You ever accidentally leave the charger on 6 cells and put a < 6 cell pack on it? I've left it on 4 and put in a 3 cell... walked away, flew another round, went "OH !@#$%" as the battery errupted into a flaming ball of aluminum foil and white smoke (which, incidentally, filled my vehicle with opaque caustic smoke.. I was charging it in the back of my cherokee with the hatch open.)
I rather unceremoniously put my plane down and ran over to grab the entire burning wreck of battery+charger (grabbed by the charger, mind you) and threw it out of the vehicle. Thank God for modern materials as the carpet in the had only melted, it hadn't caught on fire yet. But I was --><-- close to burning my jeep to the ground.
LiFePO4 does not suffer from thermal runaway, even in a dead short or a pierced battery pack. (Sure, your wire insulation will catch on fire from the kilo-amps of current, but that's why you protect wire with properly sized fuses or circuit breakers.) Point is, Over charge or over discharge a LiFePO4 and you wont burn your boat (and neighbors boats) to the waterline like what will happen with the various higher density lithium ion chemistries. LiFePO4 fails safe - it will vent, it will die as a battery -- but it wont catch on fire. Add the cherries on top of >2000 cycles to 80% depth of discharge and it still has like a 98.5% charge acceptance, compared to pb's ~66% in the top 20% of capacity (Where you need to be operating to prolong your pb's battery life, your solar panels are least effective and wasting the most of their preciously limited power..)
I rather unceremoniously put my plane down and ran over to grab the entire burning wreck of battery+charger (grabbed by the charger, mind you) and threw it out of the vehicle. Thank God for modern materials as the carpet in the had only melted, it hadn't caught on fire yet. But I was --><-- close to burning my jeep to the ground.
LiFePO4 does not suffer from thermal runaway, even in a dead short or a pierced battery pack. (Sure, your wire insulation will catch on fire from the kilo-amps of current, but that's why you protect wire with properly sized fuses or circuit breakers.) Point is, Over charge or over discharge a LiFePO4 and you wont burn your boat (and neighbors boats) to the waterline like what will happen with the various higher density lithium ion chemistries. LiFePO4 fails safe - it will vent, it will die as a battery -- but it wont catch on fire. Add the cherries on top of >2000 cycles to 80% depth of discharge and it still has like a 98.5% charge acceptance, compared to pb's ~66% in the top 20% of capacity (Where you need to be operating to prolong your pb's battery life, your solar panels are least effective and wasting the most of their preciously limited power..)
