12V 1A Charger

Works as expected.

Works as expected.

Charged my small LiFePO4 just as I expected.

Sometimes I like to have devices with all the bells and whistles. For battery chargers, I'm a fan of digital display panels, lots of options, multi-chemistry capability, etc. But for a simple job like charging an 8Ah LiFePO4 battery that I have, this ExpertPower 12V 1A Smart Charger is PERFECT. It's a simple charger for a simple job - just attach the cables to the battery, plug it in, and it quietly does its thing. There is a single LED indicator on this small wall-wart charger that glows red when charging, and green when the charging is complete. That's not too say that it isn't sophisticated, though. It has a pre-set charging algorithm that Lithium batteries love: just two stages - a constant current stage to bring the battery voltage to an optimum level, then a constant voltage stage (where the current gradually drops lower and lower) to finish the job. It works great for the battery I mentioned. I previously charged it with a much higher current charger, but it made me nervous - like it was TOO much current. It charged lighning-quick, but maybe at a cost of reduced battery life. But with this 1A charger I'm confident that the battery will last as long as possible. This is a great simple and easy to use charger at a good price.

As a one amp charger, the ExpertPower 12V, 1A Charger is designed to charge small, low amp-hour LiFePO4 batteries requiring low charge rates. A 12V, 100Ah lithium battery may have a maximum charge rate of 50 to 70 amps and a recommended charge rate of 20A. But a smaller battery of the same chemistry, say a 12V, 9.5Ah battery is limited to a 9.5A charge rate with a recommended 1.9A charge rate designed to increase the lifespan of the battery. Small chargers like the ExpertPower 12V, 1A Smart Charger are simple, inexpensive, small and designed for small LiFePO4 battery charging. They can charge large batteries too, but the charge time requires becomes ridiculous. This unit comes with a DC5521 barrel plug popular among power packs and a set of alligator clips for directly connecting to battery terminals. A small, simple, inexpensive solution to a small problem.

This charger seems to work OK. But i would not buy another. 1) I have not had the chance to see if the charger resets a battery with a BMS that has cutoff the battery. None of the documentation says it does. If the charger does reset the BMS, it should be labelled as a three state charger, so I assume it cannot reset the BMS. Also if a charger does reset the BMS it would be best if it then trickle charged the battery to (e.g.) 20% before performing the normal charge algorithm. 2) I asked EXPERT POWER if it is ok to leave the charger attached to a LiFePO4 battery -- they replied NO. The charger would be more useful if it had an additional MAINTAIN state. The charger would enter the MAINTAIN state when the battery SOC reached 100%. The charger should then stop providing any charge current and monitor the SOC of the battery. When the SOC dropped to (say) 90%, it should trickle charge the battery to a SOC of 100% and then re-enter the maintain state. From now on I only get LiFePO4 chargers with (at least) FIVE states: Check and reset BMS-->tickle charge battery if reset--> constant current -->constant voltage--> mainting

Thought my battery was a toast… but this charger got it back up and stable… works fine now… only downside is that the clips do not reach the battery terminals… had to rip the cable out to make it fit… longer connections would be preferred!

This is a simple but effective charger that seems to be pretty right-on it's advertised specs. With my multimeter I measured right about at 1 amp of current and the charge voltage varied a bit but was always within the expected range. It uses about 15 watts total so it's reasonably efficient, and with a temp probe I found that the body of the charger gets a little warm but not hot to the touch. The built-in LED shows red while charging and turns green when the battery quits accepting any more charge. I intentionally wanted a smaller, lower power charger like this because it tends to be better for the smaller lifepo4 batteries to be charged at a slower rate and also because it makes the charger compact and portable. This fits the bill nicely and seems to work well.