Luna Cycle's "world's safest battery" lacking MSD

echeat

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I'm pretty frocking furious at this point, so you're just going to have to excuse the rant.

I'm in Japan on one of the bases. I have an Japanese address, but I can not get a battery from Luna Cycle shipped to me.

I've went out of my way to find a third party shipper to get Luna's wolf pack battery shipped here. Now things are jammed up at the third party shipper (which said they could ship the item when I pointed them to the URL for the wolf pack). The sticking point? Apparently Luna Cycle doesn't publish a Materials Safety Datasheet for their product. I get it. The MSD is a 16 part document that usually runs about six to eight pages long. It's a pain in the ass to create.... but, it's nothing really that special. Luna Cycle should have been doing this for all their batteries a long, long time ago. All they have to do is regurgitate that Samsung/Panasonic MSDs along with any relevant about their contribution to how the 18650 cells are arranged and packaged.

It just frocking baffles me how an American company that prides itself on building "the world's safest ebike battery" hasn't done something as basic as create a MSD for their "revolutionary" battery. Meanwhile, I can get batteries built in China shipped to me with no problem (thing is, I don't want their shitty batteries.... I'm super frocking tired of all the defects and faults found in the Chinese batteries).

Here's the thing... If I can't get Luna's battery shipped to me by the end of the month, I'm officially writing America off as Done(tm). Kaput. Finished as a place where product can be manufactured and shipped to the world. At the end of this saga, I'll reveal the name of the third party shipper (who lied to me in order to get my business).

In the mean time (while I'm waiting for Luna to act like a proper company and support their product with basic frocking documentation), I'm open to any suggestions on how to said battery from the USA to Japan.
 
So buy a battery from someone who is compliant with your local rules. It's not hard to do. And it's not Luna's responsibility to comply with whatever you think you need from them. They seem to be doing a pretty good business their way.
 
Luna cycle is ran by a marketer, not an engineer.
There are a variety of false claims on their website about their products that are based on emotional rhetoric and not facts.

I would not wait for Luna to act like a proper company. A properly certified battery is going to cost you more money. Most of luna's battery production is offshored to China, as far as i know. An allcell pack might be the only american product you can get that meets shipping regulations you're looking for..
 
Chalo said:
So buy a battery from someone who is compliant with your local rules. It's not hard to do. And it's not Luna's responsibility to comply with whatever you think you need from them. They seem to be doing a pretty good business their way.

That's a pretty crappy way to do business. MSD are fundamental aspect of making and selling a product. There are no adequate batteries in the local market.
 
neptronix said:
Luna cycle is ran by a marketer, not an engineer.
There are a variety of false claims on their website about their products that are based on emotional rhetoric and not facts.

I would not wait for Luna to act like a proper company. A properly certified battery is going to cost you more money. Most of luna's battery production is offshored to China, as far as i know. An allcell pack might be the only american product you can get that meets shipping regulations you're looking for..


> Most of luna's battery production is offshored to China

Oh, and don't I know it. Two years ago (roughly) Luna shipped me a shark pack. It was great for a while. Then the retaining tabs broke off. Then the connectors at the mount failed (I patched a XT connector to the battery by drilling two holes in the case, ran the primary supply wires and and patched the whole thing back up). It's been an perfectly adequate battery, but two years down the line, it's at its end of life (two recharges a day for 600+ days will do that; did I mention that my ebike is my sole mode of transporation in an area devoid of public transportation options?).

Bottom line, I'm struggling to find a good 52v battery and I've got maybe less than 100 or so cycles left in my current limp dick end of life battery and no way to get the replacement battery I want.


> A properly certified battery is going to cost you more money.

Money is not the problem here. I'll pay more for the battery I want. In fact, I don't want to save money on a battery. I want to spend more money for better quality. What I'm not going to do is give China another god damned dollar for their cheap ass garbage. For every quality battery I've run, I have three piece of junk Chinese "batteries" that got sent to the landfill in less than two months.


Straight from allcell's web site:

> Consumers who would like to buy a battery or purchase a bike equipped with one of our batteries can contact one of the following AllCell customers:

So, yeah, they won't do either.

You want to know what's holding back ebike adoption? It's the batteries, stupid (and I'm not talking about the technology... I'm taking about stupid shit like *shipping*)
 
Sounds like a very frustrating situation. Perhaps EM3V could post you a battery, although based in China they have a very good reputation for quality, safety and innovation.
 
Agree, WHile I've not order batteries from them yet, I looked at vids on their manufaturing process. Best company I`ve seen so for. These guys look like they are dedicated because passion drives them to deliver quality...

Other solution. Build you own !
Buy some good high discharge cells and build higher capacity than what you need.
Charge up to 80% and dischage down to 35-50%.... and your numbe of cycles will be x10 or so !
 
