Lithium leisure batteries are designed to be a direct replacement for lead batteries. They achieve this by having an inherently closely aligned terminal voltage to that of other lead acid variants of leisure battery including wet, gel and agm types.

MaxLi batteries will charge fully to their design capacity at 14.4V (+-0.2V) and this is the output level of the charging circuits of all modern 12V existing split-charge engine wiring circuits regardless whether the manufacturer has used a fixed voltage or smart alternator charging circuit, since they would have already had to account for that prior.

When solar charging, existing 12V MPPT chargers can charge existing wet, agm and gel batteries, and will therefore charge our lithium just as efficiently in the same way. Existing 12V PWM solar chargers are the same. Many modern PWM or MPPT variants have a separate selection for wet/agm/gel/lithium battery variants to “fine tune” their charging efficiency. In the case of variations having no lithium settings it is recommended to select the setting with the closet match to a 14.4V charge voltage.

Existing mains charging/power supplies that were designed to charge existing wet, gel or agm batteries will also charge our batteries too and as is the case with solar charge controllers above, may have a setting to change between wet/agm/gel/lithium. Where this is the case, select either lithium or refer to the voltage output selecting the closest setting to 14.4V.

Some very old chargers may have been designed with a fast charge and/or a desulphurisation mode sometimes referred to a rejuvenation setting. It is important to ensure these settings are never used since this could result in damage over time to the battery.