can I use this battery? LiFePO4 Battery as the 12V battery

On my Gen 3, I used a motorcycle/lawnmower battery I bought of eBay for $26. It only had 100cca so had to be careful not to leave the light on. My aunt used a wheelchair battery in her Gen 2.

 

if the operating voltage and charging characteristics are similar, i would think so.

there is a thread or two here with lithium success

 

It has a built in BMS to keep itself safe. The higher amp hour rating means it will discharge slower.

Fit is an issue due to the somewhat unique size of the 46B24R and its smaller JIS terminals. A size 51 is close but the terminals are not the same size or position.


238mm wide x 127 deep x 227 high


The factory positive cable has a fuse in it and does not stretch too far. The last thing you want is to accidentally reverse polarity the car which can be serious and will result in a tow to get fixed. The hold down bracket has a temperature sensor so the bracket should fit tight.

A better solution is a separate battery for your loads connected via an RV style battery isolator to avoid running down the vehicle battery. This will also reduce or eliminate a future need to jump the 12v as there is a mode to use the extra battery to get the vehicle in Ready push come to shove.



As a bonus a smart isolator will easily allow a solar panel to be used in the system.

 

Does the bms have low temp cut off?

 

Beware of drop in batteries, minimising the details about the inbuilt features is their method of deception.
1) A built in balance that can burn off 0.05 amps might be ok for a bicycle sized battery, a few Ah over many cells, but it isn't going to do much when the cell capacity is 100Ah. Even a 1% out of balance would take 20 hrs to rectify.
2) There is misconception spread by those that don't know and those who can gain by using it, that a lithium battery can only be discharged to 80% of its capacity, this is nonsense, but the drop in battery people run with this and actually use this B/S to sell an 80Ah battery as a 100Ah battery, claiming the last 20% can't be used ... they are correct in that sense, you can't use it if it's not there
3) The current limit for charging and discharging is limited by the current carrying capacity of the electronics they use, not the capacity of the cells. A quality Winston lithium ferrous phosphate (LFP) or LYP cell (has yttrium added to the mix so it will function down to -32*C) will deliver 500 amps for a reduced capacity, and the full 100 amps for the full hr, so no load limiting.
4) All these electronics, including the balancer that is only a resistor, are sealed in a case with no cooling. Heat is what kills lithium battery cells, under voltage and over voltage generates heat internally in each cell, yet no method of moving that heat away, a short cell life will be the result.
5) Individual cell voltages aren't monitored, just the total battery voltage, think of how many combinations of 4 voltages can make up that total voltage at the terminals, how many of those combinations have a cell at less than 2.8v for the cut off voltage and higher than 3.6v for the charge cut off voltage. Each time, the cell with high or low voltage looses capacity, the next recharge, it will be the first one fully charged resulting in that cell getting pushed to even higher voltages to reach the total end voltage for charging cut off. That cell now has less capacity, so it will be the first cell to run out of capacity and drop below 2.8v, damaging it further .... the death cycle has begun and you don't realise until the battery just doesn't do what it's supposed to do.
6) Because this is a group of cells and electronics all in a sealed case, if any part fails, you can't do anything about it, the battery is lump of junk now.

My advice, build a battery from 4 quality cells, Winston LYP is the best value v cycle life for house battery storage in our 12 yrs experience, fit a proper battery balancer/equaliser like the HA02 that has both a good capacity transfer system between the cells rather than just attempting to bun off the excess from the high cell, and it has a digital display for each cell voltage. Add a cell voltage monitor that has an alarm function to warn you a cell has gone high voltage or low voltage, and as long as you stay within the 2.8v to 3.6v range, you can expect more than 10yrs service life.

Yes, I did have a business building these set ups, but I'm now retired. I have no financial lines etc with any product I've mentioned. We still have a website my wife wrote in simple to understand language T1 Lithium . com. au (leave the spaces out but I didn't want to post a direct link to anything in this advice post ... it is just that, advice from someone with over 12 yrs and more than 200 systems out there, all still going strong ....

T1 Terry