Add Heating Pads to EG4 or Switching to Trophy Batteries?

[sparrs]

I am currently running my off-grid cabin with (1) EG4 48V battery. This year I need to add at least 1 or 2 battery racks to my system. The only issue I had last winter was the cold weather limitation in which I had to wait until mid-day to charge my EG4.

I was recommended Trophy rack batteries instead of EG4 for my cold climate cabin. I basically would like to hear from more experienced users which way would be better: stick with EG4s and add heaters to batteries OR dump EG4 and move to Trophy batteries, which already have heaters built-in.

TIA!

Seems a 100 watt heat lamp in the shed/room on a temp switch set to cut on below 50, for example might be simpler?

 

[timselectric]

Seems a 100 watt heat lamp in the shed/room on a temp switch set to cut on below 50, for example might be simpler?

We used to use a light bulb for our chickens.
If insulated, it doesn't take much to stay above freezing.

 

[Tomthumb62]

As far as power draw, each mat is 20W, and i also have the Inkbird controller on a timer

A v8 moment, that's really smart!

I might do something like this sometime but I doubt I'd ever need to use it, but it's cheap enough it might be nice for the insurance aspect of it.

 

[Old_Skewler]

Seems a 100 watt heat lamp in the shed/room on a temp switch set to cut on below 50, for example might be simpler?

Our energy shed is NOT insulated... this solution seems simpler to implement but not sure how well would perform...

Good idea though...

 

[Crowz]

I had posted this in another thread showing what I use to keep my weize batteries warm :

I used these :


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075WVPP5Y/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1



I simply taped one pad on each of the 4 sides of each battery.

I then used these :


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011VGAPOC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1






to control the heating pads.

I placed the sensor for each control unit on top of each battery it controlled the pads for.

I believe I have them wired 2 in series on each of the 4 pads but I may have all 4 in series I cant remember which worked out the best.

I set the controllers to 37F turn on 40F turn off. I havent noticed much in the way of shortened battery life with this setup on my lifepo4 batteries.

So far using a infrared thermometer the batteries have stayed above 34F at all times. My batteries will function to 0C and they have a 32F limit on charging with the bms they have. So I have it setup to keep it over 34F to ensure they will charge each morning no matter how cold it gets.

That said it doesnt get that cold here in Alabama with 20F being the normal lows most of the time in the winter.

 

[Tomthumb62]

I set the controllers to 37F turn on 40F turn off. I havent noticed much in the way of shortened battery life with this setup on my lifepo4 batteries.

This i think is a huge advantage to wiring your own external heating. Most if not all the factory internal heaters are something like turn on at 32F and off at 45F. IMO, that’s too cold to turn on and too warm to turn off. The way you set it would be my choice. Maybe a little different like on at 35F and off at 40F.

But as Will Prowse points out, most of us don’t need heated batteries because the cabin temp usually doesn’t get that cold. Maybe a remote mountain off grid cabin in Michigan or Maine that is unoccupied in winter, but not in southern Oregon or in a home that you live in.

 

[mvonw]

I have had 6 Trophies for a year and a half and through 1 pretty cold winter (-20F a few times) in an unheated shed. I did make a small closet for the batteries out of several layers of insulation foam. I used a 200watt heater connected to an wireless inkbird and a small 48volt DC fan. I set the temperature to 70F and because I have a lot of solar panels, I never even noticed drain on battery. Because it's so well insulated, the heater was only running about 2 hours a day or less on the coldest days. I look at the internal heaters as insurance. I had a smaller 100 and 50 watt heaters I experimented with, but 200 watts was the goldilocks since for my battery cabinet.

 

[cubish]

I am currently running my off-grid cabin with (1) EG4 48V battery. This year I need to add at least 1 or 2 battery racks to my system. The only issue I had last winter was the cold weather limitation in which I had to wait until mid-day to charge my EG4.

I was recommended Trophy rack batteries instead of EG4 for my cold climate cabin. I basically would like to hear from more experienced users which way would be better: stick with EG4s and add heaters to batteries OR dump EG4 and move to Trophy batteries, which already have heaters built-in.

TIA!

I know this is an old post. But we love at 7400 feet in a permanent home completely non grid tied. It gets cold here. -4 this winter. Our Trophy batteries worked flawlessly