First, this is a great site with incredible participation by some very knowledgable folks, thanx!
I'm an electrical engineer, the first step in the design process is to collect requirements, understand the options and issues, then get to work.
Not so simple when dealing with ever shifting and conflicting data surrounding LiFePO4. I've used T105's for decades but LiFePO4 is a different kind of animal. I know that most of the folks on this site use various lead based technologies, but I have seen a few LiFePO4 posts and this is clearly the place to go for unbiased MPPT info.
My application is an RV with 2 solar panels (about 600W), an MPPT controller (not selected), about 200Ah of LiFePO4 battery at 24V (8 cells), a custom micro-controller and interface electronics (individual cell voltage, SOC calculation, over voltage and under voltage disconnect, alarms, etc, etc).
Why LiFePO4? This is a small RV (sprinter van), using LiFePO4 is about a quarter the weight and size of any lead solution I could find. In this case about 200 less pounds and 1.5 less cubic feet. Considering the relative lifetimes LiFePO4 is even cheaper, in the long run, up front costs are pretty hard to stomach. At the end of the day (with a lot of insulation and using one of the ultra efficient mini-split systems) I hope to power a small air conditioner.
This is partly an education / hobby project and partly a "get rid of the generator in the RV" project.
Considering the cost of LiFePO4 I plan to buy a little more battery than I need and restrict the operating range to roughly 95% max charge and 20% minimum charge to maximize the cycle life. Max discharge rate is about .5C / 100A and max charge about .1C / 10A so the system never has significant self heating. At room temperature (20C) it looks like the charge cutoff should be about 3.55V and the low voltage cutoff about 3V. These voltages are all over the map depending on your choice of vendor, web site or battery "guru", but my intent is to not stress the battery while still trying to get a usable 75% of net capacity. I think I will need to test to find the correct voltages. The system is intended to be automatic and available for charge or discharge at any time.
First question.
How do you guys handle "float"? The battery is charged, so I just want to maintain without damage. Apparently (based on several LiFePO4 papers) just leaving the charge voltage (even at almost no current) starts to degrade battery cycle life. Some references recommend floating at 3.3V, which seems like a good idea and is above the typical battery discharge voltage. During the day this would allow the panels to supply most of the demand power until demand drags the system voltage down to 3.2V when the battery will start to deliver energy. Great, but how and when do you decide that you need to start a charge cycle (bring the batter voltage back up to 3.5V)? Is this where SOC comes in and we arbitrarily select (let's say) 80% charge as the point to start a charge cycle?
Second Question.
Temperature is a big deal. For discharge at 0C / 32F, 75% discharge occurs at about 2.8V. 2.3V at -20C, but some sources recommend not using the battery at that temperature. It looks like the only reasonable thing to do is the heat the battery box (hot water is not a too hard to do) since this almost doubles the usable capacity at -20C and adds 30% at 0C. What has been your experience? Has anyone had any experience at cold temperatures?
Third Question.
I have had no luck in finding an MPPT controller that has either the correct LiFePO4 charging profile or easy to use hooks to use external controls. Are there any units you can recommend?
Thanx
RonR