EZgo
1 W
It's a great day for an e-bike ride. This is a charger question.
I have been testing & using 12V 10Ah LiFePO4 (Bamboo) Batteries from Clean Republic with positive results.http://www.electric-bike-kit.com/lithium-12v-lifepo4 sla-replacement These are a 12V 10 amp SLA replacement battery. They are the same size as most of the 12V 9 to 10 amp SLA batteries that you can buy anywhere. I plan to post my results about these batteries here at a later date. It's a fine battery. What I'm using it for is to build competitively priced 36 & 48 Volt battery packs for my bikes. "Competitively Priced" is the operative word here. I have been buying these from CR on EBay & so far have been getting them delivered to my door for an average price of $84.00 per 12V battery. These batteries however do not have any type of BMS inside & does not come with a charger unless you order the optional 14.8 V 5.0 for $19.00. http://www.electric-bike-kit.com/batterycharger.aspx According to CR charging them with a SLA charger is fine. *** (SEE BOTTOM of page for more info)
So my 36 & 48 volt packs are currently being charged with SLA chargers which seem to work fine short-term. My question is what if anything does using a charger designed for lead acid batteries do differently than a comparable LiFeP04 charger? i.e. Voltage, balancing cycles, etc.Through this forum, battery university & other commercial sites I have determined there is defenitley a difference between the 2 but I am confused as to how important that difference is.
To make matters worse I ordered some Smart Chargers (1.8 A) for 38.4V (12 cells ) LiFeP04 Battery P/N CH-LA3618 from BatterySpace.com for $24.95. http://www.batteryspace.com/smartcharger18afor384v12cellslifepo4batterypackforworldwide.aspx What I received, which looked identical to the picture was a Powerizer Power UNIT (For Pb-acid Battery) Model: 3px0.36V 1.8A Output: DC36V/1.8A.
Since I have several nearly identical SLA chargers already I compared the one from Battery Space with one of my other ones through a couple of charge cycles over the course of a week & could NOT measure any appreciable difference. They all seem to bring both SLA & LiFeP04 batteries up to 13.8 volts. I took pictures of the chargers label & emailed Battery Space explaining the mistake. After consulting with their "engineering department" (their words) they said that this in fact is the correct charger I should use it. Long Story short, I sent them back any way. *** I have also compared the optional 12 volt charger from Clean Republic with my fairly new high quality 12 volt automotive charger. The CR charger is labeled & puts out 14.8V at 5.0 amps. ( I only checked voltage, not amperage) My 12 volt auto charger puts out 10.8 volts on 2 amp float, 13 volts on 10 amp fast charge & 14.6 volts at 50 amp boost. So any other differences aside it does put out a higher voltage.
The battery packs I build are for the electric bike conversions I do on bikes that I purchase to sell to my LOCAL customers. I need to make sure that they are getting the best product that I can deliver.
Is there any appreciable difference between a comparable lead acid charger and its LiFeP04 counter part? If so will it effect performance & or shorten the life of a LiFeP04 battery? Can the way in wich you use a lead acid charger for a LiFeP04 battery be modified extend life/increase performance? i.e. unplug it as soon as the intial charge is done.
Lastly as I said in the beginning, these are 12 V 10amp LiFeP04 replacement batteries with NO BMS. I'll address the no BMS issues with some more questions in this forum at a later date.
Any & all thoughts are welcome.
Thanks
I have been testing & using 12V 10Ah LiFePO4 (Bamboo) Batteries from Clean Republic with positive results.http://www.electric-bike-kit.com/lithium-12v-lifepo4 sla-replacement These are a 12V 10 amp SLA replacement battery. They are the same size as most of the 12V 9 to 10 amp SLA batteries that you can buy anywhere. I plan to post my results about these batteries here at a later date. It's a fine battery. What I'm using it for is to build competitively priced 36 & 48 Volt battery packs for my bikes. "Competitively Priced" is the operative word here. I have been buying these from CR on EBay & so far have been getting them delivered to my door for an average price of $84.00 per 12V battery. These batteries however do not have any type of BMS inside & does not come with a charger unless you order the optional 14.8 V 5.0 for $19.00. http://www.electric-bike-kit.com/batterycharger.aspx According to CR charging them with a SLA charger is fine. *** (SEE BOTTOM of page for more info)
So my 36 & 48 volt packs are currently being charged with SLA chargers which seem to work fine short-term. My question is what if anything does using a charger designed for lead acid batteries do differently than a comparable LiFeP04 charger? i.e. Voltage, balancing cycles, etc.Through this forum, battery university & other commercial sites I have determined there is defenitley a difference between the 2 but I am confused as to how important that difference is.
To make matters worse I ordered some Smart Chargers (1.8 A) for 38.4V (12 cells ) LiFeP04 Battery P/N CH-LA3618 from BatterySpace.com for $24.95. http://www.batteryspace.com/smartcharger18afor384v12cellslifepo4batterypackforworldwide.aspx What I received, which looked identical to the picture was a Powerizer Power UNIT (For Pb-acid Battery) Model: 3px0.36V 1.8A Output: DC36V/1.8A.
Since I have several nearly identical SLA chargers already I compared the one from Battery Space with one of my other ones through a couple of charge cycles over the course of a week & could NOT measure any appreciable difference. They all seem to bring both SLA & LiFeP04 batteries up to 13.8 volts. I took pictures of the chargers label & emailed Battery Space explaining the mistake. After consulting with their "engineering department" (their words) they said that this in fact is the correct charger I should use it. Long Story short, I sent them back any way. *** I have also compared the optional 12 volt charger from Clean Republic with my fairly new high quality 12 volt automotive charger. The CR charger is labeled & puts out 14.8V at 5.0 amps. ( I only checked voltage, not amperage) My 12 volt auto charger puts out 10.8 volts on 2 amp float, 13 volts on 10 amp fast charge & 14.6 volts at 50 amp boost. So any other differences aside it does put out a higher voltage.
The battery packs I build are for the electric bike conversions I do on bikes that I purchase to sell to my LOCAL customers. I need to make sure that they are getting the best product that I can deliver.
Is there any appreciable difference between a comparable lead acid charger and its LiFeP04 counter part? If so will it effect performance & or shorten the life of a LiFeP04 battery? Can the way in wich you use a lead acid charger for a LiFeP04 battery be modified extend life/increase performance? i.e. unplug it as soon as the intial charge is done.
Lastly as I said in the beginning, these are 12 V 10amp LiFeP04 replacement batteries with NO BMS. I'll address the no BMS issues with some more questions in this forum at a later date.
Any & all thoughts are welcome.
Thanks