Battery Terminology

[Desert Bear]

I'm hoping some of the experts may be able to help me with a battery question. I'm looking at a trike from electrictrike.com. It has an 11.6Ah battery which seems relatively small to me but that is another story. I asked them if I could get a battery with bigger capacity as well as what cells did they use in their packs and this was the response:

"To answer your question on the battery cells, we work with a long-time trusted manufacturer in China and we do not disclose original manufacturers. I know many vendors sell on names like Samsung and Sony but I can tell you from my 11 years of experience in this business that reputation, reviews and service matter more than those brand names considering most of the time they are using counterfeits (some knowingly and some not but the price tells the tale usually). All of our packs are UN 38.3 certified and that says a lot more for the quality

I would like to know if the UN 38.3 is really more important than the manufacturer or it it's just smoke.

In their website they also list this under battery specifics: Life Cycles: >=80% Dod = 500 cycles I'm thinking that this means if you don't go below 80% discharge you will get 500 cycles out of it. If that is true is the 80% true for ALL batteries? If it than that sounds like it adds up to inferior batteries. Am I missing something?

They offered to sell me an additional battery for $400 but I certainly don't want to do that if it's a junk battery

Thanks in advance for any input you guys can provide

 

[Flash Gordon]

I found this on the internet - In order to ship ANY lithium batteries products via air freight, the UN 38.3 test must be passed by the battery packs. New regulations were passed in 2016 that tighten requirements for shipments of lithium products and that forbid lithium batteries to be shipped on passenger aircraft. It is been projected by some that shipping lithium by air freight all together may eventually become forbidden. So currently, unless a company intends to be extremely restricted in its options for transporting their lithium batteries (ground transport as Class 9 Hazardous Goods), they will need to certify that their batteries have passed UN/DOT 38.3. So maybe there is smoke in the air.

Also, it has been shown that if you charge your lithium battery to only 80% it will last longer. I am guessing they are saying that, IF you always/regularly charge their battery to 80%, it will last for 500 cycles.

Check out the portion of this forum regarding battery life for more information, but that sounds about standard.

 

[harryS]

UN38.3 is for safety, and doesn't look at battery performance or capacity. Perhaps a battery that is safe will also have good quality cells, but it doesn't mean they are the latest high capacity models. He tells you that he is using cells with about 2.2Ah capacity, which is fine if they're made by a good vendor.

You can always buy the kit w/o battery and buy the battery from someone else that will honestly tell you what's inside. I believe you could buy a UN38.3 compliant battery with better cells for the same or not much more than what he is charging for his 2.2AH cells. It will depend on what kind of credit you get for omitting a battery, but he is asking $470 for that 48V 9AH pack as a stand alone.

 

[Desert Bear]

Sounds about like I expected. There is no real guaranty of quality just because they can be legally be shipped. Unfortunately they will not swap for a different pack and I assume (although I will check) that they won't sell the bike without a battery either. I can understand trying to keep your price point low but I'm confused by not making different batteries available as an upgrade. I've found a lot of odd things about this industry since starting my search. The only company that seems to have it's act together is Pedego but unfortunately they seem to be under-powered and over-priced for what you get. I'll check out more on the forum about battery life but I feel like I'm starting to veer away from this company just because of the battery which is too bad.

 

[PBF]

I have a couple of Kayman Electric bikes and having problems charging them. Plugs in ok and lights are on but doesn't take a charge. any ideas?

 

[rich c]

I have a couple of Kayman Electric bikes and having problems charging them. Plugs in ok and lights are on but doesn't take a charge. any ideas?

When you hook onto a one year old post, with a terminology question in the title, you won't get much help troubleshooting. Repost with your real problem and the model of eBike in the title. You will be asked if you have a multi meter and what the actual voltage reading is for your battery. Lights are not a good indicator of battery or charger health.