An easier to understand term for "discharge time"?

[SamTexas]

By "discharge time" I mean how long it takes to deplete a battery on an ebike. Ex: A person rides 20 min to work in the morning, 20 min back to home in the afternoon. After two days, his battery needs recharging. So his total discharge time is (20 x 2) x 2 or 80 minutes.

I'm sure there is an easier to understand term for it. "Running time"? Sounds like a movie. "Run time"? Sounds like a computer term. So what is it?

 

[snellemin]

Discharge time or Run time can be used depending what/who you are talking too.

But from all the questions I get from people regarding my ebike, none cared for discharge time. They all are interested in range and speed. Acceleration is the next thing they are interested in. They relate to the dials in their cars, which shows range(miles) and fuel level.

In the RC community the terms "discharge time" is also recognized as "run time". Discharge time is usually referred to when the conversation relates to actually discharging the battery on the bench with a Lipo charger. Run time as you guessed it, is the actual time the RC is on the track before the battery is drained or Voltage Cutoff kicked in. Run time is greatly dependent on your trigger finger, just like in how aggressive you are with the throttle on your Ebike.

 

[SamTexas]

Thanks.

 

[Punx0r]

This is meaningless unless a discharge rate is also specified. Like the "reserve capacity" on lead acid batteries.

 

[SamTexas]

Did some one ask you about the meaning of the term?

 

[friendly1uk]

Are you talking about the Ah rating. It stands for Amp Hours. This is how you size a battery to suit your expected run time. A battery with double the Ah rating, will offer twice the run time.

A 1Ah battery should provide 1 amp for 1 hour. A 2Ah battery would supply 1 amp for 2 hours. A 20Ah, 1amp for 20 hours. You could say that 20Ah battery could supply 1 amp for 20 hours as we just did, Or you could say it supply's 20 amp for 1 hour. Both seem equal on the calculator, but under 20 amp discharge conditions the battery would run hotter. It wouldn't be exactly the same chemistry. The simple math explanation here does not quite cover it. This is what we get though. Battery's are discharged at 1 amp and timed to see how many hours they last. This is the Ah rating.

This is a rule of thumb like spec for us. Some battery chemistry might still have two hours left, but the voltage has dropped to much to be of use to us. Another chemistry could only have an hour left, but keeps the voltage high till the very last moment. We should be careful compairing the Ah capacity's of different battery chemistry, and remember the rating was at 1amp. It could be quite different if you take 30amps from it. But hay... Ah is the yardstick.

 

[Punx0r]

Did some one ask you about the meaning of the term?

Oh, Sir. I do humbly beg your forgiveness. I prostrate myself at your feet, with my inferior wit, intellect and penis-size.

 

[dnmun]

call it anti C since it will be the inverse of C or maybe call it inverse C

 

[amberwolf]

call it anti C since it will be the inverse of C or maybe call it inverse C

I'm not sure I understand. If by "C" you mean "C-rate" then that shouldn't be directly related. I have a 5C battery that is 20Ah, but it wouldn't be the inverse of 100A for it's runtime. So the higher rate a battery is, the worse it's runtime would be...while this *can* be true if it's used at that rate, it isn't necessarily true because they don't have to be used at that rate. Mine isn't.

If by "C" you mean "capacity" then again, it's 20Ah but actual runtime would vary depending on actual usage, so again it isn't directly related, and without knowing the power consumption expected it still couldn't be used to figure runtime--and the inverse of capacity means that the bigger the battery is, the shorter the runtime would be...which doesn't make sense (and generally is not the case).

But I am probably misunderstanding what you mean by C?