Living with lithium

We road-test lithium batteries to see if they’re worth the extra expense

Lithium-ion batteries are a new fact of life for many travellers, based on the increasing number of upmarket caravans and campers being built with them.

Like all new technology, the rapid roll-out is bringing prices down, and many travellers are now asking themselves: ‘Do I need it?’ Well, that depends…

The answer for most travellers is ‘no’. If you’re travelling popular tourist routes and staying within reach of a 240-volt power supply, four to five nights a week, save your money and spend it on a bigger caravan.

They might be old-school, bulky and heavy, but a pair of 110-115AH AGM batteries and one or two 150W solar panel combined with a portable 150W-300W inverter, will probably do it for you.

However, if you plan to head into remote areas, size, weight and an abundance of power are important considerations. This is where we were. After owning a series of Jayco camper trailers, following by a compact Expanda Outback pop top, we wanted to go further, for longer.

Things had also moved on in my life (and particularly for my wife) in the intervening years since the Expanda. Spoilt by the comforts of the latest on-road caravans, we had taken away to review, we wanted a taste of that honey in the Outback and lithium technology quickly made sense.

The lure of lithium

Melbourne’s Halen Vans got me thinking when I reviewed one of their larger vans decked out to showcase the potential of lithium technology.

Fitted with a 300Ah lithium battery and a 3000W ePRO Combi inverter and battery charger made by Brisbane-based Enerdrive, the van was able to run just about every domestic 240V appliance the modern 21st century traveller might want to take away caravanning. These included a dishwasher, a washing machine, a microwave oven, a toaster and of course, a coffee pod machine.

Moreover, after running them all for our review, the battery was still at 87 per cent capacity, but recovered its charge rapidly via its twin roof-mounted 150W solar panels.

I was sold and as we were in the process of deciding on a new off-road caravan, I decided that it would have lithium technology built in. But which system?

Some of the lithium battery set-ups I looked at had their management systems located inside the battery and if something failed on that board the last thing I wanted to do was pull a battery apart to fix it, but the Enerdrive BMS board is separate, easy to get to and quick to replace if necessary.

What finally sold me on the Enerdrive system was that all its components were designed to work together and were supplied and warranted by the same established local organisation.

Fortuitously, Melbourne’s Trakmaster celebrated its 20th Anniversary in 2015 by introducing a limited edition ‘Extreme’ version of its off-road Pilbara caravan, and to make it special it was fitted as standard with a 200Ah Enerdrive lithium battery system.

As the Trakmaster Extreme already ticked all my other boxes for a remote area caravan, I ordered one on the proviso that everything I wanted could fit inside a maximum 15ft x 7ft body dimensions, so that it would remain relatively nimble off-road.

Trakmaster didn’t automatically agree, as there was no certainty that squeezing a large double bed (albeit transverse), a full separate shower and toilet front bathroom, a proper kitchen, a good-sized 140 litre compressor fridge and a half-wardrobe – plus the 200Ah/1600w inverter Enerdrive lithium system including the 1600W ePRO inverter/charger I wanted – would work.

In the end, I had to compromise on size and the finished caravan worked out six inches longer than originally planned at 15ft 6in, but I got the lithium system I wanted. It all came down to milletres and had I gone for a 300Ah lithium battery – or two 115W AGM batteries – it would have ended up longer again. There’s not a centimetre of wasted space in it, which I like.

More fussy than lead acid

The downside of lithium batteries is that they need to be managed more carefully than conventional lead acid batteries to work at their optimum, as I discovered on our first weekend shakedown run in our new Trakmaster.

Our Jayco Expanda had no fixed solar panels and was fitted with a large Optima deep cycle battery. It was only plugged into 240v power a day or so before our trips to give the battery a charge and to get its fridge cold enough for the auxiliary battery in our 4WD to keep it chilled on the move.

That casual system didn’t work with the lithium system in the Trakmaster and without the battery receiving any mains or solar charge for a week before we left – plus a cloudy weekend after a short 120km drive to our unpowered camping place, we ran into trouble.

After successfully trying out some of our 240V toys – the iron, hair dryer and coffee machine after we set up camp (just to prove we could) we heated our pre-prepared spaghetti bolognese in the microwave and went to bed certain we had made the right choice.

We were less confident in the morning, when we woke to a complete power blackout, thanks to the Enerdrive system’s automatic cut-out when battery charge falls below 30 per cent.

A phone call to Enerdrive diagnosed the problem: quite simply, we hadn’t started with a full battery. We had worked it hard and with no travelling or sunlight, we had given it no opportunity to recover.

But thanks to the system’s Blue Sea circuit breaker, there was no harm done and after connecting to mains power, with help from the sun after it broke through the morning fog, the battery recovered. But it was a lesson well learned.

As Enerdrive boss Chris McClellan explained: “In between trips you need to have your caravan connected to a power source, whether it’s a 240V supply or simply a solar panel, because in any modern caravan there will always be something ticking over in the background, using power.”

In our case it could be as simple as our AL-KO Black Knight satellite tracking system that allows us to keep a watch on our caravan via an iPhone App, wherever it’s parked.

Lesson learnt

We were much better prepared for our next 10-day long trip to Omeo in the Victorian High Country for the Trakmaster Caravan Club’s 2016 annual gathering and then on to Potato Point on the NSW South Coast for some further R&R in this beautiful coastal camping ground.

This time with a full battery, plenty of sunshine and less playing with our ‘toys’, everything worked as planned and we didn’t need a 240V supply at any stage during our eight days away.

Then came The Big One, a four-week trip to Central Australia the hard way, right up the Oodnadatta Track and then on to Alice Springs via the old Finke Road, touching the edge of the Simpson Desert and visiting Chambers Pillar on the way.

All went well until we spent four days parked at Palm Valley, southwest of Alice Springs, during when we were again tempted to try out various 240V appliances. We stopped when our battery capacity dropped below 50 per dent and we had to wait until the next morning for the sun to bring the system back into the 70 per cent-plus region.

Thinking about this, we decided that if you really want to run a range of 240V appliances – and you have the size caravan and the space – you ideally should specify a 300Ah lithium battery. It sounds big, but in reality, it delivers the power of around six 125Ah AGM wet cell batteries, but tips the scales less than a third of their combined weight at 60kg and occupies around one third of the space.

Its ideal Enerdrive companion, is a fully programmable 3000W ePRO Combi inverter/charger, which weighs a further 18kg and is 500mm long, making it an easy fit under a lounge seat, or the bed.

Without the luxury of the extra space to fit such a battery, we decided to approach the problem from the other end – by increasing the system’s charging capability.

So, on our return from Central Australia, we had Trakmaster fit a third full-thickness 150W solar panel to the roof of the Pilbara Extreme and have purchased a portable 160W Enerdrive folding solar panel that we can plug into the socket in the left side wall at the front of our caravan. This will allow us to ‘chase the sun’ if we set up camp in the shade.

We now have a total of 510W of solar power at our disposal and, with sensible use of our 240v appliances, we should be totally self-sufficient for an indefinite period.

That’s the theory and we plan to put it to the test on another big trip mid this year to the far northwest and the Coral Coast, covering around 12,000km.

Wish us luck!

Living with lithium

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