Gixer34 Posted December 10, 2016 Share Posted December 10, 2016 Wanting to use a Lithium battery but was wondering what size Ah i can get away with ? Where's best place to buy? It's a Gsx 1100 efe. I'm basically trying to reduce weight. Any thought gratefully recieved. Thanks Quote Link to comment
Gixer1460 Posted December 10, 2016 Share Posted December 10, 2016 Personally I'd look at just using a Gel battery - Lithium's need good, well regulated charging current / voltage to avoid damage - look how many IPhone's have blown to bits due to dodgy chargers! The old Dino engines are heavy lumps to spin over when cold so I'd reckon on a 10 / 12Ah as a minimum. Many other places to save a kilo rather than a battery I think? 1 Quote Link to comment
dupersunc Posted December 10, 2016 Share Posted December 10, 2016 31 minutes ago, Gixer1460 said: Personally I'd look at just using a Gel battery - Lithium's need good, well regulated charging current / voltage to avoid damage - look how many IPhone's have blown to bits due to dodgy chargers! The old Dino engines are heavy lumps to spin over when cold so I'd reckon on a 10 / 12Ah as a minimum. Many other places to save a kilo rather than a battery I think? Not my experience at all. I've found Lithium iron phosphate batteries to be extremely robust and reliable, and happy to be drained flat and recharged multiple times. These are slightly different chemistry to your iphone battery. The do need the correct charger. Optimates, and other conditioning type chargers will damage them, you can buy special fancy chargers, or use the old cheapy chargers, they work fine. I tend to stick a set of jump leads on my van to charge them, takes about 15 mins for my slabbie battery. They're fine for jump starting too. I've also notice they don't degrade like traditional batteries you can leave them all winter, even flat, and they'll take a full charge come spring, with no noticeable loss of performance. Yes your charging system needs to be in good order as it does for any battery. I'm not going to bother with conventional batteries in future. They're an easy place to save weight, and the cost difference was less than £40. 4 Quote Link to comment
SiBag Posted December 12, 2016 Share Posted December 12, 2016 A well made Lithium iron phosphate battery (NOT Lithium ion. They are old tech ) should have a charge balancing and an over charge protection circuits built into them. Some don't, and they tend to be the ones that go bang, or end up with a dead cell. Not cheap but will save a shed load of weight. Bizarrely the physical size of the units tend to be the same as the OEM fitment, possibly so they just fit in the same hole easily ? 1 Quote Link to comment
dupersunc Posted December 12, 2016 Share Posted December 12, 2016 11 minutes ago, SiBag said: Bizarrely the physical size of the units tend to be the same as the OEM fitment, possibly so they just fit in the same hole easily ? This^.Most of them are made up of the same cells in side different plastic cases. Take the top off and they are half empty 1 Quote Link to comment
SiBag Posted December 13, 2016 Share Posted December 13, 2016 Without getting anything custom built, the best that I have researched appear to be Shoai batteries and Earth X batteries. If you check their website you should be able to look up the model number for your bike, and then attempt to find a reseller. Im sure here are a couple of others out there. Quote Link to comment
dupersunc Posted December 13, 2016 Share Posted December 13, 2016 The Shorai batteries are very good, but I've been just as happy with a much cheaper JMT battery. 3 Quote Link to comment
El Gringo Posted December 13, 2016 Share Posted December 13, 2016 I've just bought a JMT for my 400, a veritable bargain! 1 Quote Link to comment
SiBag Posted December 13, 2016 Share Posted December 13, 2016 JMT batteries are LiPo "Lithium Ion" not LiFePo4 "Lithium Iron Phosphate" From what I have read.. "If you over volt a LiIon or LiPo it explodes in a firey ball of destruction. LiFePo4's just swell and don't do anything." OK I have no test data to prove any of this but.... If the JMT batteries have a good protection circuit they should be fine. 3 Quote Link to comment
Gixer34 Posted December 13, 2016 Author Share Posted December 13, 2016 Thanks for all the responses , gonna do some phoning tomorrow and see what prices come back. Quote Link to comment
El Gringo Posted December 14, 2016 Share Posted December 14, 2016 19 hours ago, SiBag said: If the JMT batteries have a good protection circuit they should be fine. Pretty sure it's got a built in protection circuit, and has a test light on it to show battery charge level. JMT are now OEM fitment on Husquvarnas and Husabergs i think Quote Link to comment
SiBag Posted December 14, 2016 Share Posted December 14, 2016 4 minutes ago, El Gringo said: JMT are now OEM fitment on Husquvarnas and Husabergs i think Yes I read that too, still cant find out who makes them ?.. Bit of an own brand I think from a "Major OE supplier" 1 Quote Link to comment
