Luna 52v Wolf Batterty / Hobby king turnigy review.

[dogman dan]

As the title implies, this is a review and comparison of two new batteries I got this spring.

One is the latest, most advanced 18650, 14s, 52v pack from Luna Cycles. The Wolf pack. https://lunacycle.com/luna-wolf-v2-52v-battery-pack/ I got the Samsung cell 30Q version, 12 ah capacity.

Price $549 without shipping.


The second battery is a lipo pack from hobby king. 12s, so 44v, Turnigy 5 ah 40-50c packs.
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/turnigy-5000mah-6s-40c-lipo-pack-xt90.html
Four packs in all, for 10 ah of capacity.

Price $252 without shipping. HK prices do vary a lot, but under $300 shipped is typical.

Re shipping, both come ground shipped in a box that does say lithium battery inside, from a US shipping point.

The testing vehicle is this bike, which this year is set up with a 5304 crystalyte motor, and a generic 48v 30 amps controller. Peak watts when on takeoff, or climbing an extreme steep hill is around 1700w, with max wattage of course being affected by the battery voltage at the moment, and sag under load. It limits out at just about exactly 30 amps, as measured by a stand alone Cycle Analyst.

So this test is not a comparison of what the maximum these batteries could possibly put out, Both can do more than 30 amps. And it is not a test of how far a guy can pedal an ebike with 100w of power either. The bike is ridden often enough at 300-400w, with lots of pedaling, when I want to go far. Or, if I want to get up a steep hill, or just enjoy the wind, its ridden pulling 1500w for more than just a very short time. In other words, I'm making no attempt to baby either battery. I'm not trying to maximize life span, so I charge them nearly full, and often enough ride till they are 100% empty. I am much more interested in comparing the overall performance of the two packs. For me, often as not, voltage sag under load is the first thing I care about, followed by capacity. Specifically, capacity when discharged slow, vs capacity when riding wide open throttle.


I have a lot of riding to do before I can call this testing complete. Some crucial data has not yet been collected. I will summarize the data in my second post, and update it as I complete the collection of the data. So the results of this test will always be near the top of the thread, not buried in the discussions that will follow.


As many of you know, I lost all faith in battery safety, meaning trusting a bms, when a cheap ass 18650 pack burned my garage, greatly damaged the rest of my house, and damn near killed me while I slept. To make a long story short, I made two mistakes, one was charging in the garage trusting the bms to stop the charge, and the other was to fall asleep before the charge had finished, and the charger was unplugged. My wife woke up, heard the 18650 cells exploding, and we got out, with our pets in time.


Time went by, a year spent very busy rebuilding the house, and the next year after that I was not all that interested in my remaining unburnt e bikes, or the remaining lipo batteries that were not stored in the garage. But this spring, I got back interested, and needed a fresh battery to run the bikes. I decided that since I will never trust any kind of cell again in my house, that the low cost, and high C rate of RC hobby lipo chemistry packs would suit me fine. One of my bikes is designed to ride off road, but has to carry the battery on a rear rack. So a very lightweight but powerful pack suits that bike well. Low voltage sag under load is what I want most when riding off road, so I can make the pack low capacity and light.


So I bought the 4 40c rated turnigy packs, and am quite happy with them.


But some others on ES thought perhaps I was missing out, and should try a higher quality, modern 18650 pack. Its true, I'm judging 18650's based on two packs I've owned, both of which pretty much sucked. These people are some old time friends from earlier ES, that may have been under the impression that I was broke. Actually not, the fire settlement in fact allowed me to fully retire a good two years earlier than I'd planned. Mostly I was too busy rebuilding the house to keep working for E Bikekit.com, online customer service. But I also have cash, since the insurance paid out well on a garage full of total junk. But anyway, discussions were had with Eric at Luna, and I have no idea if money changed hands. In any case, next thing I know, the latest generation Luna 18650 pack appears on my doorstep, free to me. Thanks guys!


So now I have two new packs, of very different types, in my hands for a direct side by side comparison as I ride this summer. The basic data will be accumulated in the next post, updated as I collect it.

 

[dogman dan]

Data page.


Pretty minimal as yet. only about 7 cycles, 2 to 100% discharge.


