How to look after your LFP battery

I have posted before about the two main classifications of lithium battery; NMC (nickel manganese cobalt) and LFP (lithium iron phosphate, also known as LiFePo4). There are a lot more classifications and in-between classifications, but these are the most well-known two.

A lot of online information is for NMC, which is why this little video is so good:

"The rules of LiFePo4: The 3 Most Common Causes of Failure and General Guidelines for Long Term Use"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbZiHzflKMY

That is good advice about charging periodically to 100%, though I'm not so sure about 0% ...nor really what constitutes "0%"

My powerbox battery that I built for camping seems to have a very low self-discharge. I haven't measured it, just left it in the closet for many months. It was in the closet for about 6 months at about 80% and when I got it out, it still "seemed" to be 80%.

I say "seemed" because that was the reading on the coulomb meter. Reading the voltage of an LFP battery is not an accurate way to determine state-of-charge, as LFP batteries have very slow voltage drop as the battery discharges, compared with NMC.

This site explains that LFP batteries have a lower self-discharge than NMC:

https://ecotreelithium.co.uk/news/lithium-nmc-vs-lifepo4/

...but the comment about LFP "no thermal runaway" -- that's a new one on me. Also, regarding self-discharge, I have read online the exact opposite; that LFP are slightly higher than NMC. The rule; take everything that you read with a grain of salt, including from "trusted" sources (see my previous blog post, here!)        

Tags: light