Testing a Cheap Little LiFePO4 Smart Battery Charger

Welcome to The Juice Box!
In today's video we take a look at a cheap smart battery charger. This charger is capable of charging Lead Acid, Lithium, and Lithium Iron Phosphate or LiFePO4 batteries. It also has a repair mode to bring your lead acid batteries back to life. Is a cheap charger worth the risk? Does this smart charger really turn off automatically? All these questions and more will be answered in today's video!

INFO FROM THE MANUFACTURER:

HTRC Smart Battery Charger:
Enhanced Edition Car Battery Charger 12V/10A 24V/5A Lithium Lead-Acid LiFePO4 Compatible Automotive Smart Battery Charger Maintainer/Pulse Repair Charger Pack for Car ,Boat Motorcycle, Lawn Mower

About this item:
【Wide range of applications】 12V 10 Amp, 24V 5Amp 7- stage battery charger suitable for all types of Calcium, GEL and AGM, Wet, EFB. A mode can be selected to charge car / truck batteries, motorcycle batteries, or AGM batteries.
【Smart digital display】 LCD display shows charging status and battery status; charging voltage, charging current, charger inside temperature, indoor temperature, full battery, summer mode, winter mode, etc.
【Multiple functions】 Fully automatic high-frequency charging offers 7-stage charging, automatically switching from fast charge to top charge and then to trickle charge. The pulse repair function can help repair lost battery and extend battery life. Note: You cannot activate a dead battery or repair a seriously damaged battery; it also cannot repair a 100% new battery.
【Smart Protection】 Built in circuit protection against reverse polarity, sparks, overload, overcurrent, open circuits, short circuits and overheating.
【ENHANCE QUALITY ASSURANCE UPGRADED VERSION】: We have received electric appliance authentication to our battery charger.

#lifepo4 #offgrid #thejuicebox

DISCLAIMER*
This video and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, we may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases

[justinbanks]

Very cool to see you branching out in topics.

If you want more length in between the clips if you hold one im each hand and pull apart, the red and black will separate giving you more space between.

[mariodasilva]

After your review i bought this. I'm using this charger on 2x 12V 65A Lead Acid batteries (connected in parallel) as a backup power to the solar panels which get a lot of shade due to clouds. This 12V in turn go via a step up 12v to 24v booster to my emg. power gen. with 24v LiP04 batteries and keep that topped up. Works so far!

[JasonGarcia-ltnw]

Great review brother, everything I needed to know. Thanks.

[TheWoodHaven]

Nice format. Looking forward to that Bluetti review.

[SteveH-TN]

Thanks for sharing this video, and information appreciate you taking the time to do this.

[GCSol]

I have the 35 amp version I use to charge my DIY solar generator. I've been using it for six months and it works great.

[JasonGarcia-ltnw]

I like the 80s rough neighborhood intro music

[josephjohnson]

If it is a 10 amp charger it should have charged a 100 amp battery in a little over 10 hours. So it sounds like something is off.

[KFPBP]

Great video - I'd be interested in seeing you make an 'ammo can' solar generator. I've been studying this but get a bit kerfuffled when trying to understand how they work! :)

[googlechunkybig]

Thanks for your video. I've just bought the HTRC P15 amp version. It must have been updated slightly from yours as the LCD display is much brighter and (strangely) the scrolling buttons allow you to charge at different amps 2/5A, 5/8A, 15/10A, Repair.
Seems to work well (UK 240v mains)

[s.mendez]

Would be cool to see your clamp on meter hooked up to see what the current is just before it shuts off. Seems like this is just a CC type charger. But if its smart to detect tail current, that would be helpful to confirm.

[guywhoknows]

I have a similar charger, cost £18.
If you use the AGM setting it will also charge a lfp battery and the BMS will keep the battery safe.
The issue you may get with some of these is the desulfurizing that they do before the charge (on other settings)
But lead tends to have the same charge curve they have wrote as does lfp.
Mine cuts a bit early imo as soon as it hits the charge voltage (max) which happens to be slightly below that of lead equalisation.

If you're serious about batteries, you should have a meter to see what it's doing pzm make a good one and you can see what power is going in and out to test your capacity and if their current measure is the same as the industry standards...
Mine seems to be a little over excited and the voltage is off by 0.02v.
It won't actually start/wake the battery. But I've just built a better one in any event
Why buy when you can build... I've a slow charger, variable 0.01-4.5amp and a 100amp variable :) and this one like this.

[sjceh]

Thank you for a very insightful review. I have one of their 20-amp chargers, and it is a workhorse but I find the fan to be really annoying. They also give off a lot of RF noise if that matters to you. I had an issue with the AC inlet connector on mine. I opened it up to find the back of the inlet connector where the electrode meets the riser tab from the main board to be some sort of press fit connection. This allowed it to work loose over time, resulting in an intermittent connection, which is kinda scary. I would think this should be a solid piece making the 90 from input electrode to riser tab or have a soldered joint. My other issue with these is when the battery reaches full charge the display shows "FUL" but does not display total amp-hours delivered and there's no way to retrieve that information, even though it is tracked during the entire charge process. I do like the XT60 connector on the output. Makes it easy to move these around to different battery banks if needed.

[Anand_Dzines]

Does this charger remember the last battery it charged or do we have to set the battery type every single time it's powered on??

[steveferguson]

Really cool Sam. I’m guessing reason it took so long is that it’s. Only a 10 amp charger

[quaddingsous]

Nicely done. Straight to the point with no big intro advertising your channel. Also, I love how you have your work space bright and decluttered. It helps keep us ADD guys from getting distracted - HAHAHA!!! Keep making videos like this and I'm sure your channel will grow into something huge. Sub earned.

[johnnybwrlr]

I have the HTRC 35a charger to charge my 140ah lifepo4 12v battery. It worked well 3 times, but is very rf noisy. On the fourth charge attempt, the wires that are part of a red/black zip type cord heated, melted and shorted at the ip60 connector. This shorting tripped the battery bms and started arcing at the ip60 connector. I trashed the original cables and found some that the red/black cables were seperated. This worked and reset my bms. But the wires got warm at 31-35 amps. I'm needing an rfi quiet setup and i'm about to try the victron smart/blue, suggested by other hams and by the bioenno people.

[viktorvikovich]

Good afternoon. Could you take a photo of the board? The same charger received 380 volts, and components (SMDs in the hot side of the charger) were burned out. Thanks in advance.

[AA-nhpv]

Hello! I have a very similar charger also by HTRC, a red and black charger, 10A, which says it will charge LiFePO4 batteries either of 12 or 24V. My battery is a 12Ah, 12.8V battery. It says it should be charged at 14.6V. The question I have is… is this what my charger will do? I mean, is the 12V battery rating only mentioning the voltage of the battery (and not the charging voltage)? Thanks!

[lechatbotte.]

You’re a mind reader Sam. I so glad you’re posting here