Gums:
If you have a load of vendors, it's the gaps in the specs shared between
them that cause the problems. In one company I worked for many years ago,
the alternatives and feasability studies and initial specs to the client
always specified what was *not* going to be done, as well as what was. It
was quite good at catching stuff the client hadn't considered. Even then,
there's stuff round the edges and misalignment in understanding of the
specs that either no one thought of, or never considered relevant. The more
complex the project, the worse it gets.
I would stick with the li batteries. Why ?, because it's a proven and
reliable technology that's been around for years, despite the occasional
duff batch of laptop batteries, which is really just noise in the terms
of the numbers shipped. In some ways, the consumer electronics use is a
much greater engineering achievement, in that they are built down to a
price, shipped in millions, take hundreds os charge / discharge cycles
and cause very few problems. Aviation, on the other hand, throws
thousands, perhaps millions of $ at the problem and still can't get it
right. Amazing really...
Regards,
Chris