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In the market for a trickle charger for my weekender and stumbled upon this awesome deal.
Victron Blue Smart IP65 12V 5A - $85.91 delivered
Victron Blue Smart IP65 12V 15A - $150.00 delivered
Victron Blue Smart IP65 Battery Charger 12V 10A SLA LifePO4 $128.95 Delivered @ Micktron via eBay AU
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vtecdohc on 09/09/2024 - 12:06 ebay.com.au (798 clicks)
Last edited 12/09/2024 - 16:21 by 2 other users
Last edited 12/09/2024 - 16:21 by 2 other users
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Gawd dammit, I just paid $166 for the 12 | 15A the other day! I needed it for the weekend though. Oh well.
I just bought a 100ah lifepo4 battery to use when camping, is this what i need to charge it from the wall? I'm on a budget as well so will the 5A be enough or should I go for the 10A? I was looking at the ATEM one on Amazon but may go for this.
5A will do the job but will take a long time if battery is quite depleted.
Victron makes great chargers, but to be honest for charging your LifePO4 the Atem would do just as good a job.
If you are only going to use it for your 100Ah and around $85 is the most you wanted to spend, I'd probably just go with the Atem for the extra amps.
If you are going to be charging AGMs or your car battery as well and/or can stretch it to the $128 then I'd say get the Victron 10A. The BT and data in the app is pretty handy, and the charger can be used in power supply mode if you ever needed that too.
Probably a dumb question. However are the bigger chargers able to 'step down' as much as the smaller ones?
I guess what I'm really asking is would there be any problem buying the 15A to charge larger 100A batteries and still using it on my smaller 15A motorbike battery? Or would the 5A be a better option for that.
The 15A can be set to 15A or 4A in the app, I use mine for a small motorcycle battery, no issues…
Personally I think it's worth going for a 10 or 15 so you have the ability to recharge a 100Ah battery overnight if you have to… (i.e. if you need to charge it overnight at a paid/powered campground or such)
(My 15 gets pretty hot on the bottom so it's worth being mindful what you sit it on)
You'll probably want a charger with a low current mode for small AGM batteries to be sure you're not going to cook them. The Victron 15A has a low current mode of 4A (10A is 3A, smaller models are 2A). Not sure what your 15Ah recommended charge rate is but I'm guessing somewhere between 2 and 4A?
Thanks, that sounds reasonable. I guess if I don't need the extra features, I'll just go the cheaper route, so long as it gets the job done.
Li-ion doesn't need 101 stages of charging, desulphation etc. 0V charging might be useful though if you drained your battery to the point of the BMS shutting it down.
If you're game to try there are these chargers claiming 20A output for under $70 too (probably less if you looked hard enough).
15 amp would be my choice depending on your usage. If you move around a little and spend every third night in a caravan park and want to charge your dead battery fast you will welcome the extra grunt.
I go with my family for 3-4 days at most at a time, so I'm hoping the 10A will do the trick.
Seems overpriced. I bought a $23 one from Amazon and it works fine on my 12V battery. Charged it from empty to full 3 times now. No issues and just left it charging in my garage overnight each time.
You could say that about almost anything eg “Lexus seems overpriced. I bought a Kia Picanto and driven it to Woolies 3 times now”.
You get what you pay for, I wouldn't risk a cheapy charger on my $500 battery, or take the risk of my campervan going up in smoke…
I'll be the guinea pig then. I'll report back when my car looks like a bonfire
freelife
It's worked 3 times? What more could you want!!My batt fails cos I've just joined Kobo and their device drinks batt juice like crazy when car not running. Insurance is void if I unplug. Planning on switching away
The 30A Blue Smart IP22 charger is down to $171.68 from Micktron https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/285120905488?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mk…
Thanks, got this one. Seems like a no brainer - double the current for $20 more than the 15A one. Seems like its more pro than consumer level of the others.
Just have to make up your own alligator clamp cables or whatever, which isn't a huge imposition for me.
Yeah, my purpose is to replace my battery charger in my van which doesn't support lithium, so I can eventually replace the lead batteries and reduce weight.
I have the IP22 charger. There is a Lithium ION charge profile that you can select from the mode button but also a more specific LiFeP04 (Lithium Iron Phospate) profile that you can access via the app under advanced settings and you can even create a custom LiFeP04 profile using the recommended settings that come with most LiFeP04 batteries.
