THE ONLY WAY TO GO
Two years ago when I started building the homestead one of my first purchases was the items needed to assemble a solar power array.
At that time lead acid batteries were significantly cheaper than any type of lithium ion battery. So I opted for the huge, heavy, inefficient lead acids. I always had the full intents of changing them out and with the technology where it is and the prices dropping, now was the time!!
*Two 40 amp hour 12 volt Valence(Uu-charge) LIFEPO4 batteries! They are the latest and greatest in battery technology!
This style of lithium ion battery is designed so that it cannot burn/explode like the older generation of Lithium ion batteries. This is an amazing thing for us and will help me sleep easy at night.
They also will last 20-50 times as long as a standard lead acid battery and handle heavy loads for long durations without a problem. Using the hot water heater is not even a challenge anymore.😁
BATTERIES WITH ONBOARD COMPUTERS?!?!
YES!!! Each battery has a built in control module that eliminates the battery being overcharged, charged while cold, being hooked up backwards, and has an extra data cable that comes out of it that connects to the other batteries so that they can balance one another during charge and discharge. This is awesome because it ensures that the batteries are always working at the same level and with the same effort and efficiency! It also makes them pretty foolproof during the installation!
SIZING THINGS UP...
To compare things, we previously had three huge lead acid tractor batteries. They each weighed 98 pounds(44.4 kilos). They were about the size of two normal car batteries each. The replacement batteries which are almost equal in capacitance to the old batteries, are only about half of the size of one of the batteries and weigh 40 lb (20 kilos) total.
*Old black batteries, new green ones!😁