Lithium battery use/maintenance

Hi,

New lithium battery owner here. A few basic questions that I can't seem to find summarized.

1. When hooked up to shore power, say for mutliple days, should the battery converter/charger remain on charging the battery or turned off?

2. Same for solar panel chargers?

3. If not used for a while, should the battery(s) occasional be discharged to a certain level? If so, to what level?

Any other maintenace tips or do's/don'ts?

Thank you

There are several lithium chemistries and they have different needs.

Do you have lithium ion (Li-Ion) or lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4)?

Leeds said:

There are several lithium chemistries and they have different needs.

Do you have lithium ion (Li-Ion) or lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4)?

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Lithium iron phosphate

Chaucer said:

1. When hooked up to shore power, say for mutliple days, should the battery converter/charger remain on charging the battery or turned off?

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It should go into float mode if the battery is full, where the float voltage would be at 3.4V (3.375V really) per cell or below. If your controller can't do that, disconnect it. Same for solar charge controllers.

Chaucer said:

3. If not used for a while, should the battery(s) occasional be discharged to a certain level? If so, to what level?

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Define 'a while'. If you're going to store them over winter for example, put them at 50% or thereabouts. For any other situation, it doesn't matter.
The only thing to keep in mind it: don't keep them at 3.65V per cell (fully full, the battery needs to be able to settle) for a long time and don't keep them at 2.5V (empty empty) for a long time. If they're between 20% and 80% (ballpark) you're fine in any situation basically.

upnorthandpersonal said:

It should go into float mode if the battery is full, where the float voltage would be at 3.4V (3.375V really) per cell or below. If your controller can't do that, disconnect it. Same for solar charge controllers.

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tks, I know for wet cells batteries it will go into float, but not sure if it will for lithium. It is a WFCO8735. It's on my next thing to upgrade, but it will be a few months.

I'm not familiar with that device; just make sure the voltages are compatible with LiFePO4.

Chaucer said:

tks, I know for wet cells batteries it will go into float, but not sure if it will for lithium. It is a WFCO8735. It's on my next thing to upgrade, but it will be a few months.

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I think that was the panel/converter I had which I removed when I installed my inverter. I don't think it's lithium compatible. I would just install a battery disconnect switch so you can isolate your batteries from both incoming charge and outgoing loads over the winter. Before you winterize, plug in a heat gun to one of your outside AC outlets and let it run for a while, and it will discharge your batteries to 40-50% for the winter.