Shedster said:
I need to buy a 48v 13ah (or higher) battery for a BBS02. Do I go Hailong or X-Go (and if so which is better) off ebay, or is there a better alternative? (I'm in the UK btw)
AFAIK, "hailong" is not a battery type, it's just a case style. Never heard of X-Go, so dunno if that's a brand/manufacturer or a case style. If you are looking for a recommendation about specific items you've looked at, you'll have to link directly to the specific sales pages for the specific items in question.
What I recommend is to go with a battery from a known quality vendor (sorry I don't have any recommendations on that), that supports their batteries, and preferably one local to you so you don't get stuck trying to deal with hazmat shipping if something goes wrong and it needs repair. (in some cases, you won't be *able* to ship it at all!).
Use a battery case style that suits your uses for the bike, so it fits the mounting place you would use, and has whatever level of weather resistance you require.
I keep the bike in my house, am I right in thinking it's best to charge the battery outside (fire precautions), but it's safe to keep it on the bike once it's charged, or should I keep it outside and only fit it when I want to go for a ride?
Batteries hold a lot of energy. There are no completely safe batteries, of any kind. So the best you can do is minimize the risk by using quality batteries (both good cells and good build methods and materials) that are actually capable of the demands (current, temperature, vibration, etc) you'll be placing on them, and charge and store them only where nothing will be hurt when something goes wrong.
Myself, I trust the batteries I use completely...when they're outside, away from the house and trees.
But I do park my trike (battery is built into it) inside the breakroom at work, so in the highly unlikely event something ever went wrong there, it's highly likely there'd be severe building damage, but given it's location, no loss of life as there are no exits or exit paths from any rooms or the building itself that could possibly be blocked by such a fire, and no animal habitats anywhere near it, and there would be LOTS of obvious loud warning with the building's fire/smoke detection system.
When I had to park my bikes (and later my trike) inside the apartment and house, I used old steel 50cal ammocases for battery containment, attached to the bike or inside metal cargo pods (additional protection layer), with a vent system to allow hot gases out without exploding the canister, or letting oxygen back into it to fan the flames, in the event of a catastrophic failure.
I also don't like to keep other battery-powered devices (including phones, laptops, tablets, etc) inside the house, but there are practical limits to keeping everything outside. :lol: So those stay inside, and I just have to hope that the smoke alarms going off will drive the dogs outside thru their big doggie door they always have access to, as I have trained them to do whenver they hear the beeping. It took me a few years after a housefire (unrelated to ebikes or batteries, etc) killed the dogs I had at the time for me to get to this point of acceptance, however....
Typically, there is no need for such paranoiac measures, so what you choose to do depends on your personal level of confidence in your ebike equipment (chargers, batteries, wiring), and your preparedness in the event of a fire for getting out (stopping the fire probably isn't going to happen easily).
