Finished the LiFePO4 megathread

Holy crap.  Finally finished the LiFePO4 thread over on the Cruisers & Sailing forum.  5,699 posts as of my last page load.  I started reading in mid-February so it took almost exactly 2 months of off-an-on reading to catch up.

I am in the process of condensing the knowledge in that thread down to one wiki page.  The info is there but not yet very organized.  I’ll let it bake a bit then restructure.   My own takeaway is that for solar- (and occasional shore-) powered boondockers it is safe to run a non-BMS LFP bank with these smart charger settings:

• Absorption:  VAbs == 13.8v

• Float:  Vfloat == 13.2v

• Low Voltage Disconnect:  Vlvd == 12.0v

My reading suggests these settings will keep the batteries in the “middle 80% SoC” for greatest longevity.

Even if I do go LFP for the final design (200A?) I will likely start out with 2x  Costco or other inexpensive flooded lead acid (FLA) 6v cells (2p1s) as my sacrificial first bank.  Apparently everyone murders their first set and I’d rather that cost me a couple hundred instead of a thousand.