Recently, I posted a reply to someone's post, the subject of my reply was LiFe battery packs.
I bought two of them, both 1800mah 2 cell packs. Since they are 3.3 volts per cell, the packs, 2 cell, are 6.6 volts, nominal. From everything I read, these are ok for a typical RC installation for receiver power (provided the receiver and servos will work with 6 volt packs).
One question that came up in a PM from a reader was the charger. From what I read, and my basic understanding was that pretty much any LiPo charger would be fine for these packs.
I have a Duratrax ICE charger as well as an older Triton charger. Both are capable of charging Lithium packs as well as many other packs.
Well, when the packs arrived, I read in their documentation that there were some pretty specific requirements for charging these LiFe packs, and I thought my Duratrax ICE charger would most likely be just fine. But, to be sure, I wrote to their product support department (Duratrax) and asked questions about my ICE charger and their capabilities to charge the LiFe packs, given the specific requirements I read in the instructions provided with these packs. I won't outline the requrements because you can read about them on either the web site for Hobbico (download the "manual") or do as I did and buy the cells and read about the requirements in their documentation.
I got several replies from Duratrax about the charger and, at first, they were pretty much supportive about charging that pack. However, I think they researched it a bit and sent me an Email telling me this:
Unfortunately we cannot recommend using that charger, the manual says to not set the set the Ice's battery voltage to greater then the nominal voltage, all that means is do not set it for 11.1V when you have a 7.4V battery. The Ice charger charges to 4.1V for LiIon and 4.2V for LiPo batteries, this exceeds the maximum charge voltage of 3.6V per cell for a LiFe battery, because of this you should not use it to charge LiFe batteries. You would need a charger like the Great Planes TritonEq (GPMM3155), this is capable of charging 1-6 cell LiIon, LiPo or LiFe batteries.
Keep in mind that this reply came from Duratrax and not Hobbico. So, the reply has credibility.
Sooo... there is more to the LiFe packs that should be explained when using this product. Don't get me wrong, I am not badmouthing anyone here, I am just telling you that if you do get the LiFe packs, you really should do some research on the charging requirements for these packs.
I bought the Triton EQ2 charger. This seems like putting the cart before the horse, but the Triton EQ charger will pretty much charge everything I have in my battery "inventory". But, if you are going to buy these packs, be cautious about how you are going to charge them.
CGr.