Luna Wolf battery, clear box. Samsung 30Q cells, in 4p 14s construction. This pack is as near waterproof as a battery can get. The entire pack including the bms is potted in some type of clear resin, epoxy, or something similar. Only the charge and discharge plugs are not sealed. VERY NICE! It also includes a magnetic mount that proves to be very trustworthy when mounted correctly. That battery is not shaking off on a pothole from this mount.

Capacity rating 12 ah. Current best capacity 11.23 ah.

Weight, 9 pounds.

Voltage 52v

Charging voltage 58.8v, 4.2v per cell average.

Charger, the Luna 52v charger, with voltage readout, and three position switch.

Resting voltage, after charging 57.5-57.8v

Typically, after a charge it settles to 57.5v. If I repeat balancing several times, I can get it up to 57.8v. So a full pack for this specimen, is 4.107 v per cell. No noticeable additional voltage drop overnight. So far, it appears to be balancing, but unable to balance at 58.8v. This was typical of my previous 18650 packs. Even new, they would not balance at the full 4.2v. I have no idea if this is set by the bms, or some groups are just unable to hold 4.2v. My guess is its the cells, but that is a guess.


Sag under load. At most, 4v, when actually pulling the full 30 amps of the test bike. (1700w)

Typically this is a very short spike on starts, or when climbing extremely steep hills. Meaning hills way above 10% grades. On typical 5 or 6% grade hills, the bike at full speed will not pull the full 30 amps, and sag is about 3 v or less then. (1400w) At lesser loads, such as full speed on the flat, less than 2v of sag. (1000-1200w) When pedaling briskly at 20 mph, 600w) sag is only 1v.

This is VERY GOOD! My previous 18650 batteries would sag at least 6 to 8 volts, at 22 amps load max. Under 600w they would still sag 4v. Clearly the Samsung 30Q cell does well under 30 amps loads. Only a 4p pack, and it barely gets warm pulling a 5304 motor at 25 amps continuous, 30 peak. If used at lower amps, it does not appear to get warm at all.


Heating after a hard discharge. At most, the Wolf pack gets mildly warm.

Its a potted pack, so it can take some time for the heat to reach the packs exterior. But believe me, compared to the potted pack I had before, (allcell) this pack barely heats up. That Allcell pack got hot fast, despite the phase change material potting they were so pround of. The LG cells inside sucked, and really needed heat sink around them.


Hobby king Turnigy pack.

4 packs of 40-50c Turnigy 6s, 5000 mha. (5 ah) Parallel, then series connected to make a 12s pack. ( Original connectors cut off, and replaced with andersons after permanent crimp parallel connection.)

Voltage, 44v.

Weight, 7.25 pounds.

( If made into a 14s pack, weight would be similar to the wolf pack, but no protective container, no waterproofing, no bms.)

Capacity rating 10 ah. Best capacity 10 ah, when charged to 4.2v. Typical capacity 9.4 ah.

Charging voltage 50v, 4.16v per cell average.

Because of the lack of a bms, and bulk charging, I set the bulk charger to 50v to make overcharging less likely, and eliminate the need to balance every cycle. This costs a half amp hour now, with new cells. After two years, the cells tend to hold only 4.1v, or less after charging. The wear out of lithium cobalt is fairly quick, whether cycled a lot or not. a 2 year old hobby king pack is very tired. However, a very tired pack can still be used if the c rate is kept at .5c. My mower runs on a 5 year old pack this summer.

Charger, a king pan type 36v 5 amps bulk charger, tweaked up to 50v. For balancing, I charge to 4.2v with a 150w 8 s RC charger.


Resting voltage after charging to 50v, 50v. No additional voltage drop overnight.

In the past, HK cells charged to 4.2v soon drop to 4.18v once the cells have 20 cycles or so. After a year, typically drop to 4.15v. Year old cells charged to 4.15v tend to retain the 4.15v, rather than dropping to 4.1v. Apparently after some use, all lithium cells lose some of the ability to hold 4.20 v overnight. This tendency to hold only 4.15v when a year old is part of why I choose to charge to only 4.16v regularly.

Sag under load. At most, 2v sag under the highest possible ( with this test bike) 30 amps draw, up a very very steep hill.

