Lithium Battery Install and WFCO Converter Charger Issue

can you guys read that that is the converter charger in our brand new 2023 travel trailer and it says that it can detect whether you have a lithium battery or a lead acid battery automatically well maybe not let me tell you what's happening right now hi guys it's Brad and Diana from it's about time now many of you have reached out to us and wanted to know about our lithium battery up upgrade that we did to our brand new 2023 Rockwood 2205s the first thing we want you guys to know is this video is not sponsored we received no discounts everything we did we paid for this is simply the way that I did it doesn't mean it's the only way you can do it but because you asked for it we're going to show you what we did when we purchased this new travel trailer we knew we wanted to put lithium batteries in it we've had had lithium batteries in our last two motor homes and really have been impressed with their performance so we decided we would put them in here too this was an eye opener for me I began to learn things that I didn't have any idea existed in this particular model the first problem that I ran into was they gave me this beautiful double battery box but it would only hold two group 24 batteries most of your lithium batteries when you're buying a pair are group 27 they're slightly taller and they're slightly longer and they would not fit in that battery box so I had to come up with another battery box [Music] idea you think that's it that's it so what we settled on was this Harbor Freight trailer tongue tool box and we'll leave the information for that in the description below this box fit perfectly straight across the trailer tongue itself and behind the propane bottles and the camper one of the reasons that I really like this toolbox is I can lock it and therefore I don't have to worry about somebody just coming taking two straps off and running off with my brand new lithium batteries I'm not going to say they can't get them but it's certainly going to make it a little more difficult the other thing that I wanted to do was I wanted to add my victron battery monitor like I had had in my other rigs this gives me how much amperage I'm drawing how long my batteries will last at the current draw it's important to note that this new rig has a 12volt refrigerator and 190 W solar panel on the r roof my intention is to add a second 190 W solar panel not too distant future but that's for another video so let's get back to my lithium battery install I chose two group 27 heated batteries it's important to note that I bought the heated batteries these battleborn batteries have a built-in heater inside the battery itself it's powered by the battery battery you simply hook a jumper wire and a switch to that the reason being is if you get a lithium battery down below 35° it will not charge it simply is unable to do that so having the built-in heaters allows the batteries to keep warm and they will charge even when it's cold outside because these batteries are mounted on the tongue of our trailer and not inside the camper it's important that they be kept warm if you're you're camping in the fall or early spring or even in the dead winter so as I discussed before this is our heater switch and that enables me to turn the batter's heaters on in a moment's notice when the temperatures get cold now installing this Harbor Freight toolbox on the tongue and putting the batteries in it was not a simple cut and dried process first of all I had to buy two battery trays and mount those in the bottom of the tool box the next problem was there were no holes in this toolbx to pass the cables through so I bought some step bits which allow me to step the whole size up and then I bought cable stuffing tubes to mount in the box so that there would be no chafing or problems with the cables coming into the battery box this in turn caused another problem the existing cables were not going to be long enough so I had had to replace the positive cable and then the negative cable actually had just enough to reach the first negative post so I didn't have to replace it but I still had to get it through the stuffing tube and on top of that I had a third battery cable that goes to my inverter all by its Lonesome so I had to get it into the toolbox as well these are things that you would find when you're doing this type of a replacement I can connected the toolbox to the trailer tongue with self- drilling self-tapping screws so it is permanently screwed into the tongue of the trailer all in all from start to finish once I had purchased the required pieces that I needed the whole process took me about 6 hours but I really took my time with it I wanted to make it neat I wanted to make it clean and I wanted to make sure that when I was done with with it I wasn't going to have any problems all right as you know we have been sharing with you our battery install we've upgraded to lithium batteries and we have a problem you know we were hoping not to have any troubles but there's trouble we have discovered that our converter charger is a problem it's supposed to be autod detect it's not Auto and it's not detect Brad's going to tell you all about it so we are into the Final Phase of our lithium battery install here in our new travel trailer our unit came with a wco autodetect converter charger I watched the videos I read the book I was initially told that it was plug-and playay just put in the lithium batteries and it would detect them and it would be ready to go and then after I watched the videos by the company they said no it has to have a full charge cycle for it to detect a lithium battery what does that mean that meant I had to kill my lithium batteries I had to discharge them low enough that it could detect that it was lithium and re switch over and recharge it and there's a little green LED that needs to turn blue and then it will feed