How to Best Charge Battery for Longest Life

[Rooster]

FYI, Tora says that the 48V 2A charger Juiced supplies with the bike charges to 95%. On my bike, it is consistently within +- 0.2V of this figure.

If you consider 54.6v 95% because that's what my juiced 2 amp charger charges my 17ah battery to according to the multi meter I used to check it.

 

[karmap]

So a few questions. I did basic circuits and stuff in middle school but obviously didn't retain anything close to useful knowledge wise to understand electric workings with ebikes.

1. Is it normal for the LCD display to not be accurate on ebikes in general? Seems like the volt reading on the display varies depending when you turn on the bike, even if you haven't ridden it at all.

2. Is the decline in power after use in mAh a function of some law of energy that affects all batteries and bikes, or is it something that manufactures don't try to overcome due to it being cost prohibitive?

3. If the 48V battery Juiced CCS is at full power when fully charge, but struggles when it gets to 30% and 42V, does that mean bikes like the RadCity would feel sluggish earlier? The RadCity starts at 48V 14Ah. So would it have the same power drop over time?

4. Useful cycles. What does it mean? Some of the pages I've found in a google search seem to say that it is how many cycles you could charge a battery and still have the capacity be over 80%. Is that how Juiced is using this term?

Found some info on the site.

How is it possible to get 1,500 charge cycles out of the 52V pack?
Every charge or discharge action reduces the batteries capacity by a small amount. When the battery pack decreases down to 70% of its original capacity, we classify the pack to have reached the end of life although the pack can still function.
Typically this point is reached when the pack goes through 500-800 full charge cycles. There are however ways to increase the number of cycles before the pack reaches the 70% level. This involves doing the following techniques:"

Looks like they put the limit down to 70% which would mean more cycles. 2-3 years of everyday use having to fully charge it.

5. Juiced battery quality? How much does battery quality matter? Does anyone know if the batteries used in Juiced bike is of decent quality. RadPowerBikes specifically states they use 35E Cells from Samsung, I don't see anything from Juiced.

Just thought I would throw these out there, might be useful to others. I always ask a lot of questions.

(I use the RadPower bikes as a comparison as they seem to be the most like competitor and is the other bike I was considering.)

 

[Chris Hammond]

Does anyone else notice on a 52V battery that the charge level bars are not programmed correctly to follow this chart. For example I ended my ride with 46V yesterday and still had half charge on the indicator. This chart suggests I was at 20%

Jeffrios, you are correct about the controller with 52V batteries. I think Juiced missed a step here with the controllers and the 52V batteries. They clearly didn't update the programming to conform to the higher voltages of the 52V pack. The LVC (low voltage cut-off) has a max setting of 43V which takes a 52V battery down to ~5%. The battery meter is also clearly displaying remaining capacity based of voltage of the pack, which clearly overestimates for the 52V pack. As long as you are aware of these issues, its not a big deal. It'd be great if Juiced came up with a fix though.

 

[NeilCruz]

Does anyone else notice on a 52V battery that the charge level bars are not programmed correctly to follow this chart. For example I ended my ride with 46V yesterday and still had half charge on the indicator. This chart suggests I was at 20%
(Link Removed - No Longer Exists)

@Jeffrios You should be able to adjust your low voltage cutoff to a higher number for the 52V
https://www.juicedbikes.com/pages/d...nced-matrix-lcd-display-on-the-crosscurrent-s

Note: There are links a manual but it seem to want a google login - this needed google login a new and started just after this weekend.

Ignore my post - I didn't see Chris post saying that the low voltage cutoff doesn't go high enough to be useful with 52V - I wonder if this is specific to CCS users.

Can someone with an RCS see how high they can set the LVC ?

 

[Crazyworld]

@Jeffrios You should be able to adjust your low voltage cutoff to a higher number for the 52V
https://www.juicedbikes.com/pages/d...nced-matrix-lcd-display-on-the-crosscurrent-s

Note: There are links a manual but it seem to want a google login - this needed google login a new and started just after this weekend.

Ignore my post - I didn't see Chris post saying that the low voltage cutoff doesn't go high enough to be useful with 52V - I wonder if this is specific to CCS users.

Can someone with an RCS see how high they can set the LVC ?

The range for RCS is 40v-43v

 

[Bruce Arnold]

If you consider 54.6v 95% because that's what my juiced 2 amp charger charges my 17ah battery to according to the multi meter I used to check it.

That's not what I get. Mine charges to 53.7V +- 0.2V, most often right on 53.7V.

Like everything else in life, there must be some variation in chargers. Maybe yours is at the high end of the variation, maybe mine is at the low end. I reckon we'll never have enough data to be certain.

