Using a lead acid charger to charge a LifePo4 Ping battery

[garyhgaryh]

I just moved and lost my charger for my ping battery.

Today I decided to take my ezip 24 volt battery charger that I use to charge my ezip TrailZ and my e750 scooter and use it to charge my ping 24V LifePo4 Battery. The connector fit and it seems to charge without a problem.

I haven't charged the LifePo4 in about 9 months so I decided to charge it so I won't kill the dang expensive battery. Since I can't find the original charger for it, I thought it would be fine to use the ezip charger for this.

I did check with Li Ping at Ping Batteries and he said it should be fine, but not all the cells will charge (or be fully charged) and/or be balanced.

What do you guys think? I think the only difference between a LifePo4 and SLA charger is voltage point when the battery is considered charged. Anyone?

Gary

 

[amberwolf]

There are quite a few threads taht talk about doing this, if you poke around they have information in them you can use.

 

[999zip999]

Did all the leds light up ? 9 mos is not so good for a battery it should be charged once a mo. and looked after.

 

[garyhgaryh]

Did all the leds light up ? 9 mos is not so good for a battery it should be charged once a mo. and looked after.

No, only 1 led lit up. I need to find my original charger..
I know it's bad, just haven't had time to charge it.

BTW, I did try to find old threads talking about this as I have seen it before, but I admit I didn't try to hard.
Gary

 

[dogman dan]

Most of what I wrote about it would be threads from 2008.

I killed my original ping 36v charger, and had the lead one still around. Used it almost a year with no serious problems with it. The newish pack was ridden daily, charged twice daily, and stayed balanced all by itself for a year.

So it didn't matter to me that the bms balancing functions were not being used. How good it works for you will depend on if the pack is balanced now or not. 9 months sitting is long enough to cause an inbalance. If it was my battery, I'd do three things, one you already did.

Charge the battery once, to top up the pack if it has discharged any.

Check the voltage of every cell. that can be done by unplugging the bms sensor wires, and probing with a voltmeter at the plug. Carefull, don't touch the probes together and make a short. Tape on all but the tip of the probe can help.

If any cells don't look to be close to the others, put it back on the charger and leave it there a long time. Idealy, find the ping charger and use that one.

Fourth thing, get back to us if you find a cell that is reallly low.

 

[chilledoutuk]

What I want to know is does ping tell his customers to not leave packs for long periods of time uncharged with the bms
connected as it seems a lot of people keep killing there packs like this.

 

[amberwolf]

Even if he did, it doesn't stop people from forgetting when they're not using the bike for a while, or situations like this where the charger was lost and most likely lots of other more important things took precedence for too long. (and a fair number of people don't listen to or read instructions in the first place.)

Even people that know better can get into situations where they can't do much about it even if they remember it (like if Lock has a Ping, he's been in the hospital for quite a while; and Dogman was really sick for a long time and one of his Pings *did* die, though I think it was a different reason).

 

[999zip999]

If I stored my Ping for a time I would unplug my bms. First as Dogman said check the voltage on each cell and write it down as voltage of each cell 3.2v 3.5v ect. The cell that is lit up is a cell that higher then the rest proably. Just check cell voltage.
A lead acid charger can be used it is not the right one and my not be turned up enough for the bms or battery you have to check charger voltage.
Edit: Please post results.

 

[dumbass]

Depending on the state of charge when you put the pack in storage will determine how big a deal 9 months without a charge is. If I remember correctly a lifepo4 cell only discharges around 1% per month. So 9 months from a full charge shouldn't be a problem. Of course if your BMS was bleading a small amount of power during the storage that's different.

Bob

 

[999zip999]

24v lifepo4 chargers are cheap on ebay.