WFCO 8955 AD not recognizing lithium battery

[Mountain Air]

I have not been able to get my WFCO 8955 AD converter to recognize that it is connected to a lithium battery. At this time it is trying to charge my battery, which has a 55% SOC by supplying a current of 3 amps, which is entirely unsatisfactory.

The background: We picked up our new 17B last August, configured with the Hub Lion 100 AH battery that ETI provides for the lithium option. We have been on several camping trips last fall and this spring and the battery always met our needs although I could only monitor it by watching the system voltage, which of course is of limited value with a lithium battery. We owned and had used a Renogy suitcase solar charger, so we did not order any solar for our new 17B. We had requested that Escape install a shunt-based battery monitor, but Escape declined to do so since we were not including any solar prep in our order. (This will be the subject of another post.)

Early this summer I got around to installing a Victron Smart Shunt, allowing me to accurately observe what is going on in my electrical system. It became clear that the WFCO converter was not applying a lithium charging profile in our trailer. After some research on the web, some time with YouTube, and a good discussion with a friendly and knowledgeable tech at WFCO, I learned that the 8955 AD must go through a complete cycle of fully charging a battery in order to recognize the battery as lithium. I realized that our battery had never been deeply discharged. From the time we picked up the trailer, with few exceptions, we had either towed the trailer, connected and fully charged with our Renogy suitcase, or been connected to shore power.

So for the last several days I have purposefully, here at home, run the battery down to a 19% SOC. Yesterday morning I plugged the trailer in. As expected and hoped for, the Smart Shunt showed to current jumping to 20+ amps charging, and the voltage started climbing up from 13.2. But after about 20 seconds, the current fell to 4 amps and the voltage stopped climbing. I tried unplugging and plugging in again, but this behavior repeated itself. I left it plugged in for hours, but there was no change to the charge rate once it settled to around 3 amps. I assume this is because the converter thinks it is connected to a fully charged lead acid battery and it is applying a float charge.

Does anyone have a suggestion as to how I can get the charger to recognize our lithium battery? Has anyone observed this kind of behavior with the WFCO AD converters? Do I need to first discharge to an even lower DoS? Does it matter that I plugged the trailer in to a 20 amp household circuit?

I realize that I have some workarounds to be able to fully charge and balance our battery with our solar suitcase and/or a lithium capable NOCO charger we own. But I am the sort who wants things to work like they are supposed to and like they are advertised. I will call WFCO next week to discuss this and post their response here, but I always get a lot out of discussions on this forum and wanted to take this chance to hear what others’ experiences have been.

 

[splitting_lanes]

We have the wfco 8955 AD also, and it wouldn’t recognize the lithium battery I installed until I redid the wiring.

The Auto Detect battery type feature works by testing how much current it can pass with how little voltage drop. A lithium battery can handle a lot of current with little voltage drop, because they have a very low internal resistance. However, bad connections combined with long wires of minimum gauge add to that resistance and the charger doesn’t think it’s connected to a lithium battery.

I’ll bet just moving your battery shut-off switch and removing that excess wire will help. A directly connected ground will help also. Find the excess wire and remove it, double check the connections…. I had the same problem, and after doing the above ours charges perfectly - 55-58 amp rate.

 

[SRS]

We have the wfco 8955 AD also, and it wouldn’t recognize the lithium battery I installed until I redid the wiring.

The Auto Detect battery type feature works by testing how much current it can pass with how little voltage drop. A lithium battery can handle a lot of current with little voltage drop, because they have a very low internal resistance. However, bad connections combined with long wires of minimum gauge add to that resistance and the charger doesn’t think it’s connected to a lithium battery.

I’ll bet just moving your battery shut-off switch and removing that excess wire will help. A directly connected ground will help also. Find the excess wire and remove it, double check the connections…. I had the same problem, and after doing the above ours charges perfectly - 55-58 amp rate.

I have the same problem in that my WFCO doesn't seem to recognize my two lithium batteries. My 190w solar system does an excellent job of bring the batteries up to 14.2 volts every day, but it would be nice to have the converter actually work.
I've moved my batteries inside the DS bench so wire runs between the batteries and the inverter are really short. The battery disconnect is in the DS bench near the power center.
Could you be more specific about the how and where you shortened the wires or moved the disconnect switch?
Thanks, Sherby

 

[splitting_lanes]

Hi Sherby -

Sure, I had to keep doing things until I got my WFCO 8955 Auto Detect to correctly detect. I grabbed some pictures so hopefully I can explain it well enough with the ‘after’ photos.

