Help with electric motor battery selection and charging

[fishing111]

Just an observation, but if these lithium batteries are so much better why doesn't the warranty reflect the superior quality? I mean even cheap ass batteries come with 3+ years warranty. $949 for a single battery and only 2 years warranty...ouch! For mine I'd take the extra bit of weight up forward which would help in my particular case, along with much cheaper price and better warranty. I know horses for courses, anyway just my opinion.

iTECH 120 120AH 12 Volt Lithium Battery

Regular price$1,199.00
Sale price$949.00 Sale

Default Title ADD TO CART

The future is here! Perfect for your caravan or camper trailer! Save weight and free camp longer!
Latest Lithium battery technology designed to be charged and deep discharged many times without damaging the battery. State of the art built in battery management system inside every battery. Specific Lithium charger is not required to charge the iTECH120.
Connect up to 4 in parallel.
2 year warranty and super light weight ( just 11kg ). A normal AGM battery will weight about 35kg.

[NAGG]

Just an observation, but if these lithium batteries are so much better why doesn't the warranty reflect the superior quality? I mean even cheap ass batteries come with 3+ years warranty. $949 for a single battery and only 2 years warranty...ouch! For mine I'd take the extra bit of weight up forward which would help in my particular case, along with much cheaper price and better warranty. I know horses for courses, anyway just my opinion.

iTECH 120 120AH 12 Volt Lithium Battery

Regular price$1,199.00
Sale price$949.00 Sale

Default Title ADD TO CART

The future is here! Perfect for your caravan or camper trailer! Save weight and free camp longer!
Latest Lithium battery technology designed to be charged and deep discharged many times without damaging the battery. State of the art built in battery management system inside every battery. Specific Lithium charger is not required to charge the iTECH120.
Connect up to 4 in parallel.
2 year warranty and super light weight ( just 11kg ). A normal AGM battery will weight about 35kg.

Better has nothing to do with warranty ( A Kia car comes with a 7 year warranty & a Porsche comes with a 3 year warranty)

Better equates to higher discharge rates - 90%- 95% vs 50% DOD ..
Faster charge rates ……. 95% before going into absorb mode (80% for Lead acid) - This is in addition to LifePO4 can handle a charge rate of 25 or even 40% of battery capacity compared to 10% for a lead acid
Half the weight .

So the compelling argument has nothing to do with warranty.

Chris

[disorderly]

Better has nothing to do with warranty

So the compelling argument has nothing to do with warranty.

Chris

Agreed Chris...but a decent warranty inspires a degree of confidence in the product...unless its off ebay where sellers can pretty much promise anything because they are harder to track down without a storefront...

I didn't pursue an Itech battery system because at the time they had only a one year warranty and I wasn't sure of the difference between them and all the other Chinese rebranded batteries..
They my be a perfectly good battery and Fishtragic seems to be doing OK but how does the average guy know which ones to choose....?

One thing I also had to consider was that some sellers told me that their lithium batteries weren't recommended for use in systems higher than 24v.....eg 36v...

[fishing111]

Disagree Nagg, but each to there own. Warranty is a huge part in a lot of peoples purchasing decisions and it would be compelling to myself and many others I would assume. Yeah the specs are better with a lithium battery, but then again how do you know how long a near on $1000 battery will last in a boating environment? Spec's are only spec's, longevity is paramount. Using your analogy the Porsche may drive better and be more refined, but I'd take the Korean over German monkey gassing junk any day. My point is that a 2 year warranty to me seems a little light on for such a premium price. If the manufacturer has faith in the superior quality I would expect at the very least a 3 year warranty and 5 would be fair in my eyes.

[Dignity]

I'd be interested in what sort of protection circuitry is in each of those individual cells. To my knowledge no one actually makes the cells in australia but do package them into 6v 12v, 24v and 36v systems. Fusion, ITech and a few others add circuitry to them and this is where each individual product differs. This circuitry is designed to protect over discharging, overcharging, undercharging, use of different chargers, combining of cells to create higher voltages (hence some suppliers don't recommend 36v in their cells), and heat regulation etc. This circuitry can be quite complex and is often the added value. I have played around with some individual cells and it surprising how hot they can become when under high loads which will lead to premature failure.

And what does warranty include apart from manufacture faults.