full amperage to the batteries and Etc so on well I spent 18 hours killing my lithium batteries had every light on fans on the TV on just left it all on until my batteries were low enough for this to Auto detect and on the video the gentleman says if it won't autod detect your batteries are not discharged far far enough so I ran them down to almost 11 volts which is as low as I wanted to go and it still would not autodetect so that prompted a phone call to the company that built the charge converter to wco and they told me that I didn't have the right firmware version and this was their comment you need to remove the converter charger and send it to us it will take 3 to 4 weeks and we will update the firmware and we will send it back to you so when the company told me that I needed to remove the converter charger and send it to them I was like I just bought this trailer I haven't even made the first payment on it that's unacceptable I hung up from them and I contacted Forest River Forest River was like what no that's in correct we will if it needs a new firmware we will make arrangements under warranty to have you take it in to a dealer and they will replace it for you but they were very interested in the conversation that I had had with wco they said they would get back to me in the meantime I called battleborn Who Built My lithium batteries and I talked to them about this situation because there was a lot of finger pointing going on on it's because of your batteries they're too far from the converter uh you'll need to relocate them your battery cables aren't big enough uh Etc so on this is what I was being told by by wco uh which is what prompted to call the Forest River wanted to talk to battleborn because I had run these batteries down to 11 volts and I knew that zero was 10 and they would actually shut off via the battery management system if I dropped them below that so I wasn't going any lower and I wanted to make sure I had not hurt my batteries and they assured me they were fine and I had not injured them in any way they actually had talked to people about this issue before I hung up from battleborn and started doing a YouTube search and a web search and found out that many people were having problems with this autod detect feature when you buy your art V from the dealer if it's equipped with this the salesman tells you it's Plug and Play put the batteries in and in reality it's not plug andplay just put the batteries in there are things you have to do and if you do not have an engineering background this may be well beyond your capabilities and I let Forest River know that I thought that was wrong in my other rigs my converter charger had a little switch inside that that you moved from position one to position two and it would change from lead acid to lithium and you never had to think about it again I think we've over engineered this thing and as wco told me when they called me back and I'll talk to you about that in a second they're trying to make a a one product fits all and it doesn't so I got a call yesterday afternoon from one of the engineers at wco and they said that no I did not have to send my unit back to them they would in fact send me an updated firmware unit that I could install now I want you to understand this is dealing with both your Shor side electricity and your 12vt electricity and I'm not going to do a how-to video on that because although I feel confident in doing it many people would not feel confident in doing it and I would recommend that you take this to your RVD dealer and have them do this upgrade if you are experiencing this problem but they're going to send me a new unit that is going to work it's got the latest firmware and they assure me that that will correct all of the issues and once that's done we should be good to go now I want to talk for just a moment many of you are thinking well this whole lithium thing's not worth it it it's not working the way you want it to guys I had every 12vt accessory on in this camper for over 18 hours and when I shut the batteries off everything was still working my inverter was still inverting my TV my refrigerator all of my lighting my fans everything was functioning 18 hours in to being disconnected and running only on battery power that's why I upgraded to the lithium batteries it's an expensive proposition no matter who you choose to go with uh there are many good companies out there but guys I will tell you to do your research on your lithium batteries because you want to make sure that you're buying a product that's being stood behind and a product that's safe and a product with a good reputation all right everybody if you made it this far we thank you for watching and we hope you found it enjoyable and informative we love hearing from you if you got something out of this or if you have some words of wisdom for us please share it down in the comments we are excited about taking this out on the road we have made reservations to go up for some fall camping up to Carolina in Virginia as well as we've actually booked into several Florida state parks that we haven't been to yet and we are excited to get this back on the road we'll be bringing you along with us as we do some new videos and remember it's about time now because tomorrow is not guaranteed

Channel: It's About Time Now

Views: 5,837

Keywords: 2205S, Brad and Diana, Converter Charger Auto Detect, Its about time, Its about time now, Lithium heater, Lithium upgrade, Problem with converter charger, Rockwood Minilite, Rockwood mini Lite, WFCO, WFCO charger, battle born batteries, converter charger and lithium, rv converter, rv converter charger, rv converter charger for lithium batteries, rv converter charger lithium, rv converter charger not working, rv living, travel trailer, wfco auto detect converter charger

Id: pd2RP9THk98

Length: 13min 58sec (838 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 29 2023