Check the other bikes, I believe their controllers are locked as well. I know the Rad is. The post made by Lectric yesterday, new orders will ship in 2 weeks, and in stock by Nov.
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Lectric XP
- Thread starter konea420
- Start date
There has not been any simple adjustments or noise question I have not been able to find and fix within minutes on youtube. I can't see someone making a youtube video for a review that could not look up what was causing his brake noise, but blames the brand of brakes instead. Huh? I kind of lost interest in the review after that.
Mateo's Dad
Active Member
Wonderful! So we now have two sets of default setting?!
I'm going to contact Lectric and have them provide me the most recent settings. This is just getting more confusing.
Why is it more confusing? Does one list contradict the other?
(Someone did post something about one of the settings (P5 I think it was) that was different but I think that was an error).
AnotherBoomer
Member
That may have been me speaking in ignorance so please ignore that one
Dugsurf
New Member
This is my icebreaker post. Ordered my XP August 28 (48xx), received shipment notice Sept 28 (one month later), bike will arrive tomorrow to the Mid Atlantic shore (one week later). Kinda ironic, it was in Arcadia, CA for awhile & gets to me here the day I leave to fly out to the Arcadia, CA area for the next week.
Two questions: Will riding it before the battery is fully charged damage the battery? What is the quickest path to unlock it’s full speed potential so I can take a quick scoot before hitting the road? Stoked about this machine! Although I live in a bicycle focused resort area, I haven’t seen another XP around anywhere.
Darceman
Well-Known Member
Well said... It gets confusing for the newer members of this forum or people who just see this video and buy elsewhere without realizing what a great bike this is. You have to do your homework, read a lot of the forums front to back and weed out some of the negative comments. There's always going to be some people you can't please. Fortunately majority rules. Kev Central has the best videos on e-bikes and knows what he's talking about.
Batteries are voodoo and I've got a hunch that most so-called experts don't know diddly.
Still, there seems to be universal agreement that giving a lithium battery a full charge before using is best. <tired-of-people-claiming-to-know-things-they-don't sigh> But it might be that the idea just went viral and so everybody follows along because there's zero gain in fighting it.
Kimbo
Active Member
The XP is my third e-bike and all of them drained the battery on uphill runs but the level goes back up on the flats.
A couple of things I <think> I know about batteries in case anybody is interested or wants to add/subtract something:
I've killed a few lithiums by not unplugging them often enough and letting them do some work. Lithiums seem to like a workout.
In the rv industry, it became apparent that lithiums HATE being charged when temps are below freezing. Never do this. So modern rv lithium batteries contain circuitry that senses the temp and shuts down attempts at charging if it's too cold. But those batteries cost around $1000, would a $300 ebike battery have that circuit? I choose to think yes, just because electronics is so, so cheap anymore. Still though, I don't plan on taking the chance.
Apparently it was a surprise to even lithium battery manufacturers that lithiums don't like excessive heat. I can't remember if it's just charging when it's hot or use too.
I've killed a few lithiums by not unplugging them often enough and letting them do some work. Lithiums seem to like a workout.
In the rv industry, it became apparent that lithiums HATE being charged when temps are below freezing. Never do this. So modern rv lithium batteries contain circuitry that senses the temp and shuts down attempts at charging if it's too cold. But those batteries cost around $1000, would a $300 ebike battery have that circuit? I choose to think yes, just because electronics is so, so cheap anymore. Still though, I don't plan on taking the chance.
Apparently it was a surprise to even lithium battery manufacturers that lithiums don't like excessive heat. I can't remember if it's just charging when it's hot or use too.
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The locked the contollers down as to many were screwing all the settings up. That setting is now locked on the newer models.
Doomsday
Active Member
Technically on an unlocked bike. yes. However, the gain is negligible. We are talking, maybe a couple of mph faster. No extra torque or anything like that. It's not worth it to have your speedo so out of whack. You would be better off just buying a new unlocked controller and that could get you up to the 35mph that they originally touted to the beta testers.
