What battery material enclosure is recommended? Steel or plastic?

I have a custom made stainless steel enclosure (like a deep tray with a topper).

But I was wondering whether the enclosure material is important. Westmarine sells the cheap plastic ones. There are also the ones in your website that are powder coated steel but they are expensive for a small cabin application.

Could you share some insight?

Comments

Chris,

The battery enclosure is pretty much determined by site and budget. You have about four choices:

Plastic - Pros: Cheap, light, corrosion resistant, dielectric. Cons: Breaks down in sunlight, generally not very strong of if it is strong at first, can fail suddenly once it's brittle.
Metal - Steel, aluminum , stainless. Pros: Strong, secure, long lasting. Cons: Expensive, all will corrode with battery gas / acid, may need to be insulated in cold environments, can become energized.
Plywood - Pros: relatively light, strong if built correctly, exact custom fit, dielectric if dry. Cons: will rot if not protected.
Concrete: Pros: Very strong, custom size, can be built underground to maintain steady temperatures. Cons: Heavy, needs to be well-planned to stay dry.

If you are just ordering from a supplier, that effectively limits you to metal or plastic. If building from scratch for a cabin, then concrete might be a good, cheap, long term solution.

Weird that you don't mention aluminum, at all. Aluminum is the most common material used. Aluminum is more corrosion-resistant, has superior thermal conductivity, but most off all it is chosen because it provides reasonable durability at a light weight.

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