Ninebot Elite Plus 620W Battery vs Elite 450W Battery

[Alexey]

The main difference between Ninebot Elite Plus and Ninebot Elite is the battery.  Elite Plus has 620w battery about 30 percent more powerful than 420w battery that comes standard at Ninebot Elite.  However, there are couple of important to remember about batteries.  

As any battery Ninebot's batteries should be periodically charged.  Without regular charging batteries lose ability to hold energy.  A good example is your car battery that may not start after you return from a long winter vacation overseas.  All Ninebot batteries are not an exception.

Here is the fact, Ninebot Elites were imported into the United States from China early in 2015.  Most of them were stored in original boxes and their batteries were not charged for over 6-8 months.  It means that the ability of these batteries to hold power are not so great and they will have to be replaced soon.   That is why if you read carefully warranty information, most "grey" sellers will only offer 6 months warranty for Elite's batteries (450w).  If you read that you may be sure the seller tries to off-load you old inventory.  If you decide to buy this item you will have to purchase another battery in 6 months.

[esaj]

Letting a battery stay fully discharged will surely ruin it, but apparently so will keeping it stored fully charged... the "safe" zone seems to be about 40-80% charge.

What cells do the Elite's use, 18650 probably, but make & model / chemistry / C-ratings? Battery configuration, similar 15S<something>P as Ninebot One's? Are the BMSs designed in-house or using some off-the-shelf e-bike -style BMSs? Does the BMS communicate with the mainboard, or is it standalone and the protections will just cut power on over/undervoltage, too high discharge, overtemperature..?

There's a lot more to batteries than just watt hours...

[Alexey]

You are correct and I am not talking about watts hours.  I refer to the live time without charging.  I try to help customers avoid costly mistake of purchasing an expensive product with a battery near the end of its live time.  Replacing a battery is expensive.  

Many on-line stores don't give customers information about how long the battery was sitting without any charging and they hide warranty details on batteries.

[Shoe73]

All of the electric unicycles I bought have come with the battery somewhere around 50% charged.  Letting the battery sit at this charge level for 6 months should not decrease the number of charges in the battery's lifetime, as far as I understand.  If you have some information to the contrary I would be interested in the source of your info. 

There are lots of very smart and knowledgeable people on this forum, so making vague and inaccurate claims claims to increase your own sales will not go over very well here. I noticed you did not answer any of @esaj's questions. 

[Alexey]

Shoe73,

I am not hiding that we run Ninebot-store.com together with Segway.  This information is listed openly on my profile and on Segway website.  Yes, we would like to increase sales but we want to make sure people know what they buy before placing an order.

Glad things worked fine for you with batteries.  Not all people are that lucky as you. We receive calls from people that purchased Ninebot products from either Alibaba or strange e-commerce pages in the US and then the batteries are not performing as advertised.  My post was written to highlight the importance of checking when the product was imported into United States before buying.  That there is a reason why many on-line retailers hide warranty information for batteries because they don't want to replace it for free.

[SlowMo]

Batteries inside all Ninebot units are all coming from the same Ninebot factory. Segway does not produce special batteries for Ninebot units sold in the USA. 

[Alexey]

SlowMo,

The difference is in the manufacturing date of the batteries, how long they have been sitting in the box in the warehouse without being charged and the warranty. 

Segway sells newer products Elite Plus.  It is the fact. 

Segway provides the same 12 month warranty for all parts, including batteries.  Basically, the case is very simple: Do you want to buy a product and have a risk of replacing a battery in 6 month on your own, or you want to have piece of mind for 12 months.  

 If you take a look at the market, Elite with 6 month warranty costs about $300 less then Elite Plus with 12 month warranty.   I don't want to sound like a advertiser, I only want people to do their homework and research before placing an order. 

 

[SlowMo]

The EUC hobby is not that old for manufacturers, specially Ninebot to manufacture surplus stocks of their unit that cannot be sold within the next six months. Manufacturers also (specially Ninebot) donot maintain surplus stocks of batteries that would not be utilized within the manufacturing time frame. Also, please note, Ninebot is the least popular brand in this forum. Even if Segway strictly appoints a single distributor within the United States, getting customers from this forum would be very difficult and nobody cares.

[esaj]

9 minutes ago, SlowMo said:

Also, please note, Ninebot is the least popular brand in this forum.

Not that big of a fan of Ninebot after the firmware-disasters, but actually if you look at the post-counts on brand-specific forums, Ninebot would seem to be the most popular brand... or then the users are just most vocal

[SlowMo]

Just now, esaj said:

Not that big of a fan of Ninebot after the firmware-disasters, but actually if you look at the post-counts on brand-specific forums, Ninebot would seem to be the most popular brand... or then the users are just most vocal

I think that was before the firmware disasters happened. Now, it's  quiet and discussions are mostly about accidents. 

[Shoe73]

@SlowMo If you look through the ninebot forum you will see that is totally not the case. There are plenty of satisfied ninebot owners posting here. 

