in x 9in.
- Terminals: 5/16" bolts included.
- Built-In BMS (Battery Management System) to prevent out-of-range operation.
*100 amps continuous discharge current PER BATTERY (parallel). This means:
| BATTERY QUANTITY | CONTINUOUS DISCHARGE CURRENT ALLOWED | MAX INVERTER CAPACITY |
| 1 (100Ah total) | 100A | 1000W |
| 2 (200Ah total) | 200A | 2000W |
| 3 (300Ah total) | 300A | 3000W |
| etc. | etc. | etc. |
4- Lithium (LiFePO4) VS AGM
Comparing a 100Ah Battle Born Lithium battery (100% usable capacity) with a 200Ah AGM battery (50% usable capacity):
| 210Ah AGM | 100Ah LITHIUM | |
| USABLE CAPACITY | 100Ah | 100Ah |
| WEIGHT | 133 lbs | 31 lbs |
| TOTAL LIFE CYCLE* | 1200 | 3000 |
| UPFRONT COST | $650 | $950 |
| COST PER CYCLE* | $0.54 | $0.32 |
| LENGTH | 21″ | 12.75″ |
| WIDTH | 8.5″ | 6.875″ |
| HEIGHT | 9.5″ | 9″ |
*For full time Vanlife (1 full cycle daily), it means an AGM battery will cost roughly $200 per year to operate and will last 3.5 years; while a Battle Born Lithium battery will cost roughly $120 per year to operate and will last 8 years.
5- Camper Van Wiring Diagram & Electrical System
Designing and building the electrical system of a camper (van, skoolie, small RV, etc.) is by far the most overwhelming task of a conversion… trust us we’ve been through that! To get you started, we made our own wiring diagram available and wrote an extensive Electrical System Guide:
6- Reliability of Battle Born Batteries
Battle Born Batteries come with 10 years warranty.
We installed our Battle Born Batteries in June 2019 and they’ve been working flawlessly since then. Subscribe to our Mailing List to be notified if anything happens!
Hey Guys,
Spent a tone of time on your forum and really appreciate your content. I bought your wiring diagram and the explorist diagram as well and found them both helpful in their own way.
I do wish you would do an update on lithium batteries for more options. From all the research that I have done, Battleborn is just not it anymore. They are the most expensive and do no seem to provide anything special compared to a bunch of competitors that have joined. I am currently deciding between Epoch, SFK and SOK batteries.
Epoch looks the most appealing to me. Just some quick math vs Battleborn:
Capacity: 2x 300Ah vs 2×270 Ah
Cost: $5000 vs $1800.
Weight: 116lb vs 162lb
Features: I could not find any features that Battleborn has that the Epoch does not have. I am sure there is something but all in all, it is worse in most ways and you pay 2-3x as much.
Battleborn is just not it.
Again, I really love most of your content, everything but the battery recommendation. That really needs an update. I think 5 years ago it would have been accurate, but not anymore.
Looking forward to the updates on your new van!
Philippe
Agree, we need to revisit this. We definitely will when we get to the electrical system!
Thanks for the kind words,
antoine
I used this battery to run an electric trolling motor on my fishing boat. A friend had purchased this Battleborn battery several years prior and also used it to power his trolling motor. He had been very happy with his battery, so I bought one and set it up the same way he did. I also purchased the recommended charger from Battleborn and only used that charger to keep the battery maintained. The lines to my trolling motor were securely bolted to the battery and there was a heavy duty quick-disconnect in the line to make it easy to disconnect from the trolling motor and hook to the charger. Again, this was the same way my friend has had his system set up. Well, the battery worked well for a couple summers, but at the end of last summer (2023), I noticed that the battery didn’t seem to last as long when I went out fishing. I was able to borrow my friends fancier charger that kept track of how many amp-hours the battery took to recharge and discovered that my battery was only operating at about half capacity. I worked with Battleborn’s tech support to try and figure out what might be happening. They ended up authorizing a return and they sent the proper materials to ship it back to them. After receiving the battery and performing testing, they determined that the problem was NOT due to a manufacturing defect. This is the quote from the email they sent:
“Repairs have finished with your batteries and unfortunately, the battery is not repairable. Unfortunately, the battery findings are not manufactured defect and caused by something external like improper wiring/lose connection. However, I am approved offer a 15% off of a brand-new battery which is $786.25+ $72 for shipping for a total of $858.25, tax not included. ”
I will give kudos to Battelborn for actually having tech support that responded and worked with me on the problem, but in the end, I’m out a bunch of money because I believed their warranty was good.
You guys have been great helping me learn the electrical end of my project, thank you so much. Also you did an awesome job on the website, I do a little bit full-stack development and this is impressive work. I do have one question that is racking my brain though and I was hoping you could help me out. I feel like I must be missing some crucial information on the battery specs. I can’t find a single difference between a battery that is 500$ cheaper than your recommendation. I get the whole idea behind paying more if a product makes you feel good, but this is a battery not a MacBook Pro. Can you help me out and tell me what I am missing?
Cheaper battery generally use cheaper components (e.g. cheap plastic, smaller wires, etc.), have less protection (e.g. cold cutoff from BMS), can have assembly defect, etc. In addition if you get a defective battery, getting a replacement can be almost impossible.
