I had to answer one of our customers question about LifePo4 battery conditioning and usage,the answer may be useful to others.
Our LifePo4 supplier has no specific conditioning instructions but has recommended that for optimum battery life they should be stored between 30% and 80%,it should be avoided to leave fully charged or empty for lengthy periods. the un loaded loss rate is very low,only 2% per month so if leaving for a long period it is recommended to charge to about 80%. In practice this probably means fully charging then use the bike to empty a bit from the battery. If using on a daily basis you can fully charge because you will soon reduce the percentage.
These batteries are much less sensitive to temperature but extremes of heat (above 30C or below freezing should be avoided.
I used LifePo4 because they are less fragile than the LiMn types,but we did experiment with a 16Ah battery on one of the prototypes and it was really too heavy so we are sticking with our limit of 10Ah,but you guys are getting good range from the !0Ah so a bigger battery would not seem necessary for most people.
On balance,especially with the lower cost our choice of LifePo4 would seem to be a good one the slightly additional weight seems acceptable-in a conversation with a leading retailer who was selling a bike with a replacement battery cost of over £500,his comment was that if his customers could afford a Range Rover then they could afford batteries every 2 years of £500-this is exactly the opposite attitude of Kudos,who are determined to bring these costs down.
Dave
Kudos Cycles
Our LifePo4 supplier has no specific conditioning instructions but has recommended that for optimum battery life they should be stored between 30% and 80%,it should be avoided to leave fully charged or empty for lengthy periods. the un loaded loss rate is very low,only 2% per month so if leaving for a long period it is recommended to charge to about 80%. In practice this probably means fully charging then use the bike to empty a bit from the battery. If using on a daily basis you can fully charge because you will soon reduce the percentage.
These batteries are much less sensitive to temperature but extremes of heat (above 30C or below freezing should be avoided.
I used LifePo4 because they are less fragile than the LiMn types,but we did experiment with a 16Ah battery on one of the prototypes and it was really too heavy so we are sticking with our limit of 10Ah,but you guys are getting good range from the !0Ah so a bigger battery would not seem necessary for most people.
On balance,especially with the lower cost our choice of LifePo4 would seem to be a good one the slightly additional weight seems acceptable-in a conversation with a leading retailer who was selling a bike with a replacement battery cost of over £500,his comment was that if his customers could afford a Range Rover then they could afford batteries every 2 years of £500-this is exactly the opposite attitude of Kudos,who are determined to bring these costs down.
Dave
Kudos Cycles
