An update on the lithium iron battery Saga

The weather in Denver took a turn for the worse and the last few days have been cloudy, rainy and in the mid-50s for a high.  all of that put the kibosh on most of my outdoor activities so I haven't been accomplishing much of anything other than setting new personal records for laziness.

I had thought I was going to get my new lithium iron batteries hooked up by now but I found yet another new thing I had to order. Deciding to use the larger 3/0 welding cable to replace the 1/0 cables that I had used before to wire the batteries had more ramifications than I had anticipated.

The latest problem is the new cable won't fit into one of the old fuse holders that I had bought for the 1/0 cable, so I've had to order a larger fuse holder which should be here Wednesday. Looking back on it I think that 2/0 cable would have been sufficient to run to the new battery location and I think I could've saved myself some expense and hassle if I had used smaller cable but when it comes to wires I always feel like bigger is better.

A while back I was talking about the meaning of the term "cycle" when it comes to lithium iron batteries. So recently I talked to the folks at Battle Born batteries about it, and here is the condensed version of what they said.

A cycle is every time the battery discharges and charges. And the depth of the discharge is one of the determining factors in how many cycles you will get from the battery. If you discharge 20 percent of the amps and charge it back up the battery will live a longer life  than if you discharge 80 percent of the amps and charge back up. Which is why some manufacturers give a range of cycles for their batteries such as Battle Born's range of 3000 to 5000 cycles.

Since that range of cycles gives a fulltimer like myself between eight and 13 years of use [ I hope ], I'm perfectly fine with that especially if I can come in at the upper end of those numbers. And if I understand them correctly the battery is not totally dead and ready to be thrown away at the end of those cycles it has simply lost some percentage of its original power but can still be used.

   Theboondork