What ranges are you getting? Mine are bad.

EdwardNY

1 kW
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Aug 30, 2012
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317
Location
New York
Trying to get an idea of what ranges you guys are getting. I seem to get very bad range. With my 48volt (12s4p) (8 5000MAH 6s packs) 20 amp hour setup on a full suspension mountain bike, I am only getting 20 miles from my batteries. Although I was told I would get 40 miles. It seems pretty consistant that I get about 20 miles and my voltages are around 3.7-3.8.

I guess I drive full throttle alot and have to brake pretty often being that I live in the city. I also do not pedal very often.

I was wondering if you can list what your specs are and how you drive and how many miles you get out of your batteries.

Also, if I double my battery capacity, can I assume my range will be double even with the added battery weight?

If I use a higher voltage, 72 volts or 96 volts, will my range change?

Is it possible to get 40 miles out of my 12s4p setup without pedaling or little pedaling? How should I drive?
 
Ten mile useful range, about half pedaling into the wind, and half at WOT, with power to spare at the end of the ride. About 15 mile max range, pedaling all the way till it runs out. Over a year old 36 volt 12ah SLA, a couple of overpasses are the only hills, and I pedal going up them. Charges fully in about three hours at work, plugged into a Save A Battery charger continuously when stored at home in the garage. Get 23-25mph max. speed, max pedal assisted speed about 15mph gives the most range. :)
 
12S 10Ah battery, all power to get started, then part throttle, part pedal. Small hills on the way. Got about 25km per charge.
 
By my calculations at 25 watts per mile you should get 36 miles from that pack. you should get a turnigy watt meter, I would say that
you have still a few more miles in that pack, at 3.80 volts per cell I bet you have another ten miles. But you do need a watt meter or Low voltahge alarm so you can learn about your pack without killing it.

I get 20-23 watts a mile on my mountain bike with Klnobby tires traveling avg 15-20 MPH- ten miles range = 4--4.25 AMp hours nopedal on 12 series lipo
 
There are millions of different battery voltage/amp hour and motor combinations out there, so this is all very relative.

Better check out the ebikes.ca simulator - it will give you a good idea of what you should get w/o pedaling.

http://ebikes.ca/simulator/
 
I would suggest getting some kind of watt meter too, also a 3 speed switch. You can use both to increase your range by a lot at the expense of lower power levels and performance.

My 24s 10 amp hour pack has gotten me as little as 25 maybe 30km distance when I'm flying around at 50 to 65kph without much of an effort to conserve energy. When I change modes to the 33% of the voltage using the speed switch so I'm limited to around 35kph and I limit the amps I can stretch the same battery pack out to over 70km distance, probably more. This is all with minimal pedalling.

Accelerate gradually and pedal while you're doing it and slow down a bit overall. Some kind of watt meter is really helpful to see how much power you're drawing under different power settings and conditions. Depending on how you control the throttle can make a big difference in your power consumption. You can draw several hundred more watts for just a slight increase in speed or acceleration in some conditions and you won't know unless you have some kind of amp or watt meter.
 
I would say your range is not out of line for the kind of riding you are doing. It could be particularly that way if your motor is not a lowish speed winding. It's the stop and go, you constantly pull huge amps the first 50 feet, so take the number of stops, multiply that by 50-60 feet, and it's like you climbed a steep hill that long. 10 stops, a quarter mile of steep hill.

It would be less of an amp spike with a slower winding, or smaller wheel.

I would suspect, that a higher voltage would just have you riding harder, and though your total wh of the pack would be larger, your wh/mi would just get worse.

You should be able to easily get 40 miles from a 48v 20 ah pack. But you'd have to ride about 18 mph perhaps even 15, very few stops, and pedal out about 75w of human effort along the way.

We all go through the same process, at first we simply don't know how, or haven't developed riding style that is efficient. Getting a wattmeter or a CA will greatly reduce the time it takes you to learn to use less wh/mi. But riding around in NYC watching a panel is not such a great idea.

The simplest way to gain on your situation would be to stop giving full throttle the first 20 feet. Use half throttle, and pedal the first 20 feet. Then ramp up throttle once moving 15 mph or so. This should add a couple miles to your range or more. Next thing to do is brake hard less. Learn to anticipate stops and coast a bit more.

