Ordered an electric 'motorcycle', err... scooter

[ClodMaxx]

thanks so much! one of those Pings will work nicely. now i just have to save for them. i might start with a single 15ah pack and see how much runtime i get. if it's good, i might get a 2nd one to keep charged and in the trunk as a spare, so i don't wind up walking my scooter back home due to a depleted battery.

2 things: first, Slunce no longer has a working web page. 2nd, the nail in the coffin. there are more than a handful SLA's...you were right.

[snellemin]

sjees. That nude pic didn't look too good to me. Swap the batts out man.

[mistercrash]

You won't go very far with a 200+ pound scooter with only 15Ah. And if you have let's say 60Ah current draw on starts and going up hills then you're putting 4C on that 15Ah battery. I get spikes of almost 80Ah on my 225 pound scooter with me (245) sitting on it. Go with lots of amps for good torque and lots of voltage for good speed which will give you lots of Wh for good range. Go big or go home But what do I know, I'm still a newb at this stuff. But it's fun.
You can run those SLAs for a while, I did for a full year before I learned enough to tackle making my own battery.

Man I am smiling now looking at that AC looking breaker with the tiny 12 gauge wires, like the breaker I have on my scooter. They look exactly the same. Except mine has 6 gauge welding wire going in it
I will soon change that breaker for a more suitable fuse and an emergency contactor. I read that these AC breakers will not trip fast enough and the DC current will arc inside and melt the whole thing rendering them useless as a safety feature.

[ClodMaxx]

it's rated for 48v - won't 60 possibly fry the controller? i can get a 30ah pack that's 48v - wouldn't that be better? i'll keep the SLAs in there for a while while i learn - i've been into r/c electronics for quite a while, but never really got the hang of the battery tech math, lol

edit: nevermind. i just read that you're pushing 72v 30ah - are you still using the same 48v controller that it came with? strange that yours and mine are so similar! :)

[mistercrash]

No I have a different controller that I bought from a guy on Endless-Sphere. Your controller probably has a controller with 63V caps in it so it might survive running on a 60V lithium battery. Many have done it with no problems with 60V of SLAs. Some have done it with 60V lithium and they didn't report any failures of their controller. They didn't even need to upgrade the DC/DC converter.

[ClodMaxx]

ok - well since i'm no where near ready to drop $1700+ on a 60v LiFePO4 pack, i had another idea. but - some new insight on my current setup. the current SLA's total 80Ah, but only 48v. that must be how they 'over engineered' the system. the controller is 60v. so, i should be good if i get up to 60v, so long as i don't introduce more current.

i'm thinking a less expensive but lighter setup is hardcase lipos. i'm not crazy about using lipos as there are a few big bumps on my way to work and around town, but the scooter is full suspension, and if i enclose all the hardcase lipos in more foam, they should be fine.

problem is, i can't seem to wrap my mind around how many of these i'd need. they are in 2s2p configurations, so i'd need 18 to get to 59.2 nominal volts. it's been so long since i've done this that i forgot how joining packs together works... the above example of 18 packs wired in serial would be 59.2v, but still 6000mAh, correct?

[DLS II]

This is going to get costly. 8x7.4=59.2 nominal.(series) This would be 1- 6 amp hour "cell". Then you would need 13 of these "cells" wired in parallel to get a 78 amp hour pack. 8x13=104 of those 2s2p 6 amp hour lipo packs. Using round figures-104x$30=$3120! Ouch!! Don

[ClodMaxx]

lol - ok, thanks don for the insight. the part of my brain that wasn't communicating was the fact that 8 lipos in series x 13 rows in parallel. guess i'll just stick to saving for that 60v lithium pack.

[mistercrash]

I don't know how many SLA bricks you have in there to get to 80Ah. I was running 34Ah of SLAs before and could get 45 km of range on summer weather. A quarter of that in winter, SLAs don't do well in the cold. Man 80Ah of SLAs is a lot, a 20Ah 12V SLA is like 7.1''long by 3'' wide by 6.5'' high. Geez 48V 80Ah would be 16 of those bricks hidden in that scooter. I don't think that's possible, I'm thinking they say the scooter has 80Ah of battery but I'm doubting that claim. You need to take the whole thing apart We want to know the truth about your scooter

Going lipo on a scooter is not like going lipo on a bicycle IMHO. Scooters are heavy and need more Ah, so more cells in parallel. If I were to go lipo, which I don't wish to because lipo don't have a long life compare to LiFePO, I would get single Turnigy 5000 mah 20C cells and make a battery in 16S6P to have 59.2V nominal and 30Ah. At $8.50 per cell that's $816. Lets say $900 for a Lipo battery that might be good for 300 cycles. And remember, you're sitting on that battery.

[mistercrash]

And can you reduce the size of that pic up there, I'm tired of scrolling sideways

[ClodMaxx]

i'm in the same boat as you considering lipo's...too finicky, too high-maintenance and too high-risk. i was just looking at cheaper alternatives, and for now i'm considering adding another SLA to get it up to 60v (vs. 48v on it now). i read through your entire thread at ES and i don't want to go through all that just to get more torque and speed (although it was a great learning experience). first i need to get to the guts of mine to see exactly what i'm dealing with. it has a usb-programmable kelly controller, or so they say - so that's a good start. and if their claims are true of 80Ah, it won't be feasible for me to replace them with LiFePO4 as it'll more than triple the cost i paid for the thing in the first place, lol.

[ClodMaxx]

so, i opened her up and saw 5 SLCs total.



the first shot is a bit blurry, but there 12v 20Ah. doing the math, they must have 4 wired in series and 1 in parallel? i'll look closer at how they're wired later, to double check.


here's the controller, alarm, and DC-DC converter - stuffed under the seat. it's all held down by zip ties, so for now i can't check the other size (or rear) of the controller to see what it is. it does seem long though, which matches the images kelly has on their site.

[ClodMaxx]

i just checked the mains with a voltometer. 62.3v, freshly charged. so that means all 5 are wired in serial, and that also means 20Ah, NOT 80. now i can go back to saving for that 60v 30Ah LiFePO4 from ping!

i'm also going to email Green Bee that their data is wrong.

[mistercrash]

I knew it! Those dam liars with their claims! Yeah email them and tell them to wake up and get the real info on the stuff they sell. And that looks like a generic xiechang Chinese controller. Might be a 72V though. Look inside to see if it has good FETs and the voltage of the caps is more than 63V. Like 100V maybe?

That's your batteries right here

30Ah of lithium will give you a lot more range than 20Ah of SLAs that's for sure. SLAs drop very much in capacity when close to their C rating and that C rating is not very high. 20Ah might be really 12Ah. And when it's really cold, that 12Ah might be as low as 7Ah.

[mistercrash]

7.1 kg per battery, that's close to 80 pounds of SLAs you have in there. Ping 60V30Ah is 40 pounds. Half the weight and more than three times the power and will last up to 4 times longer than those SLAs. Those SLAs will only have 80% capacity after 400 cycles and dropping fast after that so you have only one year at max to get those lithiums. But no pressure from me Hope you don't get to much cold weather where you are 'cause those graphs on how the cold affects the capacity are pathetic. But no pressure And man! Do they have a C rating? It looks like they have a ton of voltage sag just with a 3 watt light bulb. But no pressure there, take your time