Ping 36v 20 ah, 5000 mile review.

[dogman dan]

I just logged mile 5000 on my Ping battery. 2000 on a We BD 36, 2400 on a BL 36, and 600 on a Fusin gearmotor 100 on a 9 continent.

36v 20 ah Lifepo4 battery bought from Li Ping on Ebay in April 2008. After initial break in period range testing showed a usable riding distance at full throttle of 20 miles. The bike is a MTB with a Wilderness Energy BD36 on the front hub.

After a long hot summer, hot enough to melt one motor completely, My pack is still in very good shape. Heat seems to have affected it not at all. It often was charged in 100 degree weather, ridden in 105, and the garage when I returned home was often even hotter.

Having had some charger difficulties, my fault, the charging routine has been as follows. Ride to work 15 miles mostly downhill, charge there for about 4-5 hours with a sla 4 amp charger. Charger puts out about 44v. This is about a 50% discharge. Ride home, mostly uphill, using about 70-80% discharge and charge there for at least 12 hours with a 2 amp sla charger, also at about 44v. This charger was just recently tweaked to 47v.

Such a nice day today, New Mexico weather, 80f, some moderate wind, sunny, I rode a range test, pretty much the same route as I have used on other range tests including a nice big hill, and got 19.7 miles before the pack cut out. I'd say close enough to 20 miles to say the range hasn't changed any. Wind alone has caused an 18 mile range at times. I have no meter on the bike to track how many ah I actually get, but I think I can definitvely say this pack is lasting. Since not every ride is 15 miles, I am guesstimating that I have at least 200 cycles on the thing and not one shred of lost performance in 1500 miles.

By calculation, 20 ah goes 20 miles and takes one hour, my average discharge rate is around 1c, so while I may abuse and melt my motors, the battery is not getting hammered too much by my average sise motor. I have the 35 amp controller. My conclusion is that the Ping version of the duct tape battery rocks. Keep your discharge rate reasonable and it will last a long long time.

At mile 5000, a recent range test still showed great range, and using a Watts Up , the battery still takes the same amount of kwh to charge it. .80 kwh. I can't believe that as I approach and estimated 400 cycles the battery is still performing with zero detectable loss of capacity.

The ping finally died at about mile 6000. Estimated 600 cycles, on july of 2011. I had left it on a bike with the controller still turned on. Apparently this time the lvc did not work. A few weeks later, I find the battery at 6v for the whole pack. Still not bad, the battery paid for itself in the first 2000 miles, so about 4000 miles of free riding.

 

[sparky]

Great review, Dogman. Thanks! I think you're running a version 1 Ping. I wonder how the V2's compare?

Also, just curious about your SLA chargers... why not use a Life charger? will the BMS take care of whatever differences there are between an SLA and a LifePo4 charger? (I'm guessing 'yes' because you've had such a stellar run with the Ping...)

Thanks again,
Sparky (aka engr_scotty from V is for Voltage forum )

 

[fechter]

Thanks for the report.

What is your approximate average speed on these runs?

 

[dogman dan]

Yes it's the ping v1.0 battery. I have been using sla chargers since I had them around when I toasted my Ping charger soon after I got the battery. I got stupid with the battery connector plugs and ended up running AC into the DC side. Poof. :lol:

Since then I have not been wanting to get a new ping charger unless the pack seemed to need it, and it hasn't. I may have been keeping it balanced by just leaving it charging a long time at night. Usually I get home from work and plug it in by around noon, and don't unplug till about 5 am the next morning so the float charge may have been bringing up any low cells. Now that I have tweaked my soneil up a few volts, I haven't seen the bms balancer working, but then, I haven't been looking for it either, since I am asleep when the pack finishes charging in the evening.

My commute of 15 miles is usually done at about 25-28 mph in the mornings when it is generally downhill, and 20-22 mph back up in the evening. I pretty much floor the throttle at all times. I peadle hard though, and usually add about 3-4 mph to my speed both ways. I basicly don't do any kind of trying to make the range longer, just the speed faster. I do the run, actually 14.5 miles, in about 45-50 minuites in the morning, and 60-65 minuites in the afternoons including all the stoplights. One morning I did good on all the lights and made it in 40 minuites, my record for going home is 55 minuites.

