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Bioenno Power - LiFEPO4 batteries


Jeff Wexler

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I am recommending a company I have been sourcing the Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries I have been using in my cart supplies I have built. They are local (for me) in Santa Ana, CA., they have great prices and fast delivery. The battery packs are well made and meet their stated specifications. Anyone wishing to build their own supplies, Bioenno Power is a good company to deal with.

Bioenno Power website and store

Below you will see the 40Ah LiFE battery pack I put into one of my cart power supplies, replacing the 20Ah battery that used to be there. With this cart power supply I can run everything on my cart for about 6 hours without AC.

cart-power-40ah.thumb.jpg.a4c0f6ac7c036d

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Jeff can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe what he has a AC/DC power supply (the cheese grater looking thing behind the XLRs on the right side) which is putting out a DC voltage slightly higher than the battery.

This will float charge the battery and keep it topped off and due to physics, the load will be on the AC/DC powersupply until the voltage drops below that of the battery.

I know the nominal voltage of a LifePO4 is 12.8 volts, but straight off a charge it is over, 14v DC, so if your supply is set to 14.5v or so, you should be in luck.

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Thanks, Shastapete --- you got it right. No charger per se, just a simple regulated DC power supply (medical grade, extremely low ripple, low noise) that floats across the battery keeping it "charged up". The load is on the DC power supply when on AC (mains) and when the AC goes away, the load is on the battery which starts to discharge. When AC is restored, the battery tops off and all is good. This method has worked simply and flawlessly for over 15 years for me.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was always worried about whether LiFE batteries are okay with float routine that I use and even after asking the question many times to many people who really understand these things, I have not gotten a definitive answer. So, I just do it, have been doing it for years, and it all seems to be working. I arrive at the voltage setting as follows: I start with LiFE battery having been fully charged with proper external LiFE battery charger, I connect the load (power up most of the gear on my cart), turn on the regulated DC power supply (connected to mains) and set the output to 13.8 vdc. I actually read the output after the load. My concern, of course, and I know why you ask the question, is the nominal fully charge output of the battery is most probably higher than the regulated DC power supply set to a constant of 13.5 - 13.8 voltage, and the LiFE battery likes to see higher voltage for charging, 14.7 vdc typically. That said, it seems to work, the batteries seem to have fairly long life, so I will continue to do it this way.

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This is why on my recent DC upgrade I switched a meanwell 15v DC supply running at 14.6 v.  All of my equipment is OK with that voltage, and I get better capacity of out my batteries.

I may try these batteries next time I want to add capacity to my cart.  Thanks for the recommendation.

The regulated DC power supplies (nominal 12 volt) I use, and I have used several from Meanwell in the past, have always had a range of voltage --- I have just always chosen a voltage lower than 14 volts. No valid explanation for this, just habit I guess.

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The Bioenno 40AH is the only LifePO batt I have found that would fit into my existing Pelicases which hold a 20AH Panasonic SLA right now.

I have a 90AH LifeYPO for long days wout mains but that needs to be carried sep from the cart which is a pita when moving around for every single setup is neccessary.

40AH might be a good compromise. 

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The cart power supplies that I have been building for myself are really very simple. Electrically, no engineering involved, biggest challenges are all mechanical and choice of parts issues. Choosing the right chassis box (or case), choosing the best regulated DC power supply, the best battery, circuit breakers or fuses, connectors mounted and so forth. The wiring is about as simple as it gets.

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The regulated DC power supplies (nominal 12 volt) I use, and I have used several from Meanwell in the past, have always had a range of voltage --- I have just always chosen a voltage lower than 14 volts. No valid explanation for this, just habit I guess.

my last psu ran a 12v version, but I couldn't get the operating voltage above 13.6.  I switched to a 15v supply and regulated down because my sla batteries were only holding around 80% charge.  I didn't mean to imply there is an issue with the nominal 12v suppliessupplies (they work fine), just sharing my experience of improved battery life running higher voltage (14.6v).

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  • 5 years later...

Reviving this thread from the archives to ask about max amp ratings of the power supplies you’re all using. I currently have a rig that’s powered by a pretty beefy 19amp supply and was told by someone at Bioenno that I should not connect one of their batteries in parallel with this power supply because without any current limiting in place the battery would try to draw too much. 

Could it be that those of you who are running a float charge arrangement with a LiFEPO4 battery in parallel are sort of fudging it a bit by having your cart draw down the available amperage of the supply so that the remaining capacity available to the battery conveniently falls within its charging specs?

 

 The Bioenno rep I talked to was pretty against this kind of float charge scheme at least while using a power supply with a lot of capacity. He recommended I put a West Mountain Radio “epicPWR gate” in between the PSU and supply to provide a constant current charging. This makes sense but it’s an additional box to make space for and I don’t really want to get involved with Anderson power poles. We have enough connectors already. 

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This is interesting stuff, curious to hear what you are saying the people at Bioenno have said about this sort of setup. I can only comment from real world experience (at least 10 years working with the cart power supplies I built that do a float, not as charging circuit). My typical setup was a 40 amp hour LiFe battery pack (Bioenno usually) and a Meanwell medical grade regulated power supply rated at 10 amps. The regulated power supply is connected directly to the battery and from there the various access point connections (the load, the equipment to be powered). I found that in operation, I always wanted to start out with a fully charged battery  --- this was accomplished with an external, product specific charger (also from Bioenno). When on the set, I would power up all the equipment possibly even before obtaining AC. Once connected to AC, the load is now drawing off the regulated DC power supply and not the battery. If AC got pulled, or I had to make a move, the load would then be drawing off the battery alone. Once restored AC, we're back to the load being powered by the regulated DC power supply and "topping off" the battery voltage. This always worked. I imagine there may be some serious electrical flaw (which is  what it seems you are saying Bioenno is saying) but I never suffered any bad result from this design. 

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6 hours ago, Derek H said:

Jeff, I’ll forward you my email with Bioenno. 
 

With the 40Ah battery and a 10 amp supply i think you’d be fine. Especially with your cart drawing 4-6 A probably. 
 

I think the problem with my setup is my power supply has too much capacity. 19 A.

I run 40ah lifepo4 with a 15amp power supply charger in  a float type setup I think finding the right combination of draw vs charge  is the key.You don’t want to have too much current available and be charging too quickly but you need to be able to supply enough to keep battery topped up while on AC and running cart.

Derek I’d be interested in reading the email from Bienno

Regards Ant

 

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