First picture shows the 8955 and the battery, the disconnect switch is now accessible externally, and located between the 8955 and the battery. Previously the disconnect switch was located in the back of the bench and had 10 extra feet of 8awg to connect it. Now the total run of red 8awg is less than 3 feet.



Here’s the fuse blocks for the battery



Taking the extra 10 feet of red wire out made it flip to lithium charge mode occasionally.

So I redid the ground side. The 8955 ran to a ground block above it, and from there ran a ground to the frame. The battery side has a ground to the frame also. That’s several connections and a number of feet that I was able to get rid of by adding another ground from the shunt ( at the battery) to the ground block directly above the 8955. I had to get a larger ground block for this and other connections I added:



And lastly, I’m holding the ground that I added, and my finger is pointing to the original ground that still runs to the frame:



You don’t need to worry about ground loops or having a second, direct connection ground, with DC voltage. After I added the direct ground, my 8955 AD always detects a lithium battery now.

Hope this helps others to figure out how to get the shortest loop ( or just switch to bigger wire ) between the 8955 AD and a lithium battery. Yes, the auto detect does work, but it really wants to see a low impedance to make sure it’s a lithium!

 

[SRS]

Hi Sherby -

Sure, I had to keep doing things until I got my WFCO 8955 Auto Detect to correctly detect. I grabbed some pictures so hopefully I can explain it well enough with the ‘after’ photos.

First picture shows the 8955 and the battery, the disconnect switch is now accessible externally, and located between the 8955 and the battery. Previously the disconnect switch was located in the back of the bench and had 10 extra feet of 8awg to connect it. Now the total run of red 8awg is less than 3 feet.

View attachment 75616

Here’s the fuse blocks for the battery

View attachment 75617

Taking the extra 10 feet of red wire out made it flip to lithium charge mode occasionally.

So I redid the ground side. The 8955 ran to a ground block above it, and from there ran a ground to the frame. The battery side has a ground to the frame also. That’s several connections and a number of feet that I was able to get rid of by adding another ground from the shunt ( at the battery) to the ground block directly above the 8955. I had to get a larger ground block for this and other connections I added:

View attachment 75618

And lastly, I’m holding the ground that I added, and my finger is pointing to the original ground that still runs to the frame:

View attachment 75619

You don’t need to worry about ground loops or having a second, direct connection ground, with DC voltage. After I added the direct ground, my 8955 AD always detects a lithium battery now.

Hope this helps others to figure out how to get the shortest loop ( or just switch to bigger wire ) between the 8955 AD and a lithium battery. Yes, the auto detect does work, but it really wants to see a low impedance to make sure it’s a lithium!

Thanks for the detailed description and photos. My 17 has full benches so there's no easy way to get everything that close. Batteries on the PS side and battery shutoff and power center on the DS side with only enough space at the back to run wires.

I did some research on WAFCO 8955 auto-detect. General consensus is that it's problematic and like many things works for some and not for others. From what I read, killing the batteries works for many but sounded like once your off shore power or in storage with the battery switch off, you have to do the whole thing again.

Apparently there is a firmware upgrade that improves the auto-detect or allows you to have it permanently set to lithium. Problem is, you have to remove the converter and send it to WAFCO for this service with about a 3 week turnaround. I'm not sure if there is a charge for this if your out of warranty. It's too bad they removed the jumper setting IMO.

I've order the Progressive Dynamic PD4655L MBA Wildkat from BestConverter.com. Ron of BC posted a thread about his experience installing one and the unit comes with instruction specific to replacing the WAFCO 8955. Best part is it has a jumper allowing you to set it to lithium or led-acid. The Wildkat is apparently a more reliable unit as well. Yes, more expensive than doing a workaround such as your fix but I want reliability.
Thanks again for the explanation,
Sherby

 

[Chamberman]

If you decide to stop messing with the WFCO there is another option for replacing the original style converter and that is to use a Victron Smart IP22 charger.

