Ping Batteries in cold weather

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badnewswade
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Re: Ping Batteries in cold weather

Postby badnewswade » Wed Dec 22, 2010 5:35 pm

Won't it tell me when it's definitely finished charging? The BMS is going to be inside the bike along with the battery...
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Jeremy
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Re: Ping Batteries in cold weather

Postby Jeremy » Wed Dec 22, 2010 6:01 pm

Yes, the light on the charger will stop periodically switching on and off and the fan will stop.

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ChrisB
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Re: Ping Batteries in cold weather

Postby ChrisB » Fri Dec 24, 2010 6:28 pm

.........and a quick glance at the LED's on the BMS will tell you when all the cells are fully charged.

I'd concur that it takes about 2.5hrs / 10ah , my 24v 20ah pack seems to take 3-4hrs but I've never really made it that flat :oops:

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badnewswade
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Re: Ping Batteries in cold weather

Postby badnewswade » Fri Dec 24, 2010 6:54 pm

I won't be able to look at the BMS as it will be tucked away inside the bike along with the battery. It is going in an ultralight battery-powered moped that faces the full horror of British city roads every day - a working mule-type road vehicle, albeit a lightweight one. It isn't going in a toy that only comes out at weekends and gets babied all the time - I could easily end up doing 10-15 miles a day for up to five days a week on it. I really hope this won't be a problem and that Ping's batteries are actually a working, rugged product that you can use in your daily driver, and not a geeky science experiment made out of spider's webs and eggshells, that isn't actually supposed to take heavy use such as repeated percussive stress from potholes, g-forces from emergency stops, and the like.

That possibly unfair freakout aside, Ping has the best reputation of all battery sellers, even when things do go wrong, so I do have high hopes for his product. I just worry when I hear people tell me they have to keep looking at the BMS - which for me is an internal component, which I will never see after installation - just to work out when its' time to unplug the charger.

Speaking of daily use, I need a long lead for charging, I keep the charger in the house so I can switch off at the mains after its finished. Ping wrote to me saying it used a 3-pin XLR connector to charge up - is it possible to use off-the shelf extension cables for this? I can only seem to find these at audio stores - a typical example is this:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/DMX-Lighting-Pro- ... 2eb2271646

http://www.kenable.co.uk/product_info.p ... ts_id=2427

Are these OK? Note that the second ad is for a "2-core" cable. Are Ping's cables 2-core (like our kettle leads)? or does the third pin do something arcane that I need to worry about?
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Re: Ping Batteries in cold weather

Postby ChrisB » Mon Dec 27, 2010 9:58 pm

badnewswade wrote:I won't be able to look at the BMS as it will be tucked away inside the bike along with the battery. It is going in an ultralight battery-powered moped that faces the full horror of British city roads every day - a working mule-type road vehicle, albeit a lightweight one. It isn't going in a toy that only comes out at weekends and gets babied all the time - I could easily end up doing 10-15 miles a day for up to five days a week on it. I really hope this won't be a problem and that Ping's batteries are actually a working, rugged product that you can use in your daily driver, and not a geeky science experiment made out of spider's webs and eggshells, that isn't actually supposed to take heavy use such as repeated percussive stress from potholes, g-forces from emergency stops, and the like.


It all depends on how well you've matched the pack to your discharge curve, mines way over sized for the little 200w motor on the bike and barely makes a dent the 24v 20ah on the bike even after 15miles riding at full bore 8) I would suggest "padding" the pack so it doesnt get a lot of vibration, PING suggested this to me, so I wrapped it in some foam.


badnewswade wrote:That possibly unfair freakout aside, Ping has the best reputation of all battery sellers, even when things do go wrong, so I do have high hopes for his product. I just worry when I hear people tell me they have to keep looking at the BMS - which for me is an internal component, which I will never see after installation - just to work out when its' time to unplug the charger.


