The Truth About Lithium Batteries for your Boat - Myths vs Facts!

hey what's up everybody welcome to a brand new episode of dan richard fishing and today we're going to be talking about something that is pretty big in the world of fishing and that is lithium batteries you know there's kind of two technologies that are kind of taking over the fishing world right now one is you know active sonar like panoptix and stuff like that and the other one is the switch to lithium batteries so before we get into it guys i want to thank dean and his team over at miller tech lithium batteries thank you so much to these guys they patiently answered all of my questions while i was researching this video and really really helped me figure out what i wanted to talk about and again what's true and what's not what are the myths in the world of lithium batteries now miller tech batteries guys in case you don't know they are one of the top brands being used by professionals these days you've got guys like david dudley jacob wheeler brian latimer brian thrift john voyles you got fred rumbanus adrian avena mark daniels jr dustin connell james worldwide watson cody meyer and a whole bunch of other guys there's like tons of pros that have switched to miller tech lithium batteries and then there's a bunch of other pros that have just switched to lithium in general i'll put a link in the description below guys so you can go and check out miller tech batteries alright you can go see what they offer and of course guys don't forget all i ask for in return as a thank you for putting these videos together doing all this research is please just hit the like button helps the channel grow and don't forget to subscribe hit the bell notifications blah blah blah all the youtube stuff and and don't forget i do like to blah blah blah blah blah blah a lot so if you want to skip to parts of the video that you want to pay attention to you can go on the timeline of the video below and just click on the different chapters okay now let's talk about lithium okay so first off what is lithium lithium batteries is this the same thing as lithium ion batteries that are in your phone or like in your power tools the answer is most definitely a no these are lithium iron phosphate batteries okay they are not lithium ion batteries and they're also known as life po4 batteries big huge difference okay one of the main differences is safety so i'm sure you guys have probably seen on youtube over you've heard of this happening before where lithium-ion batteries just like spontaneously caught fire okay and this is because as soon as lithium-ion hits the moisture in the air when it's exposed if you cut the battery it can explode or instantly catch on fire so lithium iron phosphate does not do that it will not catch on fire if it cracks it opens it leaks so you know if the battery drops or if you're in an accident god forbid um you don't have to worry about the battery catching on fire so definitely not the same thing okay next up we're going to talk about why lithium is better than lead acid-based batteries so this includes like agm and gel batteries and regular flood filled first you can completely discharge a lithium battery all right so a lithium-ion phosphate battery you can basically discharge this thing down to two percent without damaging the battery and then recharge it fully whereas a lead acid battery you can only discharge them to about 30 40 i usually say like 30 35 before you actually risk damaging the battery and what happens is as you get uh because of the sulfite process the sulfating it creates creates crystallization on your plates and anyway that's what what shortens the lifespan of these batteries so you cannot drain these regular batteries whereas lithium ion you get the full charge so when you think of amp hours you can actually only use 60 to 70 of the rated amp hours that are on a lead acid battery without damaging it whereas with a lithium battery if it says 100 amp hours you can get those full 100 amp hours and you don't have to worry about damaging the battery okay second lithium batteries provide the full 13.4 to 12.8 volts throughout the entire bandwidth of the battery so whether the battery is at 100 capacity or zero well so it's a two percent capacity you'll still get your full voltage between 13.4 and 12.8 which lead acid batteries do not do the more you drain the battery the more the voltage drops off so if you've really drained your battery uh let's say you're hitting 40 35 you'll notice you're only pulling like 11 volts and when you go and crank your battery and you've got it on a multimeter you'll see it drop to like four and sometimes your motor won't even start okay so that is eliminated with lithium batteries number three so number three is the fact that you have so much more life on a lithium battery okay so lead acid batteries are good for about 200 charging cycles and that'll give you around four to five years then after that you need to change them some people go through them once a year lithium batteries are good for a full charge 2 000 times and of course you never actually fully drain your lithium battery it's just unless you go and use it three days in a row without charging it you'll never fully drain it so if you actually charge it when it's you know let's say 50 capacity at the end of each day you'll get like 5 000 charge cycles out of it and that's good for about 15 years of life okay so just imagine you have the same battery it doesn't suffer any kind of you know lifetime drainage or any lack of performance it stays consistent for 15 years that is insane number four number four is actually one of the biggest reasons why people change let's let's put aside the whole you know power consumption on that aside it's weight so a average group 31 lead acid battery weighs about 60 pounds anywhere between 55 and 60 pounds i mean they weigh a ton a similar size battery with the same amp hours in lithium actually weighs around 20 to 25 pounds that is an incredible weight savings so a lot of bass boats have four batteries on board you've got uh three for your 36 volt trolling motor and you've got your main starting battery it's four bat you'll save 160 pounds of weight that's like a whole person sitting in your boat that you've just removed so you'll obviously get better fuel consumption better speed all that good stuff so weight savings is a gigantic factor another advantage is the drain speed when your battery's idle so when your batteries charge and you just let it sit there on the ground or sit in your boat and it's not doing anything it's not connected to anything a lead acid battery will actually drain slowly but surely over time everywhere anywhere between four and five percent lithium batteries drain at a maximum rate of three percent so even just letting the battery sit there uh it loses power about