Hi, I have brand new Ultramax lifepo4 100Ah battery and Blue Smart Charger 12V/15A IP65. I have charged that battery two times so far. Charger mode is li-ion and haven’t changed any settings, all are default.
First charge: Charge started normally but after few hours charging status was “storage” even if battery was only 96% full. I disconnected battery at that point.
Second charge: Battery status was 45% when started charging. Charger did some test for a short while at start. After four hours went to check status and noticed that battery was 100% full but charger was still in bulk load mode and was charging 15A at that moment and charger was quite hot. Victron app shows that 63,6Ah was charged in 4 hours and 14 minutes before I disconnected it.
Is there something wrong with the charger or the battery? If I now plug in charger without connecting to any battery and check the app, status is showing absorption charge with 14,2V 0,0A. I think there were some kind of firmware update for the charger before that first charge.
A new lithium battery will be delivered to you with about 40-50% SOC. However, the BMS will not really know what the SOC is and any figure that it shows will be wrong. Your charger really is small for your battery and will take 7 to 8 hours to fully charge it. The battery SOC will not be accurate until the battery has had its first full charge to 100% and may not be accurate for the first few charge cycles. You have to trust the charger knows what it is doing and let it charge the battery to full. The charger works on battery voltage and this is more accurate than the SOC. This is what was happening when the SOC said 100% but was still in bulk, the SOC is wrong for the new battery but the charger knows the voltage is still below 14.2V so needs more charge.
The other thing is, when new, the cells in the battery may not be completely balanced (the same voltage as each other). This may mean that the battery stops the charge before it is full to balance the cells, So charge the battery till it stops charging. Use it a bit, then recharge it but let it get full again and the charge current drop. The charger showing absorption at 14.2V and 0 current is probably the battery stopping charge because the cells are not balanced. Sometimes it helps to reduce the charge voltage if possible (I do not know what settings you can vary on tht model) to say 14.0V and see if this allows the battery to balance. Look at your battery Bluetooth to see what the cells voltages are.
@ChiefSolar Because in the IP65 charger Victron use the term Li-ion for the lithium preset which charges at their standard 14.2V/13.5V for lithium phosphate batteries.
@Bzzzzt Ignore the question, your setting is correct.
I use that suggested UMXLI Battery app and that does not show voltages for each cell. Are there any other universal app that shows cell voltages? At the moment app is showing for the battery 100% state of charge and voltage 13,27V.
So the conclusion is that next time I just let charger do its thing until it stops charging? It cannot break anything?
That 14,2V 0,0A thing I mentioned was just me wondering that is it ok that victron app is showing absorption status if I plugin charger only to wall socket but it is not connected to any battery.
13.3V is around 80% charged according to this generic table. If the cells are balanced then this is a reasonable guide BUT do not take it as perfect, more a guide. Your BMS needs to learn the 100% full setting by the battery being absolutely full.
No I do not know any other BMS apps specifically. Many batteries use bought in BMS and a common one is the Xiaoxiang / jiabaida BMS so you could see if there is an app for those that will read it. Sometimes the apps have an expert or advanced option thta provides more info.
Sorry. Had a wedding yesterday night and well I guess that you know the drill. My bad.
