Who wants lithium?

[RangerZ]

bobcoy, very good article everyone should read. I know it is probably best to use a lithium charger on lithiums. I just see it as a "what if" situation arises, and that would be having to use a lead acid when you are out of town and can't get a replacement lithium battery, or in a situation similar. The deal is if you are still using your onboard standard battery charger you can cover all instances of the type battery you may have to use. Even though you may only see 98% charge at certain times the lithium is very up to far more power than a AGM or lead acid would be as they drop full power after a short while of use, around 6 months or so, whereas lithium remains almost full charge. Once you install a full lithium charger you will lose that option. Not intended to be the main factor. As I have stated I have used most of the available chargers we normally see without any issues what so ever. IONIC will soon have their lithium charger available at a sensational cost, light weight and a great configuration for charging. It is certainly worth waiting for. Again we can have choices to what we really need or want at reasonable cost. IONIC is helping make that possible. The Bluetooth App is certainly a great tool for the IONIC user's, very user friendly also. To reprogram a charger profile or not......

[maxx power]

So here's my review of the Ionic lithium batteries...
First, got the package, in quick order. While they were packed well the box itself was kinda flimsy. The box contained 2 50ah ionic batteries, so not incredibly heavy to begin with. Swapping them took 5 mins, I was replacing a AGMs running my 24v system. They came with a 75% charge on both batts and wasnt very concerned with this. After using the batts hard for 4 days here's the pros and cons (for me).
Pros, the Ionic batts work well, they're extremely light weight, have an amazing recharge/recovery rate, my hole shot was noticeably better, which also leads me to believe fuel consumption went down as well, and the bluetooth app takes out all the guess work with what's goin on with the batts.
Cons (kinda) over the course of the day, I only noticed marginal improvement in battery life. The 50 ah batts running an 80lb ultrex in wind and waves weren't quite enough. 2 100ah batts I'm sure would do the trick for me. If they are as reliable as they're supposed to be and have a company that will stand behind their warranty then I'd say it's worth the investment.

[DREWTICK]

So here's my review of the Ionic lithium batteries...
First, got the package, in quick order. While they were packed well the box itself was kinda flimsy. The box contained 2 50ah ionic batteries, so not incredibly heavy to begin with. Swapping them took 5 mins, I was replacing a AGMs running my 24v system. They came with a 75% charge on both batts and wasnt very concerned with this. After using the batts hard for 4 days here's the pros and cons (for me).
Pros, the Ionic batts work well, they're extremely light weight, have an amazing recharge/recovery rate, my hole shot was noticeably better, which also leads me to believe fuel consumption went down as well, and the bluetooth app takes out all the guess work with what's goin on with the batts.
Cons (kinda) over the course of the day, I only noticed marginal improvement in battery life. The 50 ah batts running an 80lb ultrex in wind and waves weren't quite enough. 2 100ah batts I'm sure would do the trick for me. If they are as reliable as they're supposed to be and have a company that will stand behind their warranty then I'd say it's worth the investment.

how low of % have you had the 50ah show on the app after a day fishing with the 24v ultrex?

[SeanH]

how low of % have you had the 50ah show on the app after a day fishing with the 24v ultrex?

Curious as well....

[DuckHunter57]

Charging to 96% is not a problem. In fact keeping them at 100% is not as good for the ultimate long term survival. I would also ask how your % is measured? Is it through an unloaded voltage or a Coulomb counter system. There are accuracy issues with a voltage reading. Bob
I am going to provide a link for the type Lithium batteries we use for fishing. It is not overly technical but covers most of the pertinent factors. I have done a lot of reading on the subject and this seems to be a very good starting point for the subject. https://www.solacity.com/how-to-keep...tteries-happy/

its probably not an issue but when you invest this much in batteries and then make another almost 500 dollar investment for a charger that supposed to be for lithiums and it still doesn't do right and then read that the same company is fixing to come out with another charger that says WILL handle lithiums….then wtf did I get? mine supposedly programmed for lithiums but their newer charger is better. I could have saved quite a bit going with a minnkota and got the same results of not getting it to 100%. is it a big deal that it doesn't get 100 sometimes? probably not but its the point I paid for something to do what its supposed to do.

[Bob B]

its probably not an issue but when you invest this much in batteries and then make another almost 500 dollar investment for a charger that supposed to be for lithiums and it still doesn't do right and then read that the same company is fixing to come out with another charger that says WILL handle lithiums….then wtf did I get? mine supposedly programmed for lithiums but their newer charger is better. I could have saved quite a bit going with a minnkota and got the same results of not getting it to 100%. is it a big deal that it doesn't get 100 sometimes? probably not but its the point I paid for something to do what its supposed to do.

