I’ve been a HUGE fan of BioEnnoPower LiFePO4 batteries and have been using three of their devices for many years. I had put together a presentation for my radio club (Newport County Radio Club) suggesting a couple of configurations of radios and antennas that would be useful for park activations. Part of that presentation was a suggestion to use a 16 AH BioEnnoPower battery, which costs about $150 (without charger). I still know that is an excellent vendor and fine product.
I did run across a vendor selling a 16 AH LiFePO4 battery on Amazon for $55 (free Prime shipping). Since this was 1/3 the price of the BioEnnoPower battery, I felt compelled to buy one and test it out.
Yesterday I ran it through my battery tester to confirm the capacity rating. It tested out at 15.2 AH (95% of capacity rating), and maintained a voltage above 12.0 volts for 90% of its capacity. I note two things:
- The battery was fully charged prior to the test, but I had never cycled it before — sometimes a few cycles are needed to achieve full capacity (and at the price 15.2 AH is certainly close enough)
- The charging process presented a somewhat unusual condition. After reaching full charge, the current dropped to zero, then remained off for about 30 seconds, then turned back on at full current for 30 seconds. That pattern continued for several hours, with the amount of “on” time growing shorter, and the “off” time growing longer. My best guess is that this was the internal battery management board equalizing the voltage on the internal batteries. Every other battery I’ve owned just slowly tapers off the charge current.
The key specifications are: Charging voltage 14.6 volts, typical charge current is 0.2C (with C determined at the 5 hour discharge rate). So a 3 AH charger would be ideal. But they also say you can use up to a 10 amp charger. Maximum discharge current is listed at 42 Amps
A second test yielded 15.253 Ah capacity
