Hi All,
i have been inspired by another article in this board to upgrade my Boosted Single with some kind of easy to use, removable range extender.
Certainly this will cost me my warranty but i can live with that, since I took my board with to Germany from where it wouldn't be affordable to send it in to Boosted anyways.
One thing to mention upfront, don't try to open the battery-pack ... Boosted did well to glue it all together like crazy. So good luck... if you have to replace the batteries after a few years of use, it will be almost impossible without changing the whole BMS, Battery and Case as a unit.
I finally managed to open the case.
and found 12x A123 ANR26650M1B with 2500 mAh wired as 12S1P, every cell seems to be hooked up to the BMS.
Next i soldered wires on to the original battery +/- (careful & quick , the batteries are very sensitive to heat) and protected the + wire with a 30A car fuse which fits exactly into the original case.
I've closed the case again & sealed all cable ports carefully with silicon car sealant. To the original power cables i have soldered 3,5mm banana plugs and to the new cables an XT60 connection. Both are rated up to 60A, which should be more then enough for my single. Good thing of using the BMS protected ports is that the battery is automatically protected by the original BMS even if the cells are not hooked up individually. Since they are connected parallel & drift free the cell voltage will drop equally.
I've assembled it all together and hooked up my multimeter to the empty board before charging to see some figures like the voltage curve of the cells.
Unfortunately i only had a simple multimeter accurate on 0,1V only, so it might be slightly off, but it gives us some kind of trend which is very similar to the A123 datasheet.
% battery cell
0 % 35,0 V 2,92 V
5 % 39,3 V 3,28 v
10 % 39,5 V 3,29 V
15 % 39,8 V 3,32 V
20 % 39,9 V 3,33 V
25 % 40,1 V 3,34 V
30 % 40,2 V 3,35 V
35 % 40,3 V 3,36 V
40 % 40,3 V 3,36 V
45 % 40,3 V 3,36 V
50 % 40,4 V 3,37 V
55 % 40,4 V 3,37 V
60 % 40,4 V 3,37 V
65 % 40,5 V 3,38 V
70 % 40,5 V 3,38 V
75 % 40,5 V 3,38 V
80 % 40,6 V 3,38 V
85 % 40,7 V 3,39 V
90 % 40,8 V 3,40 V
95 % 40,9 V 3,41 V
100 % 41,0 V 3,42 V
This is what put me away from my original idea of using cheap driftfree 10S2P Sony 18650 Konion for my extender pack, since they're discharge curve looks completely different and the voltage drops way earlier. Instead i got me 3 packs of 4S1 A123 ANR 26650 which will have the exact same behaviour as the original pack does.
http://www.a123systems.com/Collateral/Documents/English-US/A123 Systems ANR26650 Data Sheet.pdf
Bonus 1 is, they are drift free too, so they only need balancing every now and then but will fully charge using the original charger.
Bonus 2, if i don't use them for the boosted, i can hook up by 4S3P harness to them and can use them as battery extender for my macbook air car charger on long flights
Bonus 3, they'll charge as 4S on a standard 14.4V car charger if needed and could be used as booster battery for a car or motorbike
Installation to the board... For now i've built me a wooden box with the outer dimensions of 26x15x3,6 cm which is pretty much level with the original case. For now i've strapped it to the board with 2 securing belts. If i ride on places where i need clearance under the board, i might as well strap it up top.
It's difficult to compare ranges now since the temperature in Germany is around 0°C which equals 32°F but without the extender I made about 6km / 3,7mi full ahead in expert mode. Now it is more than 12km / 7,5mi !!!
Cant wait to be back somewhere where the temperatures are warm to get some more realistic figures. Looking at the A123 datasheet, the cell power drops approx by 1/3 in this temperature range and the voltage drop occurs way earlier and not as steep as usual.
I wish
- Boosted would install a range extender power-port in the first place!
- Boosted would think about long term maintenance, what happens if the battery pack goes flat!
apart from that i have nothing to criticise on this board, it is simply the best E-board I've used until now. Sometimes i think I should have bought a Dual+, but lets be reasonable... the single is great too and 500$ less, more range, less weight and on flat land and moderate hills as much fun as the Dual+ is. I normally cruise on expert mode, full ahead wherever I go if traffic allows, acceleration still beats most of the cyclists and hardly any of them keeps up on the 28kmh top speed...
Thinking ahead, I wouldn't do the powerport mod again, as it voids the warranty. I'd probably install a small BMS to my pack and hook it up to a DC/DC UP converter to increase the output Voltage to 43,2V and simply stop and charge the board with 2,7A or even more current once It's empty. I should easily get around 80% of charge from my battery pack including the loss pf the DC/DC converter. The DC/DC converter will as well allow me to charge from my car battery in our caravan.
Kinds... don't try this at home! An certainly don't use cheap flammable LiPo batteries... Small damage and they go boom. Same can happen with cheap 18650 cells. Boosted did well choosing the A123 cells, which are non flammable.
i have been inspired by another article in this board to upgrade my Boosted Single with some kind of easy to use, removable range extender.
