To make your Sealed Lead Acid battery pack last as long as possible, here are some pointers;

1. Recharge the battery at every possible chance, even if it is only for a few minutes, there is no memory effect on lead acid batteries.

2. Try not to drain the battery pack below 80% discharge for maximum cycle life per use.

3. Never drain the battery completely then not recharge it, that is a guaranteed way to kill the battery pack in short order.

4. While in winter storage take the battery pack out of the E-Bike and take it inside your house with your charger for the winter, recharge the battery pack once a month, do not forget to.

5. Never leave the charger connected to the battery for more then 12 to 15 hours.

6. Never leave the charger outside in the rain or any other damp place, it is only designed for warm dry locations. Try not to charge in cold locations, the charger and battery charges better in warm locations.

Ken Finch

To make your Sealed Lead Acid battery pack last as long as possible, here are some pointers;

1. Recharge the battery at every possible chance, even if it is only for a few minutes, there is no memory effect on lead acid batteries.

2. Try not to drain the battery pack below 80% discharge for maximum cycle life per use.

3. Never drain the battery completely then not recharge it, that is a guaranteed way to kill the battery pack in short order.

4. While in winter storage take the battery pack out of the E-Bike and take it inside your house with your charger for the winter, recharge the battery pack once a month, do not forget to.

5. Never leave the charger connected to the battery for more then 12 to 15 hours.

6. Never leave the charger outside in the rain or any other damp place, it is only designed for warm dry locations. Try not to charge in cold locations, the charger and battery charges better in warm locations.

Ken Finch

Couldn't have said it better myslef....LOL....Those who use their bikes alot will get maximum use out of their battery. Remember why you bought it and use it whenever you can. Even if it is for just a few laps around the block after dinner for a nice relaxing ride. Tire pressure is also important. Anywhere between 35psi and 40 psi is recommended for most tires. I personally like mine at 40psi.Checking Lugnuts on the wheels is also recommended.

I am going to post soon in this section tips for the rest of the E-Bike as well. But I am currently busy at work right now.

Ken Finch

Had an abnormally long charge today with my bike at work. I was somewhere around the 50% drain mark when I plugged in, which isn't uncommon for me, and that was at around 11-11:30 this morning.

At 10pm tonight (it was a late night for me) the charger was still red and in what I guess is "high charge" mode. Normally, the bike would have been fully charged by say 6-7pm. Well, it was time to go home so I unplugged and went on my way. Far as I can tell, it did charge fully or at least close to it-- the one real oddity I observed was that my charge meter did not drop *at all* on the way home, and usually that meter starts to dip down a bit, particularly once I go up one of the larger hills on the way home.

Battery pack was still warm when I got home, and I'd stopped off to grab milk on the way. I can't recall if this warmth is normal or not, as it's not something I really check, but should I be concerned? Is it likely that my charger over-charged the battery a bit, or have I maybe just completely "broken-in" the battery? (The bike's almost 2 months old and I've been riding/charging it every single day since...)

E-Bike Battery Care and Maintenance

This is a very important topic to me. The dealer where I bought my BionX (http://www.eastsidecy...) told me that a new battery is $850.00. Add the taxes and it becomes $960.50. To me, this is a BIG expense and I'm hoping that it will last for 5 years of use ($200 per year). With BionX sales expected to pass 40,000 for 2009 alone, (http://www.thestar.co...) I'm hoping that the larger production volume will result in lower retail prices. I'm also hoping that BionX will make it simple for a dealer, or informed customer to purchase the bare batteries and install them rather than send the entire battery (case, electronics, and all) back to the factory for battery replacement.

There is a 1 year warranty for the battery and 2 years for the BionX system. I assume that this also includes the battery charger as well. I keep checking the voltage in my battery with a volt meter and perhaps Ken can tell me if I should be testing the output of my charger too.

Winter and cold weather is very hard on batteries. So is storing them for long periods of time without any use.

I plan to put my charger on a timer that has a weekly program. I can have the charger come on for 1 hour or less, once a week.

My knowledge of batteries and electronics is poor so I'm hoping some of our resident experts like Ken Finch will help me to get the best use of my battery by teaching me how to take proper care of it.

AgentX, I would be worried about a long fast charge like that. I destroyed a perfectly good set of batteries by my charger failing to detect the end of charge and vastly overcharged my battery pack and cooking the batteries to death. When I opened the battery box, the batteries were all fused together and swelled up, also you could smell the sulfur and the batteries were too hot to touch for a couple of hours. I have since replaced the batteries and the charger. I suggest you replace your charger. It is not worth risking your batteries over. If you do not replace the charger, at least put the charger on a timer and set the timer to run for no more then 8 hours. That way there is almost no way the charger can cook the batteries even if it fails, because there will not be enough time to damage the batteries.

I would open up your battery box and look for swelled or melted batteries. If there is replace all four batteries at once, do not try and replaced 1 or 2 always replace all 4 at time for balance issues.

Ken Finch

This is exactly what I was worried about.

So after the events last night, I had to go out to do a little shopping today, and in total I'd say I rode around 20km between the shopping and the ride home from work last night.

Well, even before I was most of the way home, my meter was already dipping into the low yellow, almost into the red. This is definitely not normal behaviour for a fully-charged battery pack.

I'll be bringing the battery up tonight to charge it, and will monitor it closely. Now that I think of it, I thought I heard a funny noise one of the last times I'd charged the battery, but assumed it was just my fridge or something clicking. I wonder if that was the battery/charger...

I hate to say it, but it does sound like overcharging damage has occurred, If there is internal damage to the batteries they will only get worse until they will not hold a charge anymore. Keep monitoring them and expect when out riding the batteries may completely fail at any time, so be prepared to push the bike from that point. I know from my own experience about this.

Ken Finch

Didn't wind up bringing the battery up last night after all; going to charge the bike at work, which in a way will be better as it won't be an overnight thing.

By the way, did you ever wind up getting that new/improved model charger to try out? If so, how did it turn out?

Wonder how much a new set of batteries is going to cost me... :S I imagine the charger itself would be warrantied, but not the batteries, right?

I am told that the best battery charger out there is from Soneil. http://www.soneil.com....

I do not own one and have no personal experience with it....maybe someone else in the group??

I inquired and the costs quoted to me for pickup from the head office in Mississauga.

2 amp model (4804SR) $76.93
3.5 amp model (4808SRF) $192.41

Not real cheap and perhaps better deals on these available via online shopping.