LiFeBatt Battery Woes

Several months back a purchased 48V Crystalite kit from Electric Rider and a 48V 20Ah LiFePO4 battery from LiFeBatt. After months of delay from LiFeBatt including an extra month being told to wait for a low voltage cut-off switch that never materialized, I insisted on forgoing the low voltage cut-off switch because it was obvious that it would never come and it seemed the only way to get LiFeBatt to send me a battery. Once the battery came Electric Rider ended up delaying for an extra 3 weeks because they were waiting for battery connectors from LiFeBatt so that they could build a wiring harness.

After months of waiting, I finally got all of the parts together on November 19th, 2008. On November 20th I called up Electric Rider because I was having an issue with a piece of plastic along the axle of the hub motor that looked like it was going to brake if I tightened it any more and the motor was not on tight enough to handle the torque. They just told me to crank it down really hard, so I put around 50 ft-lbs of force on it, shattering that little piece of plastic, but now the wheel was secured and the bike looked ridable. I was getting to be a little late for work and I wanted to test the bike out, so I just rode the bike 12 miles into work on all electricity. On the way back I rode it mostly all out at 30 mph while sitting up straight and climbed even some fairly steep hills at 20+ mph and I am a tall 230 lbs rider, so at first I was impressed.

On my second ride two days later the top heavy bike (LiFeBatt's pack weighs 36 lbs!) fell over when I leaned it up against a post (didn't have a heavy duty two pronged kick stand yet, but I do now) and the bike fell over. In the first few seconds everything seemed alright, but then about 30 seconds in I heard a pop sound from the battery pack and smoke started pouring out of the LiFeBatt battery. This went on for about 40 minutes or so on a fully charged pack (I rode 0.8 miles according to the computer) with blackish goo dripping out of the pack and a beeping sound from the OLV (over low voltage) indicator. As best as I can determine one of the fully charged cells shorted inside the pack when dropped and then exploded. LiFeBatt's own documentation backs up this theory by stating that only one cell needs to go low in order for the OLV indicator to come on.

I related all of this information in detail to LiFeBatt and Michelle (at LiFeBatt in Las Vegas) insisted that I somehow rode the bicycle for over 5 hours (wtf?!) and over discharged the pack. (If you read the story above I did not do this, so why is she telling me that I did things that I did not do and never said I did?) When I tried to get the pack fixed by LiFeBatt Michelle yelled and screamed at me over the phone (after several fruitless conversations where I told them what happened and they gave me a bunch of BS) and hung up on me, so I contacted Electric Rider and the bank. This leverage seemed to have bought me a $550 battery repair on November 25th, 2008, however it is now Feb 21, 2009 and still no battery. Michelle at LiFeBatt just keeps giving me excuses every time I call and they originally promised me a battery back by January 12th, 2009, now nearly a month and a half ago.

This is $2500 down the tubes along with a whole lot of time wasted wading though bs and now trying to get a Progressive report together to try to get the money charged back because I don't have any product and they are not sending me anything.

Don't do business with LiFeBatt because they don't have any service and what good is a product with no service!?

Wow..

I was wondering why the lifebatt packs were no longer offered on the electricrider site, they appeared for while and then .. pouf.. no more mention.

*edit to remove dumb question ..

don't do business with Lifebatt in the UNITED STATES!!!

Lifebatt UK has been doing great.

kinda puts don in a sympathetic light. you never know what makes a good man go bad.

poor electricrider, bad suppliers one after the other, he lost so much on the first when he guaranteed the batteries and took them back and tried to fix them, and now gets a bad rep by trying to use the lifebatts at arms length. i wouldn't hold this against him, he is in a bad place. jmho

Bummer story. Shows the importance of how batteries are mounted, importance of fuses etc. Of course the bike will fall over someday. This is the major objection many have to the duct tape packs. Everything on the electric bike needs to be about stout enough to ship ups. In other words, able to stand a drop from 4 feet, upside down. That's the shits that it happened on the first coulple rides. Personally, I think the terminal design on psi and headway cells is kinda prone to creating a pack that is vulnerable to damage, when mounted on a bike. The prismatic cell, with both terminals on one side, may be easier to protect the terminals from accidental damage and shorts simply because it gives you only one side to protect. Not that a safe pack can't be made, the lego blocks are a big step in that direction.

