profdant139 wrote:
(This question was prompted by a different thread, but I thought it may warrant a separate thread.)
If I get Lithium batteries but my converter is old school, how much capacity (amp/hours) will I lose? I know the old converter will not fully charge Lithium batteries.
It is impossible to tell unless we know the output of your converter, so you can go by that chart to guess approximately where you will be. one other thing to consider is whether or not your battery has balancing (active or passive) and what that setting is at. part of the issue with not having enough charge voltage is you don't hit the level your balancing is set for, and you never balance your cells, this causes the week cell to get weaker and the strong to get stronger so gradual over time you lose capacity as you only have the capacity of your weakest cell. also the table PT posted is not for charging it is resting voltage to get 100% capacity you need to charge to 14.6V so just having a converter that pouts out 13.6 will never quite make it to fully charged and it is a big issue as people see the improper chart that PT posted where the real one has the word "resting" after the 13.6 and has another row on top that says 14.6 with "charging" in small letters.
if you don't mind losing some capacity you can charge to a lower level so say 13.3V, that will give you somewhere between 70 and 99 depending on how accurate your measuring the voltage, but we will say 85 to 90% assuming accurat measurment. if you cant access your balancing start voltage you still need to charge it to 100% once and a while to make sure it stays top ballanced. if you can access it, then you can change that volate for balancing to reflect what voltage you are using . so for 13.3V you would simply devide that by 4 and set your balancing start voltage to 3.325V and your cells will start balancing when they reach 13.3V and stay in ballance.
there are a few more things to think about, the quality of the power supply its self. if it is a old one with unregulated/unfiltered dc then just change it as your volatage will float around a bit and its just not good for any 12V electronics. a single stage would be best if your never going to hit the 14.6V and stay under 13.6 but your better off to save up and get one that will allow you to customize the settings
