48V charger for 52V battery

[gothicsurf]

Has anyone gotten into having a designated under-powered charger for a corresponding battery?

For example, instead of a more sophisticated charger, having a 48V charger with a 52V battery as a matter of course.

The way I look at it rather than opt to charge a battery to 100% occasionally, it would seem more pragmatic to procure more battery capacity; that way one would get more cycles / Ah / $.

Or is there something about a charger being made for 13S having a safety guard against charging a 14S pack?

 

[LeftieBiker]

Unless the output is actually labeled 48 volts, a "48 volt" charger will provide about 54 volts or more. It's a quirk of battery labeling that they are designated by their voltage when near dead, rather than fully charged voltage.

 

[goatman]

you could just open up the charger and adjust the pot to your desired voltage, just open your charger and see if there is a pot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViORzKrOfHU

 

[john61ct]

Well there are many types of chargers, a nominal 52V version is not at all "more sophisticated" than a 48V one

but no, unless it is of the balancing type it will not "know" if its 13S or 14S.

Best to be precise, the 13S/48Vnom charger will likely stop at 54.6V

The 14S/52Vnom pack would only be getting 3.9V per cell.

That is leaving a lot of capacity unused, at least 0.1V, really 0.15V higher would be the point where the increased lifespan might be worth the lower utilisation.

 

[gothicsurf]

Charging a 52V battery to 54.6V (as per a 48V charger) rather than the full 58.8V seems like a way of capping the charge at ~90%.

A basic 48V charger seems like an easy/inexpensive way to prolong the life of a 14S pack's life ..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViORzKrOfHU

Getting at the pot of a charger of decent quality seems like another way of working this out.

 

[electric_nz]

there's an adjustable Luna 52V charger available with variable current and termination voltage, works well.

For battery life, charge current is as important as termination voltage- fast charging damages batteries (some brands more than others)