posted 4 years ago
If we're just going on battery characteristics ... a lithium ion battery is superior to the lead acid/AGM/deep cycle. Until you factor in $ and then the superiority is questionable..
I haven't made the switch yet, but I'm considering it because:
a) I can use a smaller battery. LiOn batteries can regularly be discharged at much greater levels ... to nearly 0% while lead acid "should" only be discharged to about a 50% level. So a 100ah lead acid is for most purposes really a 50ah battery. You generally gets twice as much runtime from a battery, meaning the battery can be half the ah rating.
b) half the size, and a lot less weight! I'm set up with boxes to house the battery and fencer, bringing the batteries back to home base to charge. A LiON battery might be 5 lbs instead of a 60lb+ lead acid, so I can carry it instead of bringing wheels with me
c) doesn't get damaged in freezing temperatures
d) has a much longer life (once upon a time they were worried about electric car batteries only being good for 5 years and about 80k miles... expectations are now that the batteries are TOO good and will last for 500k-1000k miles, outlasting the car itself)
e) no fussing with water and specific gravity and such.
The analyses I've seen suggest that for regular charge-discharge cycles, a LiOn battery is break even vs lead acid. But that's something like a ten year horizon and its hard to think of our electric fencing equipment as a capital expenditure instead of an expense.
So I've got an assortment of 6v and 13v deep cycle batteries. A pair of 6v batteries (golf cart ones) can run the fencer from something like 2 months - which has proven to be too long because I forget about it. : )
Aim High. Fail Small.
Repeat.