This low sag is one reason I have bought more RC lipo than any other type of battery. Under 25 amps load sag is 1v. When riding 20 mph, 1/2 volt sag. This makes monitoring your voltage as you ride easier, since there is no bms, you must stop at the right time. Not having to make mental calculations as you ride helps.. You see 43v on the CA, you don't have to pause or make mental calcs to know you are near the end of your pack, which must stop at 42v resting.


Heating after discharge, too low to detect any heating.

When new, the internal resistance of a good quality turnigy pack is very low, meaning your capacity goes into the controller, not into heating the pack. However, this can bite you if you are riding in sub freezing conditions. Your pack will not warm itself under a 3c load. A ping pack, or cheap ass 18650 pack will heat itself in the cold, and perk up.

 

[dogman dan]

General comments, pros and cons of each pack.


In another thread, I discussed at length why I chose to buy an RC lipo pack, after a cheap ass ali express 18650 pack burned my house. It was not that I now distrust 18650's. I now distrust EVERYTHING. So I picked based on price, weight, size, and c rate. My street e bikes are capable of carrying any battery, and I did consider going back to lead after the fire. But my most fun bike is the full suspension dirt ride, and for it weight is everything. At 7 pounds for 10 ah of 12s, and nearly no voltage sag under load, the RC pack is the winner. My dirt frame cannot carry in the triangle, its an old Y frame. So you really feel a difference when you carry 7 pounds vs 9 or 10. I got very tempted by 36v 10 ah 18650's.


But the chances of a lipo pack going up in flames is greater than 18650 packs with bms protection. And that does matter, even if you do store and charge outside only, as I now do with every type battery.


The fact is, a good quality 18650 pack rarely catches fire. Its really extremely unlikely that a well built pack with decent cells in it will burn your house. I just got stupidly unlucky, even the cheap ass pack burning a house is very very rare, unless physically abused causing shorts.

I don't know Luna's record, but as an employee, I am aware of E-Bikekits record. In years of selling certified 18650 packs, only one battery has been a problem. One pack got warm during shipping, and some packing got scorched. There was no fire. No EBK sold battery has ever burned a house. I believe Lunas record is similar, I certainly have not heard of any of their batteries burning down a house.


So when you compare the possibility of a fire, there is no comparison between an RC lipo pack with no bms and vulnerable pouch cells, and a Wolf pack, with genuine brand name cells, a bms, and the whole thing potted, waterproof, and nearly impossible to physically damage causing a short.


The wolf pack is the obvious choice, when safety is the deciding factor. Particularly, I'm thrilled to have a battery that is potted in epoxy, and cannot be damaged by UPS, or me, stupidly dropping it in the yard. The lipo is definitely easy to physically damage, by dropping it, or crashing.

Mounting a battery that is vulnerable is tricky too. I carry the lipo in ammo boxes. On the dirt bike, a plastic shotgun shell box fits perfect, and I get a nice snug fit of a 12s pack. You simply cannot let pouch cells rattle around in a box till they get a corner crushed, or leak. On the cruiser, there is a 50 cal metal box bolted to the frame inside one saddle bag. Foam packing is used inside to get a tight fit of whatever size pack I may be carrying. Two 14s 10 ah packs fit nearly perfect, but additional foam is used for carrying smaller batteries. Bottom line is, carrying lipo is very much vulnerable to physical damage.


The Wolf pack comes with a genius magnetic mount. My first impression was no way! Its heavy for one thing, and I had trouble trusting it. It does come with additional straps to back up the magnet mount, but I simply did not trust that magnet.


Boy, was I wrong about that. Properly mounted, the magnet is hardly needing the strap back up for a street bike. I went out and rode the bumpiest MUP in my town, one that will launch your bike into a jump if you ride it 20 mph when you cross the water channel dips. Not a rattle, let alone a release, through the bumps at 30 mph. This mount is very strong, and can be trusted. I think you do want to use the back up straps for dirt riding, simply because you will endo the bike some day. Riding hard on single track, you will crash, so strap it up for that. But on a street ride, I see no need to strap it up. The ease of dismounting the battery is excellent for my type of use. The bike is garaged, the batteries all in an old oven in my backyard. So I need to easily move it each ride, or to move it bike to bike. And again, I do believe you could throw this fully potted pack across the street into the neighbors driveway, with no damage to the internal construction.