half half the speed that lead acid base batteries do okay here's another big myth a lot of people that have said is they say i've heard that lithium batteries have way too much voltage and they overheat very easily so there's a reason why this actually kind of exists in people's minds and it's because it actually is or used to be true so full size lithium marine batteries actually output a hundred amps of power okay so these things are very very strong with a very high voltage okay so when they were first being used they did have overheating problems that is true so the very first generations of these lithium batteries had a lot of problems with overheating over charging under charging could even potentially damage the electrical system of your motor the charging system that your motor produces could even damage that so that's why a lot of people got a little scared of lithium but there's been great advancements in what's called the bms okay this is the battery management system so the bms is the brain of the battery okay it's think of it as like a computer for the battery so this is what controls the output of the battery in terms of voltage in terms of amperage this is what controls the charging speed and discharge rates uh and does the heat monitoring it does the diagnostics for the battery it basically just maintains the battery health and make sure that the battery isn't doing anything crazy so the bms systems have come a long way in just the last couple of years and in fact this is why mtek is one of the best batteries because they have what's considered probably one of the most robust bms units in any available lithium battery at this time so this is why these guys are number one so unlike other lithium battery manufacturers that use 100 amp bms systems for 100 amp batteries mtec actually uses 120 amp bms systems and they're also commercial grade they're pretty much the most robust you can buy and they're actually made by the number one manufacturer of lithium bms systems so that's why again m-tech is considered one of the best now it is important to note that all lithium batteries all lithium batteries are actually made in china okay so right off the bat you know if you're looking for something that's made elsewhere it doesn't really exist they can be designed in the usa but they're actually manufactured all in china i mean that's just the way it is but again there's a huge difference between different manufacturers and the grade of cell so mtec uses grade a cells they over produce they basically have redundancy in all their bms systems and all of the hardware is all over sized extremely robust so again you know this is what makes m tech so popular in the professional angling world and why so many pros use their products so when you're shopping around for lithium batteries always make sure that the bms is rated at least 20 amps higher than what the battery is rated for okay okay guys another big rumor all right this one i've actually seen this is literally being argued right now i've seen anglers talking about this very thing and that's the fact that if something goes wrong with your lithium battery it can damage the electrical system of your motor and the charging system so that means you should not be using lithium batteries as a starting battery okay so this should not be connected to your big engine to start your engine guys seriously it's not true anymore get over it you can use it as a starting battery okay they exist to be fair this actually used to be true so there are still many lithium battery sellers out there manufacturers that don't offer a starting battery okay they're simply not robust enough they're not designed to handle that cranking output that's needed for the motor and the bms system simply just can't handle uh the input from the motor as well as again outputting the amperage that's required for starting but there are some manufacturers that have designed that have put in the r d and have created uh batteries that are specifically made for starting those big motors or on your bass boats okay and m-tec of course is one of them so the perceived danger with these batteries is because of that high amperage high voltage output if the bms fails it'll send that full power draw to your motor and just completely annihilate your system in fact let's pull up on the screen i want to show you a quote this is an actual quote from a phishing forum that i'm on that i just just saw a couple of months ago basically this was a discussion about why you shouldn't use uh lithium batteries or why you should and this guy here went ahead and posted this so if any of the cells have a problem the bms disconnects the load if the bms were to disconnect while the motor is running it will burn up the charging system not likely to damage alternator but high risk of taking out the pcm due to high voltage so in the case of m-tech batteries if the if the bms detects any kind of problem with the battery as mentioned it will completely disconnect the battery from the entire charging system so there's no no issues in terms of sending any kind of high voltage to the charging system any kind of crazy high amperage burning out the system will not happen now in terms of once the battery is disconnected it isn't true that your pcm is at risk from the high voltage from the charging system the charging system will detect that there's a battery disconnect and that power simply just will not go anywhere it will not affect the system or anything i mean that's why these are guys these are being used on yamaha mercs i mean every major outboard these are compatible with and there's a reason why otherwise you'd be hearing about burnt out charging systems and burnt out pcms or affected alternators you know all over the place and it's just not the case another great question that's being asked is do i need a special charger for lithium batteries and it's kind of a yes and a no you don't need a special charger but you do need to make sure that your bank charger or whatever charger you use does work with lithium okay so noco sells uh several models that work great with lithium batteries they auto detect whether it's a lead acid battery you know if it's gel agm or if it's lithium and it'll charge it accordingly but most of these manufacturers most of these big brands also sell a compatible charger so for example for m.tech mtec actually sells a four bank charger that's very reasonably priced that auto detects the battery and it'll charge your lithium batteries okay and yes it's got four banks but i mean you don't have to use all four so if you've got three batteries on your boat you just use three banks two banks you know whatever it is that you need so just make sure that your onboard bank charger is compatible with lithium and you're good to go it doesn't need to be any more you know spectacular than that the