Sealed Lead Acid (SLA) Battery Build for 48v 1000w eBike

[iwo2024]

Hello everyone, joined new today (21st Jan) have bought myself a 1000w 48v brushless hub motor 700c front wheel drive for my Specialized Sirrus Hybrid bike.

Looked into LifePO4 batteries (ping), but are just too expensive for me right now.

Would really appreciate any help given towards building a 48v 20Ah SLA battery.

I've seen some 12V 12Ah SLA batteries, does that mean I require x4 of these batteries, which gives me 48v in total with 24ah (since SLA will only deliver half the amps for an eBike usage?)
Also some 6v 6ah SLA's, so will I need x8 ?

Here are some of my requirements:
Motor must deliver full potential (48v x 20aH = 960W) for the 1000W brushless hub motor
Need at least 20 miles range with pedal assist.
As cheap as possible.

Any advice will be most appreciated.
Regards

 

[wesnewell]

Forget SLA. 4 12ah batteries make a 12ah 48v pack. It would take 8 of them to make a 24ah pack. That's a huge 80lb chunk of lead that might give you a 15 mile range at 15mph. You have to go lithium, that's all there is to it. The cheapest way I know of is with these.
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewitem.asp?idproduct=15521
6 of them wired 12s2p will give you a 20 mile range at 15mph for under $150. Actually cheaper than lead and will only weigh about 6 lbs for a 10ah 44.4v nominal battery pack that will charge to 50.4v and have all 10ah usable. If you know how to do it, you can safely use the charger that came with your lit to charge them, but you'll need some way to check balance. A $19 HK-010 can serve as a dual purpose watt/volt/amp meter wired to the bike and a 6s balancer to balance/check the individual packs.

 

[veloman]

You're not going to want to ride a 48v SLA hybrid bike, seriously.

Nearly everyone who has started off with SLA and moved onto lithium has wished they just started with lithium.

Even a 48v 17ah SLA battery will weigh 54lbs. My first ebike used 24v 17ah SLA and I had those 27lbs on the rear rack on a road bike - HORRIBLE handling. After running the battery down once, it lost half it's capacity from then on.

Save up for a Ping - they are easily the best value in ebike battery when factor in how easy they are to use/charge and very plug in play, and have a great reputation. Just keep it to 1.5c rate or below. Lipo as stated above may look cheaper, but in the end not by much and very labor intensive.

 

[Jason27]

Pings not selling batteries on ebay anymore. I wonder what happened?

 

[el_walto]

Ping sells on pingbattery.com for the same price as ebay, or cheaper.

 

[auraslip]

Go for it. It should only cost you $150. A relatively cheap waste of money in this game. Just don't judge ebikes based on your experience with lead. Cause its gonna be subpar.

A common setup is four 12v14a ps-12140 SLAs in series and a 48v ebay SLA charger. Should come to less than $150.

Gonna need a small wiring harness and 40a fuse as well. http://www.ebikekit.com sells such a wiring harness/fuse kit for $20. Invest this money into a bad ass soldering iron to solder the connections together instead.





But I gotta say; if you already got the tools, you might as well get a 12s10ah lipo pack. Should come out to $150 for the batteries, and about $200 for all the connections, balancers, and other widgets. The truth is, you're gonna ditch the lead soon enough anyways, so you might as well invest the money into something more DIY.

 

[dogman dan]

To get 20 mile range in sla at 25 mph, you'd need about 30 ah of it. So instead of 16 pounds of pingbattery, you'd have about 50-60 pounds of lead. Tie ten gallon jugs of water to the bike and go for a ride. You'll love it.

Compromise is in order. You could set back the time you can afford the ping for awhile with a 48v lead battery. But you won't be going anywhere near 20 miles. More like 8 at most, and better keep it down to 6 miles if that ping isn't coming by early summer.

I say hang in there, save every dime, and get the 48v 15 ah ping asap. Don't make the mistake of getting a 10 ah, you need the 15 ah for a 1000w bike.

If you choose to go straight to lipo, get educated first. 4 12v 12 ah batteries is 48v 12ah. If you do have a safe place to charge, 6 of the 6s 5 ah packs would get you into about 44v 15 ah. Range varies with speed, so that size lipo pack would go between 20 and 30 miles range. 30 miles would be at 15 mph or less. 6x $60 for the batteries, plus another $200 for good charging setup, nearly the cost of a ping. They don't last as long as lifepo4, so in the long run a 48v 15 ah ping remains the cheaper option.

You can however, get started in lipo, with about 5 miles range, with just two of the 6s packs and a cheap slow piece o junk charger. About $200 total. But you won't save money on lipo if you need all that range. Big battery is always expensive.

The good news is you are still on the right path. An Ebike is always much cheaper per mile than a car. But can, depending on costs of insurance,( your age) be about the same cost as a small motorcycle or scooter in the 150cc or less category.

 

[Jason27]

Ping sells on pingbattery.com for the same price as ebay, or cheaper.

His prices are pretty low. How does he make any money?