Maybe a dumb question but...

[PCeBiker]

I'd guess equally if properly configured.
But do you ever pull 30a. continuously?

No, never.
I have a 25 amp controller that I turned down to half, so I max out at about 800 Watts on a fully charged battery, but I almost never go over 350-400 Watts. (And my ebike won't go over 32 kph so I can only get full power for a few seconds, unless I plow into a 50 kph headwind. There's no hills around here. )

If you did, you'd probably have one warm pack that wouldn't last very long.

That's exactly why I don't do it. I don't want to kill my battery

Ability to high discharge is needed for the intended use.. Charging is not and would have added negative affect.

Interesting.
That's what I wanted to know.

Most power tools have fast charging because it's deemed necessary. They're quite warm out of the charger.

I supercharged my Ryobi battery to double its capacity,..

It's been like that for more than 10 years.
Actually, it looks like it needs another coat of silicone.
I see some bare metal.

 

[PCeBiker]

But do you ever pull 30a. continuously?

I don't ride on windy days, but I decided to go for a ride two days ago with the wind blowing 27 kph gusting to 50.

I headed out into the wind and tried to keep my Watts below 500, so I was going less than 20 kph.
Then when my fuel gage hit the green (48V), I turned around to head home.

The trip home was awesome!!
I was going 32.9 kph and drawing less than 250 Watts on a paved road, and there was no wind noise because I had a Huge tailwind.
It was great to listen to the bike at speed to hear any rattles or hums or buzzes without the wind noise.

I used to love the sound of the wind when I used to windsurf, but now I find it annoying.

Oh,.. I don't pedal when I ride.
Partly cuz I'm lazy and don't wanna, but mostly to irritate Stephan by using my throttle.

 

[PCeBiker]

I've read a lot i use the 'dangerous' connector box.
Of course its risky life is a calculated risk.
I have really shitty disabilities that limit everything i do if it blows up so be it.

Ravi from ZEN had a battery blender burst into flames and he knows what he's doing.

Blenders are a bad idea unless you spend Huge dollars to buy a properly built one.

Dual Battery Balancer circuit - experiences!

Public Safety Announcement (PSA): The dual battery function is a favorite among many riders, and being able to connect 2 batteries and extend the range is an excellent feature. This is one of my favorites too. Bosch has implemented this in an excellent manner, and it works very well. But, I...

forums.electricbikereview.com

 

[PCeBiker]

Does running 2 batteries in parallel increase current output?

I essentially blended two batteries together to make this battery pack,..

I had a 5s1p battery that I turned into 5s2p battery using the single BMS of the battery.

The cells I added aren't matched to the original cells in the battery, but they are matched to each other, and I added 1 new cell to each of the original cells, keeping things balanced.

The BMS draws from, and charges all the cells at the same time.

The Ryobi battery has a proper BMS with balance wires going to each cell (cell group now), so when any pair of cells fall below the cutoff voltage, the battery shuts down.
It also has a temperature sensor and the battery won't charge if it's too hot. It may very well shut down the battery if it overheats during use. (I've never run them hard enough to find out though.)

Ryobi also only charges those 5 cells to 18V nominal, so as to not max out the cell voltage.

The Dewalt battery I took apart charges the 5 cells to 20V and only has a single sense wire going to a single cell in the series.
I don't like Dewalt.

 

[harryS]

My 48V 25Ah battery has a 30 amp BMS but can only charge at 4 amps.
Why is that?

Your battery could have a 26x5 matrix of 21700 cells or a 26x7 matrix of 18650 cells. In general, it's safe to charge a single cell of either type at 1 amp, so 5 cells in parallel is 5 amps and 7 cells in parallel is 7 amps However, if your battery has a barrel connector, they are generally only rated for around 5 amps before they get warm. If the connector fits poorly, they could get hot too. In addition, a lower charge rate is better for longevity.

I had the option to buy a 5 amp charger, but decided to stick with a 3 amp. However, I don't have 26AH batteries that would take 8* hours with a 3A unit.

 

[m@Robertson]

@m@Robertson has 3 identical Wanptek power supplies and 2 of them have crapped out on him already.
He does like to turn things up to Maximum though.

Not for charging I don't. I typically used my Wanpteks at 0.50 amps. This pic was taken at my office and you can see its at 0.30 (what I was doing was taking a pic of the voltage at a certain time, then I would come back in an hour and see where it was, thus learning the voltage added in an hour at that current rate). I have gone down to 0.20 and as high as 1.0 amps if I want to 'fast' charge on a day when for example I am riding to work, putting the bike on charge, doing a midday run to the bank and back, then charge at 1.0a again for the ride back home.

If no midday ride then 0.50a got me to roughly 55.0-55.4v from morning to end of day which let me set the charger and forget about it all day without babysitting it.

