Real world experience with cheaper lithium batteries?

[Chris at Tech]

Does anyone have any real world experience using the cheaper lithium batteries to run 24 or 36v trolling motors?  
 

The bigger names - Dakota, Ionic, Battleborn, etc - seem to come with the bigger prices.  Amazon has a bunch of cheaper options with high ratings, so wondering if anyone has successfully gone that route.

[Tennessee Boy]

I don’t have any experience with the cheaper models.  I did a lot of research before going with Battle Born.    Most of the low cost batteries use 4 prismatic cells and if one goes bad the battery is done.   A lot of higher priced models use the same cells.  Battle Borns use a large number of small cylindrical cells.  If one of them dies you just lose some capacity.  You can watch videos on YouTube where they test the batteries and open them up to check the build quality.  The Battle Born are clearly built with higher quality components.  Still I was tempted to try one of the lower priced ones on Amazon that get good reviews.  I think there’s a good chance that you could get your money’s worth out of it.  If it only last 10 years but you can buy a replacement then for much less then it might be the best option.

[Woody B]

My Ionic has been great.  I've only had it 5 months so it's several years early to tell if it was "really" worth it.   I'll always wonder if a cheaper 1 would have been just as good.  One of the reasons I went with an "expensive" one is the bluetooth.  I rarely even look at it anymore though.   Both batteries, trolling motor and cranking that came in my boat were undersized.  My 88 amp hour trolling motor battery was done after 6 hours or so.  I would occasionally run my cranking battery down too.  I combined them into one big cranking battery and went with a 125 amp hour lithium for my trolling motor.   I've never run it under 60%.    

 

 

Let us know what you decide to get.  I'm please with my ionic, but will always wonder if I could have spent less.   

[webertime]

My buddy has some from Amazon that we're like 400 each.  Been bomber for over a year.  Find a battery and youtube the heck out of it.

[padlin]

Might not help but I bought an $348 Enjoybot 100Ah 12v in March so I do not have much time with it. I only use it for a trolling motor and have only used up 10% on any of my outings. With a good charger and adding a battery monitor and breaker I've had no issues. I added the monitor as a lithium maintains full power up till it drops off to pretty much nothing, so you get no warning it's dropping till it's gone, at least that's what I read.

[casts_by_fly]

The challenge in what you’re looking for is that most lithiums have only been out for 1-3 years so there is no track record, especially for the cheaper ones. If you decide to go cheaper, check the tear down videos.  There are some that are obviously cheaper and why. 

[GaryH]

Sorry no help with the cheaper ones but my Ionics have been great since day one. Piece of mind would stop me from buying the cheaper ones. If you go that route good luck and keeps us posted.

 

[Bankc]

I have a Weize 50ah for my kayak.  It's been nothing but a joy to use!  

 

Check out Will Prowse Solar's YouTube channel.  He buys lots of these lithium batteries and tears them down, so you can see what you're getting before you get it.  

 

https://www.youtube.com/c/WillProwse/videos