Ebike batteries and cold weather

[BikeFanatic]

I have been riding all winter in 28-35 degrees F and also experienced decreased range on my lipo 12 series 1P- I also feel the ping puts out less power but I never run out on the ping as it is 15 AMPHRS and my winter trips are ten miles or less.

So try not to worry about it - I experience this decreased range every winter, just keep the battery inside and charge it fully between rides, Dont let it overdischarge
by pushing it on long rides. Just common sense measures.

 

[dogman dan]

Not that bad range, but I do get lower voltage and noticeably slower speeds anytime it's less than 60F. It gets worse at very low temperatures. Wind chill then makes things even worse. But I get enough range, 75-85% of normal by simply putting a thin bit of foam insulation around the battery in winter, leaving the top and bms normal. A really cold battery will soon perk up just a bit, and do better than one in an uninsulated bag or box in 32F weather. So even a bike parked in a freezing garage can be ridden with decent range buy insulating the battery a bit, so it's internal heat can help.

Of course, using nano's that never get warm, this might not work as well. But it works fine with pings.

 

[Uncle Ron]

My experience w/2, 36v-12ah SLA packs on the trike is not quite that bad. At 20-30F I experience about 2/3rds normal range and 80% speed and it has to drop below 10 degrees to see anything like 50%. Below 10 degrees and I don't wanta ride (g) and I certainly don't push the range. It's hard to dress well enough at those temps to go 10 miles comfortably. 3 or 4 miles is OK.

Perhaps the difference relates to what Dogman said about insulation. I have over an inch of closed cell insulation under my batteries and a half inch kinda loosely around the sides, all originally for cushioning, but perhaps it's doin' double duty in the cold.

I'll have to admit to considerable poverty to put another element in the mix. I've gone through the worst that a Chicago Winter can give this year without any gas for the furnace, so my room temp has been around 35-45F for the last 4 months and thus my batteries are charged and maintained at that temp. It makes insulation around the batteries look even better for cold weather riding. (g)

 

[oldpiper]

Perhaps this is where the AllCell battery packs would really come in handy. If they filled the pack around the batteries with some liquid that would freeze at about 15C, then in the garage it would still be a liquid, and once you got out into the cold, when the pack was exposed, the temperature would go down to 15C and then stay there until the filler was completely frozen. Depending on the filler, this could soak up quite a bit of cold and give you a pretty good extended range before things got bad. Probably some high-weight fraction of plain old vegetable oil would have reasonable thermal properties here, and be pretty cheap to boot. (Yes, I know the filler adds weight, but probably no more than a good pizza would.) AllCell, you can contact me any time for help.

Cameron

 

[Uncle Ron]

My experience w/2, 36v-12ah SLA packs on the trike is not quite that bad.

P.S. I should be clearer. I use the two SLA packs together in parallel so that each does half the work which is why I have decent performance in the cold. If I just use one, performance in the cold is as sucky as you experienced.