So, there are these great 32700 LiFePO4 batteries that showed up in my local industrial market. For like USD 2$!
However, there are no LiFePO4 chargers available. The vendors assure me I can “totally use” a 4.2V Li-ion charger, but I don’t believe them (although the cells test as being in good shape).
I whipped up a 5V system with a buck converter managed by an MCU. It turns off the buck converter that charges the battery, measures the battery voltage, and if it’s under 3.6V it enables the buck converter. Repeats every few 100s of milliseconds.
Did I overengineer this? Could I have just used a linear voltage regulator that outputs 3.6V (or a Zener), and a current-limited 5v power supply?
Charge speed is not really important in my application. Anything under 4 hours is great. Frankly, I’m just trying to phase out the less safe kinds of lithium cell in my lab.
My normal lithium battery charger automatically slows its charging speed as battery voltage nears its capacity. I could set it at 1000mah and it will step down to less than 1/10 of that before charging is complete.