I’ve been umming and ahhhing for some time about this mainly due to Rafe’s 10-year-old charging technology and what it might mean with keeping the new batteries in good shape. The other worry was my old saying from boating, “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it”, where the agm setup was working fine, just not enough of it.

Jonas at Zion Motorhomes has been telling me on several occasions how good these new French batteries are and how they work happily in a Gel mode that will still stir up the Lithium the way it’s meant to be stirred!

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Because we are in Devonport and Zion are in Pokeno, I’d decided to stay at Pukekohe for the night to avoid the traffic on the Monday morning.

After lunch on a warm sunny afternoon, I checked into the Pukekohe A&P society’s campground by the railway station. It’s a neat place with all the facilities at a very reasonable price and we’ve stayed here several times over the years.

After plugging in and settling down the Truck, I went for a bit of a wander around the park. The shops are just over the road through a railway tunnel and the main street not that far further on.

A great night there with a couple of trains rumbling past which is fun.

In the morning, I headed off to Pokeno and my first stop was at the Truck stop for some Diesel and then onto Zion Motorhomes for the Batteries.

They were going to swap my 4-year-old AGM deep cycles for some sparkling new Lithium Phosphate 150 ah batteries that would both fit under the driver seat. I’m always a bit apprehensive when disturbing something like there is usually a surprise extra somewhere or something gets broken in the process 🙂 Yes, I got a surprise, but nothing got broken.

Because Rafe’s charging system with the alternator wasn’t that clever, it worked by being directed by the Start battery in terms of what was required for charging. If the house battery needed it too, it got charged at the same time but never got fried if it was already full, it just went without on a trickle basis.

It needed a Booster unit that integrated with the German Electro block management system and gave the house battery what it needed and at a consistent voltage. Pretty good really and it should probably have been there all along, so I saw it as a necessary upgrade.

I’d promised the AGMs to my son Drew for his boat as his boat house batteries had seen better days and these ones were good so free to a good home and off, they went 🙂

Mark was the Technician on the job assisted by Jack and several others when required.

The driver’s seat came off, the old batteries came out and the new batteries took their place all without any drama. As Mark went, he was testing the various charging systems. Changing the Solar regulator to Gel, the Electro block to Gel and adding the Booster unit to the back of the electro block.

Being a new system on quite an old charging system, there were a few moments where what was showing from the Bluetooth app on the phone wasn’t quite what was expected but it very quickly all came together.

So, the conclusion … I haven’t been away yet to really try it all out but it’s a massive upgrade for the whole electrical system.

Fiona likes watching her TV and things electrical in Rafe haven’t really had a real outing so we’re looking forward to being able to turn things on now and not be too concerned about power. You might recall my recent blog on the change we made to the TVs with the Mi Box. This will save a lot of power with the TV’s. The stereo and the subwoofer can be turned up and the lights can all be turned on 🙂

The pros:  We’ve gone from 200ah Agm to 300ah Lithium Phosphate with a much greater DOD ( depth of discharge) which means instead of being limited to about 90ah of power on the Agm setup, we now have full access to 240ah without damaging the batteries.  The batteries charge much faster so the solar panels charging should take roughly the same time for a moderately bigger charge.  The batteries are about 1/3rd lighter.  They’re guaranteed for 5 years and will last a lot longer than the agms. These smart french batteries will work happily with a gel charging setup so less to change for most of us!

The only con:  the cost is more  but that is technology for you 🙂

A pretty painless exercise and Mark did a fantastic job. Thanks guys.