Voltax Lithium batteries?

They have an inbuilt BMS; SOC would be by external monitor,E>G> Victron or Enerdrive.

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I find it surprising that anyone would consider investing hundreds of dollars in a product appearing out of nowhere when it is discounted way below the price of reputable established products. It is gambling of the highest order.

Even if someone pops up and says "I bought one and it works fine" is no guarantee that it will not blow up within a short time. So Siringo, why not purchase one then tell us in 18 months how it's going and if it performs to its published specifications?

There's more than one way to look at this.

If you spend $800 on a reputable battery and it lasts 6 years and spend $400 on a cheapie and it lasts 3, so I buy two of them over 6 years, what's the difference?

In fact another way of looking at it could be, you spend $1000 on a reputable battery thinking you'll get 10 years out of it. Will you still be wanting/needing it in 10 years? If not you've wasted your money.

I think paying around $100 per year of use for a lithium at the moment isn't too far off being a realistic price - at the moment. So $1000 over 10 years = $100/year. $400 over 4years = $100/year.

Also there's the amount of use you're going to get from it. I could spend $1000 on a reputable battery and still only use it as much as a $400 battery. I'm still tied to employment, so I could buy a $400 battery, use it maybe twice a year and get 5 years use out of it.

The most important thing is, will the battery satisfy my requirements. If I require 100AH and the battery only delivers 60AH then that is useless to me.

I purchased a reputable battery before my last trip, two of them actually same brand, same model. 1 died just after the trip, the other is OK. So as we all know, reputable things do fail prematurely.

We all know that is possible to stumble across cheap junk that actually works and lasts, lithium batteries I'm sure are no different.

Plus there's the warranty. I was looking at a reputable brand lithium battery 18-24 months ago. It had a 12 month warranty and cost over $1000. In my opinion, that's not good enough, that actually says to me that they don't expect the battery to last much longer than 12 months.

As with everything, there're so many variables with what and why people purchase what they do.

I'm looking at everything, Solar King & Renogy are up the top of the list ATM.

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Your'e right Siringo, there are "more ways to look at this".

The Voltax 100Ah is advertised as "Original price of $1299 but now only $469". That really speaks to me!
The advertised weight is "9.5 Kg". Typical weight of same spec batteries is 12Kg. That says more to me!
If it "looks too good to be true" then maybe..........??

But maybe it is a good deal..... who knows. Like I said... it is a gamble, isn't everything?
The forum reports are variable.
If you go for one, I hope you let us know how it performed.

I bought a Fullriver 105AH AGM in late '09. Bugger, just recently I tested it's output and it only held around 50% charge capacity then slowly died out over a couple of months. Now early 2021 I need a new battery, Siringo, do you recommend a VoltaX as a replacement? There are many ways to look at things.

I bought a Fullriver at about that time as well, same battery I bet. I threw mine out about a month ago, it just died. Damn good battery.

No I don't recommend ATM.

I just had an expensive Supercharge fail me after 4 months, and they would not honour the warranty.

Gave a song and dance to RTM (where I bought it) that it was overused and had ran hot and caused internal swelling.

It was actually used ONCE (it was in an open boat), had sat isolated and top up charged reasonably regularly and was under cover.

So brand does not always mean you are getting a good thing.

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Was it actually swollen?

I didn't notice whether it was or not.

Maintenance free, dual purpose (start and deep cycle) battery, indicator was healthy green.

But 10.6 volts was all it would charge to using a 7 stage Projecta charger.

So as far as I am concerned, Supercharge will never see another $ of mine and I will tell everyone that until I die.

Fair enough. Plenty of good batteries out there.

Cheers
Jim

There are always good and bad experiences - I have had a Supercharge Maintenance free, dual purpose (start and deep cycle) battery bought new in 2009 - still running Ok.

The great battery debate will go on for ever but one thing is a given, Outbax have been proven to lie about the capacity of the products they sell time after time. Not long ago Kings were fined because they never sold products for the price they said they had been reduced from. Ask outbax for examples of the same battery being advertised for the full price mentioned.

Re the Supercharge battery, that is precisely what mine did, it dropped a cell, must have been a bad batch??? I've read this same thing in other posts on other forums about that brand. However my second Supercharge is still going fine.

It's classic marketing. Advertise something over priced & you'll get folks thinking it's a good thing because it costs so much. Then after a while, lower the price so people think they're getting a steal. Add a professional looking web site, logo and name & it all builds a representation of a legit, honest company with quality products.

Solar King seem to have a good name around the Internet and they answered my warranty query email within a few hours.

When I was retailing, that was supercharges favourite, if it was “bulged “ you had abused it. No real explanation!!

@OzzieCruiseryou have a 12 year old battery still going strong?

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OzzieCruiser, can you please define your term "OK" quantitatively?

Yes and it charges up to 12.9v on a smart charger - when parked up in the camper only needs charging once per month (when the battery box light changes from green to yellow) and when out and about will run the fridge etc for at least 24 hours. Agree might not be as spritely as it was but is still holding out.

I also have Supercharge in my power hungry 4wd as the starter and works fine there as well.

They clearly made them better a decade ago. I got 4 months and approximately 6 starts out of mine.

As I said earlier, I used to be a retailer.
The supercharge brand didn’t really have a huge amount of failures in warranty period , or after for that matter. I wasn’t and still aren’t a fan of supercharge. But they weren’t that bad .
if it was “swollen “ that was it for them. That probably put me off. when you’ve got reasonable knowledge of things like tyres and batteries, how they’re manufactured , and their design . you have a good idea why they fail. Sometimes I had Tyre warranty refused when I considered it a definite, usually by the smaller cheap brands. Not so much the big brands .

PS.Most batteries last a long time if they are looked after properly

Allan B this is for you as you have been on this site many years talking 12v.
I've heard that having the same type of batteries in your vehicle will assist the alternator charge them better and increase their life.
jeff

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Hi Jeff,

The alternator can have no idea of the "type" of battery it is connected to and charging. so it just bangs out the voltage that it was programmed to do and the connected battery (or batteries) have to accept that.
Now different battery types (e.g. flooded, AGM, lithium etc.) have differing needs but each will get the same treatment from the alternator. However, the needs of some such as flooded and AGM are close enough to not matter much but lithium requirements differ enough to require their own charging algorithm.

Now, the charging current (Amps) that each connected battery will draw from the alternator depends in part on each battery's characteristics. That is, its manufactured characteristics and its state of charge. These will determine the inner resistance of the battery and therefore the current it will draw while charging from the alternator.

In general, the car manufacturer will fit an alternator which suits a cranking (flooded) battery. If you then connect another flooded battery in parallel then all should be OK. If though, you connect say an AGM battery in parallel it is being charged to a slightly different algorithm than what it needs. To charge it as the manufacturer recommends would require a dc-dc charger between the alternator and the AGM battery.

So in summary, it is better if paralleled batteries are of the same class and similar in size and condition (age). However, even if identical type and one is in duty as the cranking battery and the other is an auxiliary battery connected via an isolator solenoid, then when a charge cycle commences the two batteries are likely to be in different states of charge but the alternator cannot detect this and treats them to the same charge voltage which is not ideal. This is a good reason to employ a dc-dc charger to supply the auxiliary battery regardless of what type it is.

Hope this answers your question, but if not I'm happy to clarify any points.

Allan B thanks mate I guess I used the wrong terminology when I said 'type' I should have used 'characteristics'
Appreciate you reply
Jeff

I have a Hard Korr solar blanket and it seems to work pretty well.

Experience in dealing with a company is as useful as knowing how good their products are, I'm not going that route, I'll be going with Renogy or Solar King, probably Solar King.