battery comparison for noob

[migueralliart]

.

[staft]

Are these animals stuffed with Lithium?

Thanks, all. I just started this process, and I'm already dragging in to work hopelessly sleep deprived from the hours I'm devoting to getting up to speed with this stuff (not an EV pun, I promise).

No motor or controller picked out, not even the right bike for conversion. I'm swimming in a sea of variables, if any of you remember a time like that.

[999zip999]

Match the hub motor and controler to the battery. So they will last.

[staft]

Florida is one big sand bar, mild hills at best. Heat and rain will be the biggest challenges.

I want to match motor, controller, and batts, for sure, once I have a better idea of what that means. Any recommendations for a first bike? I know this is probably salted throughout the forum, and I will continue to read, but some practical combo ideas would be welcome. Are the kits usually well-matched?

[wesnewell]

For only a 10 mile rt commute, you don't need much battery. 10ah of 12s lipo will get you about 20 miles at 20mph for $130.
26" bike $??
48V 1000W DD motor kit $275 About 28 mph top speed on 12s lipo.
Lipo charger $40 and up.
Misc. $0 to $how vane you are.

[dogman]

Yes, people will go on and on how you can save money with lipo, yadda yadda. It's lighter. It's smaller.

It just depends on how much range you want. If you want about 20 miles range, then a 48v 15 ah ping remains a good choice.

It's very safe, you really don't hear of pingbattery fires. The only one I recall in many years was a guy who let a sharp edge in the battery box short one.

It should last. My first one took me 7000 miles, and only died because I finally made a dumb mistake.

48v 15 ah is small enough to fit in many bikes frame triangle, or if not, carries pretty good on rear racks. 15-16 pounds

It will run a "typical kit" just fine. A 20 amp controller will not harm one.

What kit to buy? Well, there are cheaper options for sure. But on a firt bike customer service might be more important that cheapest. E-BikeKit has a very complete kit, very well thought out, and very good CS. You'll be dealing with a USA company, shipping from the USA. I like the direct drive motors. If you put 48v on one, you get real world 1200 watts. It's a motor that is a clone, or at least very very similar to a 9 continent motor. Generally rear motor is best, but front is fine for street use, particularly on a beach cruiser or other non suspension bike.

[wesnewell]

Yes, people will go on and on how you can save money with lipo, yadda yadda. It's lighter. It's smaller.

It just depends on how much range you want. If you want about 20 miles range, then a 48v 15 ah ping remains a good choice.

It's very safe, you really don't hear of pingbattery fires. The only one I recall in many years was a guy who let a sharp edge in the battery box short one.

It should last. My first one took me 7000 miles, and only died because I finally made a dumb mistake.

48v 15 ah is small enough to fit in many bikes frame triangle, or if not, carries pretty good on rear racks. 15-16 pounds

It will run a "typical kit" just fine. A 20 amp controller will not harm one.

What kit to buy? Well, there are cheaper options for sure. But on a firt bike customer service might be more important that cheapest. E-BikeKit has a very complete kit, very well thought out, and very good CS. You'll be dealing with a USA company, shipping from the USA. I like the direct drive motors. If you put 48v on one, you get real world 1200 watts. It's a motor that is a clone, or at least very very similar to a 9 continent motor. Generally rear motor is best, but front is fine for street use, particularly on a beach cruiser or other non suspension bike.

Why I would never buy a 15ah ping for a 10 mile RT commute, or for anything else for that matter.
1. Cost. $533 + $?? for shipping from china.
2. Controller pulls 30A, stressing the battery and shortening its life.
3. Can go 10 miles on 5ah of lipo and not even come close to stressing it for about $70.

[dogman]

Do a cost per mile estimate some time. Include everything you need to charge and monitor discharges safely. Then consider how you can plug in your lifepo4 and go to bed.

But you are correct, I don't recomend pings for 30 amp controllers. Did he say that? I don't think so. If he wants a bat for a more powerful bike, I'd send him to cellman for an A123 pack.

To be clear, I recomend the ping for a typical kit. Usually they have 20 amp controllers that in fact are set to 22 amps.

[Ypedal]

Going lipo requires you factor in the cost of an RC charger, Power supply, Ballancers or various gizmos for voltage monitoring.. time and effort in making your own pack and wire harness.. learning the ropes and all that jazz...

There are ways around the complexities but the end user has to.. i repeaat.. HAS to learn about the specifics.. some people do not, and are not willing, or able to do this. for those people a Ping makes perfect sense.

