Getting The Most Out Of Your Lithium Or Agm Batteries

By Author: Edmund Brunetti
Total Articles: 733
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Lithium batteries and AGM batteries don’t sound like something you would put together, but they very often can form a part of a viable complementary power system. The trick is to know how to maximize the storage capacity of the battery, circumvent the memory of the lithium batteries, and get on the right cycle pattern with the AGMs. That may sound like a lot to do for just a battery, but if you use them for devices, appliances or vehicles – you know how much you rely on them.

Maximizing Lithium Batteries

Lithium ion batteries are used to power everything from laptops to cellphones and cameras. Anytime you have a high drain device that needs a long lasting battery, it will use lithium batteries. The trick to making lithium batteries last as long as they can – and to hold a charge well, is to train the batteries memory. Lithium ion batteries can power devices for hours because they can handle varying rates of discharge. What the battery has is a kind of built in memory for power that allows it to regulate itself. If you make sure that you fully charge, and fully drain your lithium ion batteries at least 4 times ...
... initially – then the battery will learn the memory of what that full charge is like. If you don’t do that, it will teach itself that a ½ discharged battery that is then topped off is a real full charge – it will then only accept half charges but return the single it is full after that.

Deep cycle batteries

Boats and RVs live and die by the marine deep cycle AGM batteries that they use. These are also the batteries that are combined with solar power systems. They provide a way to store energy, discharge it, and then store it again. Regular AGM batteries have more in common with a typical car battery. It can recharge itself, but it doesn’t wait until it is discharged completely to do so. AGM batteries work on a top-off cycle. Marine deep cycle AGM batteries are designed to support complete discharges and allow for full recharges on power systems without a loss of power or of holding power.

Putting the two together

So how could these two very different types of batteries come together? It’s simple. You will find that most stored power systems in vehicles, boats, homes and businesses function off AGM batteries and marine deep cycle AGM batteries. The lithium batteries are also used in these applications, but they are frequently recharged off the AGM stores. Putting the two together is best done with the addition of converters to the line to adjust the voltage down for the charging use. This is going to save the power that you have stored in your AGM while releasing just enough to charge up your lithium ion batteries. This is the kind of planned battery maintenance that you need to do to maximize the effectiveness of a stored power environment.

If you are interested into finding the best lithium ion batteries and also about some specific Marine deep cycle AGM batteries, please check out these links.