Really not sure about this idea of hiding the BMS indicators away like this, they are critical (in my view) to the health/balance of the pack, the indicator on the charger (in my view) doesnt give enough info, for instance mine will go green and the fan will shut down BEFORE all the cells have balanced up, sometimes I need to leave it on charge for a further 30mins to get all the cells to balance, having said that if you are using the bike every day then as long as the packs charged for over say 5hrs then it should be fine anyway.


badnewswade wrote:
Speaking of daily use, I need a long lead for charging, I keep the charger in the house so I can switch off at the mains after its finished. Ping wrote to me saying it used a 3-pin XLR connector to charge up - is it possible to use off-the shelf extension cables for this? I can only seem to find these at audio stores - a typical example is this:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/DMX-Lighting-Pro- ... 2eb2271646

http://www.kenable.co.uk/product_info.p ... ts_id=2427

Are these OK? Note that the second ad is for a "2-core" cable. Are Ping's cables 2-core (like our kettle leads)? or does the third pin do something arcane that I need to worry about?



My 4amp charger has only a (rather thin) two core cable going to the canon connector, I wouldnt use audio type XLR extensions, better to make up your own two core heavy duty cable up, the supplied one gets quite warm I find when its charging but as its only a few feet long I'm not too worried about it, but if I was to extend it then I'd defo want to use something like a bit of 1-1.5mm flex if I needed to extend it to 5m or so, otherwise you could run into volt drop issues and then the pack may not charge/balance up correctly and the last thing you want to do is bugger up your investment just for a length of decent cable and a couple of canon plugs.
I dont think you need to worry about turning it off after its finshed, I asked Ping about turning the charger off and he seemed imply that unless you were NOT going to use the pack for a while, a while being several days, then its advisable to turn off the charger, but otherwise you can leave it connected and switched on charging the pack all the time.

So in summery, if your using the bike in a every day situation then I dont think you need to worry about switching it off when its finished charging and this will also mean you wont need to worry about seeing the BMS indicators as it will always get enough charge 8)

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badnewswade
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Re: Ping Batteries in cold weather

Postby badnewswade » Mon Dec 27, 2010 11:46 pm

So - I'm supposed to either (A) drag the battery into my flat every day, negating much of the convenience of a Lithium pack and maybe wearing discharge contacts out with constant plugging and unplugging, (B) suffer serious charging / balancing problems and volt drop issues due to Ping putting a cable meant for audio applications on a power pack, or... (C) cook up my own little voodoo homebrew charger cable which will also no doubt cause the thing to screw up and die.

What we're actually concluding here is that Ping batteries ARE made out of spiders' webs and eggshells, and have to be babied through their short lives with the zeal normally reserved for nuclear reactors and royalty. If I don't treat my pack with adequate grovelling respect and I'm lucky, it is merely liable to break my insanely overpriced battery for me, and if I am unlucky, the cable may overheat, set fire to my house, and kill me.

Oh, and it massively helps if I have the electronic guts of the power pack hanging out so that I can read the LEDs and stuff when it's charging. Never mind about actually using it in real world conditions - the BMS is your new god and must be observed at all times. Sure I dont' have to watch it while I'm riding the bike as well?

Additionally, the pack isn't properly ruggedised, and has to be swaddled in highly flammable packing foam or something to prevent it breaking, 'cause nobody expected that we would use power packs for electric bikes on electric bikes, and ride them on actual roads, which have all bumps and stuff.

Thank mercy I didn't buy the 48v version.
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Re: Ping Batteries in cold weather

Postby ChrisB » Tue Dec 28, 2010 12:04 am

Oh come on :mrgreen:

Surely you can solder up a couple of XLR plugs onto a decent bit of cable ........... cant you :?

Dont think they are that over priced compared to their weight saving and actual output, they are also plug and play, no messing with piles of electronics and soldering up endless wires to BMS's 8)

To replace my two manky SLA's on my bike would have cost me neigh on £100 and I'd have the orginal 10mile range back.....whoopy dooo :roll:
I paid just over twice that for my ping battery and have got something that I've still yet to find out its maxium range, its looking to be aroound 30+ miles, 3 times that of the original pack for only double the money, seems a good deal if you ask me, if I'd gone for a 10ah pack then my range would have dropped to about 15miles but then I'd have only paid about £50 more than those manky SLA's.

What have you actually gone for ??