I couldn't be happier with my Ping v1 unless I could trade it for a 48v, but at the time, I thought I would not want to go that fast. Once I got the battery, I switched from the trike to a mtb, and then I was more comfy going faster. Shoulda known I would want more speed, but over 15mph on the trike is kinda scary.

 

[sparky]

I couldn't be happier with my Ping v1 unless I could trade it for a 48v, but at the time, I thought I would not want to go that fast. Once I got the battery, I switched from the trike to a mtb, and then I was more comfy going faster. Shoulda known I would want more speed, but over 15mph on the trike is kinda scary.

Have you ever considered adding a 12V in series with your Ping to get the 48V (or beyond)? Seems like it would be a pretty small pack to add...thoughts?

 

[dogman dan]

I have, but after my two broken collarbones last summer I'm just starting to be fit enough to work hard again. Since last may my income has been halved so I don't have any spare funds, and won't have for awhile. All I would need is a 12v 20ah set of cells, a 48v bms and a big soldering iron. When I get money, I expect I'll just buy a 48v and run the 36 on another bike. I've also considered a boost pack. Really I only need the big volts for one mile on the big hill home, so a 12v a123 in series would work. The existing setup climbs the hill fine, it just slows down a lot and then gets hot. On that hill, if you back off the throttle, you simply stop. A gearmotor is most likely what I really need. Now that it is winter the heat climbing the hill is not an issue, and If i peadle hard, I get up to about 28-29 mph on flat ground so I'm not doing too much suffering with 36v.

 

[sparky]

I have, but after my two broken collarbones last summer I'm just starting to be fit enough to work hard again. Since last may my income has been halved so I don't have any spare funds, and won't have for awhile. .

Ouch! Sorry to hear that... Was that from a fork failure or something else? I think I was (and probably am ) a newbie about that time...Regardless, sorry to hear that and I hope you get back into the swing of things soon! The human body is an amazing machine, and unlike that controller I fried, you will heal

I like your idea of a "turbo boost" to get up that hill...but if you have a heat problem, that may just compound it. Plus you're just carrying around extra weight most of the time. Possible that a BMC/600 would do the trick or a Cyclone. I like the *idea* of a cyclone, but I don't think the noise and mechanical probs would outweigh hillclimbing. But then again, I'm not climbing your hill!

Thanks again for the review. You're quite the power user and it speaks volumes to the robustness and long life of Ping V1...Any V2 power users out there with a review?

 

[dogman dan]

The crash was just a doofus thing where I got a water bottle stuck into the forks stopping the wheel. My current brushed motor gets up the hill fine, it just gets too hot when the asphalt is melting from the ambient temperature. I rode up the hill on a bus a lot in the late summer, but now I have a bike rack on the car so I can drive 6 miles to the bottom of the hill and ride 9. That may be a good way to go next year when the temp gets abouve 100F. I'm definitely interested in a gearmotor, but I also wonder if all I need is a 5304, but that would also require more battery too, increasing the weight of the whole bike about 20 pounds. The way hubmotors seem to be improving, it may pay to just ride what I have another 3000 miles or so before spending much. In my climate, in the month of June at least, it may be possible for me to melt any motor I ride for a full hour nonstop. Once the humidity is down around 5% and the temp 100-115, air cooling just doesn't work. It's the water molecules in the air that actually do the cooling effect.

 

[docnjoj]

Thanks for the inspirational tale, Dogman. I'm currently walking around(barely) in a back brace from a slip and fall on an oil slick in our hometown college basketball arena parking lot. Kinda feelin down a bit . I just got a new Ping 48 volt 20 ah and have yet to test it on my trike. Maybe this week! My wifes ping has about 200 cycles since last Dec and still seems to put out the 10ah it originally measured, but she is a light user and seldom goes above 50% DOD. I'll try to feel a little less sorry for myself! Thanks!
otherDoc

 

[dogman dan]

Ouch! Doncha just hate it when you do stuff like that doing something simpe you have done all your life?

I think the key to a happy lifepo4 pack is using it sensibly, like not riding to cut out every trip, and keepiing it below 1.5c, like your wifes pack. Pretty hard to afford enough for a big motor though.