Regarding the construction, again, no comparison between the two. The Lipo has tabs with wires soldered to each cell. Easily damaged, tiny wires going to jst plugs. And no real protection of the wires, big or small. The Wolf pack has a new method of assembling the cells, which is clearly visible in the clear box version of the pack. I won't go into too much detail here, just read the page on the Luna site for more. But the pack has no spot welds, or soldered tiny bms wires. Its what I would call a solid state assembly, vs solder and wiring. Much less vulnerable to physical damage from vibration, even before the potting. Then the potting locks everything in place. Really, you could use this battery like a bowling ball, and do no harm to it. This is a whole new thing, compared to metal boxed packs that can chafe just enough to cut a bms wire.


There is also a double plug for both charging and discharging. Because there is no loose wiring, you could toast a plug, rendering it unusable. But there are two sets of plugs, so you have a spare if you did have a problem of any kind with one of them. A discharge wire with matching plug is provided, which I attached to a second plug. I will not be taking the spark from connecting the controller on the pack plug, but on the second plug on the discharge wire.


I only have a few tiny nit picks about the wolf battery construction.

One is that it is a long battery, and does not fit into the triangle of my cruiser. Cruisers have the curved frame, and often some additional bars, that make mounting this battery difficult or even impossible on a cruiser. Perhaps in the future, it might be offered in a shape that is closer to a square, which would fit on the short, straight, seat tube of a cruiser frame. On my cruiser, no problem, I just drop it into the other saddlebag. I have big bags, and it fits fine in there, loose. Or I can mount it on the rear rack with the magnet mount. My long range plan is to weld up another custom frame bike, which will carry this wolf battery much like a gas tank on a motorcycle.


The second nit pick applies to every e bike battery I have ever seen. If you do have any kind of problem with it, its hard to diagnose it. The balance plugs of an RC pack allow you to plug in a cellog 8, or other device such as an RC charger, and watch each cell/ cell group, as it charges. This can show you if a pack has a bad cell, or just one in need of balancing. I advocate that every e bike battery should have a diagnostic port under a water sealed cover, that would allow a bike shop tech to manually balance a pack, or do diagnostic voltage measurments as the pack charges. You can watch a bms work, or fail to work as intended, using such a diagnostic port. After my fire, I find it particularly important to have some visual clue if your bms is still functioning, before the flames begin.

 

[Wolfeman]

Looking forward to more info on this. I switched to HK Multistars about 2 years ago and have had great luck with them. The saggy 14S pack that came with my kit from High Power Cycles sucked before AND after being sent in for repairs. I haven't tried a Luna Cycles pack, but am considering it.

 

[dogman dan]

Not sure what cells you had in that pack. My ali express cheapo pack had no name cells in it. 400 bucks shipped. it sagged terrible under 20 amps, with a 20 ah pack.

This wolf pack only sags 2v under 20 amps, or less, with 12 ah.

My other 18650 pack had LG cells, it was from Allcell, and cost 700 bucks, for 12 ah. It sagged about the same, 8v under 20 amps load, but it was smaller.


But I have always been happy with the low sag of Turnigy packs, even the 20c type. Zippys though, seemed to wear out faster, and then sag more sooner.


Makes sense though, even if you cut the rated c rate by 75% for lipo, my current pack is good for 10c. Since I run it at 3c max, it should have very low sag.

 

[ScooterMan101]

Only 5 out of my 10 zippy's are left for me to use. 5 got a little puffy , ( 1, 6 cell and 4 , 7 cell packs ) and 4 of them sagged ( 7 s packs ) so much that the C.A. V 2.3 shut down the system . I Tried to ride several times and each time the C.A. shut down the system and prevented any problems.
each of the Zippy's went into a bucket of salt and water for a few days before recycling them.

The Turnigy's Heavy duty cells/packs, and Turnigy High Discharge Packs are what I buy now.

Two of the Zippy's are doing fine, But they have just 12 cycles on them so far ... they sat for nearly 2 years before I started using them last month , they only sag 2 volts under hard loads meaning 20-30 amps.

