Conditioning Kalkhoff Batteries

[JohnInStockie]

Does anyone know if these batteries need to be conditioned or come ready conditioned??

John

 

[flecc]

Yes, they do need conditioning John, usually two full charge/discharge cycles is sufficient to reach full capacity.
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[JohnInStockie]

magic thanks Flecc

 

[Cometxt]

The bike will retail for £995 plus VAT.

Powacycle launches the Infineum | Bicycle business | News by BikeBiz

Which puts it in the £1200 bracket with vat ,or just under £1000 without, for cycle scheme purpose no doubt.
However this comes with relatively small battery compared to say Wisper though with rock shocks. Make a big issue about stackable capability of battery (probably need around 2 to equate to wispers 36 14AH). Point being how much is bike with similar capacity batteries to competetion i.e. 2 bats required, additional cost would have to be added to basic 1 battery cost to roughly equate, would it not?
How much for each additional battery pack, given Wispers are around £300 a shot.
None the less some interesting features and another in the market place to up the anti. Bit ambitious I reckon on the number of anticipated charges(1000) compared to other figures I have seen for Li Pol batteries.(500 to 600).

Regards
Cometxt:

 

[flecc]

I agree Cometxt, it's unlikely a lithium polymer battery could exceed 500 full charges, and it won't surprise me if they last for rather less like most lithium types, other than Lithium Iron.
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[Falstaff]

Lies... Damned Lies... & Statistics

Is there any firm data on the increase of battery capacity from 'conditioning' the Li-Ion battery that comes with the Kalkhoff??

On my frist conditioning run, I achieved 67 miles at an average of 11.9 mph. I have just completed my 2nd conditioning cycle on the Kalkhoff Pro Connect, I went 73 miles at an average speed of 11.8 mph.. An increase of a bit over 9 percent. Is this typical??

I had expected there would be a slight decrease due to the different riding enviroments I pedaled through.. But the end sum was superior..

I assume the 9 percent increase in mileage is a result of the 'conditionng' process. Does the storage capacity increase a like amount and stabilize from the 2nd charge to the 3rd???

Duane

 

[WALKERMAN]

Battery Charging

Is there any firm data on the increase of battery capacity from 'conditioning' the Li-Ion battery that comes with the Kalkhoff??

On my frist conditioning run, I achieved 67 miles at an average of 11.9 mph. I have just completed my 2nd conditioning cycle on the Kalkhoff Pro Connect, I went 73 miles at an average speed of 11.8 mph.. An increase of a bit over 9 percent. Is this typical??

I had expected there would be a slight decrease due to the different riding enviroments I pedaled through.. But the end sum was superior..

I assume the 9 percent increase in mileage is a result of the 'conditionng' process. Does the storage capacity increase a like amount and stabilize from the 2nd charge to the 3rd???

Duane

I would like to know how important this is. My Pro Connect arrived with a partly charged battery which I used until low then recharged. I ran it down again until the light was flashing and then recharged. Is that enough? Can I now charge the battery even though it still has 2 lights on for an impending journey which will need full charge? Will this affect the life of the battery by doing this?
I must say I am very impressed by how long I am going on one charge with this Pro Connect battery. It is far superior to the Lafree ST when I first got that bike 2 years ago.

 

[flecc]

Falstaff

It's best if you'd recharged before that first riding and then used it down to empty, but these batteries are quite resilient so no damage will have resulted.

Conditioning is to even out the charge state throughout the cell content and until this is done the full battery capacity may not be attained. Therefore it's important. With lithium batteries, twice is usually sufficient, NiMh sometimes needing three and even four before almost at peak capacity.

So in your case I'd advise you to do it at least once more before starting to cycle the charging at intermediate states.

The range is certainly far more than the Lafree series, partly through the much greater battery capacity and partly from the greater efficiency of the later unit.
.

 

[JohnInStockie]

I can definately agree with that. It took me ages of riding to completely flatten the battery, and this morning coming to work, 11 miles and only 1 light out

I am going to have to go the very very long way home

John

 

[musicbooks]

All Lithium

Strictly not an e-bike question but should we assume that all lithium bateeries need conditioning.. from electric toothbrushes to camcorders?

BW
musicbooks

 

[flecc]

It won't be important with those tiny batteries. The problem with our bike batteries, not just lithium but NiMh as well, is that the cells are large, so the content from manufacture can have uneven charge states across the size of the content. Small cells with little content achieve an even full charge immediately.

By charging as far as possible, then emptying followed by recharging, the electrolyte has it's charge state evened out. It usually takes a couple of those with lithium to get a satisfactory result, and of course once the charge is evened out to full throughout each cell, it follows that the capacity is increased.

NiMh batteries can need three or even four cycles to achieve full initial capacity, and even then the capacity continues to increase minutely up to around 100 charges, after which the slow decline to the end of life begins. This continuous slight increase doesn't occur with lithium.
.

 

[musicbooks]

It won't be important with those tiny batteries. The problem with our bike batteries, not just lithium but NiMh as well, is that the cells are large, so the content from manufacture can have uneven charge states across the size of the content. Small cells with little content achieve an even full charge immediately.

By charging as far as possible, then emptying followed by recharging, the electrolyte has it's charge state evened out. It usually takes a couple of those with lithium to get a satisfactory result, and of course once the charge is evened out to full throughout each cell, it follows that the capacity is increased.

NiMh batteries can need three or even four cycles to achieve full initial capacity, and even then the capacity continues to increase minutely up to around 100 charges, after which the slow decline to the end of life begins. This continuous slight increase doesn't occur with lithium.
.

Thanks Flecc,
I can now brush and floss with confidence
BW
musicbooks

 

[Gyro]

Agattu batteries

As this agattu is my first bike in over 30 years and being very unfit, It is going to be very difficult to do these complete charge/discharge cycles in one hit.
Will the batteries become properly conditioned if the initial discharge is done over a few days?
First time out I rode until there was one light out and then charged I hope this wont cause any lasting harm!

Kind regards

 

[flecc]

Yes you can do it over as long as you wish Gyro, the only aim being to get the battery low eventually before recharging. That exercises all parts of the cell content and brings it to an even state throughout for consistent following performance.

Doing this twice is advisable to make sure. You haven't done any harm by that first instance.
.

 

[Gyro]

Many thanks flecc,
perhaps this info will also be useful with my somewhat smaller LiPo helicopter batteries.

 

[flecc]

Many thanks flecc,
perhaps this info will also be useful with my somewhat smaller LiPo helicopter batteries.

Just possibly, though conditioning isn't usually a problem on small cells. It's in large cells that uneven electrolyte conditions tend to occur most due to the separation of distance in the electrolyte.

You'll probably know how well those 'copter batteries perform, and you may have noted the frequent announcements of the latest "wonder electric car" doing 100 mph with a 120 mile range or somesuch. Invariably these use very large numbers of small cells in series/parallel banks which can do great things, though the cost and charging complexities makes them hopelessly impractical in the real world, hence them never materialising.
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