Charger for Lithium Battery LiFePO4

[quang tran]

Just bought a battery for night fishing ,try to charge it with an old lead acid battery charger and it keep charging, never full .What is the different of regular battery charger and Lithium Battery LiFePO4 ? What charger do you recommend for 20AH battery

[Gfish]

This one works for me, note that it will charge almost any battery and has 7 stages(the circle/mode icon). Also, it does take a long while to go from 80% to 100%, several hours it seems like. Could be a fire danger using a standard charger.

Tap to enlarge

[jtwill98]

Is is safe to assume we're talking 12v 20AH battery?

It may be that your lead-acid battery doesn't supply enough voltage to charge the lithium battery. 

Some lead-acid chargers might charge at only 13.8v and hence can only charge the lithium battery to around 80%.  Lithium batteries require a higher voltage because they have a higher absorption voltage of 14.4V.

The absorption voltage is the voltage that the charger should output in order for the battery to reach full capacity. 

This is what I was told by the hobbists/engineers at Dell many years ago when they were building lithium powered helicopters, airplanes and drone models.

The batteries they were using also had BMS controllers in them that the battery charger used to regulate the amperage, avoiding over-charging and over-heating of the batteries while they charged.  Your battery may or may not have a BMS controller. 

My 48V 100AH battery in the my electric golf cart has the BMS controller and because of that I must use a Lithium battery charger for warranty considerations. My onboard charger would have worked but the manufacturer didn't have a programming reference code for my battery and I didn't want to void my warranty.   

[quang tran]

Thank you, for a small battery 20AH I should charge less than 5 A .10 A may be too fast .This one may be OK
https://www.ebay.com/itm/355101128949?

[Keta]

[Gfish]

Looks good. I charge mine outside because of the possible fire thing.

[reelynew]

I use one of these for my 12 volt batteries.  It handles lead acid, agm and lifepo4 and can swap over to 6 volt batteries. 

[jtwill98]

Looks good. I charge mine outside because of the possible fire thing.

Smart thinking Gfish.

I was charging a lithium flashlight 18650 battery in the garage with an old EverReady NiCad battery charger. The battery was on the charger for many hours.  I actually forgot about it until I heard what sounded like a 45 caliber gun shot. I rushed to the garage to see what happened only to smell burnt electronics and what looked like a electrolytic capacitor that blew up.  The lithium battery exploded sending part of the battery across the garage and the remaining part lying near the charger. 

Since that day, except for my phone and golf cart, I use lithium chargers and charge my lithium batteries in a charging bag.

[Keta]

Looks good. I charge mine outside because of the possible fire thing.

 A LiFePO4 battery bank running my "off grid" solar burnt my shead to the ground and it took 4 large fire trucks and over 20 crew to keep it isolated to the shead.  It went from smoke to fully engulfed in less than 2 minutes.

Charge them in a place you do not value and above 32°.  It was 80° when my battery bank had a internal issue that caused the fire so temperature was not the problem.   The batteries were from a well known and not questionable source....but still PRC made.

[quang tran]

Keta ,It made me think twice to use this battery .I switch to LiFePO4 to save weight ,it is lighter than my old dry cell battery ( about half the weight ) but take more room . To use it I have to make a new box ,and make a metal box to store the battery . I can charge it outside but when transport in car ,car can be very hot ,I may go back to 2 dry cell 9AH each ,18 AH total

[Keta]

Charging seems to be the only issue.

[quang tran]

OK,have some fun thing to do tomorrow ,make a new tackle box for new battery .This box was bad luck ,catching only 1 crappie in popular crappie lake

[Gobi King]

Check your chargers output
14.4 v max is what u want

My fav waterproof charger is
This is a Duracell drcma 4 amp

Any charger with dedicated lithium
Mode is is good
But watch the voltage

For bench charging I use a power supply

This one :

Riden rd6018
With a Meanwell ps

But now Meanwell has cool chargers that you can control from
Your phone
Bit pricey but buy once and cry one

Good looking fish !

[foakes]

I might suggest a Ridgid 18V LED light setup.

Home Depot.

Even with a 2.0 AMP battery —- 800 lumens on the one for $50 will run for about 7.5 hours, 400 lumens will go 15 hours.

I have 2.0 Amp, 4.0 Amp, & 6.0 Amp batteries that I also use for various tools.  The batteries have indicator lights to easily see how much power is left.

These are safe, light to carry, and I have used them in wet conditions.

The Ridgid batteries —- plus the light and charger are guaranteed for LIFE, if you register them with Ridgid.

And they will easily fit in your neat box.

I have 4 types of chargers for various batteries on the RV's, boat, etc.

But this would be a safe and inexpensive, as well as a sensible solution.

Why take a chance on an exploding battery?  I wouldn't.

Best, Fred

[Donnyboat]

I would say once you have charged the battery a couple of time, take note of how long it took to charge, them plug it into a timer, so it shuts of, before it gets a chance to over charge, good luck cheers Don.