 

[docnjoj]

And so turns the screw of life! I'm doing better (I claim my back brace is for holsters for firearms training ) the new Ping was so powerful it turned my Bafang gears into P-Nut butter on the first test ride, and all is right with the world. Surprisingly, I now have a choice while I wait for the engineer geniuses on the gears to use either a brushed 16" or 20" Crystalyte! What goes around usually is lost! Pain killers suck!
otherDoc

 

[recumbent]

the new Ping was so powerful it turned my Bafang gears into P-Nut butter on the first test ride, otherDoc

Hopefully you were close to home when your motor stripped the gears, with your sore back and all. Those "Bafang" geared hub motors are obviously not built strong enough. Maybe it's just the small diameter geared motors that strip gears too easily.

Reliability is a great comfort with direct drive motors, along with silent operation, DD motors will be the best choice for a while until something better comes along.

 

[docnjoj]

I'm afraid U got that right. Only had to pedal the Mac Trike about 2 miles mostly level. Test for a 16"DD brushed Crystalyte this weekend. But I still "love them gears"!
otherDoc

 

[dogman dan]

1800 miles now. Range is getting pretty noticeably affected by the cool temperatures. I'd say as much as 25% less. After the morning ride to work, it is taking an hour and a half longer than the usual 4 hours to charge. The ride in the morning is at around 35 f.

 

[7bobw]

Hey Dogman do you know Frog who lives there in Las Cruces. He built an awasome 3 wheel motorcycle trike from a 67 Mustang. Awasome trike.

 

[dogman dan]

No I don't know Frog, but my brother does. He used to be a bouncer and bartender in the local biker bar. He's pretty famous among the outlaw type bikers here. If I don't have my bikers mixed up I believe he was the one who, back in the seventies, would carry around a homemade air guitar made out of plywood and a piece of 2 inch gas pipe. Handy bugger in a barfight according to my brother. Another friend of mine was friends with his old lady back in the seventies , who occasionally would fall off the bike going home all drunk and get roadrashed. Frog would not stop and go back, and she would allways say, it way my fault, I shoulda held on better. Those are REAL bikers, not the wild hogs we see everywhere today.

I haven't seen that trike, I wonder if he is around here with it? But then again, I get up at 4 and am in bed by 8 soooo, maybe I'll never see it.

 

[dogman dan]

One more ride to work and I will have 2000 miles on the Ping, on three different bikes, 1800 miles of in on the current beast. Despite a warm day, 60 F, I had less range than expected today. This has happened a few times before, possibly one cell out of balance? But so far it comes back to normal on the next charge. Still, it is the kind of thing that makes buying a lot more battery than you think you need smart. When I run out of power, it's always an uphill ride to get home.

 

[John in CR]

... Still, it is the kind of thing that makes buying a lot more battery than you think you need smart. When I run out of power, it's always an uphill ride to get home...

I'd consider any amount of mandatory pedaling to be an "uphill ride". That's why I carry enough batts that I only "need" to charge a couple of time a week. I've yet to use more than 1/2 capacity in one round trip. A side benefit is that my batt life will likely double. Problem is that typical bike frames don't offer battery space for even 1/2 a decent round trip. To me that's the easiest thing the forum group can cure...an appropriate few frame designs that are easy to build and meet the needs of ebike commuters, errand runners, occasional off-roaders.

I don't have a mileage number on my Ping's, but other than the damaged cell group that I inflicted in July, they are still going strong.

John

 

[dogman dan]

Range is back to normal now, two cycles later, Once in a while the charger shuts off early is my guess why this happens maybe once every six weeks or so.

 

[dogman dan]

After 2020 miles on the WE brushed hub motor, my Ping will now be powering an AOTEMA brushless motor. Not bought from WE, but basicly the same thing, 2009 model. It seems to use a little less wattage, so my c rate will now be well under 1c. Hopefully this will make the pack last even longer than it would have. I'll be very happy if I get 10,000 miles out of it, taking three years to do it, but I might get even more.

