BATTERY STORAGE OVER WINTER ADVISE - to charge or not to charge ?

[roadster]

Hi, I am going to store my bike battery over Winter and wondering if i should charge it every so often or not...

It is a new battery and bike that has never been charged.

Any advise please...

 

[flecc]

Charge the battery at least once every two months and preferably store it in a cool location.

One exception is the Panasonic-made Li-ion Mn battery for their crank drive units since these have an automatic sleep mode. With those, fully charge then leave in a cool place, no intermittent charging necessary. To revive when bringing back into use in the Spring, just fully charge again. This advice does not apply to the BMZ-Kalkhoff batteries that are on Kalkhoff e-bikes using the Panasonic crank drive units.

 

[JuicyBike]

Charge the battery at least once every two months and preferably store it in a cool location.

One exception is the Panasonic-made Li-ion Mn battery for their crank drive units since these have an automatic sleep mode. With those, fully charge then leave in a cool place, no intermittent charging necessary. To revive when bringing back into use in the Spring, just fully charge again. This advice does not apply to the BMZ-Kalkhoff batteries that are on Kalkhoff e-bikes using the Panasonic crank drive units.

... and when you charge, bring the battery indoors and allow to reach room temperature before commencing charging. Lithium doesn't like being charged at low temperatures.

 

[roadster]

thanks - flecc & Juicy Bike - you are stars...

 

[indalo]

One exception is the Panasonic-made Li-ion Mn battery for their crank drive units since these have an automatic sleep mode. With those, fully charge then leave in a cool place, no intermittent charging necessary.

I wonder if that goes some way to explaining the 5-year lifespan, (thus far) of my battery. It has held up well since I first noticed any reduction in capacity and "miles per gallon" last winter, still showing 4 of 5 LEDs on press-and-hold and providing about 20 miles of assistance across varied terrain.

In my mind, I expect this winter may see its useful power diminish considerably, causing me to make a decision on whether to replace at somewhere north of £400 or simply buy another bike with some ability and a decent warranty. Meantime, I shall continue to use the bike as and when I wish. Benefitting from enclosed brakes, hub and chain, the bike is not prone to the winter weather symptoms afflicting some other bikes and is therefore eminently rideable all year round.

Lovely day for a ride here so that's where I'm headed now,

Indalo


ps I'm grateful to Bob Wales for that little hint about lithium charging. I didn't know that.

 

[flecc]

I wonder if that goes some way to explaining the 5-year lifespan, (thus far) of my battery.

This depends on whether you have gaps between your riding that exceed two weeks. These batteries shut down to sleep mode after being unused for approximately two weeks, so any life savings occur from then on while in sleep mode.

If you don't have gaps of that length, then the extended life is solely due to the battery quality and use management, which in the case of Panasonic lithium-ion batteries made for their units is known to be exceptional. They were one of the first to use them in e-bike applications, seen here in the Panasonic Will folding bike as far back as 2004, and I know of one of those bikes that was still working fine with the original battery at over six years old and may still be usable for all I know.

Since much of this long life is due to the current usage management by the power unit, these comments are not relevant to the life of Panasonic batteries used with other systems where the life may be very different.

 

[rgh]

Sorry if I have put this in the wrong thread. but can any tell me where I can get one of these
36V 10AH LiFePO4 Battery E bike Aluminium Case please. I have just bought a bike off a con man for £450 and after 40 mins I'm having to charge the battery and it only took an hour to charge so I'm thinking the battery may be on the way out
any help would be appreciated

 

[Hugh]

Sorry if I have put this in the wrong thread. but can any tell me where I can get one of these
36V 10AH LiFePO4 Battery E bike Aluminium Case please. I have just bought a bike off a con man for £450 and after 40 mins I'm having to charge the battery and it only took an hour to charge so I'm thinking the battery may be on the way out
any help would be appreciated

Here - 36V10Ah LiFePO4 Alloy 01-Case EBike Battery Pack - BMSBATTERY

I got one a week or so back - took a couple of weeks for delivery and I had to pay an extra £13 to DHL at this end. It was about £160 inc delivery.

Good luck.

 

[rgh]

Thanks Hugh for the link. do you think the battery I have is no good.? the charger I got with it is a 24volt
charger.even though the red light on the charger went green after an hour do you think its worth still leaving it charging.?

 

[flecc]

That 24 volt charger is your problem rgh, it will stop a long way short of a full charge. You will need to charge that battery with a nominally 36 volt lithium battery charger before knowing whether the battery is suspect.

Leaving it charging after it switches to a green LED won't help.

 

[rgh]

Thanks flecc.looks like more money I will have to spend. I'm really regretting getting involved with these
bikes

 

[jazper53]

I have recently put my battery in storage, and would like to know if my procedure will be ok:
I fully charged my battery, and took it out for a 13 mile ride on flat terrain, to discharge it enough for storage, the top light on powermeter(handlebars) did start to flash, but now reads full when not moving.
The battery is a 36v 9amp LiFePO4. I hope this will now be in good condition for storage untill spring, if not, any further advice would be welcome

ps, One thing does confuse me, some advice recommends to top up charge every month, but to leave the battery 60/80% from fully charged when in storage, so would these top up charges be brief and timed in minutes ?

 

[flecc]

ps, One thing does confuse me, some recommended to top up charge every month, but to leave the battery 60/80% from fully charged, so would these top up charges be brief and timed in minutes ?

This is really a guesswork issue and difficult to get right. They should be recharged at least once every three months, every two months to be safe but to stop the charge part full is difficult in practice. The best bet would be to time the recharge to full on the first recharge, then store and on the next recharge after the same time interval, charge it for only one third of that time. The subsequent recharges to be that same one third time.

One third of the full charge time will give you somewhere a little over a half charge from empty since more current is accepted in the early stages of charging. However, since you won't precisely know how empty the battery is at the start of each recharge, the state of charge after each is unpredictable. If the battery has a state of charge meter, just gussing from that will probably be just as reliable.
.

 

[lessped]

Just what i'm about to do

 

[jazper53]

I have recently put my battery in storage, and would like to know if my procedure will be ok:
I fully charged my battery, and took it out for a 13 mile ride on flat terrain, to discharge it enough for storage, the top light on powermeter(handlebars) did start to flash, but now reads full when not moving.
The battery is a 36v 9amp LiFePO4. I hope this will now be in good condition for storage untill spring, if not, any further advice would be welcome

ps, One thing does confuse me, some advice recommends to top up charge every month, but to leave the battery 60/80% from fully charged when in storage, so would these top up charges be brief and timed in minutes ?

It has been two months since I put my battery into storage. Today I decided to give it a top-up charge, but after 45 minutes on charge the charger light turned green indicating fully charged, which came as a surprise, prior to putting it in storage Nov 2012 I had partly discharged it by taking it out for a 13 mile trip. I wonder is there anything I need to be concerned about, as I expected it would take a lot longer to give it a full charge which I was not planning to do, will I need to discharge again to maintain its condition for storage ?

 

[flecc]

No, there's no need to discharge it, indeed that would age it unnecessarily. The 13 miles probably wouldn't have taken very much out, and in addition lithium batteries recover with rest. A content reading long after riding is often higher than immediately after riding.

Just continuing with that recharge every two months unused will be fine.

 

[OldBob1]

I do wonder that with the batteries we have now that the saying "If you dont use it you lose it!".
In thie latest weather conditions I have tried to give me, my bike and battery a work out.
Even if I have to run the bike, motor and battery for at least an hour in the garage/ Shed at least it gives every think a bit of a wake up call.
Then I give the battery a good full charge as per the charger and me a single malt with ice not shaken or stired!!!