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Realistic mileage before FUBAR?


Roo Williams

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10 hours ago, Roo Williams said:

WAIT keeping batteries cold is a good thing too?! ? I'll keep my EUC in the porch.

ONLY if the wheel isn’t fully charged. Fully charging a Lithium Ion battery and then putting it in very cold conditions (less than 40F) effectively gives you an instant overvoltage (around 4.1V is fully charged at this temperature and 4.0V below freezing). 

Storage  in cold conditions with around 3.8V per cell is excellent for long life.

I know that quite a few of you here are saying: “Stuff it, if I get a year or two years out of these batteries I don’t care less, and I should easily get 500 charges out of it - hell if I charge once a week that’s 10 years!” In which case being careful with the batteries seems like a completely pointless exercise. However, I have something over 100 LiPo batteries for my models in all sorts of sizes, so replacing them once a year or so would be cripplingly expensive - I would give up and go completely back to Methanol glow motors. Whilst LiPo’s are more fragile than LiIon batteries and we treat them much worst in models, they are pretty much the same technology. Before I started treating my LiPos carefully - in particular not leaving them fully charged all the time - I was losing around 50% of them in no more than a year, often with as few as 10 or 15 charges on them. The winter, in particular killed them very quickly, if you live somewhere warm it will not be such a problem. I now charge back only to 3.85V/cell after flying and cycle down any still full batteries and keep when in the coolest part of my garage. Some of my LiPos treated this way are now more than 5 years old and still showing very good capacity and power.

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10+ years in RC lipos.  I have seen the damage full charge does over time.  As soon as I learned about an 80% charger for my Telsa I ordered it.  I ride/charge every day and 500 charges wouldn't get me very far (saying I dont change my wheel like underwear).  I feel 80% will last me 3+years (i expect 1500+ charges easy) and allow me to resell when the next hotness comes out.  If you ride once a week it's not a big deal to charge to 100% as you will take forever to reach 500 cycles but you still are damaging your cells more than you need to

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I'm riding almost every day, generally about 5-6 miles per day, and 5-10 miles on weekends. From Dec-Feb about half that due to weather (which is still pretty good often in winter here). I am charging it full about every 2 or 3 days, and have just over 1000 miles.

For my 10 months on my KS16S, I do notice a slight degradation of the battery life. New, I was getting pretty close to 25 miles per charge. Today, I am at 65% after 7 miles, which puts me pretty close to 20 miles per charge. I've noticed this over the last 2-3 months. I used to get to work with 90% charge after one (2.5mi) ride, now it's usually 80%.

Still better than lead-acid batteries, and 20 miles per charge should get me another 1000-2000 miles or more. If it hits 10 miles per charge, I might consider changing battery, but prob get another unit.

So, yes,  everything falls into decay...the batteries are often the quickest.

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23 hours ago, Roo Williams said:

Thanks @meepmeepmayer, great post! That makes me happy, obviously I'm already eyeing up the new models, Z10 in particular. I think that's pretty good info for most people to know too.

My battery rarely gets below 70%, I charge it once, sometimes twice a day to keep it around 100. I haven't taken the time to read and really understand battery chemistry but I know dropping it low isn't particularly good, so hopefully that's keeping it in check.

 

 

I'd suggest not re-charging your wheel after every ride, especially if you're only using 20% each ride. I've heard that 60% charge is ideal state for in-between rides, then only charge to 100% right before you ride the wheel that very day, or better yet just charge to 90% unless you're going on a really long ride.

So say you charge to 90% the day you ride. 70% after your ride, DON'T CHARGE. After second ride, 50%, DON'T CHARGE until the day you're sure you'll be riding it next.

This will dramatically extend your battery life, and keep your wheel closer to optimal charge in between rides.

There's a reason EUC companies send their wheels out with batteries 50% full.

A month ago I charged my wheel to 100% the night before I planned to ride it, but then the weather was bad for 2 weeks and the wheel just sat full. I was kicking myself for overcharging before I was SURE I'd be riding the wheel.

 

Another tip for EUC longevity is to avoid jumping off a lot of curbs/jumps. That can put stress on your axle (and board) that you don't need.

Broken axle is a common cause of EUF failure after extended use.

 

 

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I'm on team "Forget about your battery, just use it". Not worth the effort or stress if you invest too much thought.

I used to charge to 85% with a charge doctor each time, and top up immediately before a ride, which took like 2+ hours (or I'd go with 85% right away). Nowadays I either charge to 90% if I don't know when the next ride will be, or just keep the charger in overnight if I know it's probably the next day. And if it isn't, so what?

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1 hour ago, meepmeepmayer said:

I'm on team "Forget about your battery, just use it". Not worth the effort or stress if you invest too much thought.

I used to charge to 85% with a charge doctor each time, and top up immediately before a ride, which took like 2+ hours (or I'd go with 85% right away). Nowadays I either charge to 90% if I don't know when the next ride will be, or just keep the charger in overnight if I know it's probably the next day. And if it isn't, so what?

You must not have a 340wh battery ?

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So, I must say that is another big PLUS on the KS16S. The charger that comes with it obviously cuts off at 100% charge. It runs very hot, but when the charging is done, it's nice and cold.

And, now that I am watching my battery more closely since this thread started, I am not so sure I am losing any capacity after >1000 miles on it. My first check after 2.5 miles had me at 88%, that put me at 20.8 miles per charge. My next check is 81% after 5 miles, which puts me at 26.3 mi range. So...overall...battery still awesome after 1000 miles. 

The last 2 electric scooters I had with 2 lead acid batteries would last about 500 miles and drop from 6 mile to 2 mile range after they wore out! Those things were $20 each, so the last year I had them I was spending $80 on batteries.

 

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13 minutes ago, Circuitmage said:

So, I must say that is another big PLUS on the KS16S. The charger that comes with it obviously cuts off at 100% charge. It runs very hot, but when the charging is done, it's nice and cold.

And, now that I am watching my battery more closely since this thread started, I am not so sure I am losing any capacity after >1000 miles on it. My first check after 2.5 miles had me at 88%, that put me at 20.8 miles per charge. My next check is 81% after 5 miles, which puts me at 26.3 mi range. So...overall...battery still awesome after 1000 miles. 

The last 2 electric scooters I had with 2 lead acid batteries would last about 500 miles and drop from 6 mile to 2 mile range after they wore out! Those things were $20 each, so the last year I had them I was spending $80 on batteries.

 

The chargers of other brand also cut off if 100% are reached btw.

 

With 1000miles you should be at nearly to nonw or just a tiny 2-3 % of capacity loss. When your wheel does about 25 miles on one Charge, that would mean that you only have about 40 full Charge cycles used done on your battery. Degradiation should only start after 70-80 full cycles and then only very, very slowly....going to a 75-80% capacity on 400-500 full Charge cycles.

(all under the premise the battery is General OK and not stressed to much with Long time high amp draws.)

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Ok, so if I'm recharging once every 2.5 days (average), then I should be good for 3 years until it gets down to 75%-80%, which still puts me at more than 15 miles per charge. At my rate, I am putting about 1300 miles per year on it, so that will have me at about 4K miles. Not bad.

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