I got a killawatt meter and put it on the charger, so here's some data on that. A really full charge, presumably 20 ah worth, took .84 kilowatt hours. That includes whatever time it spent plugged in overnight. So most cycles, cost a dime or less for power. Call it a half a cent a mile, in round numbers. Since I bought earlier, I got my battery cheap, $450 shipped, and the cost of it is 4.5 cents per mile, if it goes 10,000 miles, and less if it goes more. Theoretically I should get another 10k miles, but the range will be a lot less. Anyway, the cost of power and battery is 5 cents a mile. Even at todays low price, gas is 14 cents a mile. The bike and motor cost seems to be around 10 cents a mile, so the whole ebike costs no more than gas for a car. Theoretically. All the stuff I fried, misused and destroyed is entertainment budget.

 

[bluthermal]

I've also had a 36V 20ah ping V1 since about April 2008. I too am very satisfied, and have had no noticeable degradation.

I guestimate I now have about 2000 miles on it, and around 160 varied charge cycles.

I rarely take it down to LV cutoff, and use either the Ping charger that came with it, or a standard 36V SLA type charger while at work.

I run a geared 450W 24V Currie ezip motor overvolted and forced air cooled, with the standard Currie ( 30A?) motor control to the Ping battery which typically charges to 41V.

I had the battery built to different dimensions than Ping's stock batteries, to better fit into two dimensions of my Currie battery box.

My bike's performance seems very similar to yours (except for noiseier), just by guestimating, and using the bike computer I got this Xmas. I can usually go about 24 miles with pedalling before the LV cut-off occurs frequently.

My current daily commute is 6 miles each way.

 

[PetersReviews]

I think I'm ready to buy my own 36v 20ah ping battery! I'm going to be adding it to a GoHub (Crystalyte 408 hub) bike and hope it won't take me long to wire it up. Is there any reason I should go for the V2 version of Ping's batteries?

Thanks,
Peter

 

[dogman dan]

I didn't know the v1 battery was still avaliable. I recall Ping posting at some time that the 4ah cells in the v2 were believed to be likely to last longer at the high end of the 1 to 2 c rate range. I still see no data at 2c, so as far as I am concerned, 1c is the max if you want 1000 full discharge cycles.

Either version, the 5 ah pouches in the v1 or the 4 ah pouches work reliably as long as the pack size is big enough. As allways I say get the 20 ah, since it's not really that big or heavy, and the lighter the discharge rate the longer it is likely to last. A little money now makes for cheaper cost per cycle in my opinion. Your hub should run on as small as a 12 ah if you have good reasons to go smaller. I think the 48v 20 ah is still light and small enough for rear racks on any bike, including the seatpost type on full suspension bikes. I found the big battery just encouraged me to use the bike more, and when the nasty headwind gets me on the uphill home, I need every ah to make it home.

 

[PetersReviews]

As of last week there were a few V1 packs left. When I asked Ping what the difference between the two was he wrote:

"V2 cell can draw more than 98% capacity at 2C continuous discharge rate, but V1 cannot. However, if your applications are at average 1C rate, V1 is not a bad choice."

I'm a newbie so I'm not so sure I understand his answer.

 

[dogman dan]

C rate is the rate at which amps are drawn from the battery. If you are are new, amps is a rate of drain, amp hours is a measument of capacity. A battery drained at 1 c will be empty in one hour. So if you buy a 20 ah battery the 1c drain rate is 20 amps average used by the motor. So riding along, you may use 15 amps, but on a hill, or starting up, maybe 25, but if the average rate is low enough to ride for one hour or more, you are at or below one c.

If your motor is a 408 you should be well under the 1c drain rate, unless you live in really killer hills. So either battery should work for you, and a v1, if it is cheaper, would work fine. If you plan on a motor upgrade in the next say, 15-20,000 miles, then the v2 would be better for a higher wattage motor later. Buying the 20 ah battery is smart, giving you more range, even if you need it only occasionally, and shallower cycles pretty much garantee a longer lifespan. Theoretically, if a full discharge takes you 25 miles, you could get 25,000 miles out of a ping 20 ah pack. And even then, theoretically, you would still have a 16 amp hour battery that functions. No telling how many bikes we'll wear out trying to use up a good lifepo4 battery. In real world use though, I'll be thrilled if I go three years, and get 10,000 miles out of mine.