A bit more pedaling and more coasting before braking, and riding 25 mph or less should see you getting 30 miles from that pack. Perhaps less though, if you pracitce less than 80% dod or charge only to 4.1v. I get about 8 ah acutal ( or rather did when they were new) from my 72v 10 ah lipo pack when using wise battery dod.

My range specs vary widely depending on which bike I ride, which motor, and what kind of riding. When commuting, I have a good route with stops only about every 2 miles. Riding at least 25 mph, I get about 35 wh/mi. If I slow to below 20 mph more like 25 wh/mi. On my heavy longtail, which now has a 5304 monster motor and 48v 40 amp controller, I tend to ride 30 mph and get 45 wh/mi. On my dirt bike, 72v 40 amps, I ride always either on the throttle or on the brakes. Super harsh, and 60 wh/mi is not unusual.
 
I have 51.8V 22ah lipo charged to 4.1V and I get 22 miles on WOT without pedally mostly on flats @ 30-35mph before hitting 3.6V on the cells.

I say consider yourself lucky to get those range.

40miles on that amount of energy is probably optimistic. Maybe 30 miles with some pedally at 20-25mph would be more realistic.

And higher voltage will not get you more range. Remember you still have fixed amount of energy on your battery.
 
stock magic pie 3 with the 36v 20ah ping gets me 48km on flat pavement, 30km with hills everywhere
cyclone 960 watt with the same battery goes about 32km full throttle on flat, maybe 24km with hills everywhere
 
To get 40 miles out of that pack, you would need to average 22.2 watts per mile, and that would drain the pack 100%. 22 watts per mile is tough. you might be able to hit that on flat, smooth surface with a good bike, slick tires, spandex riding suit, efficent motor, and perfectly calm wind conditions.

But in the real world, you don't want to drain your pack past 80% unless you absolutly have to, and you're going to have wind, hills, stops, rough toad, and more fassion sense than to wear lycra in public. Figure 35wa/mile, or roughly double your battey's size to go 40miles at 20mph.
 
My consumption can be as little at 12wh/mile or as high at 28wh/mile. All depends on how fast you go and how many hills, stops, wind direction, how much you pedal and so on.

I typically get 20-22 miles from 50v 8.5ah
 
Sounds to me like you are on the throttle a lot. I can go thought Los Angeles faster then the "Rapid Buses" for about 22-25 miles depending on how often I stop for lights, stop signs and anything else. (like stupid cagers. :x ) That is with a lot of WOT ridding. I can go as much as 40 miles on the flats if I go 6 mph the whole way.

I am running a 15ah Headway pack with my Yescomusa 800w motor.

As Dogman suggested, I don't bury my thumb throttle off the line every time I want to go. I ease into it and once up to speed I go WOT if I can.

BTW, what are your individual cells reading after you burn 16ah or so?
 
When the rains come, those spadefoot toads come out to eat bugs under the streetlights. After a while, they build up between the knobbies on your tires and it really cuts into your wh/mi.

So you have to run a slicker tire in July and August around here.
 
That's pretty impressive. I'll assume that's not with a 40 amp controller? Damn good range just for street riding 25 mph. 4 5000 mha 6s packs is still only about 450 wh. 25 wh/mi dirt riding? I tend to run 40-60 wh/mi dirt riding.

What speed would you say you do these rides at?
 
12s 2p Turnigy Lipo (44V 10ah) I can get 20 miles absolute minimum out of it with minimal pedalling

10T mac motor, 35A limit, 25mph top speed,

lots of stop starts, no regen

Done 30miles before by setting lower current limit and pedalling more.
 
Mine are bad as well, but by design.

20S 84V HOC, 13.5Ah (999Wh pack) lipo. At 30Wh/km (calibrated CA) this gives me a calculated range of 33.3 km. However, I am always glad to get to 20km before LVC comes in (3.60V cell level) at 72V.
 
I am thinking part of the problem is I am not using all my available battery capacity.

Do you guys bring your batteries down to 3.6volts under load and then stop there?

I should with a 5000MAH pack be using about 4000MAH of it? Because when I charge the pack I am usually only putting about 2500-3000MAH into the packs.

This would mean on a 12s setup I can bring my battery all the way down to 43.2volts under load?
 
The controller has a 42V LVC. Even if you go all the way to that under load, it will still leave you above the empty level of the pack. 43V under load is conservative enough. That would leave cell voltage above 3.60V no load. Just make sure your volt meter is accurate, or take it's inaccuracies into account. Mine reads about 1.5 high at 100V
 
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