Since @Tora Harris has no particular to say 95%, instead of 100 or 93 or whatever, I'm assuming he is giving us the information he has. Where did he get that information? Dunno.

 

[Bruce Arnold]

So a few questions. I did basic circuits and stuff in middle school but obviously didn't retain anything close to useful knowledge wise to understand electric workings with ebikes.

1. Is it normal for the LCD display to not be accurate on ebikes in general? Seems like the volt reading on the display varies depending when you turn on the bike, even if you haven't ridden it at all.

2. Is the decline in power after use in mAh a function of some law of energy that affects all batteries and bikes, or is it something that manufactures don't try to overcome due to it being cost prohibitive?

3. If the 48V battery Juiced CCS is at full power when fully charge, but struggles when it gets to 30% and 42V, does that mean bikes like the RadCity would feel sluggish earlier? The RadCity starts at 48V 14Ah. So would it have the same power drop over time?

4. Useful cycles. What does it mean? Some of the pages I've found in a google search seem to say that it is how many cycles you could charge a battery and still have the capacity be over 80%. Is that how Juiced is using this term?

Found some info on the site.

Looks like they put the limit down to 70% which would mean more cycles. 2-3 years of everyday use having to fully charge it.

5. Juiced battery quality? How much does battery quality matter? Does anyone know if the batteries used in Juiced bike is of decent quality. RadPowerBikes specifically states they use 35E Cells from Samsung, I don't see anything from Juiced.

Just thought I would throw these out there, might be useful to others. I always ask a lot of questions.

(I use the RadPower bikes as a comparison as they seem to be the most like competitor and is the other bike I was considering.)

There is some really useful information on the Battery University website. They address most of your questions in detail.

Here's the Cliff Notes version:

1-A. Every device ever made has some variance. Two identical watches will not keep exactly the same time although both are within specified manufacturing tolerances. You can decrease the variance, but it will cost you. So the LCD is not meant to be laboratory test equipment. I'm sure you know this and don't mean to talk down if it comes across that way.

1-B. The volt reading can vary for a number of reasons. If you turn it on right after charging, it will read one thing. A while later, it will read slightly lower. A week later it will read lower than that. Other factors such as temperature can also affect the voltage, because batteries consist of a chemical reaction.

2. Yes, the power drops as a battery is used. This is more apparent with some types of batteries than with others. For instance, some batteries have an obvious and regular decrease in power while being used, while others display only a minor decrease until there is a sudden and drastic decline. Both have their place depending on function. Think of a flashlight. You don't want it remaining bright and suddenly going out unpredictably. It's better for the light to get progressively and predictably weaker so you can decide when to swap batteries.

3. All other things being equal, two batteries of equal voltage and chemistry will have very similar performance. If one has 14 amp hours and another has 8, the one with 14 will last longer, but the rate of decrease will be the same. To put it another way, if you had an 8Ah battery and a 14Ah battery for your CCS, you'd get the same performance at 46 volts from either one. But the 8 will get to 46 volts after fewer miles than the 14.

4-A. Useful cycles is how you define it. Most sources I've read use the 80% standard: X number of recharges before battery capacity is diminished to 80% of what it was when new. This is one you get to define however you want. If your battery is still making you happy at 60% of its original capability, then who's to say you're wrong?

4-B. How long it takes to accumulate those cycles is a bit of an unknown. A cycle is ideally assumed to be using the battery to 0% and then charging it to 100%. In practice, this almost never happens. Think of your cell phone. You may have let it get down really, really low, but how often does it actually cease working and shut itself down because it's totally run out of juice? Even then, it's not totally drained. Your cell phone is set to shut down when the voltage gets down to a certain voltage. My favorite ham radio handy-talky will shut down when a 12V battery gets down to 11V. Fully charged, the battery has 13.8 volts. If you consider 0 volts as "empty", it never gets close to empty!

4-C. So we're considering useful charge, not total charge. If your bike shut down when the battery got to, say, 38 volts, we would call that 0%. (I've never taken my bike that low so I don't know if it's 38V or 40V or whatever. In that respect, I'm willing to go with what the chart calls 0%: 39V.

4-D. So a full charge cycle would be from 39V to 54.6V. When they say 500 charge cycles before the battery decreases to 80% of original capacity, that's what they mean.

4-E. If you charge from 46.8V to 54.6V (50%-100%), that's a half-cycle, not a full cycle. On a 500-cycle battery, you could do that around 1,000 times before you got to the 80% of original capacity state.

