Narrowed down my decision; buying eBike

[Rosco]

While I applaud your DIY enthusiasm, I wouldn't be so quick to recommend lipo.

I've found that balancing them is rarely necessary.

A statement like that to a beginner is just asking for a house fire or worse…

The fact that you've had great performance with lipos doesn't mean that any beginner should just pick up a set and start riding off into the sunset. Your experience is invaluable and too many people have had seriously bad experiences when they didn't know what they were getting into with lipos. Beginners should almost always start with LiFePO4 or NMC until they have a bit more experience and are ready to wade into the lipo pool, having first researched it carefully.

Have to +1 on this with my $0.02. I use 6x 6S 5000mAh LiPos in parallel (3 separate dual packs) to power my e skateboard and it flies along at 40km/h (with a 245kv motor and a 15/32 gear ratio) for about 45K distance...


But! They are dangerous! I use a smaller 2200mAh 3S to run the LEDs on my board and had one puff and rupture whilst riding, leading to me riding a flaming board down a hill going too fast to stop safely.

LiPos are great for gravimetric energy density but they come at the cost of being high discharge and low protection.

Here's a great site to learn more about battery chemistry- http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/battery_definitions

 

[mlt34]

If that wasn't so scary, it would be hilarious! Riding a flaming skateboard... :lol:

I often describe lipos to beginners as little bombs that when used carefully can also function as a great battery. It's an impressive piece of technology, but people have to realize how much explosive energy are inside of these things!