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What About LiFePO4 Batteries and Pure Sine Wave Inverters?

Lots of threads on dedicated AC circuits, but not much information regarding DC to AC battery driven systems. I never considered this as a power option because I assumed that the inverter would be noisy, but is this true? The setup is pretty simple where an AC/DC charger has the negative lead attached to the battery and the positive passes through an appropriate fuse on the way to the positive terminal. The on/off function can be a simple removal of the plug from the wall, or a smart wall plug. The charge state can be read from the charger, or you can add a wired, or Bluetooth battery monitor. The battery then feeds the inverter with a much larger fuse on the positive line to the input of the inverter. Your system is then plugged directly into the inverter, or at least your power conditioner is plugged into the inverter. Depending on battery capacity and system power usage, you can then run off the grid for many, or not so many hours. The problem is that it is difficult to find advice on such a power arrangement here on Audiogon. I’m just now putting together a system and I’m thinking that for better lithium battery life and shorter charge times, I want a larger capacity battery that I charge to 80%. I might also want an inverter that is oversize compared to the load that it experiences, in that most inverters turn on their fans when they reach 40% of their max power, or reach thermal trigger levels. The latter makes me think that mounting to a large aluminum surface might be thermally advantageous. Perhaps, someone that actually has some experience with this subject could offer some pointers.

vonhelmholtz
vonhelmholtz OP
911 posts
 

I’ll mention it here, now that Juan has made his entry. I went with a 3000 watt inverter vs Juan’s 2000. Also, his inverter advertises that it has low EMF. I went with a 300ah Lithium battery vs Juan’s 200ah. I did this as an attempt to keep the temperature down and the fan off. The downside of my approach is that Juan’s inverter is a known entity, because Juan uses it. My inverter is well rated, but most ratings are for those camping, or running a power saw in a remote location. The other pitfall of going with a larger inverter is that inverters are most efficient as they approach their maximum output, so I might find that my run time is negatively impacted. Lastly, if anyone else goes down this path, there are U.S. companies that makeup custom cables at reasonable prices. Once you enter your power parameters into a battery cable gauge calculator, you might be surprised as to how fast you work your way up to 4/0 gauge battery cable. First rule: No Fire!

I ordered my four cables for power (not charging) two hours ago and they just sent me shipping notification:  Custom Battery Cables

vonhelmholtz OP
911 posts
 

OK… after some mis-starts.. I’m up and running on battery.

With my system, on my utility/home wiring and with my power solution, which includes an Everest 8000, there is a night and day improvement in what I hear. It might be a bigger step up than when I added my Everest 8000. Everything is improved, dark background, dynamics, sound stage…Very simply sounds much like the performance is in the room. Juan described things and I had a show-me attitude, but trusted him sufficiently to spend the $1600. Best $1600 spent on my system, but you need to know what you are doing if you want to be alive to listen to the results. Power levels involved are nothing to take lightly. I’m not sure how to take this with respect to the Everest, but one of the main jobs of the Everest is to electrically isolate all components and adding it when on AC greatly improved what I was hearing. Interestingly, dynamics and speed are greatly improved and this carries over to the bass. The bass is much better controlled and very fast. I didn’t realize that I was missing anything. My inverter/battery are capable of putting out 20+amps directly wired to outlet, but as I have it setup, through the built in plugs, I’m limited to 15 amps.. but for some reason it is not the 15 amps plugged into the wall. As usual 300 watt/channel A/B power amp and 900 w/channed class D subwoofers plugged directly to their own channel on Everest.  I should mention, unlike Juan, I wasn’t on a dedicated 20 amp AC power line.

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blisshifi
1,212 posts
 

@vonhelmholtz Congrats on joining the “off the grid” club! It truly is a wonderful thing!

cdc
1,845 posts
 

I’m up and running on battery.

Does your system sound as good in the day as night? There has been a lot of conjecture why stereos sound better at night than day. Battery could eliminate one variable.

vonhelmholtz OP
911 posts
 

Juan has more time listening. I’m new to off grid listening. As mentioned, I didn’t have a dedicated circuit. I no longer need to turn off air filters and lights in other rooms while listening. Also, no issue with last night’s thunderstorm and lightening. I have a whole house surge protector and my battery charger plugs into a large local surge protector. I don’t care if it’s “audiophile grade”. The charger is off while listening to music.

I’ll take this opportunity to mention that I have been leaving my components switched on and once the.battery is charged the charger trickle charges to support the system’s sleep mode.

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