I had a 4 cell LiFePO4 battery inside my K2 for quite a while. It was about the same size as the original SLA.
I found that I was able to charge it with the built-in SLA charging circuit as a matter of routine and the cells remained in balance, as verified by an occasional balance charge with a CellPro Multi4. The reason this worked well was because the cells in the pack were all of good quality, the discharge rate was not excessive, the built-in K2 charger charged at low current, and I was careful not to leave the charging circuit on for prolonged periods. LiFePO4 will tolerate limited low current "overcharging" fairly well and without the danger associated with doing the same with regular Li-Poly chemistry, and in my experience without damaging the cells. Of course, ultimate cell life may be only 500 cycles instead of the 2000 you might expect with good LiFePO4 cells and use of a quality balance charger, but I never found any degradation. I agree with others that have replied, however, that just using an external LiFePO4 pack entails little disadvantage, and that is what I do now myself. Chip ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]