Just sent the shipper the MSDS for the raw cells. This is what boosted boards does when shipping to japan. This is more informative than any battery pack MSDS anyways.

Read a power tool battery msds. Most don't mention even the battery voltage let alone how the cells are arranged/packaged
 
BTW I'd vote these batteries as the safest
http://www.ebikes.ca/shop/electric-bicycle-parts/batteries/b362-7-ligo.html
B362.7_LiGo
CAD$185.00
36V 2.7Ah LiGo Battery Module, 98 Watt-Hours for Air Shipping. Made in Canada *

http://www.ebikes.ca/news/LiGo-Batteries/
http://www.ebikes.ca/product-info/ligo-batteries.html





echeat said:
Chalo said:
So buy a battery from someone who is compliant with your local rules. It's not hard to do. And it's not Luna's responsibility to comply with whatever you think you need from them. They seem to be doing a pretty good business their way.

That's a pretty crappy way to do business. MSD are fundamental aspect of making and selling a product. There are no adequate batteries in the local market.

http://www.ebikes.ca/shop/electric-bicycle-parts/batteries.html
is located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on the west cost. You can be rest assured they comply with regulations. The cost you pay for shipping batteries hazmat is $80cdn which is say $65usd plus the actual shipping charge.
http://www.ebikes.ca/shop/electric-bicycle-parts/batteries/fedex.html
Dangerous Goods Battery Shipping Fee - Remove if local pickup

Availability: In stock
CAD$80.00
Quick Overview
Class9 Dangerous Goods Shipping Fee for Lithium Battery Packs

CAD$80.00
Qty:

Product Description
Specifications

Class9 Dangerous Goods Shipping Fee for Lithium Battery Packs





Random Example
http://www.ebikes.ca/shop/electric-bicycle-parts/batteries/b5213lim-dt.html
Shipped to Zip Code 90210 in California
Canada Post

Expedited Parcel USA - Est. Delivery 8 - 11 days CAD$31.43
Xpresspost USA - Est. Delivery 7 - 10 days CAD$49.19

FedEx

International Economy - Est. Delivery 4 - 6 days CAD$77.38
International Priority - Est. Delivery 1 - 3 days CAD$105.44

------------------------------------------------

An example of a battery pack from China, Alibaba
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=87975&hilit=fire
 
The only battery i ever bought from Luna was a 72v 20s4p battery that they claimed handled 50a peaks and 30cont. The battery was fairly priced but its performance was less than expected. Sagged over 10v fresh off the charge with a 25a load making it fairly hard to get even 10 miles from the pack. You live you learn. I now know that 4p is not nearly enough cells in parallel to be fun at 72v
 
neptronix said:
Most of luna's battery production is offshored to China, as far as i know. An allcell pack might be the only american product you can get that meets shipping regulations you're looking for..

This is no longer true. For the last year or so, all their packs are made at their factory in California. The design is totally different than the older ones too.
 
I've received two excellent batteries from Luna. The 52V, 10 ah is going on its third year powering either a BBS02 or 48V hub drive. The second one works great, but has only about a year of use. Luna has their business model and seems to be thriving. If your needs don't fall in line, you can't blame them IMO.
 
fechter said:
neptronix said:
Most of luna's battery production is offshored to China, as far as i know. An allcell pack might be the only american product you can get that meets shipping regulations you're looking for..

This is no longer true. For the last year or so, all their packs are made at their factory in California. The design is totally different than the older ones too.

Okay, i'll keep that in mind in the future. My knowledge was outdated i suppose.
 
skeetab5780 said:
The only battery i ever bought from Luna was a 72v 20s4p battery that they claimed handled 50a peaks and 30cont. The battery was fairly priced but its performance was less than expected. Sagged over 10v fresh off the charge with a 25a load making it fairly hard to get even 10 miles from the pack. You live you learn. I now know that 4p is not nearly enough cells in parallel to be fun at 72v

A lot of battery sellers do this, but luna is really bad about it. They advertise maximum continuous as something you should run the pack at. The battery cell producers define maximum continuous as the point where the cell just barely doesn't explode, in a single cell, temperature controlled lab condition.

But your finished ebike pack contains a bunch of cells all clustered together in a thermal blanket. A realistic expectation of continuous output power is half of what's advertised. Any company not rating things conservatively is not interested in the longevity, safety, or customer experience of their product.. they're more interested in moving product.

On top of that, the cycle counts are rarely honest on luna's site ( contradicted by the cell manufacturer's datasheet ). Sometimes the capacity figures are inflated too.

The list of companies i'm willing to recommend for a battery sale is very short for this reason. I am real tired of this trend of mismarketing things.
 
Back on topic..

I don't think you'll get a MSD out of em3ev, but it's worth a try.
I think your best bet is getting a battery from the local market..
 
