Company switched to LFP Battery

My company swapped my my 4 AGM batteries with a 628AH 12v LiFePO4 battery last week. With usable capacity its about the same as 12 normal truck batteries.

2025 International LT
System uses a supercapacitor to handle draw of starting the engine (This was already in place before the swap)
Everything else runs off a single 628AH battery
Charges off the alternator with the sensing wire removed

Few flaws. The bluetooth to monitor the batteries is awful. Have to put phone out window to get it to connect
Autostart no longer works so I'd have to manually idle the truck to recharge while doing a reset.

Overall I'm excited to see how this goes.

 

Was that C8 energy batteries or just LFP in general? Or was it someone who didn't actually know what they where talking about thinking back to phones and "hoverboard" things that use a completely different Lithium chemistry?

Funny thing is my 2015 Prostar tried to light itself on fire wouldn't have with LFP batteries. Alternator went and put 16v into the batteries which tried to light them on fire because of too much voltage. The BMS in the LFP battery would have just faulted and just turned itself off, stopping a lot of the damage.

 

Wonder what would make the difference between an international and everyone else that they'd have fires. Unless they installed it is too small of wires from factory. I got my hands on the install guide and they replace all the wires between the starter, alternator and batteries. As well as rebuild the battery tray.

The other part of the system is this thing. https://c8energy.com/resources/SkelStart_brochure_EN.pdf to avoid the hard draw on the lithium battery pack. As they're not normally designed to for that type of work.

 

These batteries and lots of others do have heaters build into them now. The problem is not the batteries getting cold. Its charging them when the batteries are cold that can damage them. So when power is pushed to them. The first power will be used to heat the batteries up and then it will start charging once the internal temperature is above freezing it will then start charging the batteries.

 

Just a little update.

Used the system for 2 weeks including one reset on the road. System works amazing without really having to think about the batteries. Normally end my overnight with 30-40% on the battery. During reset I idled the truck twice for 3 hours each time. Not trying to get the battery to full, about 80%, that last 20% is slow so no reason to add 2+ hours of idling for an extra 20% (Likely could have done less but still figuring that out.)

Hasn't lit on fire yet which is good. None of the wires seem to high. And everything has terminal fuses on them if they do try to pull too much draw that would pop first. No issues with the truck failing to start.

Talked to the company that makes it a little bit and they where able to answer some of my questions. And also said they're moving the bluetooth radio into the cab on their next battery revision. Useful for people in the future. Still annoying for me.


We'll see how winter and the cold goes as we switch seasons.