I try to not use my sole Wanptek survivor as I consider it unreliable. But it does see very limited use. This was Mar 31 and I had it set to 1a, which is plenty for a 13.5ah battery to top off for an hour or so.

It has a pretty display but thats as much as I can say for it having used them daily for a couple of years and wasted money on failures.

 

[PCeBiker]

However, if your battery has a barrel connector, they are generally only rated for around 5 amps before they get warm. If the connector fits poorly, they could get hot too.

Yeah, my original Das-Kit battery has the barrel connector so I went with the barrel connector for my 25ah battery as well so everything is interchangeable.
My new Voltbike has the barrel connector as well. It came with a 3 amp brick charger with no fan, so I don't have to worry about a fan failure.

I read that you aren't supposed to go past 3.5 amps on the barrel connector but my 25ah battery came with a 4 amp charger.

I made my own charge cord for my power supply using the cord from a 12v plug from a cooler for a car.
It's got pretty thin gage wire, and I see a half volt voltage drop across my wire and plug at 3.5 amps, but the voltage drop disappears when the current drops to zero.
The plug does get a little warm but barely noticeable.

I hate all the cords on all my chargers. Fricken vinyl. The cords won't lie flat and have a memory, so they keep wanting to coil up and get tangled.

I want an old-school butyl rubber cord or maybe I can find a new-school urethane barrel cord?

In addition, a lower charge rate is better for longevity.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. And discharge rate as well.
I did crank up my controller to max once to climb a big hill in the dirt and managed to put out over 1200 Watts but I had to help by pedaling, and that sucked.

I had the option to buy a 5 amp charger, but decided to stick with a 3 amp. However, I don't have 26AH batteries that would take 8* hours with a 3A unit.

I only charge at 2 amps to 51.6 volts and I don't mind waiting.
I'm either sitting on my ass on my e-bike, or sitting on my ass watching TV with the charger right in front of me.

 

[PCeBiker]

I try to not use my sole Wanptek survivor as I consider it unreliable.

It has a pretty display but thats as much as I can say for it having used them daily for a couple of years and wasted money on failures.

Well that sucks.
I was hoping to get a lifetime of service from my power supply but it looks like it's days are numbered.

I'll get a proper MeanWell CC/CV LED driver like we've talked about before.
I'll just get a voltage/current display for it so I don't have to keep checking it with my multimeter.

Maybe I'll turn down the voltage on one of my chargers to 51.6v instead, and use two chargers to charge a battery?

I've got over 60 charges done on my batteries now and I'm comfortable enough to leave the power supply charging unattended.
I even went to sleep with the Wanptek set to 80% and the current had dropped to less than half an amp.

I'm not going to let the Wanptek die though.
I'll be tearing it apart to try and fix it, or at least figure out how it failed.

 

[m@Robertson]

Well that sucks.
I was hoping to get a lifetime of service from my power supply but it looks like it's days are numbered.

Well... one out of my three still works. Maybe yours won't fail. But I wouldn't lay any bets on that.

I'll get a proper MeanWell CC/CV LED driver like we've talked about before.
I'll just get a voltage/current display for it so I don't have to keep checking it with my multimeter.

Thats exactly what I do and none of mine have ever gone bad, which is not a surprise given they are rated for like a 200,000 hour MTBF. I wrote this in 2019 and I had been using Mean Wells for at least a couple of years before that so when I say I have never had one fail... its been awhile.

An Ultra Reliable Ebike Battery Charger…

How about a charger – quickly adjustable for voltage and current – that is rated for hundreds of thousands of hours of use before it typically fails?

talesontwowheels.com

Maybe I'll turn down the voltage on one of my chargers to 51.6v instead, and use two chargers to charge a battery?

I can't think of a reason why that would be a good idea

I've got over 60 charges done on my batteries now and I'm comfortable enough to leave the power supply charging unattended.
I even went to sleep with the Wanptek set to 80% and the current had dropped to less than half an amp.

I do the same thing, but I also learn my voltage-per-hour charge rate and turn the amps way down so my charge cannot reach an unsafe level after many hours. And then I use a cutoff timer to make sure that even if it fails to ramp down, it shuts off lonnnng before it is even possible to reach an overcharge state.

Ebike Battery Charge Safety: Use A Cutoff Timer

Lets easily add a layer of extra protection to help safeguard your home and loved ones from a battery fire.

talesontwowheels.com

 

[PCeBiker]

I can't think of a reason why that would be a good idea

I was thinking that I could turn one of my chargers down to 80% charge, so 51.6 volts with 3 volts remaining to reach full charge.
Then I could comfortably plug it in and forget about it.
Even if my battery has a bad cell or two, charging to 51.6 volts should never overcharge the battery or any individual cells in the battery.

