[bennelson]

OK, I have what SHOULD be a really basic question for some of you guys.

How do I MANUALLY control the rate of amperage while charging batteries.

This is specifically about "War-Charging" 12V batteries.

I have packs of 4 lithium cells pulled from my Mitsubishi i-MIEV salvage project. They are bundled together to basically be 12V batteries.

They are all dead dead dead. If I try to charge them with a "smart" 12V charger, the charger says there is nothing connected and won't start a charge. If I connect a "dumb" charger, the battery will try to draw more than the 10 amps the charger can provide and blow a fuse.

I HAVE been able to do some charging by more or less "jump-starting" the battery by connecting it with jumper cables to a plain 12V deep cycle battery. It's just like jump-starting a car. The good battery brings up the voltage of the bad battery.

At that point, I have enough voltage reading in the 12V lithium pack that I can start charging individual cells on a CellPro Powerlab 6 charger, which is designed for specifically smart charging lithium.

By war-charging these batteries, I limit the maximum voltage, but I have NO CONTROL over the current, which can be high enough to make jumper cables rather warm.

So how do I MANUALLY control the current?

I do have some 12V/50 watt light bulbs around. I can easily run the 12V flooded battery through the light bulb, then through the lithium and back to the floodie. However, doesn't the bulb drop the voltage by 12, leaving only a tiny amount of voltage dropped by the lithium pack? That gives me something like 4.3 amps of current, but only charging at .2V or something super-low like that.

The lithium won't EVER charge if it's getting .2 volt, will it? Can I expect the internal resistance of the lithium to change as it gets that small of a difference in voltage, and have it slowly come up?

You advice wanted!