Personally I’d rather pay more and have the peace of mind.
Here’s a good video that shows the inside of cheap batteries, if you have 12 minutes to spare: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7tt7ngfCAY
All the best,
Antoine
Hi Isabelle and Antoine, thanks for all the help your website has offered me so far. Will buy your wiring diagram for sure. I also recommend your website to everyone, even innocent passers-by 🙂 As i live in Europe lithium batteries of Battleborn are not easily available here. Victron lithium batteries on the other hand are. I know you are a fan of Victron products and i was wondering if there is a reason you don’t use their batteries? Are they not as available in Canada or was there something in the specification sheet regarding the specific charge profile that was not to your liking? And am i right to assume you would recommend the Victron superpack as it has an integrated BMS? https://www.victronenergy.com/batteries/12,8v-lithium-superpack
Thanks in advance!
Elena
Victron batteries are excellent, but the price is a bit steeper here in North America, compared to other brands. If you can get them, I’m sure they’ll be just fine 🙂
Thank you for making my build a little less confusing at times .
My biggest question in electrical is. Do you’re batteries last you the day and night or do you have to be frugal with what you charge? I will be living in the van full time for at least 4/5 months with two teens we need laptops a computer and phones to be charged for homeschooling and work and then te lights heater and boiler to work too. Will be cooking on gas and maybe heater on diesel so we will be able to use the vans diesel tank
Thank you for your site and recommendations!!
We developed a calculator: https://faroutride.com/van-build/tools/van-electrical-calculator/
Enter what loads you plan on using, then it will recommend a battery bank size (and solar/inverter/etc.). 🙂
Hey – curious about how you all manage your energy needs when traveling in cold weather. I know y’all do lots of ski trips, and I do the same. I bought a van with a Goal Zero Yeti 1500x Lithium power station. it won’t charge in freezing temps and stops discharging at somewhere around 0 degrees. Is there something you do to keep your batteries warm themselves? Feels like once my battery itself gets cold I’m screwed because it won’t allow a charge below 30 degrees. Any tips?
Only tip I can think of is to keep it in a warm place in your van. Or use a 12V heat mat, but it might take too much energy so it’s not a miracle solution…
When it’s really cold, we leave the door of our electrical cabinet opened so it gets some heat from the Webasto. Battle Born batteries cannot be charged below 25F, but CAN BE still discharged (so we can still use the heater to warm it up).
Good luck,
antoine
We have ours in a heavily insulated box. During really cold weather we have a 3 watt incandescent light on a timer inside with the battery array.
https://mortonsonthemove.com/best-rv-battery-test-results/
Pretty interesting. You might what to have a separate article discussing this.
(Oh, and bottom line, lithium wins.)
Have you guys had issues with your maxxfan after installing battleborns? I’m reading mixed reviews on how people with higher voltages have maxxfans that turn off because they’re technically limited to 13.7v. So some have to install a voltage regulator to fix it. I switched to battleborns and my maxxfan has a voltage trip and turns off.
We have no issues at all. Maybe you got a defective fan?
Hey Antoine, really benefiting from your work on this site. My van build is following you a lot. Based on that I am planning on using the Samlex SEC1280-UL for shore charging my Battle Born Li batteries. However, the Samlex instructions all talk about lead batteries and Amazon comments don’t recommend it for charging Li batteries. But… your review here says can use the AGM setting and Float not required because BMS will turn off charge. Is this the simple victron (vs Simarin system) that is actually turning off the charge or am I missing something?
Battleborn themselves say the Samlex is compatible with their batteries: https://battlebornbatteries.com/charger-compatibility-table/
“Most Samlex units work great with our batteries, especially if you set the charging profile up in custom mode. You will want the bulk/absorption to be 14.4 volts float at 13.6 volts and disable equalization and temperature compensation. If there is not a custom mode, the AGM setting will work well to charge our batteries.”
It is not required to float Lithium batteries, but that’s fine if you do.
Hope that makes sense, cheers
Just bought your wiring diagram (and other stuff). Your site is awesome, as you likely know.
I can’t find a pic of your electrical systems setup. I assume you have a central electrical systems area where everything is locked down (batteries, charger/converter, etc.). Am I missing that on your site?
Thanks in advance.
Michael
You’ll find it in our 360 Virtual Tour here: https://faroutride.com/van-tour/
cheers!
Hi,
I am just starting to educate myself on power and batterie. How does your setup compare to a Goal Zero power station?
Our setup is customizable and can be further expanded later if needed. With a Goal Zero, there are far more limitations and it’s harder to expand later. It’s also much more expansive.
antoine
Hi Guys,
From your “3- BATTLE BORN BATTERIES SPECIFICATIONS” and “4- LITHIUM (LIFEPO4) VS AGM” it seems to me that one Li battery is equal to one Pb acid. But you got two (I think, only based on your picts, I dont think you said that). I realize that 100 Ah doesnt equal 210Ah, but you can only use 50% of the 210Ah.
I must be missing something.
Confused, Don
In terms of usable capacity, one Lithium battery (100% x 100Ah) is equals to one AGM battery (50% x 210Ah).
We have two Lithium batteries indeed, so we’ve got more usable capacity than before.
Make sense?
Okay. It’s an upgrade in more than one way!
How did they fit into your cabinet?