BatteryKing,
I can only feel your pain.
I bought 36V10Ah from LifeBatt.
Mine was also mounted on luggage rack and fell twice , I dragged it like min. 1 meter over asphalt when I fell over ice patch in the morning. But it fell flat on bottom , not on edge. Luggage rack should not be place for battery in general, that is my opinion . My batt survived intact except deep scratches on the bottom. I opened my pack for rebuilding it into different box, completely re-arranged and found out very good quality, first class assembly. Cells are hold in places tight and firm.
Yours is much heavier and I suspect the smoke you talk about was burning balancing wire or wires which shorted cell or two.
It is hard to imagine how cell would shorten itself, it was shortened by balancing wire probably .
My experience was quite similar to yours, like in any business if you don't have pentiace to deal with customer....
MC

dogman a fuse would have done jack-all in that situation. it would have been an internal battery short-out which would by-pass the fuse. only a hard shell box with soft padding inside would protect a vulnerable battery from impact/crushing like that. of course some batteries are more vulnerable than others to internal short circuit because of their design. all pouch cells are particularly vulnerable.

i'm sorry for your loss battery king. i hope it all works out soon

I'm quite certain that as bad as the whole thing looked, some of the cells if not most will still be salvageable, you still own it dead or alive so time to open it up and perform surgery ( these cells can be found and the pack should be repairable )

Thats true, but sometimes a bike does fall over and short wiring to the controller. I have to admit, no fuse on my bike, just the bms. But for sure, any chemistry battery needs to be able to stand falling over when mounted on the bike. It's gonna happen. Enclosures need to be good for a 4 ft drop in any orientation. Shortcuts and temporary rigs do tend to have something happen. It's happened to most of us. People that sell a battery in a box need to sell a good box. As consumers, you assume for all that money, you have somthing good. What a bummer story.

Ypedal said:

I'm quite certain that as bad as the whole thing looked, some of the cells if not most will still be salvageable, you still own it dead or alive so time to open it up and perform surgery ( these cells can be found and the pack should be repairable )

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Unfortunately, it sounds like he has already sent the whole pack back to Lifebatt and can't get the newly built OR old damaged pack back from them.
Sorry to hear about your troubles man. Good luck with this coming to a decent conclusion. Btw, 50ft/lbs sounds like way over kill for anything on a bicycle. I'm comparing that to almost everything on a motorcycle and is quite high. Usually if you have to really torque something down that much there is a problem. You mentioned that the motor was not on tight enough to handle the torque. Does this motor have torque arms? What was that little piece of plastic that shattered? What was it's original intended use? I know this has nothing to do with the battery situation, but if you are waiting anyways, it might be a good time to deal with some mechanical issues of the bike.

Well $2k just showed up in my bank account this morning after bypassing Michelle Robinson and talking directly to the bank. Michelle at LiFeBatt USA can't be too happy about that one. Then again she has had my battery for the past 3 months won't give it back, so I haven't been too happy about that either.

The piece of plastic that I shattered seemed to be a cover over the wires going into the hub motor (Crystalite 5304R). I don't know why they placed it like that because it really seems like a bad design. However cranking those axle bolts down with excessive force didn't seem to affect the function for the wheel as long as I kept it reasonably balanced. I thought about the torque arm, but for some reason Electric Rider didn't think it was necessary. I noticed the hard way that unless there is a whole lot force on those axle bolts without a torque arm that the axle just pops lose and the hub motor spins in place. (This is a 2kW motor mind you!) I figured first I would try more torque than I thought necessary, but I didn't really know what was the minimal necessary and axle looks pretty strong anyway, so I used a lot of force as a test case and the high torque plan went well, so I left it that way. I figure this is better than destroying the motor while riding (power cord) and Electric Rider said that a torque arm shouldn't be necessary, so I figured that I had a satisfactory solution. I suppose I could try to rig up a torque arm and use a normal amount of force on those bolts if you think that I have chosen a bad route on this one.