Same with the Turnigy heavy duty packs they also only sag 2 volts under a hard load 20-30 amps , 1 volt under a light to medium load.


You are discharging the lipo's down 100% ? ! ?

What is the voltage per cell at 100% or even 5 % ?

I get concerned when my get down to 10 % , only once did I take lipo's down to 4 % and even then for the last several miles I road very slow . Forgot to write down the voltage per cell that day .

I am wondering about the LiHV batteries , what do you think about them ?
( although at the present time there is not much in the way of higher cell count and Amp hour packs )

 

[dogman dan]

I don't routinely discharge anything to 100%. But if the ride is long enough, I will anytime. Or if I want to test real world capacity. It should be a year before I need to do another 100% discharge capacity test. So this review won't be complete till about 2021. My typical use is more like an 80% discharge at most.

100% on the bms protected wolf pack is when it shuts itself down, and maybe a reset or two more, if I'm that far from home.

100% on the lipos is 3.5v per cell average. There is a tiny bit more below that, but not enough to even make it one block, so no gain to go after that part.

Anytime I'm riding below 90%, by then I'm doing 8 mph, pedaling hard, using power only to take off the cogging of a huge DD motor. Trying to keep the watts at 100 or less. Whacking the throttle by then is going to just heat up cells.

 

[motomech]

My experience has been, below 3.65V/cell, my cells start to diverge. That is to say, one cell (usually) starts to dive off the cliff. That's about where my 48V controller's LVC of 41 to 42V takes effect, which is why 12S LiPoly on a 48 V controller in regards to the built-in LVC is the best match.
I really try not to go below 3.75V/cell.
Upon returning from a ride, I balance and charge to a storage Voltage of 3.90V/cell.
Before going out, I bulk charge to a point where the cells start to go wonky again, usually around 4.05V/Cell. If I'm in a hurry, I just leave when the cell spread is around .04V or .05V and they seem to come together as they discharge. If I'm not in a hurry and I need max. range (rare), I balance charge to 4.15V to 4.20V/cell.
90% of my rides fall within 4.10V/cell down to 3.75V/cell and my packs are sized to accommodate this range. My 2WD carries a total of 25Ah's @ 12S, which even following a strict 80% D of D (depth of discharge) Rule is good for over 15 Miles.

 

[dogman dan]

Me also, I definitely try to stop around 3.7v per cell (with lipo), unless I have reason to need that last bit. Now that I'm past initial testing for range, I'll be discharging the wolf pack a lot shallower 90% of the time too. But not doing anything that makes it impractical to use, like keeping it between 30 and 70%. Sure, it would last forever that way, but I'd have to limit range too much to go that far.

On the lipos, this practice means I rarely balance them at all. Store discharged, but not deep, charge to 4.15 then ride immediately as possible, and stop well above 3.65v. That's the routine with the lipo. BMS packs I charge to balance voltage every cycle, but again, ride it back below 4v per cell asap.

The idea is never let them sit a week at full charge. Kind of amazing how much life an old, but not too puffed lipo can have in it. My mower is running on lipo bought in 2013. Its weak, but in 6s 20 ah configuration, it mows the whole back, or whole front yard. 1/3 acre lot. I keep thinking next year I'll replace it with 3 year old cells, but then it just goes another summer. Bottom line, they sit empty, and never get very hot on the discharge. The 20 ah pack may only hold 5 ah, but so what, 5 ah mows the yard.

 

[spinningmagnets]

When I found out that the EGO line used 14S lithium, it dawned on me that an old ebike battery pack with only half of its range left in it would be replaced by me to get back the full range. But...what to do with the old one?

A 24-Ah pack with only maybe 10-Ah left in it would still have more range than the EGO 7.5-Ah pack that runs it. I have a small set of yards, and a fresh 7.5-Ah can mow both of them twice, so the ebike pack will last years when running the mower, and only being charged to 80% (for max life).

I also just bought a Meanwell inverter that takes 48V/52V and converts it to 120V-AC during a power outage.