Curious what do Japanese do when they need a replacement battery? Do they all ride low power ebikes there do to regulations?
 
neptronix said:
fechter said:
neptronix said:
Most of luna's battery production is offshored to China, as far as i know. An allcell pack might be the only american product you can get that meets shipping regulations you're looking for..

This is no longer true. For the last year or so, all their packs are made at their factory in California. The design is totally different than the older ones too.

Okay, i'll keep that in mind in the future. My knowledge was outdated i suppose.

Without proof it smells like fooling another mod. There has never been any proof of shark pack, dolphins, and others being made in the USA. The newest packs and Sondors packs are not ALL.
 
mr.electric said:
Neopronix,

You should be open. Aren't you a contractor for em3ev and ebikes.ca? Are you paid to speak bad about Luna or encouraged from your bosses to speak bad?

Are either of your bosses providing msd's on the battery packs they ship?

Can you post those MDSs here since you are so about data sheets and seem to collect data.
https://www.ebikes.ca/documents/MSDS_AllCell.pdf
Just a Google away. Canada and the USA us MSDS (NOW officially an SDS form.). Every hazardous product in my Las Vegas operation needed an MSDS. From the mechanical shop to the pesticides and fertilizers. Anyone thinking an MSDS isn't needed is both lucky and clueless. And yes bike shops all fall under the rules if they have employees. It's a right to know issue for workers.
 
I've worked in four bike shops and been familiar with a lot more of them, but I'm pretty sure there wasn't a single MSDS in any of them. Now that there's a web connected computer in pretty much every place of business, such things are easily findable. But I've never seen a single one on file.

It sounds like the sort of CYA nonsense that comes along with corporate management and the way working people get treated when you have that kind of management.
 
It's not hard to find the MSDS for a lithium battery. Here's one for Panasonic:

http://www.mkbattery.com/documents/2096Panasonic%20LiIon%20MSDS.pdf

Not sure why this couldn't just be copied.

As far as Luna packs being made in the USA, I have personally visited the factory and seen them being made. I was quite impressed. I can't say if some of their packs are still coming from China, but from what I could tell, they were all being made here.
 
Not sure why this couldn't just be copied

It can be, and I've done it for several of the companies I have worked at. In the past, an inspection was coming up, and based on deficiencies that were noticed in the past, one of the clipboard items was for "some employee" to review that all MSDS's were current and on-file if the inspector needed to verify they were available to all employees (I'm currently at a water plant using Chlorine, Lime, CO2, Fluoride, Phosphate, HCL, H2SO4, etc).

A couple were missing, so I contacted the company that the chemical had come from, and they directed me to their webpage, where they were required to make the MSDS available 24-hrs a day, 7 days a week. Ran off a copy and I was done.

MSDS's are not only to make sure employees of a company are able to see if the products they are using are hazardous or not, they detail the health risks and the protective equipment that the employer is required to provide for safe handling. In other words, if the boss says to clean up a spill and don't worry about using gloves, he can't fire you if refuse to clean it up until you can get some gloves...if the MSDS says you need gloves. Same with respirators.

If there is a delivery-truck crash on the highway, responders are not required to memorize the hazards of every possible chemical that is transported on the highway. However, every chemical is required to be labeled, and the label tells you everything you need to know to find an MSDS 24/7.
 
Thinking on it, finding an MSDS (SDS) is so easy these days, I can't imagine why it was such a big deal. One Google search and 10 seconds and I had an MSDS for Li ion batteries.
 
wineboyrider said:
Japan probably makes millions of ebike batteries? :idea:

That is what I was asking previously, ebikes are very popular in Japan, replacement batteries must be available at the many Ebike stores in Tokyo and elsewhere in the country.

I wasn't aware Luna is making their own batteries other than the Wolf pack ones which they aren't even selling to the public unless you purchase one of their bikes, I hope they do start making all their batteries in house. I often wonder why there isn't several companies mass producing Ebike batteries in the US, seems like the market is there at this point and consumers will be chomping at the bit to buy quality packs produced in the US that don't have to be shipped internationally.
 
Raisedeyebrows said:
wineboyrider said:
Japan probably makes millions of ebike batteries? :idea:

That is what I was asking previously, ebikes are very popular in Japan, replacement batteries must be available at the many Ebike stores in Tokyo and elsewhere in the country.

I wasn't aware Luna is making their own batteries other than the Wolf pack ones which they aren't even selling to the public unless you purchase one of their bikes, I hope they do start making all their batteries in house. I often wonder why there isn't several companies mass producing Ebike batteries in the US, seems like the market is there at this point and consumers will be chomping at the bit to buy quality packs produced in the US that don't have to be shipped internationally.

Price. Those that do build want to make a fair living. How could anyone compete with China labor costs. AllCell is spendy! Most are happy with cheap prices(builds).
 
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