Dezza Posted December 14, 2016 Share Posted December 14, 2016 On 10/12/2016 at 1:33 PM, Gixer34 said: Wanting to use a Lithium battery but was wondering what size Ah i can get away with ? Where's best place to buy? It's a Gsx 1100 efe. I'm basically trying to reduce weight. Any thought gratefully recieved. Thanks If it's saving weight on an efe, maybe other areas of the machine will be more cost-effective, and with little in the way of a risk of the bike carching fire and burning to a cinder. I do not know the spec of your machine but the cost of a Li battery and specialist charger is a lot. Also, unsprung weight is more important than sprung weight so if unsprung weight can be saved for the same cost as an Li battery conversion, this may be more cost-effective Quote Link to comment
Gixer34 Posted December 16, 2016 Author Share Posted December 16, 2016 On 14/12/2016 at 11:23 AM, Dezza said: If it's saving weight on an efe, maybe other areas of the machine will be more cost-effective, and with little in the way of a risk of the bike carching fire and burning to a cinder. I do not know the spec of your machine but the cost of a Li battery and specialist charger is a lot. Also, unsprung weight is more important than sprung weight so if unsprung weight can be saved for the same cost as an Li battery conversion, this may be more cost-effective Bike is being built from bits and lets face it any weight saving on an EFE is a benefit! 1 Quote Link to comment
Solcambs Posted December 16, 2016 Share Posted December 16, 2016 I bought the Haijiu Litium Ion which is used on the Kat. No issues but then I have all three charging phases in play, and have a Mosfet Reg/Rec See http://oldskoolsuzuki.info/forums/index.php?/topic/1814-another-katana-project-starts/&do=findComment&comment=27562 for more details Quote Link to comment
arnout Posted January 1, 2017 Share Posted January 1, 2017 Old thread, but I'd like to add some comments. Using LiFePO4 cell packs to replace more traditional lead batteries is a perfectly viable option for street bikes. Although AGM lead batteries are very reliable (especially compared to old wet cell type), weight and size are the obvious benefits of switching to a lithium iron phosphate battery. (NOT: LiPo !) LiFePO4 cells are especially well suited for short bursts of power like cranking over a big engine. They however have no capacity to "recover" like lead batteries do. So "running it dry" on an engine that refuses to fire up means there's no second chance as all electrical charge has been burnt. Also, more importantly, flattening a LiFePO4 cell will permanently damage it. Dropping below 2.5V (so 10V on a "12V" pack) is a bad thing. So -like is mentioned before- the charging system on a bike has to be working faultlessly before considering LiFePO4. (Replacing the stock regulator for a mosfet one is solid part of making this happen). Overcharging is not much of a problem (contrary to LiPo cells). Absolute max. for LiFePO4 is said to be 4.2V /cell (16.8V full pack). So no issue fitted to a bike, but for using a separate battery charger you do need to watch the voltage carefully. Charging like this is rare because the pack has very little self discharge (just leave it alone over winter and it will start the bike in spring no problem), but old style regular chargers can be used. No need for expensive "special" lithium chargers whatsoever, so long as you monitor the voltage yourself. Lead batteries stop accepting charge by themselves, but LiFePO4 cells do NOT and just go on charging until they break. As the charging process happens quite fast you'd better not leave the setup out of sight. Right.. Apart form low voltage LiFePO4 cannot handle low temperatures either. They won't get damaged though, but the performance drops quite a bit. Not much of a problem for most bikers that will only come out when the sun is shining, but starting a bike on a cold winter morning is a problem. Heating up the cell pack is a way to still get going. (Either by bringing the pack indoor, or running the hi-beam for a while which creates a high current that heats the cells.) Right.. Long story, not done yet.. Balancers.. Commercial LiFePO4 packs have built in balancers circuits that "should" distribute the voltages evenly across all cells and protect against overcharging and discharging. BUT these are rarely perfect and differ between brands. It is difficult to get any info these when buying a LiFePO4 battery. Reviews and public response are the only way to determine the quality level of the circuit of a certain pack. When I built my own cell pack the balancer technology was not yet as developed as today, and failures of commercial packs were still frequent, I thought it better to try and make my own circuit. Lack of patience and the urge to ride the new project bike meant I bypassed this bit and just went ahead without a balancer circuit. To keep an eye on the voltages I however fitted 4 led voltmeters. To my surprise the voltages never drifted very far apart, so I just kept the simple setup. Has been running for 3 years now. 7 Quote Link to comment
