As many will know I have been stubbornly sticking to lead acid/carbon batteries when all around me LiFe has been getting cheaper.

It came to pass that my batteries developed a fault which, in itself, was not a great catastrophe but bad enough to prod me into action.

One battery was hot and not charging as it should. A call to the supplier in China for a replacement yielded a positive

"yes we can supply 12 new batteries or you can have one if our merchant in Thailand places it on his next order."

So that was the end of my 16+ years of confidence in lead acid chemistry.

I now have a battery of 32 LiFePO4s plus a couple of JK BMS's.

The difference is absolutely eyebrow raisingly fan-bloody-tastic.

The charge current from solar went up to 100 Amps which zipped into the batteries and made my highly watchable JK display quite immersive viewing.

Discharging at night was noticeably different. my dearly beloved thought the house lights were brighter but mainly there was no noticeable sag in the supply when a bigger load was switched on.

The reason for this is the lower apparent internal resistance of the LiFePO4's.

There is a down side.....as always.....complexity and possible component failure is higher.

But there is also an up side. I got 14k baht for the old batterie down the local scrap yard.

I like that LiFePO4 batteries last longer with a useful charge compared to lead acid batteries.

1 hour ago, temuFarang said:

I like that LiFePO4 batteries last longer with a useful charge compared to lead acid batteries.

Yes that is very true of lead acid chemistries (gel,flooded and others) which will generally last 3 to 5 years. Mine were lead carbons which have a similar life span and discharge characteristics to LFP cells but mine crashed out after just over 4 years.

A definite advantage of LFP cells is the ability to discharge down to 20% and come back unaffected.

I remember when you were proposing their benefits.

I congratulate you on your integrity in admitting you may have made a mistake.