Eliminate your truck's battery?

KidVermicious

KidVermicious

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Ok, not eliminate. Replace. With something like this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N36OP7W/ref=ask_ql_qh_dp_hza

It claims 600 CCA, that'll do the job. Why not replace the giant 12v battery with one or two of these, and free up all that weight and underhood space? Looks like they're designed to charge off 120v, I don't know if they'll charge from a 12v input too but if not it seems like it'd be easy enough to put a 120v to 12v inverter between the alternator and battery. Why else would this be a bad idea? Are these more sensitive to ambient temp than a traditional car battery? More sensitive to vibration? Won't last holding a constant charge? I don't know. School me.
 
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All good questions I don't have answers to but I did get a boost from one last year during the winter when I forgot my lights on and the 4R fired up on the first crank from this small power pack. Subbed to this thread...
 
There is a company out of Korea that is working on Li 12v full size car battery (800cca). I have visited with them twice, but the US is not making it easy for them to brig to market. They also make them for Motorcycles and ATVs.

or this is an option

 
TOY2G said:
There is a company out of Korea that is working on Li 12v full size car battery (800cca). I have visited with them twice, but the US is not making it easy for them to brig to market. They also make them for Motorcycles and ATVs.

or this is an option

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That's exactly what I'm talking about, and that doesn't have all the complicated electronics of a jumper pack. I love it.
 
If they're anything like the Li I know then they're quite explosive under the right circumstances haha, but it's not like you're going to be putting a car battery replacement under a ton of physical stress.
 
JeepKiller said:
If they're anything like the Li I know then they're quite explosive under the right circumstances haha, but it's not like you're going to be putting a car battery replacement under a ton of physical stress.
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That's my thought. If they're safe to rattle around the glovebox, they're safe to get strapped to the firewall or an inner fender.
 
did you read the reviews?


1. Jump Starting -- When Jump Starting a car with a dead battery, you often need to leave the PowerAll connected for 10 seconds (or longer) to build up enough of a charge in your car's battery. Wait 10 seconds between start attempts as well.
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I don't think the unit itself has the capacity to start an engine of any size. it NEEDS the help of the vehicle battery in place to make it happen.

not to mention there would be virtually no reserve capacity, no listening to the radio with the engine off etc...




JeepKiller said:
If they're anything like the Li I know then they're quite explosive under the right circumstances haha, but it's not like you're going to be putting a car battery replacement under a ton of physical stress.
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physical, maybe not. but they see quite a bit of electrical stress.



I think Lithium batteries needs to advance a bit more before I would feel comfortable using one daily in my vehicle.
 
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Lithium snare already in use by the racing community for their power and weight savings. Pricey, yes.

Wet and fiberglass mat gel batts are awfully dependable considering their cost and lifecycle compared to high tech batteries. I'm happy with what I've got now...
 
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nevada said:
did you read the reviews?




I don't think the unit itself has the capacity to start an engine of any size. it NEEDS the help of the vehicle battery in place to make it happen.
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I forget which one, one of the reviews on one of those units the guy claimed he could start his F250 with the battery removed.
 
Lithium batteries are used in some hybrid cars without too many problems. But they need more complicated charging electronics than lead acid batteries. You can't just top them off directly with the alternator. Connecting the jump start pack to 120V with an inverter and also using it in place of the regular battery probably won't work because it's not designed to charge and discharge at the same time.

Batteries in hybrid cars seem to have problems with cold weather. Some of them have internal heaters that run all the time. I wonder how these jumpstart packs do in the cold? Probably not good. Hot temperatures are bad, too, and some (all?) hybrid cars have cooling for their batteries. I'm not aware of any that keep them in the engine bay, but the batteries themselves can generate a lot of heat in use.

Lithium batteries also don't like to be fully charged all the time. They seem to last longer if they are stored partially charged, or if they have some charge and discharge cycles periodically.

Car companies are looking for ways to save weight to improve performance and efficiency. You can bet they've considered lithium batteries to replace lead acid. They could easily design a charge controller/regulator circuit if they wanted to. But still very few of them use it. The weight savings must not be enough to justify the cost. And they probably need to design a battery with more capacity than most of these for reliability and a long lifespan. I'm guessing they would need 2-4x the capacity of these.

Lithium batteries also run on slightly different voltage than lead acid, so you either need a conversion circuit (built into the charge controller/ regulator) which lowers efficiency, or you need different electronics to run on the new voltage. For 3 lithium cells you could have a voltage range around 10.8-12.3V which is a bit too low for most things. 4 cells gives you around 14.4-16.4 which is a bit too high.

An even better idea is to get rid of the starter motor all together (or at least make it very small).
MAZDA: Idling Stop Technology | Environmental Technology
 
[MENTION=113611]m85476585[/MENTION] pretty much summed up a good majority of why they aren't being used in vehicles just yet. For the most part all Toyota hybrids run between 60~80% of potentional energy in the battery because discharging it too much or charging it to full actually hurts battery life (this limited range of usable energy is actually fairly common in lithium ion batteries because they do not like being full or low for long periods of time, it's a common reason why laptop batteries end up dying quickly.)

Something else to consider is not only reserve capacity and charging behaviour that is different between a lead acid battery and a lithium ion battery is the fact that in a modern vehicle the battery serves one extremely important job:

It dampens charging voltage and voltage spikes to provide a much more consistent and controlled source voltage for all the electronics in the vehicle. People often forget how sensitive much of the vehicle's components are to voltage spikes and variances in supply voltage.

Something else to consider is that Lithium Ion batteries require drivers for charging, discharging, and proper functionality. Most of these drivers are either built into the battery itself, the charger, and/or both; to replace the 12v system with a roughly 12v lithium ion battery would require a dedicated module and control system to maintain proper voltage and health of the battery pack, starting, and charging system; as a result you'd be adding an extremely expensive and complicated system that would probably outprice a quality AGM battery. That is of course assuming you found said theoretical module and made it work reliably for the vehicle.

Post Note-

I have a 16,000 mah (Supposedly a peak 600amp discharge for 3min) that I use for starting cars at work because of how small it is. It's started a big old Escalade and other big vehicles pretty easily; but it runs out of juice very quickly and takes a long time to recharge (not to mention the charger gets warm enough it starts getting that "hot plastic" smell going on.)
 
Santa must read T4R.org, one of these showed up in my stocking on Christmas. It's not as buff as Blackwork's, it claims 8000 mAh and 200-350 crank amps. It also doesn't want to be stored at temps higher than 140 F, so that puts a dent in my idea of mounting it under the hood.
 
You'll need a battery if you plan on running a winch. They can pull 200-300 amps and suck a battery down to nothing really quickly. I like the idea of getting rid of the heavy battery but for a trail driven truck, I need a battery.
 
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