How to charge lithium iron phosphate batteries?

If you've lately purchased or are looking into lithium iron phosphate batteries (described lithium or LiFePO4), you know they give more cycles, and even circulation of power shipment, and also evaluate less than a similar sealed lead-acid (RUN-DOWN NEIGHBORHOOD) battery. Did you understand they can also bill 4 times faster than SLA? However specifically how do you bill a lithium battery, anyhow?

Lithium battery charging qualities

Voltage as well as present setups during charging

The complete fee voltage of a 12V SLA battery is nominally around 13.1 and the full charge voltage of a 12.8 V lithium battery is around 13.4. A battery will just receive damage if the charging voltage used is substantially higher than the full cost voltage of the battery.

This implies an SLA battery must be maintained listed below 14.7 V for Stage 2 billing and also below 15.2 V for lithium. Float charging is only required for an SLA battery, suggested around 13.8 V. Based upon this, a charge voltage range between 13.8 V well as 14.7 V suffices to charge any battery without triggering damages. When selecting a battery charger for either chemistry, it is very important to select one that will certainly stay in between the limits noted above.

Chargers are selected to match the capability of the battery to be billed, considering that the current made use of during billing is based upon the capacity ranking of the battery. A lithium battery can be billed as fast as 1C, whereas a lead-acid battery should be kept below 0.3 C. This implies a 10AH lithium battery can normally be billed at 10A while a 10AH lead acid battery can be charged at 3A.

The charge cut-off existing is 5% of the capability, so the cutoff for both batteries would certainly be 0.5 A. Normally, the incurable existing setting is figured out by the charger.

Universal battery chargers will normally have a feature to pick the chemistry. This feature picks the optimal voltage charging variety, as well as establishes when the battery is completely charged. If it is billing a lithium battery, the battery charger should shut off immediately. If it is billing a shanty town battery, it ought to change to a floating fee.

Lithium batteries replacing sealed lead acid in float applications

It is extremely typical for lithium batteries to be positioned in an application where a shantytown battery used to be maintained on a floating fee. There has been some problem, whether this is secure for lithium batteries. It is usually appropriate to make use of a basic continuous voltage SLA charger with our lithium batteries, as long as it abides by particular requirements.

As a side note, some clever or multi-stage shanty town battery chargers have an attribute that detects an open-circuit voltage (OCV). An over-discharged lithium battery that is in defense mode will have an OCV of 0. This type of charger would presume this battery is dead as well as would not attempt to charge it. A battery charger with a lithium setup will attempt to recuperate or "awaken" an over-discharged lithium battery.

Long term storage space

If you need to maintain your batteries in storage for a prolonged duration, there are a few things to think about as the storage space needs are various for SLA and lithium batteries. There are two major factors that keeping a run-down neighborhood versus a Lithium battery is different.

The first reason is that the chemistry of the battery identifies the optimum SOC for storage. For a shanty town battery, you intend to save it as close to possible as 100% to prevent sulfating, which triggers an accumulation of sulfate crystals on the plates. The buildup of sulfate crystals will certainly reduce the capacity of the battery.

For a lithium battery, the structure of the favorable incurable becomes unsteady when depleted of electrons for long periods of time. The instability of the positive terminal can result in irreversible capability loss. Therefore, a lithium battery ought to be stored near 50% SOC, which just as distributes the electrons on the favorable and negative terminals.

The second impact on storage is the self-discharge rate. The high self-discharge price of the SLA battery implies that you ought to place it on a flat fee or a flow cost to preserve it as close as possible to 100% SOC to prevent long-term capability loss. For a lithium battery, which has a much-reduced discharge rate and also doesn't need to be at 100% SOC, you might have the ability to get away with minimal maintenance billing.

Suggested battery chargers

It is constantly vital to match your battery charger to deliver the right present and voltage for the battery you are charging. For example, you wouldn't make use of a 24V battery charger to bill a 12V battery. It is likewise recommended that you make use of a charger matched to your battery chemistry.

If you have any concerns about our items, please give us a call or send us an e-mail. We would more than happy to aid you with your charging requirements.