[staft]

Going lipo requires you factor in the cost of an RC charger, Power supply, Ballancers or various gizmos for voltage monitoring.. time and effort in making your own pack and wire harness.. learning the ropes and all that jazz...

There are ways around the complexities but the end user has to.. i repeaat.. HAS to learn about the specifics.. some people do not, and are not willing, or able to do this. for those people a Ping makes perfect sense.

What are the best choices for a beginning LiPo kit, as regards charger, power supply, balancers, etc.? I am not too intimidated to consider going this route, but there is clearly much more to learn. I will now go research pack construction, but what would you all recommend for # of cells to power a 36V/48V DD motor, and what kind of controller would then be necessary?

As usual, my intention isn't to avoid the research. Although it is eating up huge amounts of my time. I am thoroughly addicted to the process already, but I am starting from the bottom tech wise, especially with electronics.

[dogman]

As it says in my signature. The battery section FAQ's, lipo noob links is a good starting place.

12s 10 ah, is the "standard" lipo noob pack if there is such a thing. So you get 4 packs of 6s 5000 mha. Not so much for amps as to have a pack with enough range to make a worth while ebike. a 5 ah 12s pack is just not enough range.
10 ah will give you about 10 miles of practical, usable range at full speed, and more if you slow down and pedal.

Each set of two packs are connected paralell, more or less permanently. Then each pair is connected in series, for a 44v nominal pack. The minimm charger can be very cheap, but it will also be extremely slow.

So the four packs, about $300
One decent charger and power supply, About $180 Or a power supply and HVC LVC boards, no cheaper.
One cellog 8 about $25 perhaps two.
Voltmeter of some kind, or some low voltage warnings. $20-120. You want the cycleanalyst, so $120
Some extra lenghts of wire, and connectors, Jst extensions to make paralell harnesses, or maybe a paraboard. $50?

See how quick it starts to add up to nearly as much as a ping? Add two more batteries to have the same size as a ping and viola! You just spent just as much as a pingbattery, and still don't get to plug in your charger and go to sleep. And you have half the cycle life of lifepo4.

So why even consider lipo? You don't, unless you are running a big fat 40 amp or higher controller. For the hot rod ebike, (illegal homemade flyweight motorcycle) you want lipo.

[999zip999]

Lipo is a hobby. Best for a plug and play for a bike would be lifepo4. A Ping is cheap in the long run. Plug and play is nice. Like having a plug for a C.A. If you go to cheap it will cost double. On the bottom of a lot of people on this forum is ebikes.com. Or cellman's kit's or the yesa kit is the cheapest, The difference is how many plugs you would like to replace. The yesa kit controller is set a little high ( amps ) and can't plug in a C.A. for later. Do you want a D.D motor or a geard motor ? This will help with the battery needs. How much money can you spend ? !200usd.?

[wesnewell]

What are the best choices for a beginning LiPo kit, as regards charger, power supply, balancers, etc.? I am not too intimidated to consider going this route, but there is clearly much more to learn. I will now go research pack construction, but what would you all recommend for # of cells to power a 36V/48V DD motor, and what kind of controller would then be necessary?

Hundreds of answers. First consider a motor is rated in watts, not voltage. So if you are going to buying both a controller and battery that is what you need to match, not the motor. Also, motor ratings are rated as continuous operation, so a motor can take at least 5-10 times that amount of watts for shorter periods of time. As an example my original 48v 1000w kit came with a 30A controller. even a 48V SLA pack will charge to over 50v so 30x50=1500W to start with using the original controller. The controller I use now is a 40A controller and I've used battery packs up to 100V on it producing 4000W without a problem for a mile or two. At over 40mph I don't want to go to far at that speed on a 26" bike, and the take off would probably wheelie if I wasn't 275 lbs.
So what do you want? Cheapest would be what I built for a friend. 6 of these;
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... ouse_.html
wired as 12s2p. Or 10ah 44.4v pack for $130. These are great 4s packs. Best I've seen for staying in balance. Why 12s? Because most 48v controllers have a LVC of about 42V, which is right at the point you want to stop using a 12s pack. He runs it until it starts cutting out and then brings it to me to charge. It's never been lower than 4% soc. I would recommend this setup for anyone using a 48V controller for hassle free use. This kid is mentally challenged and if he can't screw it up no one can.
You can use a charger from $30-$200. Just depends on what you want and how fast you want to charge. You use bulk chargers with other means of balancing or balance chargers. So how fast do you want to charge, and hiw do you want to charge the pack? Parallel, all in series balanced, bulk?