 

[ScooterMan101]

Would like to see a review and tests of the LiHV lipos that HK sells. ( Does anyone else sell them ? Can just the cells be bought ? )

As much as I like the design work and manufacturing of the Luna Wolf packs, the Em3ev packs with fuses , and the Grin LiGo packs, they are all way over my budget regarding their cost , and will be over budget for many other people as well.

Add to that with lipo's I can have different voltage packs that I can take on a ride , If you live in a hilly area you would know the advantage of that .
Being able to buy just 2 or 4 lipo's at a time allows me to continue to ride electric instead of getting on the Gas/Petrol Motorcycle.

 

[motomech]

Planning ahead when buying LiPoly from Hobbyking can pay dividends. They don't offer the continuous stream of discounted makes and sizes they use to, but they still have smaller intermittent sales. Start ck'ing early and to avoid using their awful website, Google the brand and size you have in mind to access current info faster. One can also use HK's alarm feature. One of the nice things about LiPoly, it stores a very long time w/out degradation, even at room temps.
I would point out that it's important to match the discharge rating (C rate) to the system demands. I have used most of the lower C rate brands w/ my lowish powered systems(900 to 1200 Watts) and my take on them as follows:
I general, I have gotten better service life from the Turnigy's than the Zippy's and the Turnigy's seem to have a bit more "punch" for a given C rate.
Sm. packs (5Ah to 8Ah) of 10C thru 25C are best used W/ low powered systems (750 to 900 Watts) or too much sag will set off the LVC too early. The bigger the pack, the more resistant to sag it becomes, of course.
The Mulistar shines when the available large bricks are combined w/ low to mid powered systems, ie: using 2) 6S 10,000 mAh in series for a simple 12S/10 Ah pack. Still, it's low C rate of 10C or 12C is somewhat misleading I.M.O. They seem to be as sag resistant as some other brands 20C bricks.
The standard Turnigy 25C bricks seem to be one of the best values, especially when on sale.
I am currently using some Zippy Compacts, and although I haven't used them long enough to comment on their service life, they do pack a lot of power for their size. I like that they come in 7S in some useful sizes to make a powerful sm.14S pack. A great way to get some speed back when using low-speed range (201's) motors in 26" whl.s.

 

[dogman dan]

Well, its nearing the end of summer, and because of other things going on, I did not ride as much as I'd wanted to. Primarily, I'm getting so healthy I ride a pedal only road bike a lot. But I did get a few trips to the mountains in, and rode the cruiser a lot then. Hard use for the wolf pack, still running the big clyte and 30 amps controller, so up in those 10% grades plenty of long hard pulls at 1500w continuous.


The Wolf pack still runs beautifully, low sag, staying balanced well as a bms pack should. I had two others that did not. Charge it to 58v, and it sits at 57.5 in the morning. That's outstanding for a pack that gets worked this hard.


Still keeps its cool on the discharge, so the IR is still nice and low on this pack.

Same thing with the hobby king pack, its still rock hard and zero puffing. Working perfect.

 

[waynebergman]

HI Dan
Great to hear you are back in the saddle health wise and thanks for all the good info on this thread. I always learn something when I read your posts.........wayne

 

[dogman dan]

Winter is finally here, so I could test a cold battery. Today it was 22 F at dawn, and the wolf pack was in the old stove storage. So it definitely got cold last night. When I went to ride, the air temp was all the way up to 40F, where I know a hobby king pack starts to suck, as have all the others as well, lifepo4, limn, lico, whatever, they hate it when the cells are at 40f.

Riding now on only 1000w, I have moved the battery to my dirt bike, which is running a 500w geared motor from Ebikekit. Sure enough, on only 500w or so. I got a whopping 6v of sag under load. That's actually not bad considering, but clearly there is a lot more internal resistance on a very cold battery. But, I was pleased to see that after about 2 ah of discharge into the motor, ( more I'm sure into heat), the sag got much less like 3-4 volts. After a good ride of 4 miles or so, blasting around dirt singletrack, I was seeing 2-3v of sag under 1000w loads. Clearly the cells warmed themselves. But here is the cool thing, that epoxy coating was still cool to touch. Sure, its cold, its getting wind chill. But the point is, that battery warmed up to decent performance fairly quick, and then kept it inside. Its in its little epoxy blanket in a way. Kinda neat, that epoxy housing keeps it warm in winter, while in summer it simply does not get too hot.

