LiFePo4 lithium battery charging questions

StirCrazy wrote:
cell ballancing won't happen untill you are full, so by setting equalization and float the same as charge voltage you will allow more time for top ballancing. Im not talking days but maybe an hour or two extra time for the top balancing process depending on your bank size.

I get the impression you may be talking about a passive balancer? I've used both passive and active balancers. Neither have worked quite as you describe.

The several passive balancers we've used start operating when charge voltage reaches a preset voltage threshold (typically 3.4v - 3.5v). Charge current and balancing will terminate when the BMS reaches high-voltage cut-off. Or, balancing will terminate when charge current drops below the passive balancer's min. charge current threshold (~100ma). It doesn't continue to operate after reaching "full" or 100% SOC. What I like about an active balancer, the more imbalance, the more current it moves, with or without charge current. The downside it can undo a top-balance if left operating below ~3.4v for long periods of time.

You mentioned "equalization" again. Why and how would you "equalize" a lifepo4?

StirCrazy wrote:
most people just charge them and as soon as they reach 100% they turn off the charger because so many people are scard of letting them sit at 100% becasue of myths propagatd that are intended for storage and maybe the issue is the definition of "storage" to me if you are camping you are never in a storage situation. and when I got home from a trip I would probably give it a day on the charger to make sure it was top ballanced then unplug it if I was going out again next week, and not worry about it being at 100%. or run somthing to bring it down to 90% then plug it in again the night before I am leaving to make sure its full for the trip. to me storage is realy when we are talking in terms of months. so lets say I am working a ton of OT at work for the next two months and I know I am not going camping. run the batteries down to 70 or 80% and unplug. but then before a trip I am charging them the night before to 100% again.

I agree the whole overcharging thing is somewhat overblown. Until we've each had time to flush this out through personal experience, I guess we'll just to have trust companys like Battleborn. When I spoke to them last year, their only caution was not to float their 100ah lifepo4 at 14.6v for more than week or so. It's one small, but important gotcha. They also alluded to the fact that a single-stage lifepo4 14.6v converter/charger would probably not be their first choice for charging a lifepo4 battery. Without a float or absorption stage you run some risk of overcharging---especially if you're the set-it and forget-it type.