WB4SON

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A charger for LiFePO4 batteries

Posted: 11 Feb 2021 01:48 PM PST
https://wb4son.com/wpblog/?p=4281


In an earlier post, I described a rather inexpensive 16 AH LiFePO4
battery.Â* Ive used that for my last three activations, and so far it works
as expected.Â* A few folks have asked me What charger do I use?.Â* I decided
to go with a 4 Amp LiFePO4 charger like this one from HamRadio.com (the
charger used for BioEnno batteries):Â*
https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-014845

Similar chargers are also available on eBay

LiFePO4 batteries are VERY efficient, like 98-99% efficient.Â* In other
words, if you take 10 AH of capacity away from it, you are going to put
almost exactly the same amount of power back into it.Â* In other words, a 16
AH battery, fully discharged, will take 4 hours to fully recharge using a 4
Amp charger.

Please note that the Battery Management System (BMS) installed in a
multi-cell packs has cell balancing circuitry built-in.Â* It tries to make
sure that the series connected batteries never get into a condition where
the voltage on one cell differs from the voltage on another cell.Â* Because
of the BMS, it is often necessary to keep the battery connected for a few
hours after the charger indicates full charge.