I'm thinking of replacing my old 'n pooched telecom AGM's with some lead /carbon AGM's. My buddy Nic just bought 2 and is impressed. I have a 150 Lithium iron phosphate battery and am not that impressed with it, especially given the extremely hot summers & really cold winters we've been having. just wondering how others are liking the lead/carbon batts long term. ..Willy
Has anyone tried using lead/carbon batteries?
- Thread starter Willy
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frater secessus
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There are some long-term use threads over on the sailing/cruising forums.
The highest-visibility lead carbon batt (Firefly) is no longer made AFAIK. The original mfg went bankrupt, the IP was bought and production moved to India (?) and shut down again. Some established companies like Trojan are using less exotic carbon doping (rather than carbon foam matrices, like the FF) to make the batteries more resistant to PSoC and to increase acceptance. When I ran the numbers the increase in documented cycle life was outstripped by the increased cost over plain T-105.
Lead-carbon batts were never widely adopted, partially because of $/Ah but also because of unfortunate timing. Reasonably-priced LiFePO4 arrived at just the right/wrong time. I'm not a lithium fanboy but with it on the market IMO lead-carbon is a niche solution. Yours might be the right niche, though.
I will mention that lead batts calendar degrades in heat like Lithium does, and lithium can be warmed easily. Since you already own it I'd consider addressing the features of your existing LFP bank that don't impress you. If you mention them here perhaps lithium-savvy folks can chime in and save you some money/work. Of course, if you want to replace the Li with Pb-C then I encourage you to do so and report back how you find them.
The highest-visibility lead carbon batt (Firefly) is no longer made AFAIK. The original mfg went bankrupt, the IP was bought and production moved to India (?) and shut down again. Some established companies like Trojan are using less exotic carbon doping (rather than carbon foam matrices, like the FF) to make the batteries more resistant to PSoC and to increase acceptance. When I ran the numbers the increase in documented cycle life was outstripped by the increased cost over plain T-105.
Lead-carbon batts were never widely adopted, partially because of $/Ah but also because of unfortunate timing. Reasonably-priced LiFePO4 arrived at just the right/wrong time. I'm not a lithium fanboy but with it on the market IMO lead-carbon is a niche solution. Yours might be the right niche, though.
I will mention that lead batts calendar degrades in heat like Lithium does, and lithium can be warmed easily. Since you already own it I'd consider addressing the features of your existing LFP bank that don't impress you. If you mention them here perhaps lithium-savvy folks can chime in and save you some money/work. Of course, if you want to replace the Li with Pb-C then I encourage you to do so and report back how you find them.
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