While I can't speak from any knowledge of the Rhino brand, considering
its low price, there's a very good chance it's from China. The price v.
performance question on batteries has been bugging me at work lately.
We use 104 AH Concorde AGM batteries, which have risen in the last few
years from around $165 to $240 each. Chinese versions currently run
around $130. While short-term testing may indicate that the Chinese
versions match (or possibly exceed) capacity specs of the American-made
Concordes, the bigger question is how reliable and stable they are down
the road.
As with many products today, I think part of the battery price
difference (assuming the Chinese-made products are of the same quality
as American-made) is labor, a big part is also the regulatory burden.
While many will argue that American environmental regulations are
excessive, expensive and make it harder to compete globally, I've read
some stories of extreme pollution, poor hazardous waste disposal and
wretched working conditions in China - but it keeps their prices down.
Whether any of these issues apply to the Rhino batteries, I can't say,
but there's always that suspicion.
As was mentioned here last week, there's also the question of ultimately
who's getting a paycheck for dinner tonight. I work as a contractor
for the federal government, and to be honest, I'm quite leery of
spending tax payer's money on foreign-made goods when I can get that
item from an American source.
And so while I've strayed away from Elecraft topics (though not
entirely), you're right to pause and question what may be false economy.
And now back to our regularly scheduled waiting for the K3 to arrive...
73,
Mike KW1ND
Scott Richardson wrote:
> I used a 5Ah Powersonic PS-1250 gel cell to power my K1 for a few years
> before it faded. In shopping for a replacement, I find they're about
> $25, while another battery with the same dimensions and capacity made by
> Rhino sells for $8.
>
> I'm assuming the Powersonic is a better battery, but I don't mind a
> small reduction in performance if I can get 3 batteries for the price of
> 1. Is this a "smart" savings?
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