I would agree withh bobcoy .... It's really impossible to determine if the % charge is an issue with the charger or with the way the battery electronics itself determines % charge.
It is also true that you will get better battery life if you don't actually fully charge the battery. I would personally rather have a charger that sometimes only gets to 96 to 98% than one that gets to 100% every time but has a risk of overcharging. Unlike FLA batteries lithium batteries REALLY don't like to be overcharged and it will shorten their life...... seem like one that charges to 100% most of the time but occassionally only gets to 96-98% would be the sweet spot for a lithium charger.
If you only charge a lithium to 90% and discarge it to 30-40% you could double or tripple the life of the battery.

If you are having problems with the battery running too low after a day of use I would understand the concern over not getting to 100% charge.

[1bluemcm]

I thought, at least with ionic, that the battery BMS is the ultimate decider of when it's charged and would prevent overcharge?

[DuckHunter57]

I would agree withh bobcoy .... It's really impossible to determine if the % charge is an issue with the charger or with the way the battery electronics itself determines % charge.
It is also true that you will get better battery life if you don't actually fully charge the battery. I would personally rather have a charger that sometimes only gets to 96 to 98% than one that gets to 100% every time but has a risk of overcharging. Unlike FLA batteries lithium batteries REALLY don't like to be overcharged and it will shorten their life...... seem like one that charges to 100% most of the time but occassionally only gets to 96-98% would be the sweet spot for a lithium charger.
If you only charge a lithium to 90% and discarge it to 30-40% you could double or tripple the life of the battery.

If you are having problems with the battery running too low after a day of use I would understand the concern over not getting to 100% charge.

I don't have an issue with it only getting at 96% or whatever it stops at at times, what I have a problem with is spending the extra money for one that's supposed to do one thing when a cheaper charger would be doing the same thing. the only reason I bought the one setup for lithiums is it was said the only disadvantage the others chargers had was the wouldn't get a full charge they would stop short...well I got that anyway with the one setup for it. I guess whenever I pay for something to do something I expect it to do it. ive unplugged it once and plugged it back in just to see what it would do and it will go to 100%. once I see on the app they are in standby I unplug it as long as it close to full charge.

[Bob B]

I thought, at least with ionic, that the battery BMS is the ultimate decider of when it's charged and would prevent overcharge?

It could actually be the charger or the BMS depending on charging paramaters in the charger .... and how the BMS determines full charge has been reached.

A lesser charge than the bms cutoff can greatly increase lithium battery life.

[1bluemcm]

It could actually be the charger or the BMS depending on charging paramaters in the charger .... and how the BMS determines full charge has been reached.

A lesser charge than the bms cutoff can greatly increase lithium battery life.

Thanks. I need to charge it a few more times with my MK PC345 and monitor things, but I'm quite sure based on MK specs that the voltage doesn't meet or exceed the BMS cutoff voltage.

[188Musky]

A report on my Ionic Lithium Battery experiences from a few musky fishing trips; a little over a month's worth of fishing every day.

I have a 24v system on a Ranger Z519C, with an Merc 225 ProXS.

Two 100ah Ionic Lithium trolling motor batteries power a MinnKota Ulterra 80 and a Traxxis 70lb thrust transom mount at the stern. Both used throughout the day, at times simultaneously, as I controlled the boat from the back deck.

A 125ah Ionic Lithium battery used for starting, powers one HDS12 live, an HDS9 Live, a Carbon 9, a Gen 3 HDS9, and a Talon, in addition to cranking the 225 ProXS.

An older non-Delta Volt Dual Pro PS3 charger maintained the charge when at the dock, and a Dual Pro Extra II Charge-On-The-Run system as well.

The first example day was an 7:30am-8pm day, fishing mostly open water and offshore in a 15-18 mph wind, doing what bass fishermen would call power fishing; casting, covering water constantly. After the initial run to the area I was fishing, drove the boat approximately 20 miles during the day, about 35 minutes of driving time, and thus charging time on the cranking battery.

Back at the dock at the end of the day, the trolling motor batteries read 41%, and the cranking 61%.

No loss of thrust on the Ulterra was noticeable, and thus no loss of confidence to fish upwind of complicated Canadian Shield rock structure in big waves and wind, even at the end of the day. Subsequent days were similar, 46%/65% one day, 49%/70% another, 44%/67% another, 51%/72% another after that. Each time from the dock the batteries started at 99/100%, and fishing time was comparable to the first example.

Cranking battery SOC at the end of a day was simply a function of time spent fishing, and time spent running. I ran no livewells, or other accessories, other than the four HDS units, and the Talon down and up a couple times a day when handling a fish. Seemed 10 minutes of run time would put about 3% back into the battery, at a rate of up to 33 amps. No issues turning the motor over. The first start of the day was a bit slow at times, but no different as with a gp31 lead acid battery, previously. Air temps some mornings were in the low 50s to upper 40s.

