New tech lead acid

[docnjoj]

I'm sure a lot of people noticed the positive reference to lead acid battery use in the PIR racing stuff. Interesting, that. I'm going to try lead again since I just got two new ones (24 volts) on the cx24 Mongoose I just gutted for my trike power. I then can attempt to destroy the motor with my normal 35 cell NiMh pack, or my wifes 36 volt Ping. But if the Curry system proves suitible on 24 volts, so much the cheaper for me!
oldDoc

 

[safe]

...so much the cheaper for me!

I'm a big fan of lead too. It's the unappreciated power source of our age. Everyone wants to be cool and ride with the most expensive product they can find... it's like wanting the Ferrari rather than driving the more affordable subcompact.

Lead will never be cool... but at least it's cheap.

 

[docnjoj]

Well, we will see! Lifting that pack, even with the handle, almost gave me a hernia!
otherDoc

 

[TylerDurden]

I'm a big fan of lead too. It's the unappreciated power source of our age. Everyone wants to be cool and ride with the most expensive product they can find... it's like wanting the Ferrari rather than driving the more affordable subcompact.

Lead will never be cool... but at least it's cheap.

Using better batteries is not usually about being cool... it's about being smart.

The PIR regs have allowed higher capacity for lead, since they are fundamentally crippled.

No matter how slow the EV goes, the lead will sag and perform more poorly than the other chemistries. It has it's own cascade of death: lower voltage begets more resistive losses, begets heavier load and more heat, etc.,etc., etc. ...

 

[docnjoj]

True to all the above, Tyler! However, one thing I do remember from using lead with my first E-bike is that it held its voltage up a hill quite well! Better, in fact than either my Nicads or Nimh. Unfortunately, Joyces Ping pack really stomps on all the previous chemistries, so far! She has had it for about a month, and it shows no singn of problems, and pulls her bike like a horse! But, Im stuck with the new lead, so I may as well try it!
otherDoc

 

[Ypedal]

SLA - easy on the wallet, initially.

nimh - delivers rated capacity

nicad - same as nimh but less self discharg and not as fragilej

lithim- rules all !

 

[safe]

Lithium prices will one day come down.

I'm just going to wait until the price comes down before I buy into it. Just like flat screens you have to expect that the first few years will be really expensive. Once the volume picks up and the price comes down then that's the time to buy.

It all comes down to most effective pricing... the day will come... and for some people the benefits of the light weight are worth the extra dollars today.

On a price per energy level it's still cheaper to go lead or at least NiCad's which give a good price yield.

 

[kyakdiver]

Safe..... I guess for you that may be true... but to say it's cheaper or even possible for some is just not the case. If I had to haul around lead I would not Ebike, period! I have the need and use my 48V 20 Ah ping pack that weighs 20lbs. I wish it weighed 10! If it was lead I would need to haul around what? 40-60lbs or so...... Not going to happen. I would just pedal if that was what was needed. If I did use lead it would be in an EV motorcycle.... seems like that is what your creations are.... They are not ebikes. No pedals makes it an electric motorcycle.

If you love lead and don't want to spend money on anything like lifepo4.... more power to you. I'm not about spending big bucks... I'm about spending the least amount I have to in order to build something that works for me.

kyakdiver

 

[TylerDurden]

If you love lead and don't want to spend money on anything like lifepo4.... more power to you.

Um..... that would be less power to you. :lol:

 

[safe]

Safe..... I guess for you that may be true... but to say it's cheaper or even possible for some is just not the case. If I had to haul around lead I would not Ebike, period!

If you want to be "bouncy" (as in mountain bike riding) where you are going up and down over big bumps then the light weight is a necessity. But on the street it's far less critical. More critical for the street isn't weight but rigidity of the frame... you simply can't pull a hard high speed turn with a wobbly frame. I've got a mountain bike and have probably a thousand miles on it or more over the years and I know how they handle and what they can do. I'm not saying that mountain bikes as ebikes are "wrong", but that there are other options. Someone with a recumbent trike could easily run lead because they would never go offroad anyway and the innate stability would make having the extra weight easy to deal with.

Doing the Math:

Rider Weight - 185 lbs

Battery Weight - 86 lbs

Bike Weight - 60 lbs

...so as a percentage the batteries are:

185 + 86 + 60 = 331 and so:

86 / 331 = 26%

...which makes it a small weight proportionally.

 

[knoxie]

Hi Safe

Our favourite subject again! ha ha hmm my NIMH packs on my bike are 2 years old, still put out 37A peak and have only lost 10% of their rated capacity over those 2 years, I can still get 11AH from them, they replaced my old batteries which were 4 x 12V 12Ah SLA batts, I had to replace these batteries sometimes after only 30 cycles? The NIMH batteries have maybe now gone past 500 or so cycles? the pack cost me 250UK pounds, the lead acid batteries were 60 pounds at a time and rarely put out more than 6AH as well!! if you do the sums, i would have had to spend a 1000 pounds to get the same cycle life from the lead not to mention the hassle of changing them and their weight penalty.