[staft]

So how fast do you want to charge, and hiw do you want to charge the pack? Parallel, all in series balanced, bulk?

I would be open. How slow is slow charging? Is it better for the battery, like I have heard for other batteries? Would I be up all night chaperoning the charge? If so, something faster would need to happen. Or back to Lifepo4's.

choices choices choices.

[wesnewell]

So how fast do you want to charge, and hiw do you want to charge the pack? Parallel, all in series balanced, bulk?

I would be open. How slow is slow charging? Is it better for the battery, like I have heard for other batteries? Would I be up all night chaperoning the charge? If so, something faster would need to happen. Or back to Lifepo4's.

choices choices choices.

Yep. Tons of choices. I was in your boat when I first started using lipo a little over a year ago. While I'm very fugal, some would say cheap, I sprung for a Hyperion 1420I because it would charge 14s lipo packs in series and i wanted to run 14s packs. had I known then what I know now, I would have started with a 12s2p pack and probably a cheap 6s balance charger. I don't need a fast charge so even a $30 50w charger would have worked nicely and charged a 12s2p pack in about 10 hours from empty. With the Hyperion I can charge my 14s2p pack in about an hour at 2c, but I use a 1C charge because higher than that may shorten life of the pack. So while some lipo is spec'd for a 5C or higher charge, I'd stick to 1C to extend life of the pack. I really expect lipo to last 3-5 years, 1000 cycles or more if treated right. And while lifepo4 id rsted for 10years, 2000 cycles, if you look around you'll find plenty of them that have died in a lot shorter time, like 3 years or less. But that's off topic a little. Another charge option is bulk charging using a bulk charger like one of these.
http://www.bmsbattery.com/18-alloy-shell
The 400W charger set to 50V would charge a 10ah 12s pack in about an hour at 1C. Lots of people bulk charge lipo and check the balance using battery medics or some other means. Another useful cheap tool is this.
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... duct=10786
Besides balance up to 6s it's a fully functional watt/amp meter. I use mine all the time for different things besides just the watt meter. While3 I'm at it, these are great little voltage meters too. Thanks to whomever pointed me towards them.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/Test-Equipment- ... kw=12-120v.
Btw, if your paranoid about lipo, charge it in the oven or fireplace. I'm not so I charge mine on a wooden computer table in a spare room. I do have working smoke detectors though.

[motomech]

There is a battery chemistry and vendor that nobody has mentioned yet and they are the LI-ion NiCoMn Batteries from BMSBattery.
BMS Battery is the largest re-seller of Ebike products in China and NiCoMn is a safe, easy to charge chemistry that is lighter and more compact than LiFePo, but it doesn't have the number of "life" cycles.
The "old timers" here have long memories and there has been issues in the past with both BMS Battery and their batteries. A few packs have died a "melty" death[I know of two that are documented here]and BMS Battery has been notoriously difficult to deal with. Their website is a wealth of mis-information and calling to get a "straight" answer is nigh-on impossible. And shipping times can vary wildly. These "issues" are by no means exclusive to BMS Battery, more like the norm for vendors in China[the exception is Cell_man, our Dr. Livingston in the wilds].
But the "winds of change" seem to be blowing and recent favorable reports are starting to come in, mostly from our brothers "across the pond".
The thing about BMS Battery is, their prices are remarkably reasonable, but their shipping costs are somewhat high. Those shipping costs are less to Europe and there is a much greater following there.
Respected ES members such as Miuan, D8veh and Haste[who have not responded here, but may chime in]have been using BMS Battery almost exclusively for quite some time now and they have nothing but good things to say. Customer service has improved to a point that one no longer has to worry about what they will receive[if anything at all], but when they will receive their goods. And even that issue has been well explained by D8veh.
As far as their Li-on batteries are concerned, here is a recent link to some initial experiences with BMS Battery Li-on offerings.

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=33566&start=45

But these are initial experiences, not long term reviews. These packs do not have the proven track record of a Ping, so only time will tell how they hold up.
But at roughly half the price of the Ping[and many are on sale now], they are worth consideration I.M.O.

Putting many models of their batteries on sale is a positive sign. Nothing is worse for a new battery[of any chemistry]than "sitting on the self" and since BMS Battery stocks 100's, if not 1000's of batteries, putting them on sale would appear to represent an effort to "move" them so they don't get "stale".
There has also been reports of BMS Battery upgrading their cells as better ones become available.
If I was in the market for a non-Lipo pack[and I'm not sure the O.P. wants to go there yet], i would order a Li-on from BMS Battery.

http://www.bmsbattery.com/50-battery-pack