other thing you can do is you can simply contact the battery manufacturer and just ask them hey which chargers work with your batteries which ones do you recommend check out the link in the description below i'll put a link to the noko series battery chargers that work with lithium as well as the m-tec one but again you know you guys use whatever you like next you're probably thinking what about the price lithium seems awfully expensive and at around you know a thousand dollars or less they come off as pretty expensive now don't forget just a couple of years ago or even maybe a year ago these things were fifteen hundred eighteen hundred dollars so they've already come down quite a bit in price now do bear in mind that the price only seems expensive up front okay so when you look at the initial price point let's say it's a thousand dollars like that's super expensive but it's actually not that bad so if you think about it the battery is going to last you 15 years in 15 years you'll go through four or five uh regular lead batteries you know at that same timeline so if you think about it in a good agm battery like if you want to buy a high quality agm battery they're about 250 so if you were to buy four of them over the next 15 years it's a thousand dollars okay so it actually works out to about the same thing except you get all those superior benefits that we just discussed earlier so you pay about the same thing over a 15-year span but you get better discharge rates you get better discharge bandwidth you got a battery that you can use the full amp hour rating the full capacity uh it's just it's just a better product overall and in the end you pay about the same currently an mtech 100 amp hour battery is about 825 bucks so compared to 1500 1600 a year ago the prices are really coming down okay next up let's talk about warranties okay so warranties are something you need to pay attention to okay because the warranties are all over the place in the industry now m-tech it is a five-year bumper-to-bumper i sound like a used car salesman uh five year warranty okay so it's complete total warranty five years but there's other guys that claim 10-year warranties but be very careful that these are not partial warranties okay where they are prorated so prorated warranties mean that the older the battery the you only get a percentage so let's say you get full warranty for two years and then in year three you get 90 blah blah blah so these guys that say it's a 10 year warranty for example at the end of the 10 years you might only get like 25 back so read the fine print on the warranties okay and make sure that when they say five year warranty it's five year total replacement warranty okay read the fine print so last but not least should you upgrade should i upgrade uh at this point guys i think the only constraint that you need to evaluate is is the initial cost within your budget if the initial cost is within your budget okay so if you're good with the with that first you know thousand dollars or 850 dollars per battery then i say go for it you get a superior battery you get a much longer life you get better power bandwidth better discharge overall you're just going to have a much better power management better power experience and much more battery life in your boat than you will with any lead acid based technology so really the only reason why you may be hesitant is can you you know can you spend that much money right up front in terms of me personally i think it's time so what's gonna happen for me is as soon as my current trolling motor batteries are due to be replaced maybe in the next couple of years i will likely be switching to full lithium in the boat uh and changing out my charger that i currently have uh because it isn't lithium compatible it's just getting too attractive to to get these batteries and not only that i'm gonna be upgrading electronics on my boat so you know when you're starting to run panoptix in 360 in three graphs and you know you've got your live wells on your aerator and any other accessories that on your boat your radio let's say you know the power consumption is starting to get super high on these boats so we're not going to have much of a choice if we want to be able to stay out there for 10 hours or 12 hours to fish i think moving to lithium is probably going to be a must do very very soon for me so probably going to start and i'm actually hoping to pick up a lithium battery very soon or at least to get one and test it out and see how it does just run it for the entire day and throughout the day we'll check and see what kind of battery life it's got left and do a full review on the channel so that's kind of where that's at so yes i will be upgrading uh very very soon i think in the next year or two and that is it for today guys i hope you found this video super helpful you know i know there's a lot of questions out there about lithium so hopefully this addressed some of the questions and concerns that you guys had but of course as always if you have any questions feedback comments whatever go ahead and send me a comment down below and i'll get back to you as soon as i can and of course i love interacting with you guys as much as possible and don't forget as always guys if you found this video helpful please make sure you hit the like button you know if you learned something you found this beneficial smack the like make sure you're subscribed all that good stuff and and we are so close while i'm recording this video we're like 150 subscribers away from hitting the 5 000 mark so if that means uh in the next coming in the coming days i'm going to be shooting my 30 days of baits video where i am going to go shopping for 30 baits that i love and every day on instagram i'm going to post a little mini clip of all the baits so every day it'll be one bait and at the end of the 30 days i'm giving away the entire lot to somebody to a lucky subscriber uh both on youtube and instagram so that's gonna be coming up very very soon okay so keep an eye out for that video and you might win yourself hundreds of dollars of my favorite baits okay guys so thank you so much i really appreciate all your support all that good stuff we'll see you guys on the next video peace [Music] you

Channel: Dan Richard Fishing

Views: 115,831

Keywords: The Truth About Lithium Batteries for your Boat!, lithium boat batteries, lifepo4 battery, lithium marine battery, lithium marine battery review, mtech lithium battery, millertech lithium battery, lithium battery for your bass boat, upgrade to lithium battery, lithium iron phosphate, lithium vs lead acid battery, lithium vs lead acid trolling motor, lithium vs lead acid marine battery, lithium ion battery, lithium battery manufacturing, dakota lithium, lithium battery review

Id: J6A0QrvGVzA

Length: 18min 38sec (1118 seconds)

Published: Fri May 21 2021