Lead is ok if you run parallel packs and keep the C rate down and are prepared to suffer the weight and they are fine for low power 250W bikes for scooting about but other than that they are not of much use to the serious e-biker and as this forum is populated by mainly serious e-bikers you wont find too many fans of the batteries on here, also world lead prices are rising dramatically, lead costs 3 times more what it did 3 years ago this will push the price up even more making them even less attractive.

I know you like em for sure but if somebody donated some nice NIMH or Lipo to you I reckon those lead batts would be out of there in a second!! good on you though for fighting in their corner!! I like em too just have enough cash to buy better cells and once you go that way you simply cant go back, I dont think I would ride assisted if it meant running lead either.

Knoxie

 

[safe]

I had to replace these batteries sometimes after only 30 cycles?

Something went wrong there...

Truth be told my next two projects will be using NiCads because they are rather cheap right now. I'm not forcing anyone to use SLA but at the same time I think it's important to remind everyone that if used properly they are a good deal.

It will be hard to beat 4.6 cents per mile... which is the "real world" result I've experienced on my bike. Actual experience is important because theory is just theory. (and I have no shortage of theories that need testing :lol: )

 

[stew007]

the 10ah 66.6v lipo pack I got can do around 30 miles, should cope with 500 cycles easy, total cost $630, so that works out at 4.2-4.8 cents per mile, pack weighs under 4kg/8.5lbs and small enough to mount to the lower frame. so it's cheap, efficient, lightweight so the bike still feels like a bike, can handle 100a cont, 300a bursts, 1< hr charge.

 

[safe]

This has been dealt with many times on other threads.

SLA having such a low entry price means that it pays itself off more quickly. Other chemistries offer longer life and less weight, but it takes longer to pay them back.

*** Club For Extreme Battery Range ***

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4461

...check out this thread to see how many people actually are able to get their money back.

 

[Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh]

I'm sure a lot of people noticed the positive reference to lead acid battery use in the PIR racing stuff.

haven't a clue what yer talkin about, got a link?
What's PIR?
passive infrared?
no, it's something international racing.

Well, we will see! Lifting that pack, even with the handle, almost gave me a hernia!

lucky fer u yer a doctor, you can cow-punch it back into place.

Everyone wants to be cool and ride with the most expensive product they can find

Your glasses are soo beyond rose colored, how do you come up with these twisted perceptions?
Cool isn't even in the conversation.
It's all about the wate, full stop.
If lead-acid weighed they same as NiMH per Watt-hour then NiMH would never have been invented, hell NiCd's probably wouldn't have had a market either, even including all the other performance shortcomings of PbA

 

[EMF]

Yeah, if it wasn't for the lead in lead acid, they would be a lot better choice. They were all the rage in 1859 though.

 

[TylerDurden]

There's plenty to dislike about lead besides the weight. :|

 

[Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh]

the other shortcomings I could live with or work around but the weight is literally the backbreaker.
add them all together into the mix & for me it's a non-starter in a mobile app

 

[michaelplogue]

Weight was the deciding factor for me. SLA's were fine when I lived in an apartment on the ground floor, or when an elevator was available. But now living in a third floor apartment with narrow stairs, I have a major struggle trying to carry all this now - especially with a bad back.

With the SLA's I had a single pack (which I had to permanently attach to my scooter) with a weight of 27.5 lbs and only gave me 12AH (less considering the peukert effect).

With the LiPo, I have two 9.2 lb, easily removable packs that give me 32.8 AH.

For me, that was a no-brainer......

 

[Link]

Oddly, I'm not one to be too concerned with weight. I pay more attention to volumetric energy density.

Everyone wants to be cool and ride with the most expensive product they can find

WTF? How did you manage to come up with this after all the posts here that basically boil down to people looking for the cheapest lithium pack they can find? :|

 

[docnjoj]

Ive found that the "noise to signal ratio" is much less since I removed Safe from my readings! Its as simple as pushing the"foe" button! This is the first time I have ever done this in my entire computing life, and it makes a great difference in the quality of readings here!
otherDoc

 

[EMF]

Ive found that the "noise to signal ratio" is much less since I removed Safe from my readings! Its as simple as pushing the"foe" button! This is the first time I have ever done this in my entire computing life, and it makes a great difference in the quality of readings here!
otherDoc

Yep, same here, and the threads load a lot faster too!

 

[safe]

WTF? How did you manage to come up with this after all the posts here that basically boil down to people looking for the cheapest lithium pack they can find? :|

You're talking about the hope of lower prices verses present day conditions. It's still more expensive (initially) to go with LiFePO4 and it will take longer as far as range to recover your loss.

I'm just being realistic.

 

[docnjoj]

All I can say is "ouch to cowpunching" The PIR is Portland International Raceway where they just held the first electric bike races! Theres a thread somewhere in this forum! Really interesting! By the way, doesnt cowpunching hurt the cow?
otherDoc

 

[dogman dan]

I've lived in New Mexico all my life and have a degree from the NMSU Ag departmet , but I have never, ever seen a cow "punched" . I've known a shitload of cowboys with limps, wheelchairs, and gumby shaped heads though, all from cows or bulls.