Lithium Features & Benefits

Randy Anderson, National Technical Sales & Training Manager

Our topic today is lithium batteries, specifically lithium battery packs, 30 to 40-amp hour and up.

What are the advantages and disadvantages or lithium battery technology? First, a disadvantage would be cost. Typically, a lithium product will cost three to four times that of a good quality AGM traction or deep cycle battery. An advantage would be higher energy density where you'd get more power out of the same physical size, box or cell than we would out of a lead-acid or NiCad, nickel metal hydride which means more run time, less weight.

So, less weight is also a big advantage in mobile applications, robots, floor scrubbers or RVs where, you know a lot of the power consumed is in moving that device so less weight would be certainly an advantage for mobile applications.

More cycles, is a big advantage. Out of a lithium product, you'd get thousands of cycles versus hundreds of cycles out of a good quality lead-acid product. So big difference on the cycling ability of a lithium over, specifically, lead-acid.

And the final thing would be charge and discharge rate. We're able to discharge a lithium product much quicker than we would out of a lead-acid and get the same capacity. So we would get the same capacity at a C1 rate, at a C3, C5, C20 or even a 120-amp hour rate or 120-hour rate. The capacity doesn't change versus a lead-acid where we know it drops of considerably the faster we discharge it.

And re-charge time is considerably quicker on a lithium product as well. Especially if we have a charger that's large enough to put the capacity back in. We can charge a lithium product at as little as a C1 rate.

If you have further questions or comments on the lithium battery products, feel free to contact us!

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