battery comparison for noob

[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