[Alexey]

Since we are integrated into Segway-Ninebot we see that things are not perfect but they are getting better. With Segway in charge we can expect things to grow in the United States a lot.  Of course, the market is large and competition is strong.  The challenge is to merge Segway mentality with Ninebot and the customer service expectation in the US are much higher.  We will see.

[SlowMo]

41 minutes ago, Shoe73 said:

@SlowMo If you look through the ninebot forum you will see that is totally not the case. There are plenty of satisfied ninebot owners posting here. 

Don't get me wrong. I am also a satisfied owner after Ninebot replaced my burned batteries, motor and motherboard (after several months). My daily ride is my E+ and I enjoy it a lot although I am hesitant in recommending the unit to others because of all the reported accidents in this forum. 

[Alexey]

SlowMo, you have a great sense of humor "after replacing batteries, motor and motherboard"   Its crazy and $$$.  

I know that Segway is putting together a good program for customer service and technical support.  Rome was not build in one day.

[Alexey]

We had one client who purchased Elite model from the old stock complaining that the battery does not charge (error 36) after he opened the box.  The client tried to follow the instructions and "wake" up the battery but it did not work out.  So, apparently batteries from the old Ninebot Elite that were sitting in the US for a while do have a problem. 

Here is what the batteries says (see the picture).  Battery should be charges every 90 days or the battery can be damaged and this damage is not covered by warranty.  

My point is that purchasing an Ninebot Elites that was stored in a warehouse for a year without batteries being charged is a risky purchase.  

[dmethvin]

As another data point, I had a pack built of good-quality Samsung cells sitting on my workbench disconnected for 9 months starting at about 90 percent charge and the battery was fine at the end of that time. I'm using it now and the battery takes a charge fine. Lithium Ion batteries don't have a lot of self-discharge at all. Battery University is usually a good source of info and this is what they have to say: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/elevating_self_discharge

The new IATA guidelines as of late last year say batteries should be shipped at 30% charge or less, so it's a good idea to add some charge to it soon after that to be sure it doesn't fall too low. That may be what happened to those batteries, they may have just been so low that sitting on a shelf for a while dropped them below the minimum voltage.

[esaj]

I had custom 16S -packs with LG-cells sitting on a shelf in room temperature for about 6 months, the voltage at start was something like 57.2-57.6V(ish, don't remember exactly, around 3.575-3.6V per cell), and during that 6 months, the voltages dropped to around 56.4-56.5V per pack (around 3.525V per cell). So a drop of about a volt in total voltage, still far from the critical voltages per cell, and no need to charge them at any point during the storage.

[Alexey]

A client purchased a Ninebot Elite (not plus) from the shipment that was shipped that was sitting in the US from July 2015.   The unit was shipped to the dealer in January 2016.  The client purchased it it May 2016.  When the client wanted to install the unit he got Error 36 (dead battery). The battery has to be charged every 90 days (see the picture attached), the fact that they were sitting in the box for a year is a problem.

 

[esaj]

It is known that storing lithium-batteries with low charge can harm or even kill them (if the voltage drops low enough due to self-discharge, do note that the BMS is powered at all times, and uses a little bit of current). But also, many sources state that lithium-batteries should not be stored at full charge, especially at elevated temperatures, as it stresses the cells, and can cause the ability of the cells to store charge to lower:

Temperature	Lead acid at full charge	Nickel-based at any charge	Lithium-ion (Li-cobalt)
			40% charge	100% charge
0°C 25°C 40°C 60°C	97% 90% 62% 38% (after 6 months)	99% 97% 95% 70%	98% 96% 85% 75%	94% 80% 65% 60% (after 3 months)

Table 2: Estimated recoverable capacity when storing a battery for one year
Elevated temperature hastens permanent capacity loss. Depending on battery type, lithium-ion is also sensitive to charge levels.

The table specifically mentions lithium-cobalt (not sure if it's the "plain" lithium-cobalt or NMC = lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt), but probably the effect is similar across most (if not all) lithium-chemistries.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_store_batteries

 

 

[Alexey]

The best way to avoid this problem is not to store them very long time without recharging.  

[MetricUSA]

Just curious, what is performance once elite battery is in the 20% zone? On the mini, they force you to a slower speed...

[MC.TGN]

Is it true that the Ninebot Elite battery must be charged every time after using it? The manual said Do not allow the battery pack to completely discharge, instead charge the battery pack when it reaches 10–20% charge. But it also said that Charge the battery every time you stop using the PTR. This is not clear, if I ride the Ninebot Elite only 2 minute per week and the battery level is 60-80%. Do I still need to charge the battery or should I wait until it reaches 10-20% to charge. A shop where I bought told me to charge it every time after using, no matter how much the battery level is decreased, it's quite hard to believe. Or it is an intelligent battery that can adjust its discharge rate automatically, please enlighten me. Thanks       

[Jag_Rip]

as interesting this discussion is, I am going to move it to the two-wheel section, since the Elite is NOT a UNIcycle.

[steve454]

On my Ninebotone E+ I usually recharge at around 50% then ride as soon as possible to take a little of the charge off so it it is not at 100% for very long.  I've read that leaving at full charge and low charge stresses the batteries but any other charge level is fine.  If I had a charge doctor I would set it to charge only to 90%.