The price just went up to $193.50 as I was about to check out. Be careful if you already have it in your cart. Bit sneaky on that.
If all you are after is a trickle charger then wait for an Aldi charger to be offered for around $30. It’s basically a cheap CTEK.
10 is sold out but other sellers have it at the same price:
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/274885988077
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/392356671828The 15A is also sold out. A quick google found some other eBay sellers at the same price. The code worked with them too.
Great deal!
Anyone have any recommendations for a DC DC charger? Going to buy a 100 or 200ah lithium set up with the 15amp charger above.
Not Renogy. I have 50A Renogy and it has this weird design decision/fault….
If your house battery takes itself offline (if it has a fault or whatever, which it is totally supposed to do). The Renogy DCDC will suddenly start pulling 1A from your starting battery for no reason. Its like it goes into kind of boot up phase where it just keeps looking for your house battery, all the while draining your starting battery to do all this "work".
As you can imagine, your starting battery will subsequently go completely flat after a couple of weeks of this. Like if you go away and leave your vehicle unattended for a few weeks. Stupid Renogy device has totally killed my starting battery, had to buy a new one as it refused to take/hold a charge after it got Renogy'd.
Grab a Redarc bcdc off marketplace
We have 200 Ahr lithium in our camper trailer. We did a year around Australia so were living out of it. We had the 15A Victron for AC charging when available (caravan parks etc), 25 A Projecta DC/DC and 200W solar. All worked flawlessly and kept us in juice for the trip. 2 fridges draw on average 1 Ahr/hr, so ~50 Ahr/day.
We had the DC/DC mounted in the camper. Even with 3 AWG cable to an from, you were getting ~3V drop to the charger. This means the charger will pull 35A+ to put the 25A into the battery. So watch your cable size - I doubt you could put a larger DC/DC, and certainly not through a regular Anderson.
Basically sounds like the exact set up I'm trying to achieve for our camper. Currently have a 200ah agm that is almost dead so needing to replace it but means I'll need a new dcdc, lithium battery and the AC. Will check out your suggestions. Thanks heaps.
BTW the Porjecta I had was the non-lithium version. Basically if your DC/DC has an AGM setting (14.2 or 14.4 V) and 3 stage charging it should work. If it has 7 stage charging (de-sulphinisation etc) I would not use it.
@Lead Wings: Yeah mine is the Thunder 20A dcdc charger and don't think wil work for lithium. Calls out that it doesn't so I will need the dcdc too.
@Lead Wings: I use a non-lithium Projecta IDC25 Amp DC-DC charger on my lithium battery also, I'm not chasing max charge from it so I have it on the Gel setting, 14.1v… I've been running this DC-DC charger + Victron 75/15 solar charger on a Lithium battery for around 2 years now, I'm approaching the end of my second 5 month roadtrip with it (+ a few short trips), all good…. I've been tempted to upgrade to a Victron DC-DC but the heat issues and cost have put me off, I'll wait for the new generation to get cheaper…
(side-note: I found out years ago when I was running AGM the inbuilt Projecta solar charger didn't like my 2x flat-mounted 100w cheapo solar panels, in anything but perfect full sun conditions you could hear it ramp up and then shut down, it was a known issue, Projecta sent me a replacement with new firmware but it was the same… Since I ended up with 2 of them, they're not really at fault, and I was on a long roadtrip at the time, I didn't chase a refund, I just switched back to using my old 3rd party solar charger, which I upgraded to a Victron 75/15 solar charger when I switched to lithium.)
@FLICKIT: 14.1V charge voltage is fine for LFP (can go as high as 14.4V to get that last 5% of SOC), but what float voltage is your DCDC running at with Gel setting? Thats the thing thats really going to ruin a LFP.
@stumo: I'm not chasing 100% SOC, I get 100Ah out of a 12v - 14v charge…
13.7v float on the Gel & AGM setting with the Projecta, from memory that's a little on the high side but that's only while I'm driving, I have the Victron 75/15 solar charger set to13.4v float…
@FLICKIT: 13.4V should be ok then, and like you say the 13.7V when driving won't have time to do too much damage.
I use 13.4V float when I'm actively using the van off-grid each day. But if its not going to be cycled much like when on shore power, I usually set float to 13.2V.
It takes about 2 years of 13.7V float to permanently deplete about 20% of the LFPs SOC. With the way LFP prices are going you could buy a new battery after that time anyway.
