Can capacity in Amp hours be compared across battery types?
Back to top of FAQ Unfortunately, not really. The problem with a “10AH” sealed lead acid battery is that the voltage drops steeply once you get to 6-7 AH. With many electric vehicle controllers, this means you won’t have enough juice to actually operate the vehicle, even though the battery has some capacity left after this point. It is sort of like having a gas tank that holds 10 gallons, but having the fuel line leave the tank somewhere not at the bottom, so that even though the tank may have 2 gallons left, you can’t use them. With lithium chemistries (and NiMH also) the discharge curves allow you to get much closer to the true capacity before the voltage drops. For a look at the voltage discharge curves for some of the LiFePO4 packs, see http://www.zeva.com.au/tech/LiFePO4.php (the ones we are using are based on the PHET cells).
