12v Lithium battery discharge tester in Electronics committee?

The only gotcha with a lithium iron phosphate battery like that is don’t use an anti-sulfation charger with it (since it’s not lead acid chemistry and wouldn’t gain anything from it). Anti-sulfation chargers are typically used for reviving long stored lead acid batteries that are dead. They do this by pulsing high voltage while charging which can revive lead acid batteries but damage lithium batteries.

I’d just install it in the vehicle and run it for a while to charge it. More than likely it will start the vehicle as is. Unlike lead acid batteries there’s very little self discharge so a year in storage isn’t a show stopper. I searched the battery in question and it looks like a motorcycle battery. As long as the amperage requirements are within specification it should still work for starting a car.

The feeling I got from reading the documentation about that battery is that is may be best suited for ATV, motorcycle, snowmobile, jetski type applications. The last car battery I bought for 2.5 L V6 was about 600 cranking amps. This has about half that number of cranking amps. So if it won’t start an automobile, I don’t think that means that the battery is no good.

But I think that the heavy duty tester concept is a good one for electronics at DMS. I think it would be very cool to be able to put batteries through their cycles and see how well they pefform, and have options for different sorts of charge cycles. So many different types of electric vehicles are being developed these days, the potential for makers to form profitable projects is very real, and the battery is the key element.

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