Meanwhile, my hobby king pack definitely puffed on the last ride, about a month ago, when I took it down to 42v (12s). Its not toast, but it for sure is noticeably losing capacity, and has done the usual slight puffing. Should be good for another year, getting at least 7 -8 ah out of it per ride. And in fact, the HK pack has less cycles on it, because on the mountains trips I mostly rode the cruiser with the wolf pack.

Lastly, I am finally going to solve charging for good. I have a satiator on the way. with this, I will have a wet tolerant wolf battery, and wet tolerant charger to go with it. This will help a lot with riding in the mountains next year, where its raining daily.

 

[fechter]

Batteries don’t like getting charged when they are cold either. You might want to figure out a way to heat your battery storage.

 

[goatman]

if youre storing the batteries in an old oven I wonder if a small light bulb, like you use for xmas lights, left turned on inside the oven would keep your batteries warm at night or even just wiring the existing oven light to a switch might work although heat rises so youd want the light low but not directly under the battery. I wonder if a string of LED's wrapped in a coil the same shape as your luna pack could act as a warming plate for them

 

[goatman]

I did a quick search for 60 volt led light bulb. theres a bunch of lights rated at 36v to 130v ac/dc ranging from 1.6 watts and up. you could probably get a bulb, base and an xt60? for less than $20 and plug it into your battery pack wrap it in a blanket or an old jacket and go to bed. what would that be after 24hrs at 1.6 watts, 40 watts a day you could probably go 2 weeks before having to recharge your battery pack. come to think of it theres a lot of options out there if you look at winter jackets/pants theyre coming with 18650 battery packs for heated clothing but you would need a dc-dc converter or a separate battery hooked to a solar panel.

 

[dogman dan]

FWIW, just moved the battery stash into the old refrigerator for the winter yesterday. Put a snake heater in there too. This will keep them from actually freezing. Thermal mass alone likely kept them above freezing internally yesterday morning.

Now they will stay well above 50f most nights. Now retired, I have generally just put the batteries on the sunny side of the house to solar warm them an hour before I ride them or charge them. Tend to store them 3/4 charged anyway. In general, I don't ride on days as cold as yesterday at all. I kind of run a 60 degree rule, and pedal only when its any colder. I'd say now days 75% of my riding is on a pedal only bike. When I really want to get someplace, I ride the 80 mph gas scooter. Ebikes are just a low key hobby now for me. I ride them mostly on the steep hills when I take an RV to the mountains in the summer.

But since it finally got down to really below freezing yesterday, it was the perfect day to see how the Luna pack behaved in some cooler weather. I was surprised how quick it warmed itself and stopped sagging. By the time I got back, the battery was warm enough to put on the charger.

If I was still riding in the early mornings, commuting, I'd just put a snake heater in the fridge or stove. We no longer have reptiles around the house, but have lots of the heaters still. 100w incandescent bulb would also work fine. Really helps when riding below freezing, to start out with the battery above 60 F.

 

[DogDipstick]

LiHv is just overcharged lipos. Lol.

LunaWolf does 6v of sag on a cold day with a 4p pack at 30 A. Lol. Weak as fffffff.......

My use of recycled EV cells have proven to wreak havoc a HK lipo or a WolW pack. Safer too.

Been hitting them kinda hard, get 4-6v sag max on a sub 32* day ... at 80v and 100A. Only 15Ah pack.

One year datalogs show no degradation. Not 10 piccolo. Very low load for the cell, about 1/3 the total capability of the cell. Chevrolet LGX NMC.

I have alot of opinions on this subject. All are HK is junk, Wolf ( 4p? lol) is expensive pretty junk.

I mean, at 30A battery the 1p string of cells I have been using in all weather conditions for almost 2 yrs now.... Sags less than 1v at 1hp.

I just paid 82.50$ for 1000+ watt hours of Chevrolet cells. Less than 85$ a Kwh. Safer too.

A Wolf or a ( most) HK lipo should just burst into flames in disgrace,, should it look at my homemade battery specs, out of dishonor for itself.... Lol.