ChrisB

EDIT: just seen you've extended your post :lol: :lol: :lol: you really are a scream arnt you :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:, you've bought a pretty cheap, in my view, battery and your complaining its not come in its own gold plated housing :mrgreen:
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badnewswade
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Re: Ping Batteries in cold weather

Postby badnewswade » Tue Dec 28, 2010 12:14 am

36v 15ah. Costing more than triple the amount SLAs of the same capacity were costing. It's going in the old SLA box, which slides neatly into the body of the bike - it's one of these:

http://www.evalbum.com/818

Guess I'll go for option (c) as at least there's a chance that I won't get a melted cable for my troubles. Think I'll stick to kettle leads though - using an audio lead for a power application just sounds stupid.

People have mentioned that the BMS gets hot - does this mean that it has to be kept away from the battery? I ask because it's always pictured taped onto the battery pack!

EDIT: Cheap?!? For that kind of money, not only do I want it gold plated, I want a very attractive person with extremely loose morals to come round and install it for me in the nude. And carry me around on their back if it doesn't work straight away... :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Jeremy
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Re: Ping Batteries in cold weather

Postby Jeremy » Tue Dec 28, 2010 11:50 am

The balance resistors on the BMS get warm, not really hot, but it's best if the BMS is mounted so that it hasn't got masses of foam or other insulation over it.

My Ping pack has the earlier BMS with no LEDs and I have it fitted inside a hard case that I can't easily open to take a look at. I have foam around the battery, with a hole in the foam where the BMS sits, so there's nothing tight against the big resistors. It works flawlessly like this, I just plug the charger in and pretty much leave it on unless the bike is not being used for a few days, when I unplug it. The charger effectively turns itself off when the pack is charged, anyway.

Good installation is key to getting a reliable battery pack, no matter what you use. Short of the manufacturer of your scooter coming up with a plug-and-play battery that meets your needs, that means you're the one who has to make sure the installation is OK.

The Ping chargers are quite small and light, so one option might be to put the charger on the bike and just use a long extension lead to plug the bike in for a charge. As far as I've been able to tell, the charger doesn't appreciably discharge the pack when plugged in and not powered up, so you could risk leaving the charger hard wired to the pack and just having an outdoor type mains connector that you pull out and plug in to an extension lead to charge (one of the rubber ones used on garden power tools would do the job neatly). I think if it were me I'd add either a switch in the charging lead or a connector, but given that the Ping is likely to take up less room than the old SLAs you may find this an option that would work.

Jeremy

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Re: Ping Batteries in cold weather

Postby ChrisB » Tue Dec 28, 2010 4:38 pm

badnewswade wrote:36v 15ah. Costing more than triple the amount SLAs of the same capacity were costing. It's going in the old SLA box, which slides neatly into the body of the bike - it's one of these:

http://www.evalbum.com/818



Ah, you must be buying some fairly cheap and nasty SLA's then ;) a decent set of cyclic SLA's should set you back neigh on £200, also your taking the capacity of the SLA's as the same as the Ping pack, you'll find the ping pack far superior than the SLA's :wink:


badnewswade wrote:Guess I'll go for option (c) as at least there's a chance that I won't get a melted cable for my troubles. Think I'll stick to kettle leads though - using an audio lead for a power application just sounds stupid.


or do as Jeremy says and put the charger in the bike, at least that way if your out and about and you need a charge all need to do is find 13a socket 8)

badnewswade wrote:People have mentioned that the BMS gets hot - does this mean that it has to be kept away from the battery? I ask because it's always pictured taped onto the battery pack!


Ah yes, again as Jeremy says you want to allow the BMS some breathing space, you only need to pad the bottom of the pack so it doesnt suffer the nasty bumps and vibration of our lovely well kept roads :roll:

badnewswade wrote:
EDIT: Cheap?!? For that kind of money, not only do I want it gold plated, I want a very attractive person with extremely loose morals to come round and install it for me in the nude. And carry me around on their back if it doesn't work straight away... :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :lol: :lol: :lol:



Your quite demanding for a mere 300 quid arnt you :mrgreen:, thats only about four and a half fills on the wifes car :shock: and all gone in 2700 miles :shock: 300 quid for fuel is naff all these days :?

ChrisB
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