I purchased a new 460ah LFP battery for my RV. When it arrived it was, as expected, shipped at a 50% SOC. So, I put my Victron BlueSmart IP67 Charger on the battery in my garage before installing the battery in my RV later.
Since its a 460ah battery and at 50% SOC it needed over 200ah of charging and with the Victron BlueSmart IP67 Charger putting out only 17amps this was going to take a while. That’s fine. Once fully charged I’ll have the battery installed in the RV and charged at a much higher rate with my Magnum Inverter/Charger.
What I didn’t expect was the disturbing amount of heat the charger accumulated as the process progressed.
After 5-hours of charging and approx 100ah of charge added to the battery I felt the charger to be dangerously hot. Using an infared thermometer I found it to be at 145 degrees F (63 C).
Is this normal? Should I be concerned? 140F is enough to ignite some common materials? Does the Victron BlueSmart IP67 Charger have any thermal cutoff to prevent it getting even hotter?
I did disconnect the charger at this point for overnight and have started charging again this morning. There is still another 120ah to add to the SOC to reach 100%.
Please advise, should I be concerned about these temps or is it perfectly fine?
Datasheet says up to 60°C
Full output power up to 40°C
Above that, derate of 3% per °C
Its also overtemp protected
How are you going to charge the battery once in the RV? Does it need to be fully charged before installing? Its not getting lighter or smaller by charging
How are you going to charge the battery once in the RV? Does it need to be fully charged before installing? Its not getting lighter or smaller by charging
As I mentioned in my post I have a Magnum MS2012 Inverter/Charger built in that can charge up to 100 amps.I’ll set it to no more than 80 amps. Which should be plenty. It’s a smart charger and I can configure it with all the charge profile specifics I need.
I’d rather have a Victron MultiPlus II and will likely switch to that later this year.
LFP batteries are shipped at 50% SOC and it’s advised to fully charge the battery before first use. This eliminates any out of the box failures.
I’ve been running the Victron charger all day, it is at 96% SOC right now and should be done in the next two hours. I just took a reading on the charger and it’s 140F right now.
Ok granted, i should have googled for magnum as well, not just for the victron charger datasheet.
Yes, but the magnum could have done that too, maybe not better, but surely faster.
It does not. If a fault is present, its going to be present wheter or not the battery is installed. It might spare you from installing and uninstalling the battery
I don’t disagree with you. But the instructions ask that the battery be fully charged before installation and since I have an existing battery in the RV, I want to charge this new one fully before disconnecting the old battery, removing it and installing the new battery.
Not the least of which is that this new battery weighs nearly 90lbs. I don’t want to lug it in and out of the battery compartment more than I have to.
PS. I’m 74 years old and 90lbs is not an easy thing to move around.