nlovien Posted January 5, 2017 Share Posted January 5, 2017 On 01/01/2017 at 8:38 PM, arnout said: I like the option of making this up to optimise space - where did you get the cells from ? thanks Quote Link to comment
Gammaboy Posted January 5, 2017 Share Posted January 5, 2017 They look like A123s - Hobbyking? Quote Link to comment
arnout Posted January 6, 2017 Share Posted January 6, 2017 On 5-1-2017 at 2:40 PM, nlovien said: I like the option of making this up to optimise space - where did you get the cells from ? thanks Eblag.. Yup, the possibility to place the cells in whatever configuration suited me best was a big part of choosing to build my own cell pack. I didn't stray far from the usual commercial packs though as I only split and flattened the regular 4s2p setup. I did however add parallel connections between the cells so at least the voltages between 2 cells in a pair would always be equal. Also added external wires to these to hookup 4 voltmeters. Before setting out to build you own pack you first should read up on the subject. Numerous sites (google) provide lots of info including warnings always to use a balancer circuit (which I ignored at my own risk.) 23 hours ago, Gammaboy said: They look like A123s - Hobbyking? Yup, A123 Systems cell type ANR26650M1A in a version with soldering tabs (which reduces the risk of overheating the cell yourself when connecting cells together). Cheapest source for me was Eblag. (Beware of chinese copies! Also always check feedback on the seller.) Paid 8 euro / cell, so with 64 euro + shipping I reckoned it worth the experiment. There's a newer more beterer improved type now, ANR26650M1B. These can be identified by the black marks at one end. A bit more expensive too it seems.. Not sure if there is a version with pre-installed soldering tabs of this new type though.. Quote Link to comment
nlovien Posted January 7, 2017 Share Posted January 7, 2017 I like the option of making this up to optimise space - where did you get the cells from ? thanks thanks very usefull, - what I like, at least in principle - the two x 4 sets do not necessarily need to be located together Quote Link to comment
Gammaboy Posted February 2, 2017 Share Posted February 2, 2017 So, been thinking about this, and decided to have a poke around on hobby king. 4S balance chargers for LiFePO chemistry batteries are so cheap, and with the low cost of the cells, I'm solidly in the camp of fuck buying the ones with built in circuitry for over twice the price of a Charger+cells. LifePO packs are dirt cheap - 160amp pulse capacity - I suspect that's probably enough to kick over a GSX motor... https://hobbyking.com/en_us/zippy-flightmax-4200mah-4s1p-30c-lifepo4-pack.html Quote Link to comment
Gammaboy Posted February 2, 2017 Share Posted February 2, 2017 Hmmm - very cheap balancing circuit: http://www.Eblag.com.au/itm/4-cells-LiFePO4-lithium-iron-phosphate-18650-14450-Battery-Balancing-PCB-A123-/121262943749?hash=item1c3bd5ae05:g:7zcAAMXQlgtS5SiP Quote Link to comment
Arttu Posted February 2, 2017 Share Posted February 2, 2017 7 hours ago, Gammaboy said: LifePO packs are dirt cheap - 160amp pulse capacity - I suspect that's probably enough to kick over a GSX motor... https://hobbyking.com/en_us/zippy-flightmax-4200mah-4s1p-30c-lifepo4-pack.html I have had slightly bad experiences with those Zippy packs. I have done few race batteries (total loss system) with those and one pack for my road GSX as well. At first about every fourth pack from Hobby King has been defective in the beginning. "Buffed" packs or bad imbalance between the cells. For my GSX I made a 8.4Ah battery, two of those packs in parallel. It cranked the engine pretty well but not as well as you would imagine based on specs. Current output also dropped steeply in low temperatures. Overall I would say that an A123 cell pack with half capacity performed at least equally. Life time of the packs has also been quite short. Typically they "buffed" and lost capacity after an year or two. I haven't been using those during last couple years so possibly their quality has been improved since that. But I doubt it. On the other hand Chinese A123 copy cells have been surprisingly good, nothing to complain about them. But apparently shipping them from China has got more complicated recently. Quote Link to comment
Gammaboy Posted February 2, 2017 Share Posted February 2, 2017 Thanks Arttu - might go looking for some A123s then. By half the capacity do you mean 4 cells? or were you still using 2 sets in parallel? Quote Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.