Charging Times and Lithiums

[TAKFishing]

Can anyone share their first hand experience with charging times for lithiums?

I always see in advertising for lithiums the mention of charging time being 5x faster, so am curious.

The math says for a lead acid 50ah battery that is dead (assume you could revive it for this example) it would take 10 hours to bring to full charge with a 5ah charger.

Same scenario but with a lithium apparently the battery could be charge to full much faster????

[DQM]

Lithium’s will charge very efficiently right up to just below 100% charge, so a 5amp charger will charge up a 50ah lithium battery to 98-99% in 10 hours.

lead acid batteries really start to drop in the amount of amperage they can take as they get more charged. I have seen a chart showing the curve, but don’t have it handy. I am sure google will have it. AGM less drop off than flooded lead acid, but still not nearly as efficient as lithium.

[mikeky]

I have a lithium for cranking and electronics, installed about a year ago, NOCO genius 3X10 charger installed a little before I changed to the lithium. My observation is that the lithium does not charge faster than the lead-acid.

[Woody b]

The math says for a lead acid 50ah battery that is dead (assume you could revive it for this example) it would take 10 hours to bring to full charge with a 5ah charger.

Your math is correct. Most lithium batteries are able to accept a faster charge than traditional lead acid or agm batteries. You would need a bigger charger to charge them faster. I use a 5 amp NOCO.

[CatFan]

Can anyone share their first hand experience with charging times for lithiums?

I always see in advertising for lithiums the mention of charging time being 5x faster, so am curious.

The math says for a lead acid 50ah battery that is dead (assume you could revive it for this example) it would take 10 hours to bring to full charge with a 5ah charger.

Same scenario but with a lithium apparently the battery could be charge to full much faster????

To put 50AH back into a lead-acid battery takes about 100AH from the charger. A significant portion of the energy is wasted as heat because of the internal resistance of the battery. As DQM mention, charging slows as the battery state of charge gets closer to full, but this is true for both lead-acid batteries and lithium-ion.

[Sirius Rich]

I charged my electronics only 125ah Ionic yesterday after a day on the lake. I drained it down to 44% and it took 3 hours, 6 minutes to fully recharge at 20 amps. The Ionic is 20 months old.

[haus9393]

Lithiums have the ability to charge at a much higher amp rate than lead acid. Some lithiums can charge at 100amps. If you check the charging specs you will see the charge rates for each size and brand. Lead batteries are usually rated up to about 20-30amps and most chargers are 5-10-15 amps. If you can even find a marine style charger that will do 50amps an hour for example that will indeed charge the battery up 5x faster than lead.

[bobcoy]

With equal input, the lithium is up in the 95% efficiency range compared to an AGM will be about 80 to 85%. A wet cell will be a bit lower than the AGM. My observations have been about like those numbers (about 20% faster. Of course different chargers will have influence as well. I have found 3 to 4 hours is enough for my Lithiums after an 8 hour day of trolling a school of crankbaits at 2MPH. That is with 15 Amps per channel. JMO Bob
36 volt motor.