Doomsday
Active Member
I have been in the R/C industry flying planes and helicopters for more than 25 years. 99% of them have been all-electric. I was among the first that was using lithium battery cells at 5C discharge rates flying my tiger moth. It went from flying for 6-minute flights using nicad to having 55-minute flights using lithium. No charging protection, no discharging protection, these were bare cells just taped together. You learned by trial and error back then and many folks ended up with burning planes due to over-discharge.
Batteries today are far better than the past. Lots of protections on them. It's one thing to have it catch fire in an r/c plane, it's another to have your cell phone catching on fire in your pocket. With that said, Yes Lithium hates cold. In the R/C world, It cold take my Sukhoi from 8-10 minute flights all the way down to 2-minute flights. They really start hating weather when it gets below 55 degrees F.
Heat is truely only a major factor for charging. It can be 100 degrees and in most cases, it is not going to affect them in the slightest, UNLESS ithe device is under severe load. The problem arises when you try to charge a hot battery pack without letting it cool down. That is where you will get your battery degradation. The only way to harm a battery by leaving it plugged in is if the charger protection fails. Its true lithium does like to get worked, However, Lithium is not like other batteries. It setting at 100% is not going to hurt that battery. The charging would do far worse than it just sitting there. I don't have that tiger moth anymore, Retired it probably 20+ years ago. I still have that 5c battery pack to this day. It's useless for any r/c things today but it still amazes me at just how well that battery has held up over the years.
I also have a Nissan leaf 2013 (No thermal management at all on the battery for cooling) that is still at full bars. Technically it's down to 89% battery capacity but thats where it was at when I bought it 3 years ago and it hasn't moved. My only charging requirements is I will only charge it once I get below 60% usage. I will charge it up to full and it can set there for weeks sometimes and never get touched and the battery is perfectly fine. Lithium is one of the most resilient battery tech innovations we have had in my lifetime. It's far hardier than people give it credit for and has some harsher sides when dealing with cold but there is also a lot of bad information out there that people for some reason still believe and they usually are only true for older generations of battery types.
The only thing I really disagree with here is something I know about first hand. I just replaced batteries in 2 different laptops because I left them plugged in all the time and now I'm about to replace my phone battery for the same reason.
It depends on how you plan to use the bike. If you are just going to go down to the mail box or the clubhouse, the 300 watt ecotric with the small battery will be fine. However if you really want to ride a bike on long trial rides, not be limited to small hills, never ride into a puddle or wet ground, you will be disappointed saving the $300. Also check the parts availability for any bike you purchase, they are mechanical and can need replacing. Plan on another $50. for a rack if you ever want to carry anything on the bike with the ecotric. There are a lot of thing to look at over and above price. I spent a month doing that and nothing beat the XP. I have had mine for 5 weeks and nothing does beat the XP for price and quality. I couldn't be happier. The Rad Mini was on my short list, but the wait was worth it for the XP, and I got 2 bikes for the price of one. Now the wait is going be non existent from the post just made by Lectric.
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Doomsday
Active Member
Then the battery charging protection failed on those devices, which can happen. It's not the batteries fault. When a device is fully charged the charger should cut power to the battery and not continually try and trickle charge. You are right in that it's not good to leave them plugged in but it's not because it's going to ruin your battery. It's because the charging protection could possibly fail. That is the true worry. There is a reason that the fine print always says never leave your device unattended while charging. It's because of the risk the charging protection might fail.
The charging protection failed on three different devices?
Darceman
Well-Known Member
It's really not good for the battery to be fully charging it. You're better off to charge it to 80% if possible. You're actually taking life off the battery charging it to 100% all the time. So yes charging it to 100% and leaving it on the charger is harder on the battery. And when the battery starts to drain slightly the charger will top it up, again harder on the battery life. There's all sorts of info on the internet about charging LiPO batteries even our manual explains this.
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If anyone is interested, here's a link to a battery manufacturer touting their new/improved sub-freezing charging program. They're heating the battery so that it can be charged. With our $300 batteries I doubt that's happening. Personally, I won't be leaving my battery plugged in and I'll avoid charging it when it's cold.
relionbattery.com
Introducing RELiON’s Low-Temperature Lithium Iron Phosphate Batteries
RELiON has developed a new series of lithium iron phosphate batteries that can charge at temperatures down to -20°C (-4°F). Cold temperature charging has never been easier!
relionbattery.com