So with all these people raving about Ping batteries while at the same time saying that one 48V 20Ah battery isn't enough for a Crystalite 5xxx series on this forum, how do you communicate with him to try to get something that will work with my hub motor kit? I tried emailing him yesterday around noon and it is around 22 hours later and no reply yet. I have also been rooting around on these forums for a high powered alternative so that I can mount a smaller battery, but it sounds like there is a whole lot of sketchy stuff out there and potential to destroy expensive cells in self made packs, so I am not sure which direction to go in. I just know that do to Michelle Robinson (and probably NOT the pack itself) that LiFeBatt USA is not an option. I have money to burn if someone has a good idea.

Great to hear your got your cash back.. 8)

As far as other options go.. there is " Headway " .. and if you are crafty type of person look at DeWalt packs for A123 cells but this is not for everyone as it requires some tools and some skills ....

Yesa may be an option, but QC is a bit sketchy at times..

Read around this forum, all sorts of people and all sorts of solutions out there !! :wink:

Ping replied and told me they are upgrading their entire line, but are going to keep prices the same. He said if I wait two weeks that I will be able to get a 48V 20Ah pack that will handle my Crystalite 5304 motor.

This sounds interesting.

It does indeed !!! ( however , someone ends up being guineapig !! )

About the plastic cover thing.. i just remove them and throw away.. if there are sharp edges on the axle near the wire i file them down and it's all good.. crystalyte keeps trying to get this plastic/nylon cap thing right and never do... It can sometimes get in the way and just wedge against the motor cover adding resistance..

BatteryKing said:

When I tried to get the pack fixed by LiFeBatt Michelle yelled and screamed at me over the phone (after several fruitless conversations where I told them what happened and they gave me a bunch of BS) and hung up on me, so I contacted Electric Rider and the bank. This leverage seemed to have bought me a $550 battery repair on November 25th, 2008, however it is now Feb 21, 2009 and still no battery. Michelle at LiFeBatt just keeps giving me excuses every time I call and they originally promised me a battery back by January 12th, 2009, now nearly a month and a half ago.

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Batteryking, I am SO glad you got your money back. It sounds like she was sitting on the 'repair' until it was too late for you to dispute it.

This brings back memories of Don Hardon and Joshua Goldbrick when LifeButt first came here in August '07. They justified LifeButt costing 3x the packs I had just bought because their warrantee, and "lab testing". I told them that, given the industry, I had zero faith in the wouldn't pay a dime for either one, I'd rather buy 3 cheap packs, and they took a wet nasty dump all over me.

Time has proved me right, what happened to you is EXACTLY how I predicted Hardon would handle warrantee service - pretty much the same way he dealt with customer questions here on E:S - proving that the lifebutt USA warrantee isn't worth the e-ink it was printed on. The 'lab-tested' cells they were offering (AT THAT TIME) turned out to have zero/minimal quality powder (I believe the current cells have more). And Goldbrick took so ridiculously, incompetently long to turn over the lifebutt-turned-Headway group-buy that you can now buy cells directly from Victoria for less.

LifeBatt UK seems to be doing well, proving that the problem wasn't the product, it was Don Harmon , and I hope he lost his shirt in the process of destroying LifeButt USA's reputation and potential.

I'd agree that 36 lbs is too much to have on top of luggage rack, being that high over the center of gravity will make the bike intrinsically, dangerously, unstable. It really should be split into pannier packs to be safe, so I see this as a manufacturing design flaw - typically of Hardon's engineering efforts to date.

-JD

PS - this thread, introducting LifeButt to E:S in '07, is an interesting read : http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1721&start=30#p24043

oatnet said:

I can't say warrantee service has ever done much for me - companies have gone out of business, or come up with a BS excuse to not honor it. I don't buy extended warrantees either.