Timers work but they can fail too and not shut off, and I have a 19ah, a 21ah, and a 25ah battery that would all require a different amount of time to fully charge.

If I only charge to 51.6 volts, I should be able to comfortably and safely plug in a battery and not have to babysit it. It simply can't overcharge.

I do the same thing, but I also learn my voltage-per-hour charge rate and turn the amps way down so my charge cannot reach an unsafe level after many hours. And then I use a cutoff timer to make sure that even if it fails to ramp down, it shuts off lonnnng before it is even possible to reach an overcharge state.

If I open up one of my chargers and turn the voltage down to 51.6 and turn the current down to 2 amps, I should be able to plug in any of my batteries and just forget about it.


This is a 3 cell lithium battery pack that I got from a motorized bathtub chair.

The chair has a 12V DC power supply Always connected to it.
The batteries are only used to provide extra amps for when the motor is turned on, because the 12V power supply only puts out ¼ of an amp.

When the motor is being used, it drains the cells down, then they charge back up to 12V at ¼ amp supplied by the power supply.

The batteries never charge too fast because they only get ¼ amp, and they Never get charged over 12 volts, so they will never overcharge.

As long as the supplied voltage doesn't go over 12.63 volts (4.21V per cell) the cells will never overcharge and can be left connected to the power supply indefinitely.

 

[PCeBiker]

,.. And then I use a cutoff timer to make sure that even if it fails to ramp down, it shuts off lonnnng before it is even possible to reach an overcharge state.

I've got three of those timers,..

They're great, and stupid simple to operate. Non of that digital programming crap to learn. However @6zfshdb had one fail when the contacts welded shut and it wouldn't shut off.
Chargers have a HUGE Surge current that shoot sparks when you plug them in, and the timer has a tiny little microswitch with contacts the size of a pinhead. There just isn't enough meat there to handle the surge current long term.

I firmly believe that if you supply a 48 volt lithium battery with 51.6 volts at 2 amps, you simply cannot overcharge the battery. Even if you've got some bad cells in the battery, so the remaining good cells get "overcharged", they will never overcharge anywhere near 4.21 volts per cell.

You mentioned in your Ebike battery charge link that you had a charger that wouldn't switch to CV and over volted your battery. That's why I like the Wanptek charger, because I can see the actual voltage and current in real time and I know where the battery is at all the time.

You also mentioned that your Wanptek chargers failed safely by simply dying and not turning on when you tried to turn them on.
They didn't fail by overcharging the battery and not shutting off.

Sooo,...
I'm going to keep using my Wanptek "charger" until it fails, then replace it with a proper MeanWell LED driver and get a voltage/current display for it.
I'll get a better quality voltage/current display as well. I've got three cheap $10 ones that I don't trust. They read up to ten amps, but they have tiny little 20 gage wires with a crappy little connector plug. I'm going to be soldering proper wires on directly.

 

[PCeBiker]

I was skimming through the Grin Satiator advertisement and I found this chart,..

So I've decided to turn up my Wanptek to 52.6 Volts at 2 amps.
(4.05 X 13= 52.65)
I was charging to 51.6 Volts so I'm going to turn it up to 80%.

I usually use a full charge when I ride, so if I want to do a full ride, I'll charge the last 2 volts before my ride.
Those last 2 volts won't take as long, and it's a nice round number.


I do like the Grin Satiator, but I don't like the programming and sofware/firmware part of it.

A MeanWell LED driver without a fan and at over 90% efficiency is essentially the same thing but reduced to a simple voltage adjustment and a current adjustment.

You program it by setting the the trim potentiometers.
No computers, no AI, no programming, no special training required to operate it.

(PS,.. I will need a 60 Volt version. The lower the maximum amp output the lower the cost. I only want a 2 amp output.)

 

[m@Robertson]

I've got three of those timers,..

They're great, and stupid simple to operate. Non of that digital programming crap to learn. However @6zfshdb had one fail when the contacts welded shut and it wouldn't shut off.

Yes thats why I converted to these (I don't remember if it was his specific experience but I do remember somewhere seeing people take them apart and note they are not robust inside, which is not a surprise given their cost):

Ebike Battery Charge Safety: Heavy Duty Cutoff Timer

Add a safety layer to ebike charging practices, with residential/commercial grade components rather than the cheap stuff.

talesontwowheels.com

These are household timers you've seen in bathrooms and motel rooms for decades, and they're meant to last for decades. The main one I use is mounted on a steel shelf support so its fixed as firmly as if it was a wall outlet. I have two more I use on my dischargers.

You mentioned in your Ebike battery charge link that you had a charger that wouldn't switch to CV and over volted your battery. That's why I like the Wanptek charger, because I can see the actual voltage and current in real time and I know where the battery is at all the time.

