Hi all.
In buying my Hawk one of my concerns was battery life and weight. I don't plan on spending a lot of nights in my Hawk (In a row), but I do need a CPAP, cold beer and I like to use the heater - each one of those hits the battery. Add in laptop and camera chargers, lights and a microwave (hate cooking too) plus my micro freezer and the power drain starts adding up. Besides that there is much better battery technology out there in the world today then lead acid. I decided I wanted to try and push the envelope a bit. That being said I ordered my Hawk with only one battery - so FWC would do the wiring for me and ordered a 100amhr lithium ion battery (iron phosphate chemistry).
While 100 amp hours may not sound like much - this battery is rated for 2000 cycles at 80% discharge. It should be equvilant to 4 similar sized lead acids which should only go to 50% discharge. It also only weighs 29 lbs. voltage drop under load is much lower as well.
Today I confirmed with IOTA that the factory 30 DLS charger will work within the voltage requirements of the battery (nothing over 14.6 for 5 minutes) - or 16.0 instant. The battery has it own high and low voltage shutoff as well as cell isolation and other safety features. The battery is designed to work with a standard car charging system so the IOTA was my only question.
Because of low resistance lithium ion is supposed to charge quicker than lead acid - although some say this is not entirely true. The rate of self discharge is also much lower.
The battery arrives on weds via fed ex I will post in update once I have it installed.
In buying my Hawk one of my concerns was battery life and weight. I don't plan on spending a lot of nights in my Hawk (In a row), but I do need a CPAP, cold beer and I like to use the heater - each one of those hits the battery. Add in laptop and camera chargers, lights and a microwave (hate cooking too) plus my micro freezer and the power drain starts adding up. Besides that there is much better battery technology out there in the world today then lead acid. I decided I wanted to try and push the envelope a bit. That being said I ordered my Hawk with only one battery - so FWC would do the wiring for me and ordered a 100amhr lithium ion battery (iron phosphate chemistry).
While 100 amp hours may not sound like much - this battery is rated for 2000 cycles at 80% discharge. It should be equvilant to 4 similar sized lead acids which should only go to 50% discharge. It also only weighs 29 lbs. voltage drop under load is much lower as well.
Today I confirmed with IOTA that the factory 30 DLS charger will work within the voltage requirements of the battery (nothing over 14.6 for 5 minutes) - or 16.0 instant. The battery has it own high and low voltage shutoff as well as cell isolation and other safety features. The battery is designed to work with a standard car charging system so the IOTA was my only question.
Because of low resistance lithium ion is supposed to charge quicker than lead acid - although some say this is not entirely true. The rate of self discharge is also much lower.
The battery arrives on weds via fed ex I will post in update once I have it installed.