Charging the lithium-ion batteries could be very daunting, and people get confused, even when switching from lead-acid batteries to lithium-ion batteries. Charging the batteries properly is important and directly impacts the performance and service life of the batteries. Learn how to charge your LFP (lithium-ion phosphate batteries) to get maximize your energy investment.
Condition of Charging
Thanks to the PSoC (partial state of charge) characteristic, you can charge your LiFePO4 batteries just like charging your phone, you can do it whenever you want. The Battery Management System (BMS), which is the brain of lithium batteries, protects and controls the charging and discharging of the batteries.
Even though the lithium batteries can discharge at a temperature between -20 to +60 Degrees Celsius, the charging is limited to 0 to 55 Degrees Celsius, and the recommended charging temperature is 5 to 40 Degrees Celsius, this is due to the chemistry limitation, if charging the lithium battery out of the safety range, the battery will receive permanent irreversible damages, causing decrease to the capacity and chemistry activity.
And charging the batteries at a high current is also harmful to the batteries due to the massive amount of heat that is generated during the input, it also causes irreversible damage to the batteries.
POWEROAD integrated the immersive heating technology into our batteries, The POWEROAD PRLB and PRLC LiFePO4 batteries can safely charge at between -5°C – 55°C, during the frozen wintertime, you will not need to heat the batteries externally before charging, the batteries will be warmed up to the perfect range of temperature automatically.
How to Charge a LiFePO4 Battery
Most lead-acid battery chargers can get the job done, but using a lithium-ion phosphate battery charger is the best way to charge a LiFePO4 battery, as the specific chargers are programmed with appropriate voltage guidelines
If you have to charge the LFP (LiFePO4) batteries with a lead-acid battery charger, you want to set the charging voltage at 14 to 14.2 volt for 12V LiFePO4 batteries, 28 to 28.4 volt for 24V batteries, 42 to 42.6 volt for 36V batteries and 56 to 56.8 volt for 48-volt batteries.
You can also charge the batteries with an inverter charger, which is an integration of an inverter and a charger, mostly well-programmed for lithium-ion phosphate batteries.
The Best Way To Charge The Batteries In Parallel Configuration
Keep in mind that the best way to charge the parallel battery configuration is to fully charge every single individual before wiring, this approach can help balance each battery in the bank, and you want to make sure the voltage difference is around 50mV (0.05V) of each battery. This can help maximize the performance of the battery bank and minimize the chance of imbalance for each individual.
Over time, you will find that the capacity of your battery configuration decreases, you want to disconnect the configuration and fully charge each individual, and rewire them.
The Best Way To Charge The Batteries In Series Configuration
Just like charging the batteries in a parallel system, you want to fully charge each battery before wiring, by this time, the voltages and capacities of the batteries are at the closest range.
The difference is, that we recommend charging the batteries with multiple chargers, each charger charges the corresponding battery, which means every battery will be charged individually since the series configuration changes the voltage of the whole battery system, this is why POWEROAD has multiple voltage options of batteries, we have covered 12 volts, 24 volts and 48 volts, you can pick the right product for your ideal system, and reduce the need of wiring the batteries in series.
