Hola amigo’s! I thought we would quickly check in. We spent just finished spending a little over a week in La Paz which was primarily focused on work. Our batteries were getting tired, so we swapped out our AGM batteries for Lithium Ion Phosphate (LifePo4) batteries on the boat. What a huge difference this makes!!
From my perspective, the primary problem any lead acid battery has for a cruising boat is that they want to be fully charged and the battery charging slows WAY down when they are over 85% full. No problem in a car where you run the alternator for hours. On a boat, where we run things like refrigeration all day and night and sometimes have cloudy days. This means the batteries don’t always get charged which shortens their life. The beauty of lithium batteries is that they don’t care, and as a matter of fact prefer not to be fully charged. This means we can basically live off solar except while on anchor and not have to worry about power. We even have enough to run the watermaker (36 gal/hr) off solar as long as we plan it appropriately. It’s a big difference! If you’re worrying about safety, there are multiple lithium technologies, and LifePo4 is safe. I could actually put a bullet through the pack and it wouldn’t catch fire.
We are currently making our way north. As always, the Sea of Cortez is known for motoring from windy anchorage to windy anchorage…
Always love a lesson on batteries