 

[dogman dan]

Well I'm not selling it. Just reporting what I get out of it. That's part of the deal when they give me one free.

Since I had just bought a 12s HK pack, I thought it would be interesting to see how they do side by side.

 

[bakaneko]

LiHv is just overcharged lipos. Lol.

LunaWolf does 6v of sag on a cold day with a 4p pack at 30 A. Lol. Weak as fffffff.......

My use of recycled EV cells have proven to wreak havoc a HK lipo or a WolW pack. Safer too.

Been hitting them kinda hard, get 4-6v sag max on a sub 32* day ... at 80v and 100A. Only 15Ah pack.

One year datalogs show no degradation. Not 10 piccolo. Very low load for the cell, about 1/3 the total capability of the cell. Chevrolet LGX NMC.

I have alot of opinions on this subject. All are HK is junk, Wolf ( 4p? lol) is expensive pretty junk.

I mean, at 30A battery the 1p string of cells I have been using in all weather conditions for almost 2 yrs now.... Sags less than 1v at 1hp.

I just paid 82.50$ for 1000+ watt hours of Chevrolet cells. Less than 85$ a Kwh. Safer too.

A Wolf or a ( most) HK lipo should just burst into flames in disgrace,, should it look at my homemade battery specs, out of dishonor for itself.... Lol.

Can you show how you wire up the Chevy Volt battery? I assume you are using a unit and then connecting the positive and negative to a BMS or does it need a BMS? And then the BMS connecting dongle? THX

 

[DogDipstick]

bakaneko, Ive done all three, BMS, Bulk charging, and hobby grade charger. I chop the modules up, reconfigure and shringk wrap with balance leads and discharge/charge leads... I'll probably post a thread about it sometime, all the pictures in my old thread are gone.

They build awesome lipos. Awesome. I got a build album on Facebook, pm me and I'll sent you the link and the build log.. I dont want to link any pics that will disapear on Dogmans review and comparison.

'Can you show how you wire up the Chevy Volt battery? I assume you are using a unit and then connecting the positive and negative to a BMS or does it need a BMS? And then the BMS connecting dongle? THX"

 

[bakaneko]

bakaneko, Ive done all three, BMS, Bulk charging, and hobby grade charger. I chop the modules up, reconfigure and shringk wrap with balance leads and discharge/charge leads... I'll probably post a thread about it sometime, all the pictures in my old thread are gone.

They build awesome lipos. Awesome. I got a build album on Facebook, pm me and I'll sent you the link and the build log.. I dont want to link any pics that will disapear on Dogmans review and comparison.

'Can you show how you wire up the Chevy Volt battery? I assume you are using a unit and then connecting the positive and negative to a BMS or does it need a BMS? And then the BMS connecting dongle? THX"

Thx for the reply. I mean something like this.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2013-Chevy-Volt-Lithium-Ion-Battery-2kWh-pack-48v-off-grid-solar-golf-cart-55k/223794241521?hash=item341b2d1ff1:g:hEoAAOSwlAZaa7Vh

I might replace my batteries next spring or something. This is an interesting alternative to going back to 18650s. This chevy volt has a positive and negative terminal and then a bms output cable. How do I got about utilizing this for an ebike?

 

[DogDipstick]

Yeah they outdo a 18650. 10X outdone.

Yes I have a friend putting two modules on a Ninja and 4 on a Hayabusa ebike. Just bolt them up. I am currently going reconfiguring a module for 180Ah @ 12v. Total cost, 2250 Wh, 200$ with BMS and fuse.

Pm me your intentions and we can discuss what i know more. This thread is HK Multistar vs. Luna Wolf long term use.

( Btw, every spec on that link to Ebay is wrong. )

NOT 47 Ah. NOT 48v. NOT LiMn2O4 with LiNiO2. Maximum Voltage is NOT 4.2VDC Minimum Voltage is NOT 3.0VDC. They are NOT 17Ah cells. NOT 2 Kwh.

Says the dimensions: ALL of those are wrong.
Length 9.5"
Width 9.5"
Height 10.5


Real specs:
(45Ah, 44v, NMC, 4.15v max, 3.2v min, 15.5Ah, 2250Wh) I just purchased my 6th module, and I know. They do balance well.