should i buy a smarter charger??

[rick-n-ns]

There is some very solid research out there. A lot of what is in this article refers to Professor Jeff Dahn. Oh, no, some ivory tower professor from Halifax. Don't we have a member from around there? And Dahn was just hired to apply his knowledge to Tesla electric cars.

You don't need to be a professor to know that a pack is only as good as it's weakest cell.
So by not topping up, and balancing a pack means you are NOT getting out of it what you can.
apparently a few people only travel short trips, and a partial charging is satisfactory for them.

 

[rick-n-ns]

No, it's not that simple. 80/20 is not half (it's actually 60% ) and 400 vs 1600 (is an example I've seen) is more than twice the cycles.

As I've said, for some, the 80/20 rule is a simple one for some to follow, especially with a smart charger, that can extend the usable life of a battery by quite some.

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That is precisely the info I've seen on the site selling the "smart charger" Show me a link without bias ?

And no it's not 60% "as I've said" it's the top half of the battery has the most power. (smiley face) try going up a hill full throttle with one battery bar left. Maybe you'll catch on.

 

[Adrian]

That is precisely the info I've seen on the site selling the "smart charger" Show me a link without bias ?

I think the info you're looking for is in the link George posted.

And no it's not 60% "as I've said" it's the top half of the battery has the most power. (smiley face) try going up a hill full throttle with one battery bar left. Maybe you'll catch on.

If your needs always require the "top half" power of the battery, you should probably be sizing your batteries differently and/or using high performance cells with less sag.

 

[Donny]

If you have a hybrid car, and connect a obdII scanner/monitor you can see the state of battery charge continuosly, My Ford Escape keeps the batteries between 40-70 percent. Then every once and a while it goes down to 20 and up to 80. After 6 years I still get the same gas mileage, so the batteries are still doing their job.

I've been reading up on EV's recently (as I'm looking at getting one) and that seems to be the sweet spot to keep batteries - not at 100% and not below like 20%. I think the only people I've talked to who have had any real degradation issues with their batteries are some of the early Nissan Leaf owners. Newer models and the owners of the other cars I'm looking at (Mitsubishi, Chevy, etc.) are report little to zero long term problems. This is why I was wondering if it's really any different in the e-bike world. I still have my nearly five year old Samsung S4 phone with the original battery and I still get about three days or so between charges (note that I am not a heavy phone user). I think I was able to go about four or so when it was new. My laptop battery is probably about 50% of what it was when new three years ago though - I get around 2-3 hours out of the battery now when I used to get about 4-5 when it was new.

 

[vincent]

since i have 3 ebikes right now and think i will always have 3 it makes sense to have a backup charger

would be very unhappy if i planned a ride with friends and one of the chargers went out the day before

having a smart charger that can extend the life of the batteries and do all 3 bikes totally seems like the way to go

will buy the satiator when it is back in stock

i do hope the company will start selling different plug adapters for it so i dont have to chop up chargers etc