5-A. Quality of the cells is the most important factor in battery performance and longevity. Lots of YouTube videos of guys taking various kinds of battery packs apart and testing them, and showing how poor cheapo batteries can be. Juiced does say that they use LG Chem batteries on their website. You have to dig down in the specs to find it. LG makes good batteries.

5-B. Whew.

 

[Rooster]

There is some really useful information on the Battery University website. They address most of your questions in detail.

Here's the Cliff Notes version:

1-A. Every device ever made has some variance. Two identical watches will not keep exactly the same time although both are within specified manufacturing tolerances. You can decrease the variance, but it will cost you. So the LCD is not meant to be laboratory test equipment. I'm sure you know this and don't mean to talk down if it comes across that way.

1-B. The volt reading can vary for a number of reasons. If you turn it on right after charging, it will read one thing. A while later, it will read slightly lower. A week later it will read lower than that. Other factors such as temperature can also affect the voltage, because batteries consist of a chemical reaction.

2. Yes, the power drops as a battery is used. This is more apparent with some types of batteries than with others. For instance, some batteries have an obvious and regular decrease in power while being used, while others display only a minor decrease until there is a sudden and drastic decline. Both have their place depending on function. Think of a flashlight. You don't want it remaining bright and suddenly going out unpredictably. It's better for the light to get progressively and predictably weaker so you can decide when to swap batteries.

3. All other things being equal, two batteries of equal voltage and chemistry will have very similar performance. If one has 14 amp hours and another has 8, the one with 14 will last longer, but the rate of decrease will be the same. To put it another way, if you had an 8Ah battery and a 14Ah battery for your CCS, you'd get the same performance at 46 volts from either one. But the 8 will get to 46 volts after fewer miles than the 14.

4-A. Useful cycles is how you define it. Most sources I've read use the 80% standard: X number of recharges before battery capacity is diminished to 80% of what it was when new. This is one you get to define however you want. If your battery is still making you happy at 60% of its original capability, then who's to say you're wrong?

4-B. How long it takes to accumulate those cycles is a bit of an unknown. A cycle is ideally assumed to be using the battery to 0% and then charging it to 100%. In practice, this almost never happens. Think of your cell phone. You may have let it get down really, really low, but how often does it actually cease working and shut itself down because it's totally run out of juice? Even then, it's not totally drained. Your cell phone is set to shut down when the voltage gets down to a certain voltage. My favorite ham radio handy-talky will shut down when a 12V battery gets down to 11V. Fully charged, the battery has 13.8 volts. If you consider 0 volts as "empty", it never gets close to empty!

4-C. So we're considering useful charge, not total charge. If your bike shut down when the battery got to, say, 38 volts, we would call that 0%. (I've never taken my bike that low so I don't know if it's 38V or 40V or whatever. In that respect, I'm willing to go with what the chart calls 0%: 39V.

4-D. So a full charge cycle would be from 39V to 54.6V. When they say 500 charge cycles before the battery decreases to 80% of original capacity, that's what they mean.

4-E. If you charge from 46.8V to 54.6V (50%-100%), that's a half-cycle, not a full cycle. On a 500-cycle battery, you could do that around 1,000 times before you got to the 80% of original capacity state.

5-A. Quality of the cells is the most important factor in battery performance and longevity. Lots of YouTube videos of guys taking various kinds of battery packs apart and testing them, and showing how poor cheapo batteries can be. Juiced does say that they use LG Chem batteries on their website. You have to dig down in the specs to find it. LG makes good batteries.

5-B. Whew.

I could have sworn that the website, at one point, said my 17ah battery had Panasonic cells but that's on my ocean current.

 

[Bruce Arnold]

I could have sworn that the website, at one point, said my 17ah battery had Panasonic cells but that's on my ocean current.

I have a memory of that too, Rooster -- I also have the 17ah battery.

BTW, if you ever want to cut your losses on the OC -- I know you've been deeply disappointed -- I'd buy that 17ah battery from you. Recoup some of your loss anyway. Of course, it would make the bike really useless, but it seems you already feel that way.

 

[Rooster]

I have a memory of that too, Rooster -- I also have the 17ah battery.

BTW, if you ever want to cut your losses on the OC -- I know you've been deeply disappointed -- I'd buy that 17ah battery from you. Recoup some of your loss anyway. Of course, it would make the bike really useless, but it seems you already feel that way.

I appreciate that but I've got plans for my ocean current, I like the bike just don't like the controller. I'm going to figure out a way to incorporate the torque sensor with the grin phaserunner and probably an ezee hub motor. Thanks anyway.

