LiFe Battery questions

[Greywolf74]

So I got my first pair of LiFe batteries to power my Futaba 4PL and I have a couple of questions about them. I know the nominal voltage on them is 3.3V/C but what is the max voltage per cell?

Also Are LiFes like Lipos where they get damaged if you run them down to low or are they like L-ion cells where you can run them until they are totally dead?

If they do need a LVC what is the cut off voltage?

 

[trax de max]

i been trying to find this for a while, so far i have read it's fully charged at 3.65-3.7 and also read it's about 4.1.
The low voltage has been around 2.1-2.5V, again some use a cut off and some don't.
But i've never found one person, or a group of people to say what it is.

 

[Greywolf74]

Well heres what I've seen so far cycling them on my Powerlabs 6 charger. They will charge up to about 3.6-3.7V but as soon as the charger is done they will quickly fall off to about 3.3-3.4V/C within about 10-15 minutes. The PL6 will discharge these down to about 3.2 which will read about 8% battery life left so If I was gonna set a LVC Id probably set it at about 3V/C. I've been told 3V/C is the LVC point for LiFe but Hobbypartz told me 2V/C. Going by what I seen on my charger I'm inclided to think 3V/C is probably correct.

 

[trax de max]

cool, can you charge these at any rate.

 

[Greywolf74]

Yeah after watching it some more it seems like they level off after charging to about 3.45 V/C and once they are done the at about 3.1V/C.

My PL6 also has a storage mode for LiFes so I'm assuming they need storage charged but with such a small voltage range I'm wondering if it really matters? They storage charge down do about 3.34 V/C.

I charged these at 1C for the most part. I did try out 2C and the batteries became just a lil warm which should be fine but I dont think Id go over 2C. These are however small 1100mAh 10C 2S LiFes so the bigger ones might be able to handle more.

 

[trax de max]

Thanks for the answers, it's good to see someone who has tried and used the info direct from charger. As I think some of the things I've read, is by people who got the info from wikipedia. And we all know, wikipedia isn't the best place to get info.