samgab
Flashlight Enthusiast
I'm wondering what sort of burst current a LiFePo4 cell can handle.
Because I was thinking about voltages of the various chemistries,
and it seems, regular lead-acid SLI 12V automotive batteries charge at ~14.4V and are nominal 12V using 6 cells.
LiFePo4 cells charge at 3.6V and work safely down to 3.0V.
So a LiFePo4 4S battery would have similar voltage properties to a 6S Pb battery.
14.4V charge rate, and would work down to 12V happily.
So it would work with standard car charging and electronic and lighting systems.
So a battery of LiFePo4 cells could be made up, in 4S4P layout or 4S8P or something.
But would it be able to supply enough of a current burst to start the car?
How would it cope?
I'm sure using this technology, if the current supply is up to the task, we could have much lighter automotive SLI batteries.
And as for LEDs... A lot of very modern cars have LED indicators and brake lights, but it's a very slow advance into the industry.
It's mostly only top of the line expensive euro cars that have them. Also, strangely, pretty much ALL trucks and busses!
But they seem like a fairly obvious thing to replace incandescents for brakes and indicator lights.
They turn on and off much faster than an incan. which is safer.
They don't blow at the rate of incans.
They use way less power than incans.
So why are ANY cars still coming out with incan bulbs, for brake and indicator lights at least?
It's not like low brightness (I mean, 5mm standard type rather than cree type high brightness ones) LEDs are expensive, or difficult to implement.
And there are, what, about 2 cars in production with fully LED headlamps? Excluding prototypes.
I think the automotive industry is behind the times, very backwards.
Because I was thinking about voltages of the various chemistries,
and it seems, regular lead-acid SLI 12V automotive batteries charge at ~14.4V and are nominal 12V using 6 cells.
LiFePo4 cells charge at 3.6V and work safely down to 3.0V.
So a LiFePo4 4S battery would have similar voltage properties to a 6S Pb battery.
14.4V charge rate, and would work down to 12V happily.
So it would work with standard car charging and electronic and lighting systems.
So a battery of LiFePo4 cells could be made up, in 4S4P layout or 4S8P or something.
But would it be able to supply enough of a current burst to start the car?
How would it cope?
I'm sure using this technology, if the current supply is up to the task, we could have much lighter automotive SLI batteries.
And as for LEDs... A lot of very modern cars have LED indicators and brake lights, but it's a very slow advance into the industry.
It's mostly only top of the line expensive euro cars that have them. Also, strangely, pretty much ALL trucks and busses!
But they seem like a fairly obvious thing to replace incandescents for brakes and indicator lights.
They turn on and off much faster than an incan. which is safer.
They don't blow at the rate of incans.
They use way less power than incans.
So why are ANY cars still coming out with incan bulbs, for brake and indicator lights at least?
It's not like low brightness (I mean, 5mm standard type rather than cree type high brightness ones) LEDs are expensive, or difficult to implement.
And there are, what, about 2 cars in production with fully LED headlamps? Excluding prototypes.
I think the automotive industry is behind the times, very backwards.