I'm afraid I posted in haste yesterday and did not calculate the theoretical energy storage in the packs correctly. I should have multiplied the figures by the number of cells so that the capacities become: Lipo 185 WHr and A123 121.6 WHr.

The premise that it isn't good to completely discharge the Lipos still holds and 20% reserve capacity for decent life seems to be the figure (have you been leaving this in Magne?) so the useable difference between Lipos and A123 is 185 x 0.8 = 148 WHr and 121.6 WHr which is less than 20% difference.

I still think this might be an option for the shorter schedules, I hope somebody tries it.

Malcolm