Certainly this will cost me my warranty but i can live with that, since I took my board with to Germany from where it wouldn't be affordable to send it in to Boosted anyways.
One thing to mention upfront, don't try to open the battery-pack ... Boosted did well to glue it all together like crazy. So good luck... if you have to replace the batteries after a few years of use, it will be almost impossible without changing the whole BMS, Battery and Case as a unit.
I finally managed to open the case.
and found 12x A123 ANR26650M1B with 2500 mAh wired as 12S1P, every cell seems to be hooked up to the BMS.
Next i soldered wires on to the original battery +/- (careful & quick , the batteries are very sensitive to heat) and protected the + wire with a 30A car fuse which fits exactly into the original case.
I've closed the case again & sealed all cable ports carefully with silicon car sealant. To the original power cables i have soldered 3,5mm banana plugs and to the new cables an XT60 connection. Both are rated up to 60A, which should be more then enough for my single. Good thing of using the BMS protected ports is that the battery is automatically protected by the original BMS even if the cells are not hooked up individually. Since they are connected parallel & drift free the cell voltage will drop equally.
I've assembled it all together and hooked up my multimeter to the empty board before charging to see some figures like the voltage curve of the cells.
Unfortunately i only had a simple multimeter accurate on 0,1V only, so it might be slightly off, but it gives us some kind of trend which is very similar to the A123 datasheet.
% battery cell
0 % 35,0 V 2,92 V
5 % 39,3 V 3,28 v
10 % 39,5 V 3,29 V
15 % 39,8 V 3,32 V
20 % 39,9 V 3,33 V
25 % 40,1 V 3,34 V
30 % 40,2 V 3,35 V
35 % 40,3 V 3,36 V
40 % 40,3 V 3,36 V
45 % 40,3 V 3,36 V
50 % 40,4 V 3,37 V
55 % 40,4 V 3,37 V
60 % 40,4 V 3,37 V
65 % 40,5 V 3,38 V
70 % 40,5 V 3,38 V
75 % 40,5 V 3,38 V
80 % 40,6 V 3,38 V
85 % 40,7 V 3,39 V
90 % 40,8 V 3,40 V
95 % 40,9 V 3,41 V
100 % 41,0 V 3,42 V
This is what put me away from my original idea of using cheap driftfree 10S2P Sony 18650 Konion for my extender pack, since they're discharge curve looks completely different and the voltage drops way earlier. Instead i got me 3 packs of 4S1 A123 ANR 26650 which will have the exact same behaviour as the original pack does.
http://www.a123systems.com/Collateral/Documents/English-US/A123 Systems ANR26650 Data Sheet.pdf
Bonus 1 is, they are drift free too, so they only need balancing every now and then but will fully charge using the original charger.
Bonus 2, if i don't use them for the boosted, i can hook up by 4S3P harness to them and can use them as battery extender for my macbook air car charger on long flights
Bonus 3, they'll charge as 4S on a standard 14.4V car charger if needed and could be used as booster battery for a car or motorbike
Installation to the board... For now i've built me a wooden box with the outer dimensions of 26x15x3,6 cm which is pretty much level with the original case. For now i've strapped it to the board with 2 securing belts. If i ride on places where i need clearance under the board, i might as well strap it up top.
It's difficult to compare ranges now since the temperature in Germany is around 0°C which equals 32°F but without the extender I made about 6km / 3,7mi full ahead in expert mode. Now it is more than 12km / 7,5mi !!!
Cant wait to be back somewhere where the temperatures are warm to get some more realistic figures. Looking at the A123 datasheet, the cell power drops approx by 1/3 in this temperature range and the voltage drop occurs way earlier and not as steep as usual.
I wish
- Boosted would install a range extender power-port in the first place!
- Boosted would think about long term maintenance, what happens if the battery pack goes flat!
apart from that i have nothing to criticise on this board, it is simply the best E-board I've used until now. Sometimes i think I should have bought a Dual+, but lets be reasonable... the single is great too and 500$ less, more range, less weight and on flat land and moderate hills as much fun as the Dual+ is. I normally cruise on expert mode, full ahead wherever I go if traffic allows, acceleration still beats most of the cyclists and hardly any of them keeps up on the 28kmh top speed...
Thinking ahead, I wouldn't do the powerport mod again, as it voids the warranty. I'd probably install a small BMS to my pack and hook it up to a DC/DC UP converter to increase the output Voltage to 43,2V and simply stop and charge the board with 2,7A or even more current once It's empty. I should easily get around 80% of charge from my battery pack including the loss pf the DC/DC converter. The DC/DC converter will as well allow me to charge from my car battery in our caravan.
Kinds... don't try this at home! An certainly don't use cheap flammable LiPo batteries... Small damage and they go boom. Same can happen with cheap 18650 cells. Boosted did well choosing the A123 cells, which are non flammable.
what kind of spot welder are you using?