 

[Deadwood]

I’m confused.
I have a Juiced CCS with the 21 Ahr/52 volt battery and the Grin charger. Grin already has a profile set up to charge to full or 85% charge. I guess my question is 85% of what?
85% gives me about 57 volts and full about 59 volts, so 57 volts is not 85% of the span between 0 and 59 volts. Is it from the low voltage cutoff? Currently set at 44 volts. So 44-59 is 17 volts times 85% or 56.75 volts. That seems like it. But that would mean the charger would have to know what the low voltage cutoff is on the bike software. I don’t think it does. So does the charger use some hypothetical low voltage that a typical Li-ion battery is at when it can’t produce any more current?
Let say that’s 40 volts. So That’s 85% of 59-40 or 16.15 volts plus 40 = 56.15 volts. Close also.
So which is it? How is the 85% charge calculated and how can I use that to calculate range at 20WH per mile

 

[Chris Hammond]

I’m confused.
I have a Juiced CCS with the 21 Ahr/52 volt battery and the Grin charger. Grin already has a profile set up to charge to full or 85% charge. I guess my question is 85% of what?
85% gives me about 57 volts and full about 59 volts, so 57 volts is not 85% of the span between 0 and 59 volts. Is it from the low voltage cutoff? Currently set at 44 volts. So 44-59 is 17 volts times 85% or 56.75 volts. That seems like it. But that would mean the charger would have to know what the low voltage cutoff is on the bike software. I don’t think it does. So does the charger use some hypothetical low voltage that a typical Li-ion battery is at when it can’t produce any more current?
Let say that’s 40 volts. So That’s 85% of 59-40 or 16.15 volts plus 40 = 56.15 volts. Close also.
So which is it? How is the 85% charge calculated and how can I use that to calculate range at 20WH per mile

Here's a chart you can use as a reference for charging

I'm curious about how you set the LVC to 44 as my controller tops out at 43V.
Also I set a custom profile with my Satiator that charges to 55.4V which is 80% and I am using a 3A charge rate. This should help maximize battery longevity.

 

[Jeffrios]

I charge to 56 volts at 2 amp so nothing gets hot. I deleted my 85% profile and made my custom 80 percent one. I still saved the 100 percent ones for my long rides.

 

[Bruce Arnold]

I’m confused.
I have a Juiced CCS with the 21 Ahr/52 volt battery and the Grin charger. Grin already has a profile set up to charge to full or 85% charge. I guess my question is 85% of what?
85% gives me about 57 volts and full about 59 volts, so 57 volts is not 85% of the span between 0 and 59 volts. Is it from the low voltage cutoff? Currently set at 44 volts. So 44-59 is 17 volts times 85% or 56.75 volts. That seems like it. But that would mean the charger would have to know what the low voltage cutoff is on the bike software. I don’t think it does. So does the charger use some hypothetical low voltage that a typical Li-ion battery is at when it can’t produce any more current?
Let say that’s 40 volts. So That’s 85% of 59-40 or 16.15 volts plus 40 = 56.15 volts. Close also.
So which is it? How is the 85% charge calculated and how can I use that to calculate range at 20WH per mile

The designed range of an 18650 cell is from 3.0 to 4.2 volts. It's not hypothetical. Below 3.0V, you're likely to get damage.

A 52V (nominal) battery has 14 of them in series, which gives you 58.8 volts when fully charged, 42 volts at the low end. (You can go lower but that's where you get into the risk of damage to the cells.) With your 52V battery, the 85% charge is (((4.2 - 3.0) x .85) + 3.0) x 14 = 56.28 volts. Call it 56.3, who needs hundredths of volts in ebike applications? (You could just use the chart that Chris Hammond posted but you know what your teacher always said: "Show your work.")

It doesn't have anything to do with the value you set in the LCD for low voltage. But you might want to set your low-voltage cut-off at 45 or 46 volts instead of 44; 45 is a tad under 20%.

Oh yeah, in case you're interested, your 21 Ah battery has more than 14 cells in it. You've got to put a bunch of those 14-cell groups together in parallel to get the 21 Ah; 4 of them, for a total of 56 cells.