@stumo: I'm rarely on shore power but I have the float/storage level set quite low on the victron mains charger, I cant remember off the top of my head what it's set to… When the van's parked up at home for a while I usually lower the solar float voltage (when I remember to)…
My battery is a $500+ Big Wei (Aussie assembled), with a Daly BMS and GFB cells, the cells seem good, I'm really not a fan of the Daly BMS for numerous reasons….
When I first put this setup together I checked the capacity, it was right on 100Ah for a 14v charge and discharge down to 12v… Before my current trip (when the setup was 18 months old and had done a previous 5+month lap of the country plus numerous shorter trips), the capacity was 96Ah from memory… I'll check it again when I get home after this trip, I suspect it will be much the same…
I rarely use more than about 30 or 40% of the 100Ah capacity, fridge, lighting, fans, numerous USB chargers for phones/laptop/tv-tablet, diesel-heater at times, and such, I have a 1000w inverter but I never use it, I mainly installed that to charge the e-bike if/when I start travelling with that…
The BMS has only registered 41 cycles, the Victron SmartShunt tells me I've only dragged 7825Ah, 105kWh out of the battery, 35 cycles… The SmartShunt only registers a cycle if you drag it below about 65% so that's a good indication of my usual depth of discharge… i.e. Over a year of living in here it's only gone below 65% 35 times… (I very very rarely end up going below 50% due to good sun and/or driving most days)
@stumo: Stumo, out of interest where does your line about the 13.7V float leading to 20% degridation come from? Not trying to start a fight here, but my experience has been quite different.
I built an electric car 14 years ago, with a 45 x 160 Ahr LiFePO4 pack. This gave me ~100km range, so I would charge it every night to 160V - or 3.55V per cell. That is the equivalent of 14.2V for a 12V / 4 cell pack.
I pulled the pack out after 12 years to replace with a bigger pack, and the cells were down to 70% capacity - so the degridation was nothing like 20% in 2 years.
@Lead Wings: I can't find a link now. But it was from a full time off-grid bus conversion over 15 years ago. Back then they were early adopters of LFP and spent thousands (like you did I guess) on a 1000Ah 12V bank. The suppliers told them in writing that they could float it at 13.7V. So they did. It was on float most of the time while fully charged with a massive solar array. So it would quickly fully charge to 14.4V and then sit there floating at 13.7V for most of the day, every day.
They found that they had lost 20% SOC over the first 2 years. They were in a massive fight with the suppliers about their charging advice. They dropped the float voltage to 13.4V and experienced no further SOC degradation after 2 more years.
It is a known process of permanently slowly plating the electrodes if you float a LFP after it is already fully charged.
Presumably in your case you were using it in cycle use case, which LFP is perfect for. And presumably you weren't floating your bank all the time after it was already charged, removing all voltage after fully charging the bank.
@stumo: Thanks Stumo. Yeah there have been a lot of learnings about LFP over the last couple of decades and how to treat the batteries, as well as huge advancements in the battery tech and BMS.
In general from what I am seeing the lithium batters are out-lasting expectations which is great to see, especially as the BMS/management tech is now a lot smarter.
Enerdrive | Dometic ePOWER DC2DC 40A+ Can handle up to 50amps but can select output and has a built in Solar MPPT regulator that can take up to 600watts. There is also a new 50 amp VICTRON Orion XS 12/12-50A that is said to have overcome the heat issues experienced with the earlier 30a Victron DC-DC units.
Even the 18a victron was useless when it came to derating because of heat.
The new Orion xs does look awesome but I'm still hesitant to buy one until they've been in use a bit longer and in various use cases though.
I feel the same about the Orion XS, chances are the price will come down in time also, currently $366 https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/285762013595 ..
@FLICKIT: Great price! I'm sorry but I down voted you accidentally and it seems it can't be changed. How ridiculous.
Please accept my apologies.
damn. I got the 15A for 180 earlier 3 months ago :(
thanks heaps. have been waiting for a ctek deal but saw this and they still had 2 in stock, so grabbed one.
they got 1 left if someone is lucky
Good lord!!!. Order the 10amp at 2pm yesterday, arrived 12pm today in a differeny city from where it was sent.
Great price, great delivery
Not sure about pricing but these chargers are one of the best and the mobile interface and charge stats you get are very informative