An excellent battery bag

Out of exasperation I gave up on traditional ebike battery bags a couple of years ago since they were all constructed so poorly and would end up ripping after a couple of months. I wanted to share with the community what I have discovered to be a vastly superior solution to battery bags: wide mouth tool bags.

Here's a smaller one I use with a 52V 15Ah LiPo battery I built: http://a.co/hiKmc0S

I've also had good luck with the Black & Decker 14" wide mouth tool bag for my bigger batteries: http://a.co/fnLQgkX

So what makes them so great?

1. Extremely durable, designed to be abused, weatherproof
2. The wide mouth makes putting the battery (or batteries if you are a LiPo guy) in and taking them out very easy
3. The wide mouth lets you inspect the batteries and get access to all of the balancing ports and BMS
4. The sides are structured so it supports the batteries better than a normal battery bag and has some impact resistance
5. The mouth is structured and distributes any weight on top of it over the entire bag
6. There are the perfect amount of minimalist pockets for random bike parts or tools on the side or inside the bag (I would avoid metal tools INSIDE the bag )
7. The zipper zips down low on the side so you can have your cables exiting the bag without exposing the battery to the weather
8. The zipper stays in position down low on the side and doesn't open on its own
9. You can zip the wires and connectors completely into the bag so it looks like a normal bag if you have to bring it into a store or at work
10. CHEAP!

Tons of room (this is a 52V 15h LiPo battery but you could probably fit up to 25Ah into it):


Stealth!:

Maybe you should tell us what brand bag you originaly bought before you state they are "all constructed so poorly".
My six year old Falcon EV bag(same as the EV3ev)has been great and holds 20 mAh of batteries and two large controllers and fits my frame perfectly;

These bags have been reviewed in multi-post threads and in general, thought well of by scores, if not hunderds of members here.
I can only sumize that yours was improperly mounted, the weight cannot be suspended from the top straps, but needs to be supported underneath. In my case, there is a tray bolted to the frame tube w/ the bag bottom sandwiched in between.

How do you mount the bag in place securely to the frame ?

boytitan said:

How do you mount the bag in place securely to the frame ?

Click to expand...

I normally use a crate on a rear rack to hold the bag. I also had some success using an MTX-style bag with rails but it limited my carrying capacity.

motomech said:

Maybe you should tell us what brand bag you originaly bought before you state they are "all constructed so poorly".
My six year old Falcon EV bag(same as the EV3ev)has been great and holds 20 mAh of batteries and two large controllers and fits my frame perfectly;

These bags have been reviewed in multi-post threads and in general, thought well of by scores, if not hunderds of members here.
I can only sumize that yours was improperly mounted, the weight cannot be suspended from the top straps, but needs to be supported underneath. In my case, there is a tray bolted to the frame tube w/ the bag bottom sandwiched in between.

Click to expand...

I'm not talking about frame bags, I'm referring about portable battery bags that people can disconnect from the bike (for people living in cities, etc). I have used the Em3Ev frame bag before and have good results. I had to replace it once because the stitching holding the upper straps came undone but I think it was a defect because the replacement bag hasn't shown the same issues in over 2 years.

I've been using photo bags for this purpose. My favourite to date is the Lowepro Format 160 bag which holds 1kWh worth of Multistars.
http://store.lowepro.com/format-160
I DO use additional padding though.

I used this bag for years with my old A123 pack. Very sturdy. I added a piece of polycarbonate in the bottom to spread out the load.
Sorry, I don't remember where I got it.

I never used it (traded the bag to someone else), but my A123 pack came with a Topeak rear rack bag, which it snugly fit into and would've locked into a Topeak rack if I'd had one. I presume the original owner did use it that way.

It was a pretty nice bag (even had fold-down panniers out of zippable side bags), fairly well padded inside, well made, probably tough. They still sell them; there's a few different rackmount bags like that.