[NAGG]

Disagree Nagg, but each to there own. Warranty is a huge part in a lot of peoples purchasing decisions and it would be compelling to myself and many others I would assume. Yeah the specs are better with a lithium battery, but then again how do you know how long a near on $1000 battery will last in a boating environment? Spec's are only spec's, longevity is paramount. Using your analogy the Porsche may drive better and be more refined, but I'd take the Korean over German monkey gassing junk any day. My point is that a 2 year warranty to me seems a little light on for such a premium price. If the manufacturer has faith in the superior quality I would expect at the very least a 3 year warranty and 5 would be fair in my eyes.

I think you took what I said the wrong way about warranty.
Warranty is as much about marketing than anything else ...... if a 3 year warranty gets you in .... it’s done it’s job. That doesn’t mean that the item (car , battery, boat etc) is better ..... if anything they have probably built that warranty into price.
An Optima blue top battery only comes with a 2 year warranty.... Odyssey 2-3 years depending on use...... compare that with 7 years that Kickass offer. Optima and Odyssey are probably the best on the market but don’t carry the warranty of a kickass. ( I actually don’t mind Kickass slim batteries). Fusion LiFePO4 carry a 3 year warranty which is about as much as you could expect from a complex battery.
One final thing .... read the disclaimers and note how the warranty works . A battery that is replaced at 2 years of a 3 year warranty will most likely have just 1 year on the replacement. Another which I chuckle at is that the battery may have been deemed to have reached its “end of life” even though it may still be within the warranty period.
Batteries and their warranties are the proverbial can of worms.

chris

[fishing111]

Sorry Nagg, looks like i took the wrong end of the stick.Totally agree, nothings easy these days with caveat after caveat by manufacturers/onseelers.

[NAGG]

Sorry Nagg, looks like i took the wrong end of the stick.Totally agree, nothings easy these days with caveat after caveat by manufacturers/onseelers.

All good brother - It's something that I looked into before I outlaid over $2K for a couple of LiFePO4 batteries ……. The deeper I looked , the more it looked like a can of worms - There were caveats out the ying yang …….. even simply over discharging a battery could offer them a way out . For me the only thing worth relying on was a companies long lived reputation .
You quite rightly identified "onsellers" - I bet you could get on Alibaba & buy a FCL load of batteries cheap & go and sell them …… never to be seen again.

Chris

[JNaumov]

Hi Nagg,

I assume you (or anyone else) haven't had any issues with your Minn Kota since you've been running LiFePO4 batteries?

I saw this the other day but haven't heard of anyone having issues.

https://www.minnkotamotors.com/suppo...trolling-motor

[Dignity]

Hi Nagg,

I assume you (or anyone else) haven't had any issues with your Minn Kota since you've been running LiFePO4 batteries?

I saw this the other day but haven't heard of anyone having issues.

https://www.minnkotamotors.com/suppo...trolling-motor

Pity they didn't define "prolonged". It would make one wonder if trolling at over 85% with a freshly charged, brand new AGM would cause any issues.

[NAGG]

Hi Nagg,

I assume you (or anyone else) haven't had any issues with your Minn Kota since you've been running LiFePO4 batteries?

I saw this the other day but haven't heard of anyone having issues.

https://www.minnkotamotors.com/suppo...trolling-motor

The person that put me onto LiFePO4s was …… In the know (if you know what I mean) - I wont disclose any more than that.

Yes you could potentially have problems if the motor was running 10s contiguously …….. just don't was my advice .

But from my own experiences with offshore spotlocking - not a problem & couldn't be happier other than having bigger batteries.

Chris

[NAGG]

Pity they didn't define "prolonged". It would make one wonder if trolling at over 85% with a freshly charged, brand new AGM would cause any issues.

no they don't ……. but hell if you troll with a 100amp battery @ 8s-10s - you have about 1 hr of trolling before you start to kill an AGM
Unfortunately many don't realise that

chris

[Dignity]

Yep, my little 12 volt MK draws near 40 amps on Rabbit mode.

[rayken1938]

Another hint if you run your kota at 10 it bypasses the maximiser if you back off to 9.5 or 9 maximiser comes into play and no discernible difference in speed.

[fishtragic]

I've just learned how serious the warning about using lithium batteries with Minn Kota is. 3 x lithium 12V are supplying 41.1V this has completely fried the electronics in the MK and i rarely get to 8s or 10s on power meter. BLA/MK have been terrific with warranty but I won't be running it again until I find a way to regulate supply back to 36V. So I gather from MK techs that it's not only prolonged high power use but over voltage supply to be concerned about. Caveat emptor. Any suggestions for voltage regulation/ buck converters etc. Welcome. Sorry for the hijack but you need to be aware of this.