confused: charging discharging

[Berend]

Hi,
I am a little confused. From all the information I gathered I concluded that it is best for Lifepo4 batteries not to be overcharged and not to push the 100% limit. On the other hand that you should not dicharge upt 0%. Now I read on the battleborn site : " LiFePO4 (Lithium Iron Phosphate) batteries can be continually discharged to 100% and there is no long-term effect. You can expect to easily get 3000 – 5000 cycles at this depth of discharge. " Did I miss something?

 

[gnubie]

No, nothing missed. You just need to keep in mind that there are different quality devices out there. Battleborn has quickly built a brand name known for quality. Their battery is designed with regular full discharge in mind. Instead of a few large prismatic cells they use a lot of small cylindrical cells so even if a single cell fails the rest of the cells will allow the battery to continue to function.

Also keep in mind that when you see people recommending charging to say 80% and discharging to 20% it's because they are optimising for very long battery life. With care it's possible to get 6000 and more cycles out of a battery. If you are just after the often mentioned '2000 cycles' and are using reasonable quality prismatic cells then you can do full charge / discharge and expect to get around 2000 cycles.

At the nominal 2000 cycles battery capacity will be down to 80% of its original specification. Be aware of this when comparing batteries. Putting aside the brands that outright lie about performance, some manufacturer's use 70% of original specification but only mention it deep in the fine print. That additional 10% drop in capacity allows for a large increase in the number of cycles.

 

[Berend]

Understood. Thank you for enlightening me on this