Toronto Electric Riders Association Message Board › E-Bike Technical Forum › Using Lithium Batteries instead of Lead Acid
Using Lithium Batteries instead of Lead Acid
| Vic | |
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I think what Lock is trying to say is that if you get these cells and discharge them to certain point that you'll have trouble bringing them all back to the proper voltage. Mind you these Thundersky cells are good batteries but charging them all to the proper voltage would be a nightmare and could take you hours. Reason being from my understanding these don't come with a battery management system included. Which means you would have to charge each cell individually and not all together at the same time like your current battery.
-Vic |
| lOCk | |
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...or just buy a BMS
 I'd ask Elite or the Canadian distributor for recommendations |
| A former member | |
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Lifepo4 can be fully discharged without a blast or fire but you reduce cycle life doing it.
Ideally Lifepo4 should not be discharged more than 80%. Most other Lithium chemistries will not tolerate discharges below 70%. So a 20Ah T-S Battery can safely be discharged to 4Ah allowing you 16Ah of range. Chargers need to use a Lifepo4 Algorithm which is 3.65V. It means you can use a simple SLA Charger but for Lifepo4 the Charger may only go to 3.2V and shut down which is fine but if you're paying for 3.65V why settle for 3.2V. As for a BMS A BMS Monitors and Controls Charging---Discharging and Cell Balancing. IF You have a Smart Lifepo4 Charger you don't need a BMS for that area. IF you can use a CycleAnalyst and Monitor your Discharge Level you won't need a BMS. You will however still need a Cell Balancer and Elite Power offers one for $89.00 A BMS is really only good if you forget to monitor your battery pack and everyone forgets but at the same time a BMS can fail and if you do not manually monitor your pack you can inherit landfill. Ironically I was the only guy pushing the Chinese to add a BMS in the late 90's and they had no idea what a BMS was and later on in 2002 to 2004 I was the sole North American Distributor for Thunder Sky. |
| lOCk | |
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Just gonna throw this into the fray and run away...
"Li-Ion BMS options" http://liionbms.com/p...  hehe Lock |
| lOCk | |
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Dramatic illustration from a car driver about how much more efficient lithium-flavoured batteries are versus lead:
David Nelson's 2003 Gizmo - see the Watt Hours/Mile data! Amazing! locK |
| Rob | |
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At first, I thought these numbers were very high for such a vehicle but then I noticed the distance measurement was miles instead of kilometres. :)
I guess you get used to using lithium batteries (LiPos, in my case) and can't imagine using anything else because you know everything else would have a performance hit. In addition to added weight to carry around, all other batteries have greater losses. These losses are large at high output currents and very severe in lead acid batteries. This guy is doing a lot of hill climbing which is a double-whammy hit against lead acid. I think this produces the large difference in motive efficiency. In my comfort zone of thought, I could imagine trying to make an airplane that would fly on lead acid cells. It would have to have a large wing area to maintain a reasonable wing loading. The power system would be low power out of necessity to avoid a large voltage drop in the battery (and the corresponding dismal efficiency). It could be done, but the end result would be short flights on a slow, underpowered aircraft that wouldn't be much fun to fly. It would be much worse than going back to NiCds. I just wouldn't go there with an ebike... |
| Iona | |
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LITHIUM-ION ELECTRIC SCOOTER MOTORCYCLE
CONCISE OPINION REVIEWS Rechargeable Lithium (LIFEPO4) batteries look good, on paper, for electric bikes, cars, and scooters. In actual practice, there are numerous problems with the BMS (Battery Management System), defective batteries, lack of widely-available precision battery chargers, and reliable vehicles from responsible manufacturers and retailers. This industry, at the retail and wholesale levels, are populated with flaky persons who have taken deposits and do not delivery. http://www.google.ca/... http://www.google.ca/... Hobbyists and experimenters end up with time-consuming data-logging trials just to determine which battery in the battery pack is failing, even though the Vancouver Gadgeteers inventors club have devices that can identify failed batteries instantly, thereby making data-logging (data loggers) obsolete. http://www.veoh.com/b... At least one electric motorcycle owner has posted 200 entries in an Internet forum outlining his grief with his LIFEPO4 batteries. http://electricmotorc... Furthermore, the public is largely unaware of the lecture by the founder (Justin) of ebikes.ca given at the Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association in which Justin provided a visual history of the high failure rates of NiMH, Lithium, and Nicad battery packs used in electric bikes (ebikes) and electric scooters (escooters.) http://www.ebikes.ca/... |
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| lOCk | |
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Wow Iona! So much to consider here! Lets start by looking at the research...