There are times that I will fish a longer day than I did in these examples, perhaps fishing 8am until midnight once in a while. I felt like the trolling motor batteries would have been up to the task if I had. Even on the windiest days I still had at least 20% to safely work with at the end of the day, and the app is able to tell about where you stand.

I consider the Dual Pro Pro Extra II completely useless on this set up. At no time was any power from the 225 ProXS alternator transferred to the trolling motor bank, even during an initial run from the dock with the cranking battery at 99/100% and the trolling batteries at much less. Being that the unit works using voltages for criteria, I thought that the Pro Extra II might begin transferring power before the cranking battery was charged because the voltage was higher on the lithium cranking battery. However, it never would transfer any power, perhaps because the voltage on the trolling motor batteries was higher as well. Either way, it is of no use according to the Ionic app.

Considering short term value, these batteries outperform the previous lead acid batteries by a noticeable margin. $2000 more? Maybe, maybe not. I lean toward yes they do; but I am not a casual fisherman/boat user. If I did not readily have the financial resources to buy lithium batteries, lead acid are certainly good enough.

The monetary advantage is in long term. With changing the way I use batteries and charge them, attempting to use them between 85% and 35% SOC when possible, I have great hopes and expectations that they will last long enough to make them a great value and very economical.

[maxx power]

I was down to 20% and lower by the time I was done (20% when last checked). I'm using a pro mariner prosport 20 plus for the charging duties. It has gotten them to 99% every time I've charged them.

[RangerZ]

I'm hoping some are not confusing the trolling motor power (thrust) with their battery amp ratings. The only way to see more power is a higher thrust motor. Also when you use a 50AMP battery it is not the same as a AGM or lead acid in that those batteries will be rated along the line of 100-115AMP in new condition. That aperage will not be sustained after being recharged probably 25 times as they will be deteriorating chemically and will lose current as the day goes on (you will have to turn the speed up on the trolling motor to keep the same performance) requiring more amperage. Just hope this helps. As stated in earlier post I have not used a lithium profile charger since I started using lithium, I have used Dual Pro, NOCO and Minn Kota which I have now, all have did a great job and I could not ask for more. However I do believe that a lithium profile charger would be best suited to do the chore. I will be testing the IONIC lithium charger in the near future. If possible for those wanting to use a lithium charger it will be very worth while to wait and get the IONIC charger. It will be light, do the job quickly and efficently and be very reasonable on cost. Hope this post helps a little.

[jimmy7]

for those "requiring" 100%; read 5 and 6 below.
To sum up, for long and happy LFP battery life, in order of importance, you should be mindful of the following:

1. Keep the battery temperature under 45 Centigrade (under 30C if possible) – This is by far the most important!!
2. Keep charge and discharge currents under 0.5C (0.2C preferred)
3. Keep battery temperature above 0 Centigrade when discharging if possible – This, and everything below, is nowhere near as important as the first two
4. Do not cycle below 10% – 15% SOC unless you really need to
5. Do not float the battery at 100% SOC if possible
6. Do not charge to 100% SOC if you do not need it

[1bluemcm]

for those "requiring" 100%; read 5 and 6 below.
To sum up, for long and happy LFP battery life, in order of importance, you should be mindful of the following:

1. Keep the battery temperature under 45 Centigrade (under 30C if possible) – This is by far the most important!!
2. Keep charge and discharge currents under 0.5C (0.2C preferred)
3. Keep battery temperature above 0 Centigrade when discharging if possible – This, and everything below, is nowhere near as important as the first two
4. Do not cycle below 10% – 15% SOC unless you really need to
5. Do not float the battery at 100% SOC if possible
6. Do not charge to 100% SOC if you do not need it

And for #2, just to be clear, charging current = C rating x AH

using a 125AH and a 50AH as examples

125*0.5C = 62.5A 125*0.2C = 25A
50*0.5C = 25A 50*0.2C = 10A

With regard to the 125 as a house battery, I don't know any motor charging system that doesn't exceed 25A (for the "preferred" 0.2C) at some point in the charging curve. For stationary chargers, 0.5C seems well within the realm of possibility.

[bobcoy]

Your battery should have a recommended range for charging and a max charging number in its spec's. I would think if your alternator output after the motors needs to be less then you would be good to go. I would use your battery's specific spec's to make your decision. The charging range is for optimal performance

[DREWTICK]

125ah Ionic

[Savage]

125ah Ionic

50 AMP charging current is recommended? I don't know of any onboard charger that puts out 50 amps, on a bank.

[Rustym_22]

A mercury 150 4stroke has a 60 amp alt. I think the 250 runs an 85 amp.

[Savage]

A mercury 150 4stroke has a 60 amp alt. I think the 250 runs an 85 amp.

True, but an alternators job is to maintain battery voltage. The battery charger is used to charge the battery.