This caught my eye... Anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm looking to upgrade from my wet cells. :) I wonder how much these puppies cost!
I bought 6 of these a couple of years ago for house batteries. Genesis XE 70, a 68ah battery. These have optional metal case. Check specs at: http://www.enersysreservepower.com/documents/AS-XE-RS-003_0806.pdf (http://www.enersysreservepower.com/documents/AS-XE-RS-003_0806.pdf) Can be installed any position except inverted. Advertised 10 yr lifespan. So far, so good. Bought from bankrupt solar company for $35/each. Dealer has them here in the valley for $350/each but have seen from other bankrupt solar companies around the US (craigslist). I sold several to a neighbor. They have been on his garage shelf for over a year without charging and still indicate 12.4-12.5 Volts.
Pierce:
The "Lithium Ion" is what caught my eye. I knew that's what Tesla is using in their roadster but didn't know the technology had jumped to motorhomes. Guess it shouldn't be that big of a surprise...
You got a great deal. I think I hate you now... ;) I'll have to start checking craigslist more often.
See ya
ken
Did a quick search for 12V lithiums from Mastervolt - 320 AH are $8360
apiece on one marine supplier's site. Would need a compatible inverter/charger as well.
-M
Ken,
Stopped behind a Tesla at a stop light a couple of months ago. Impressive watching it take off from the light. Have to say I was a little disappointed in the exhaust note. :-) Noticed MBZ sold most of their aerospace investments but bought a chunk of Tesla. They have powered some of their "A" class cars with the LI battery.
Hey, join my wife. She has been giving our dog subliminal messages to turn him against me.
I did notice on the Genesis battery web site that while they are good for 300 discharges, one day of incorrect charging can ruin the battery. Also, have to turn the battery conditioning cycle off on controllers that have that option. That will also fry them.
For potential buyers; they have a date of manufacture on a sticker on the top right corner. Don't think I would buy one without the sticker.
I'm a semiconductor sales engineer for a manufacturers rep so we traditionally sell various semiconductor chips to companies like Dell, Cisco, Oracle, etc, but we recently started representing a couple battery houses out of Asia. I recently presented a LiFePO4 solution to the engineering manager at Foretravel. Pending his feedback, I should have a quote for him in the next week or so. I'll let everyone know what configuration and how much we quote him. They're not cheap but we quote approximately 1K - 2K cycles depending on the particulars.
If enough folks were interested, I could probably support a group buy on some GEL 4D or 8D batteries (HiRate Energy - Products - Gel-Tech Battery / Advantages (http://www.hirate-energy.com/en/products/Gel-Tech-Battery.html)), but would need to check on how many it would take before shipping made sense. Since these things are so heavy, shipping can offset much of the cost savings we see out of Asia.
In case anyone's curious, we're quoting approximately $1/watt-hour so a VERY rough budgetary estimate for a 12V200Ah LiFePO4 battery pack is about $2500. That's not shipped.