Same here, but you aren't going to stand and watch it to catch it while it fails. The charger I described also had a display which did a great job of telling me it was at something like 59.5v instead of stopping at 55.4. So.. the Wanptek is of similarly no benefit unless you babysit the thing which is impractical on a daily charge regimen unless you work in your ebike's garage.

You also mentioned that your Wanptek chargers failed safely by simply dying and not turning on when you tried to turn them on.
They didn't fail by overcharging the battery and not shutting off.

Yeah they failed by costing me almost $100 a pop and then taking a permanent vacation. So thats not an indictment of continuing to use one, but it is a warning to anyone who may be thinking of buying one that they may end up getting hosed like I did.

 

[m@Robertson]

I do like the Grin Satiator, but I don't like the programming and sofware/firmware part of it.

A MeanWell LED driver without a fan and at over 90% efficiency is essentially the same thing but reduced to a simple voltage adjustment and a current adjustment.

You program it by setting the the trim potentiometers.
No computers, no AI, no programming, no special training required to operate it.

Yeah as noted in that article I linked, they are essentially a Satiator, without the GUI. I don't recommend them because of the Satiator's software being a problem. That is fairly simple stuff that you don't need to be concerned with (i.e. overcomplication or being failure-prone). I recommend the Mean Wells because of the huge price reduction. The 'A' versions give you the adjustability via the simple voltage and amperage pots. Then you get a display if you want one with a cheap watt meter. But for bikes where I mount the charger onboard, and I have a handlebar display that shows volts, I don't bother with the watt meter and set the charger to a fixed 3a. My Bullitt has one of these and since it has a 35ah battery, 3 amps of current is still negligible in terms of what the pack can handle. I get 1.2v of charge per hour at that rate which is still pretty fast. I seldom charge for more than 2 hours.

(PS,.. I will need a 60 Volt version. The lower the maximum amp output the lower the cost. I only want a 2 amp output.)

Yeah that '12A' version you are picturing is 12v output which isn't going to be worth squat with an ebike. There is no such thing as a 60v version. Best you can get is a charger that will work with a 52v pack and can reach 58.8. Thats the HLG-185H-54A which is rated for a max of 58.0v but can be taken up to 58.8v. Mine running at 3a is set to max at 58.0v which means a charger rated for a max of 185w peaks at 174w. Its also bolted to an unpainted alloy box with thermal transfer tape between it and the box, so it never gets warm. The 185's are the best-bet workhorse that are small, lightweight, inexpensive and good-enough for almost everything.

If you want to go bigger the 320H can also go to 58v and almost 6a. I use those at 3a or less just to keep the load light on the unit. I also have a 480H that I mounted to the front of my 2Fat adventure bike, so I could pour in gobs of power at a remote beachside power outlet (Marina State Beach at the bathrooms) where I am riding along a beach back home where there is no inland outlet, which means I need power for the return trip or I push the bike on sand while the tide rolls in.

The 480w unit is only rated up to about 57v (mine goes to just over 58) but that sucker can pump out 9 amps to that voltage. Not something you want to do unattended or without the right plugs and a big pack that can soak up current like that.

 

[PCeBiker]

I was actually checking out Digikey last night,..

$52 for a 150 Watt and $65 for a 200 Watt.
And that's Canadian dollars.
That's like four bucks American.

 

[PCeBiker]

I found the HLG-185H-54A on Digikey.
$92

The XLG-200H-A seems like a better deal.

 

[PCeBiker]

The XLG-200H-A seems like a better deal.

View attachment 174098

I checked the spec sheet on the XLG-200 and it is only a CC power supply, but the ELG-150-54A (150 Watt, 2.8 Amp) is both CC and CV,..
It's $65 CAD.

 

[Rome]

I don’t know what it is.^?
. I have good battery. It won't accept charge if it's hot. got 3 years of plug and play and going.
It is all the time connected to display no off mode.

 

[m@Robertson]

I checked the spec sheet on the XLG-200 and it is only a CC power supply, but the ELG-150-54A (150 Watt, 2.8 Amp) is both CC and CV,..
It's $65 CAD.

Yeah you have to dig to see the reason for the XLG being so much cheaper. The ELG is more subtle still. The pots for voltage and amperage adjustment are on the bottom of that unit rather than the top. So you have to take more care in how you mount it, and what it can take. It is still IP65 rated, but I consider that makes it a little less safe to use in crappy conditions.

For me, I've been using the HLGs for years and they have a perfect record. The ELG might be good enough but the HLG ain't broke.

 

[PedalUma]

I am reminded of the guy who invented the zip tie throttle. He locked the throttle to always full power and would regulate it with the brake cutouts. He thought it was brilliant. Then we never heard from him again.