AGM to Lithium For Van Life - Review of LiTime 12V 200Ah Plus Battery
Felicia, an outdoor photographer living in a van, upgraded from a limiting AGM battery to a high-capacity, self-heating LiTime lithium battery that has been a game-changer for their off-grid power needs. The LiTime battery offers significant advantages over AGM in terms of usable capacity, lifespan, and cold weather performance at an affordable price. Let's explore more on Felicia's energy story.
In my journey of living in a van full-time as an outdoor adventure photographer, I spend a lot of time in the wilderness off the grid in my van and I’ve learned a lot about my power needs.
Before upgrading to LiTime, I was using a very simple and basic power system. I was using one 200AH AGM battery to power my camper van that charged on my van's alternator.
One of the major downsides of AGM batteries and the biggest reason we upgraded to Lithium is that AGM batteries can only be drained to 50% capacity without damaging the battery cells. That meant our 200AH AGM battery would really only give us 100AH.
While that worked for us in the beginning, once we started to spend more time on the road our power needs increased. We added appliances like a toaster oven, diesel heater, and fridge, which significantly increased our power consumption.
We ended up having to drive a lot more than just to charge our battery so it didn’t drop down below 50%. That obviously isn’t ideal, so we quickly realized it was time for an upgrade if we wanted to live comfortably on the road.
Introducing The Solution: LiTime 12V 200Ah Plus Self-Heating LiFePO4 Battery
I started doing my research on Lithium batteries, and came across LiTime’s Self Heating batteries which sounded like a perfect fit to solve all our problems! So we decided to upgrade to a 12V 200Ah Plus Self-Heating LiFePO4 Battery + 60 AMP DC to DC charger from LiTime!
This LiTime 200 Ah Plus Self-Heating Lithium Battery offers several advantages over AGM batteries:
- Full Capacity Usage: Unlike AGM batteries, we can use the full 200 amp hours without worrying about damaging the battery, so that doubles our current battery capacity which will allow us to have power for much longer while being off grid.
- Extended Lifespan: The LiFePO4 battery has a much longer lifespan, with up to 6,000 cycles at 80% DOD compared to the 500 cycles of our old AGM battery at 50% DOD.
- Self-Heating: Living in Michigan, where temperatures can drop significantly, the self-heating feature ensures optimal charging even in cold weather without having to remove the battery or monitor it.
- Affordable: Although Lithium batteries can generally be more expensive up front, LiTimes pricing is one of the most competitive on the market for the quality you get out of their products and makes it much easier to invest in an upgrade like this!
- Lighter and Compact: Despite its larger capacity, the lithium battery is lighter and more compact than our old AGM battery, making it ideal for our van life setup.
- 5 year warranty: LiTime offers a generous warranty behind their products which is huge peace of mind for me knowing they are confident in the quality of their products and stand behind them!
- Trusted reputation: There are a lot of technical and very detailed breakdowns and reviews of LiTime batteries online, all with fantastic feedback from people actually using the batteries every day while living on the road.
- Excellent customer service: LiTime’s customer service was fantastic to deal with, and very fast at responding. They go out of their way to make sure their customers are happy and get the most out of their products.
These were the main factors for us upgrading, and we’ve already used it for a couple of weeks now and it’s been SUCH a huge game changer for us already.
Now instead of needing to drive at least 30 minutes to an hour every day to top off our battery, the LiTime battery allows us to be totally off the grid for several days without having to worry about power. I could not be more happy with our new battery system!
So if you’re looking to upgrade from AGM to Lithium, I highly recommend LiTimes self-heating series of batteries. Not only are they a high-quality battery at an affordable price, they are also a trusted company that has lots of positive feedback in the outdoor space, and they offer an excellent warranty and amazing customer service.
If you want to watch the full video where I talk in more detail about the upgrade and show us installing the battery, visit my YouTube@feliciafullwood and Website@feliciafullwood!
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