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Joshua Goldberg said:

Will LifeBatts still be around in 4 Years? Who knows maybe, maybe not but what if they are and then Promises made today will have to be honored then or you and I and everyone else in the EV Community will dump all over Harmon. A company that goes Tits Up isn't here to defend itself, IF Harmon and his LifeBatts are still with us and he screws up we'll cruicify the Bastard....In this Industry We Eat Our Young

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Let the Crucification begin!

ping is great, plus he will custom build your pack to fit your bike. i kinda agree with dogman that the prismatic pouches may be better than the cylindricals and easy enuff to protect from damage, and headway is now making nice packs with the new blue cells, doctorbass has measured around 9 milliohm internal resistance, and they don't have the sag they originally had with the brown cells. for $2k you can buy 3kWh of cells from headway. that's 200 miles one way.

not sure why JD is tagging joshua with don's failures, and i am more sympathetic to him since he was willing to take responsibility for the group buy, a big risk for anyone. not something i would do and he does have some skin in the game there too. i do think all those group buy packs will help us see how they perform relative to the others like a123 and the konions.

Let's not forget that his battery did fell on the ground from bicycle rack.
Now, is it mishandling for sure, is it cover under warranty?
That is very good question.
I suspect it should have been send to factory for repair, I doubt LifeBatt has any repair capability, is it just sales office?
MC

No, dropping a battery on the ground is/should not be covered by warranty, but a repair should not require months either... bare minimum would be some civilized communication from lifebatt to explain what's going on and what options are available.....

Nope, even if it's inevitable, dropping it and making it short shouldn't be warantee. But it would be nice if could survive it. Nicer still if they didn't promise so much before selling you a delicate battery to mount on a bicycle. My ping did survive a good drop. With a cookie sheet wrapped around 5 sides of the pack and inside a WE battery bag, it survived an end over end crash that left a dent in the corner of the aluminum box. Dropped it many times since too, in almost a year of use. Bikes fall over. It's fine, It's in a second metal container now, but over rough roads, some dirt riding, etc, no problems , no loose wires , no problem. In my opinion, protect from tears, and a ping can take a suprising amount of abuse. Just don't do high amp discharge! On lousy tip over and the lifebatt let something move around and short. With the lego blocks this looks to me like a lot less likely to happen. I also figured that compared to lifebatt prices, several pings could be bought if they didn't last that long.

Theoretically the current v2 ping could handle a 40 amp continuous discharge in the 20 ah size. But some people did have spikes that might trip the bms with a big 5000 series clyte. But mr skeptical here, I haven't seen test results of 2c discharge yet. So I consider it a gamble on cycle life. I'm big on cycle life, since I do two cycles a day when commuting.

frodus said:

don't do business with Lifebatt in the UNITED STATES!!!

Lifebatt UK has been doing great.

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I thought that the US people, Michelle and Don, were the owners of LifeBatt, is this not the case? I may have got my wires crossed over this, but I was sure that Don had made claims here that LifeBatt was, to some significant extent, his company (or at least his and Michelle's).

I'm more than happy to be corrected if I have this wrong.

Jeremy

Jeremy Harris said:

I thought that the US people, Michelle and Don, were the owners of LifeBatt, is this not the case? I may have got my wires crossed over this, but I was sure that Don had made claims here that LifeBatt was, to some significant extent, his company (or at least his and Michelle's).

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Word Mark: LIFEBATT
Goods and Services: IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Lithium iron phosphate batteries; Lithium phosphate batteries; Batteries. FIRST USE: 20070700. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20070700
Standard Characters Claimed
Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Serial Number: 77378041
Filing Date: January 23, 2008
Current Filing Basis: 1A
Original Filing Basis: 1A
Published for Opposition: June 10, 2008
Registration Number: 3492105
Registration Date: August 26, 2008
Owner: (REGISTRANT) LIFEBATT, INC. CORPORATION NEVADA 8329 LOST PINTES CT. LAS VEGAS NEVADA 89128
Attorney of Record: XAVIER MORALES
Type of Mark: TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator: LIVE

http://www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm

re M.R.
Pub. No.: WO/2008/073095 International Application No.: PCT/US2006/047708
Publication Date: 19.06.2008 International Filing Date: 13.12.2006
IPC: B41F 17/00 (2006.01)
Applicants: WU, Wanson [--/--]; (TW).
ROBINSON, Michelle, Hsiao C. [US/US]; (US).
ZIRCONTEC CORP., CORPORATION NEVADA [US/US]; 8329 Lost Pines Court, Las Vegas, NV 89128 (US).
Inventor: WU, Wanson; (TW).
Agent: HAYMOND, Phillip; LAW OFFICES, 7545 IRVINE CENTER DRIVE, SUITE 200, Irvine Spectrum Center, Irvine, CA 92618-2933 (US).
Priority Data:
60/750,295 13.12.2006 US
Title: METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR SCREEN PRINTING ON USEFUL ARTICLES
http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?WO=2008073095

