Hi Bruce,

While many people think China is the major source for lithium, it is not. They, along with Japan, Korea and Taiwan, are the dominant manufacturers of the cells, but most of the worlds accessible lithium comes from the Andes mountains in South America. Lots of rain leaches lithium and other salts out of the earths crust there and deposits that brine in volcanically formed caverns. The brine is pumped to the surface where the water evaporates and leaves enough concentration of lithium to make mining economically feasible. Australia, China and the US all have large lithium mining operations, too.. Lots of lithium in the ocean water as well, but the concentration is way too low for economically feasible extraction at this point.

I am giving a talk at GMCWS in early October called, "A heart/lung transplant for your GMC" that talks about what is required to change out the old lead acid house battery bank for a bank of lithium iron phosphate batteries in three different sizes. Good, Better and Best set ups designed specifically for our GMCs that allow for proper charging from all four sources - alternator while driving, shore power, gen power or solar (although the solar side will be covered in a separate presentation later). I have been working with a major lithium battery manufacturer on these three designs. They will be offering them as bundles for GMC owners with a small discount, free shipping and no sales tax. I will post the presentation once given.

As those who have done this will attest, there is far more to it than just changing batteries. And, it is way different doing this in a 45 year old vehicle than it is doing it in a modern vehicle or RV.

Jerry
Jerry Work
The Dovetail Joint
Fine furniture designed and hand crafted in the 1907 former Masonic Temple building in historic Kerby, OR

glwork@mac.com
http://jerrywork.com

============
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 09 Sep 2019 05:55:31 -0600
From: Bruce Hislop
To: gmclist@list.gmcnet.org
Subject: Re: [GMCnet] Inverter and converter....how about both?
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

LiFePO4 batteries are the way to go for sure...

You can discharge them down to 10-20% and recharge them at a much higher rate. They have a much lower self-discharge rate and are happy if they don't
get recharged all the way to 100%. One 100 Amp-hr LiFePO4 battery has the useful capacity of the popular two golf cart battery configuration at 1/2
the size and 1/4 the weight. Plus they will last 4+ times longer. They are cheaper in the long run.

I was hoping to wait a couple more years before taking the plunge at ~$1,000+ Cdn each for Rich and I north of the border. I haven't checked the
pricing lately, but with China being the major source of Lithium as a raw material and also the major source of Lithium cells I'm sure the trade war
has pushed prices much higher.



--
Bruce Hislop
ON Canada
77PB, 455 Dick P. rebuilt, DynamicEFI EBL EFI & ESC.1 ton front end
http://www.gmcmhphotos.com/photos/showphoto.php?photo=29001
My Staff says I never listen to them, or something like that
================






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