After looking at the options from Progressive and WFCO when doing a lithium conversion I decided to go with the IP22 30Amp unit. These units are fully customizable via bluetooth and the Victron app, so no jumpers to mess with and no worrying about the unit automatically detecting the proper battery types. The Victron gives you a fully customizable unit, you can either go with Victron's preset charge profiles or create your own. You can also switch between 15A/30A charge rates and it has a setting to switch to "Power Supply" mode. Which is nice when on shore power and the battery is charged, I switch off the battery isolation and then set it to 12.8v power supply mode. The lower voltage is easier on some of the 12V devices.

The Victron IP22 will also show you the real-time amperage, and a full history of charge rates, time to charge, amp hours delivered, etc. Which is something that the standard converters are lacking. Its also slightly cheaper than the WFCO or Progressive converter options.

The only negatives about the IP22 is that its only a 30A max rate of charge and it needs to be mounted vertically so its not optimal to install it horizontally into the original converter box mounting location.

 

[SRS]

Thanks Chamberman, I had just been thinking how easy Victron equipment is to us with the connect app. But I already ordered the Wildkat and I have limited space and mounting an IP22 vertically would be problematic.

 

[Mountain Air]

I have discussed this with a technician at WFCO, who I again found to be friendly and knowledgeable. It will be no surprise to any of the commenters that they said that the problem was excessive voltage drop between the battery and the converter. I have sent a note to ETI support to get their take on this and am in discussions with them at this time.

In case some of you are not familiar with the layout of the littlest Escape (and we do love our 17B, let me make clear), the converter is under the PS bench at the front of the trailer and the battery is on the DS rear bumper. I do not think it would be possible to make them any further apart if you tried. They are connected with 8 AWG wire. It would appear to me that problems with the 8955-AD would be expected with this configuration and that Escape maybe should advise folks like us who order the lithium option on a 17.

Moving forward it appears I have at least two options. One is to move the battery. I am not comfortable with an expensive battery on the bumper and would be pleased to have it in a more secure and warmer place. Another option is to swap out the converter. Perhaps Escape can suggest some additional options.

I appreciate everyone’s comments.

 

[SRS]

I have discussed this with a technician at WFCO, who I again found to be friendly and knowledgeable. It will be no surprise to any of the commenters that they said that the problem was excessive voltage drop between the battery and the converter. I have sent a note to ETI support to get their take on this and am in discussions with them at this time.

In case some of you are not familiar with the layout of the littlest Escape (and we do love our 17B, let me make clear), the converter is under the PS bench at the front of the trailer and the battery is on the DS rear bumper. I do not think it would be possible to make them any further apart if you tried. They are connected with 8 AWG wire. It would appear to me that problems with the 8955-AD would be expected with this configuration and that Escape maybe should advise folks like us who order the lithium option on a 17.

Moving forward it appears I have at least two options. One is to move the battery. I am not comfortable with an expensive battery on the bumper and would be pleased to have it in a more secure and warmer place. Another option is to swap out the converter. Perhaps Escape can suggest some additional options.

I appreciate everyone’s comments.

For what it's worth, my WFCO never auto-detected my lithium batteries. I moved my batteries from the bumper to the PS bench. In a 17A, that's at the back. Power center/converter is in the DS bench. Doing some research, there are many complaints that the AD WFCO units don't work. I just replaced mine with a progressive dynamics PD-4855TV. With the jumper set to Li, it works perfectly. Although it's a more expensive unit than the WFCO, it was a pretty easy swap. I mostly boondock and solar does a great job of charging my batteries. But I wanted the peace of mind to know that if solar wasn't working due to clouds or shade, I could fully recharge depleted batteries.
Everyone's needs and camping style varies.
Good luck,
Sherby

 

[Ron in BC]

One is to move the battery. I am not comfortable with an expensive battery on the bumper and would be pleased to have it in a more secure and warmer place.

I don't fully understand the route that ETI has taken. My friend ordered a 17B last year with the lithium option and was happy to see the demo unit had the lithium battery inside, not outside on the bumper.

Before his unit went into production ETI announced that they were going back to mounting the battery on the rear bumper. My friend wasn't pleased with the thought of having an expensive battery on the rear bumper. There have been cases of even LA batteries being stolen from that location.

I had a chat with Karl and he kindly agreed to have my friends battery installed inside but said it would be the last one. Don't know why it was a problem for ETI to install a lithium battery inside as they don't even have to be vented.

I'd definitely want two things: my battery inside and reasonably close to my converter.

Ron