Monday, Feb 15, 2021 at 09:55
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.
FollowupID:
912549