Why do you need a different voltage regulator for lithium batteries?
Lithium batteries have different charging requirements than Lead Acid or AGM batteries that can severely affect their lifespan and performance. The key factors in safe and reliable lithium battery charging are the output DC voltage ripple and average output voltage.
The ripple effect is all that matters?
Charging voltage ripple in a powersports application is the difference between the highest and lowest voltages from the voltage regulator output. By nature, a common shunt style voltage regulator will have a fairly high voltage ripple due to the regulation shunt switches opening and closing frequently. Each on/off transition will cause some variation in the output voltage, this is unavoidable. Keeping this to minimum is critical for Lithium batteries.
In a perfect world, a ripple of less than 10% of the output voltage (~1.5V for a typical regulator), would be ideal, however is not practical for this type of regulator. The EDL4Li-VoltRect Lithium Specific regulator is able to maintain a less than 4 Volts output ripple, compared to verified test results of our competitors 8 volts. Keep in mind this ripple voltage is only seen via an Oscilloscope sampling the voltage 1000’s of times a second, and is not the same as your average charging voltage as measured by a multimeter.