You said: Rechargeable Lithium (LIFEPO4) batteries look good, on paper, for electric bikes, cars, and scooters. In actual practice, there are numerous problems with the BMS (Battery Management System), defective batteries, lack of widely-available precision battery chargers, and reliable vehicles from responsible manufacturers and retailers. This industry, at the retail and wholesale levels, are populated with flaky persons who have taken deposits and do not delivery. Google returned “2,400 results (0.22 seconds)” which seems an extremely small response from google for this search? Just looking at the first three pages of results... 1. FYI: Most of the people online selling LiFePO4 Bats are Scammers ... bikeforums.net is a terrific forum about bikes obviously with some ebike content, but this is a forum thread from two years ago. Back in 2008 there were a handful of ebay sellers using numerous aliases selling sub-standard packs. Many folks seeking a free lunch were burned... 1. Endless-sphere.com • View topic - Headway Headquarters *WARNING* Endless-sphere.com is perhaps the worlds best online forum site for ebike hobbiests. The forum thread in this instance refers to ONE PERSON that operated (tried to) two-three EV parts businesses in 2009-2010. There are court cases and law suits and counter-suits... a real mess. 1. Forum ebay seller - This appears to be a spam/trojan site. Look at the URL etc? My browser refused to even load the thing... 1. Sellers of roadway safety: Exporters, Manufacturers, Wholesalers ... Another “junk” site... Google cache reported “These search terms are highlighted: warning lifepo4 These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: seller scammer”... The only “warnings” on this page were sellers offering “warning lights" and “warning tape”... 1. AmpedBikes e-bike Forums • View topic - Battery advice for the ... 1. AmpedBikes e-bike Forums • View topic - Battery advice for the ... Two hits on another old thread from 2008. And it refers to that same small handful of rogue ebay sellers back then... 1. Green Vehicles - Triac (Scam?) [Archive] - ApteraForum.com ... This thread was actually talking about China-made cars being “scams”... The reference to LiFePO4 was OT and not negative... 1. golf electric scooters - golf electric scooters buying leads ... Another junk site... The only “warnings” on this site were from sellers of “flashing warning sites” etc... 1. Buyer - Pipl Profiles Anothe junk site. 1. Which Light Weight Replacement Battery ? [Archive] - MX-5 Miata Forum This thread (mostly from 2008) was mostly about a “scam” to do with re-badged lead-acid starter batteries... LiFePO4 was being suggested as a solution to the problem... (Continues...) Edited by lOCk on Feb 14, 2011 4:24 PM |
| lOCk | |
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1. Theterracescondominiumuz Another spam/junk site. 1. less than 130USD = 1500mw (not a typo, 1.5w) green laser - Laser ... The only “warnings” here were about warning stickers about laser lights... nothing to do with the LiFePO4 mentioned 1. display imei phone - open Freelancer.com projects No warnings here... The “scam” reference was to Apple ipod softwares... 1. ZapGuy's Electric Bike | V is for Voltage electric vehicle forum VisforVoltage.org is another fabulous resource for ebike hobbiests. But the only warnings here were about the dangers of aluminum forks... 1. Study Time » 2006 » December Another junk site. 1. Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - December 8th, '07 - P2P-Zone Another junk/spammer site. 1. Classifieds .evfinder.com is a terrific site for buying and selling Evs, mostly cars. Google cache reported “These search terms are highlighted: lifepo4 seller These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: warning scammer”, and there were no warnings about LiFePO4. The only references to LiFePO4 were for cars that have these packs, and they were being promoted as a selling feature. 1. Electric bicycle kit: More smiles per mile : The DIY Forum Look at the URL. This is another junk site. 1. Daniel's EVPorsche 911 conversion [Archive] - Tesla Motors Club Forum The only “warning” here was about warning signals provided by a” good” BMS ... 1. 찬양과 음악감상실 “Christian spam” from Korea... (Continues...) Edited by lOCk on Feb 14, 2011 9:32 PM |
| lOCk | |
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1. Amjust your regular run of the mill lawyer - hunting with ak47 thr ...These search terms are highlighted: warning lifepo4 seller These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: scammer Spam. 1. Portable Home Generators | Generators News for 12/09/2010 The only warning here was about web sellers being scammed with phony online receipts... 1. Air France No warnings about LiFePO4 batts or sellers here. 1. Shoes5HGKb9 Look at the URL? The only warnings here are about how silent electric cars are, and the dangers of teenage marriage... 1. Making the Perfect EDC light a reality! ? ! ? Candlepowerforums.com is a great site for folks interested in high-power lighting systems, but the only warnings there were about programming safe output and low voltage limits, and manufacturers warnings about which batteries to use in what devices... 1. 108834 Another junk site. Google cache “These search terms are highlighted: warning These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: lifepo4 seller scammer“ So watts that? I count 26 hits in this small sample, mostly spam sites. Two or three “good” hits referring to stale info from 2008. So in response to your assertion that “This industry, at the retail and wholesale levels, are populated with flaky persons who have taken deposits and do not delivery.” this google search string does not appear to support this claim. I'll reply to your other points in following messages, but right now I gotta go. Cheers Lock |
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