A bit of historical perspective, so much for being a stand-up guy, and the 2021 Pacific Puddle Jump placed on hold...
Aboard "So It Goes" we have a battery bank comprised of four 6V Trojan T-105 225 amp hour golf cart batteries which gives us about 450 amp hours at 12 volts. As it happens a 450 amp hour bank is just fine for our current needs living in the tropics where we have a goodly amount of sun.
I mention this for a couple of reasons as the batteries are getting somewhat long in the tooth by lead-acid standards at almost six-years old and I keep getting a lot of folks asking me when I'm going to jump on the Lithium bandwagon.
At the moment, I'm still a fan of flooded lead acid chemistry as, so far at least, they work great and I've had zero issues with the Trojans. Which is not to say I don't like the idea of Lithium batteries but, at the moment, they are quite expensive and I have not yet seen any long term reviews on their performance/longevity.
I do, however, have far too much experience with Lithium computer batteries which seem to fail like clockwork after six months of use which somewhat colors my perception of the claims of Lithium longevity in a negative way.
Still, I do keep my eye on Lithium batteries and this video caught my attention...
Yeah, $433. for a 280 amp hour battery is a seriously good price and works out to a kiss less than $1.55 an AH. Currently the best price I've seen on Trojan T-105s is $188 which comes to about $1.68 per AH at 12 volts. Keep in mind that switching to Lithium would also entail a new charger and purchasing a BMS or two so, I expect, the golf cart batteries would still come out a kiss less expensive in the long run.
But, as our current battery bank is still quite sprightly considering its age, I'm content to just keep monitoring the battery market and see what comes up in the next year or so.
Listening to The War And Treaty
So it goes...