Before I bought the battery, I talked to Michelle at length and she claimed that the battery was very rugged and ready for electric bicycle use. If I got a battery wrapped in duck-tape, there is no way I would ever just strap it onto a bike. But this thing was gigantic and looked to be very solidly built, so I thought maybe Michelle was telling me the truth. Little did I know...

When I first contacted Michelle about the cell popping and the goo coming out (the external 50A fuse was fine, so any short had to be internal), she didn't listen to a word I said and instead insisted that I somehow over-discharged the battery even after I repeatedly made it clear to her that I went less than a mile on a full charge. This was a bit disturbing to me that she was already making up her own reality and insisting on it without hardly giving me a chance to explain anything at all. After many attempts to be dead honest with her both over the phone and with emails, I finally got her to acknowledge my story far enough to say that she would have the battery examined and if my dropping story checked out that she would have it fixed for free because they are proud of their products. Before sending the battery in I noticed the bottom of the battery was all warped and stained by the leakage and so snapped a picture of it. Instead of telling me I was right, after about two weeks of silence (it only takes one or two days for packages to go from California to Nevada), she called me up and just started yelling at me. This didn't seem too professional to me to say the least. (I guess being wrong burns a little.) With further discussions Michelle insisted that the bottom of the battery was fine with no stains and ranted that I "broke the seal" thus voiding the warranty and claimed to have pictures. Then I remembered my picture taken out of curiosity and told her that I have mine. She seemed to think I was buffing, because then she sent me a picture of a battery with the bottom exposed showing a smooth bottom and a chipped back cover plate with the chip sitting right there (why would I send plastic chip back to her if I broke it off while riding or something; wouldn't it be gone and not in the shipping box?) and said this proved I was wrong and that I also voided the warranty by "breaking the seal." The picture I sent her on the other hand clearly showed a warped bottom, inconsistent with her picture. I asked her to double check when I sent her my picture and she insisted she had the right battery out of her stock of batteries while I had only one battery to take a picture of.

I tried to discuss this issue further with Michelle, but she just yelled at me and hung up the phone. This is when I brought in Electric Rider and the bank initially. Once the bank called her then suddenly it was my fault for dropping the battery according to Michelle.

So the answer to your question is drops are covered until they actually happen. Then you get a bunch of crap, but no service. Then if you try to do something about it, it is all your fault and you need to pay up. Then when you pay up, it is still no service, but at least you don't get yelled at any more.

oatnet said:

BatteryKing said:

When I tried to get the pack fixed by LiFeBatt Michelle yelled and screamed at me over the phone (after several fruitless conversations where I told them what happened and they gave me a bunch of BS) and hung up on me, so I contacted Electric Rider and the bank. This leverage seemed to have bought me a $550 battery repair on November 25th, 2008, however it is now Feb 21, 2009 and still no battery. Michelle at LiFeBatt just keeps giving me excuses every time I call and they originally promised me a battery back by January 12th, 2009, now nearly a month and a half ago.

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Batteryking, I am SO glad you got your money back. It sounds like she was sitting on the 'repair' until it was too late for you to dispute it.

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Where in the story does he get his money back? It still sounds like he's lost energy, money, time and emotional tranquility with not an iota of compensation.

BatteryKing,
HPS does NOT have, cannot have just 50A fuse inside, it has one fuse for every 4 cells and much bigger than 50 A .
Example 36V HPS pack has 3 fuses, because it has 12 cells. Those fuses are over 100A.
Everthing is about weight , common sense and law of physics - gravity - the heavier it is the bigger impact is gona be.
I never seen pack better built than HPS.
MC