 

[Chris Hammond]

So, my work conditions have changed a bit which has forced me to use the train on my way to work 2-3 days a week. This cuts my ride on the CCS down to ~13.5 miles from my normal 30 miles. Not happy about it, but it gave me a reason to analyze my battery usage a bit. I don't need anywhere near my full battery capacity for the shorter ride (especially as I have only been charging to 80% anyway.) At any rate on my 30 mile commute, I am typically cycling the battery from 80% to ~ 45%. I decided to make a new custom charge profile on my Grin Satiator (this is a really nice feature btw). I made a max charge to 54V, which is ~72% for the mornings where my commute is short, and cycling it down to ~50%. I am riding in 3 and S mode mostly for this short ride, (I've been doing this more often for my full commute as well). At any rate I did a little reading and here are a couple of charts that give me hope that my battery might last for 10-15 years based on the way I am using it. Here's a link to the article and some graphs to show the benefit of cycling the battery in the middle of the charge range.
http://batteryuniversity.com/index.php/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

 

[Asher]

Yeah, I've been doing something similar. I have very short weekday commutes, 5 miles round trip. I've been charging to 50.5 volts on the controller (which according to the multimeter is actually 51 V, 48V rated battery) nightly. Going to scale that back to 50 or 49.5 volts.

Jeff Dahn, battery expert, recommends charging to 70%. 50 V on a 48V battery. Or 53.8 V on a 52V battery, if I've calculated correctly
(0.7 *(14*(4.2-3)) + 14*3 = 53.76 V.

I use a $10 timer and it's pretty easy to get the voltage just right.

 

[Riding High]

It is hard to define it exactly. Everything is moving along the curve on the graph. At some point of charging we have to consider it "1 cycle" but basically the current thinking is that charging it from 20% to 80% gives the best life span vs. useable capacity.

Partial charging is not as harmful as full charging. Deep discharging and full charging decreases cycle life. High discharge and high charge rate also decrease charge cycles.

In a nutshell, use the middle part of the pack unless you need extra capacity, in which case charge it all they way up. Use the Cycle Satiator to charge to 80% (or wherever) then use the Low Voltage Limit on the LCD display to control the depth of the discharge.

I drive a Nissan Leaf and when they came out there was a lot of buzz about only charging to 80%. Since my driving pattern did not allow that I ignored it. I am over 54,000 miles and still have 12 bars. In the meantime, heat turned out to be a real problem for the batteries. Not saying that will be the case with ebike batteries but I am suspicious and also planning rides that will will require me to go down to 15-20 %, so I guess I will find out.

 

[tomjasz]

Satiator. Buy a battery that will charge at higher rates and mount a Satiator on the frame. Smaller batteries can sort the weight diffences if that’s an issue. Only one charger has the capabilities and features. Slow balance charges and safe higher rate charges with appropriate BMS.

 

[Jeffrios]

Jeff Dahn, battery expert, recommends charging to 70%. 50 V on a 48V battery. Or 53.8 V on a 52V battery, if I've calculated correctly
(0.7 *(14*(4.2-3)) + 14*3 = 53.76 V.

I wish I could charge to just 70%, but then at the end of my ride I'd be at 15%-30% depending on the weather of the day. So I go to 80% so I end at roughly 30%-40% on average. Plus, I like the performance in the 50%+ area on my bike!

 

[Reid]

I wish I could charge to just 70%, but then at the end of my ride I'd be at 15%-30% depending on the weather of the day. So I go to 80% so I end at roughly 30%-40% on average. Plus, I like the performance in the 50%+ area on my bike!

Opinion essay.

Our batteries require occasional balancing charges. Charge to 100%. If we do not balance charge on some sort of more or less regular basis,

then any weak sister among the cells is liable to reverse charge on a deep discharge and cause the pack to shut down.

Point: if battery pack makers designed the BMS for maximum life span of the pack's cells, that is, charging a "48V" pack NOT to 54.6V, but, instead, charging only to a lower terminal voltage, pack life would be extended greatly. We would not obsess about charging only to 80%, for instance...

Many of us do not need to milk maximum range from each pound of battery pack weight.

And for us (I think that might be almost all of us), a BMS set to a lower, battery-conserving terminal voltage, would automatically give us the best battery pack lifespan, and therefore, truer economy. If this meant, in effect, a pack five pounds heavier for a given, long milage range, so be it. That would be only about a ten percent bike increase in weight-penalty for a much longer pack life.

For myself, it does not matter. I pedal my bike manually as much as I can because it is both easy to pedal and I don't have to make long trips. My needs and likes are not yours, probably. And I do not even need to maximize pack life. I'll buy a new pack when my standard CCS pack becomes too low capacity.

But heck, lower charging equals longer pack life.

But the BMS at present only balances the cells of a pack when you give the pack a full and cell life-shortening, 4.20V-per-cell charge. 4.2V per cell is an energy density ideal. But at the great expense of cell lifespan.

Also, how often should a person who only charges to say, 80%, instead do a full charge for the cell balancing act that won't be done by 80% charging? How can he know he is adequately balancing cells if he is flying blind?