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Questions about 72v lithium battery performance

Domhelp

100 mW
Joined
Oct 2, 2018
Messages
49
I have a new 72v 20amph lithium ion battery which I am using with my cyclone 3000. With a fresh battery I am drawing 40 amps and 3000watts. According to my cycle analyst I travelled 25 miles. My resting voltage after 25 miles was 71.7 volts and I used 9 amph. Under full throttle my voltage went down to 66.5 volts just before I stopped.
The questions I have are:
How close to dead was my battery and at what resting voltage or volts under load should I stop?
Am I supposed to get 20amph out of the battery? According to my cycle analyst I used 9amph.
I am not sure if this battery is performing like it is supposed to. It is an inexpensive battery from China. I rode a combination of full throttle and cruising.
Thanks
 
Best to not rely on voltage alone.

If you have the ability to verify / calibratevthe accuracy of your Ah counter with a known good one, or manual CC load testing, that will help a lot.

Pushing charging voltage high to get every last mile will reduce longevity, as will going too low DoD.

Personally I stay 4-6% down from max SoC at the top, and draw down to 60-70% DoD if possible, certainly stop before 80-85%.

 
How do I know when I have reached 80%?


john61ct said:
Best to not rely on voltage alone.

If you have the ability to verify / calibratevthe accuracy of your Ah counter with a known good one, or manual CC load testing, that will help a lot.

Pushing charging voltage high to get every last mile will reduce longevity, as will going too low DoD.

Personally I stay 4-6% down from max SoC at the top, and draw down to 60-70% DoD if possible, certainly stop before 80-85%.
 
Say your battery is accurately rated at 100Ah.

Starting at 100% Full, pull a constant 20A for exactly 60min.

You are at 80% SoC.

Now look at your SoC meter / Ah counter.

Is it accurate?

A good meter lets you make adjustments, CEF, Peukert coefficient, do your best to get it accurate within the range important to you.

Forget voltage, except for at the top and bpttom, very inaccurate, correspondence to SoC changes over time too.
 
Some decent advice above, but I'd like to clarify. Voltage after you stop, is a very good indicator of state of charge, at the end of the discharge. Say, from about 80% used up on down to 100% used up. The middle will be more like the same voltage for a large part of the discharge, 75% discharged may not look very much different in voltage than 60% discharged, and even 40% discharged will be pretty close to the same as 75%. So judging the exact middle, 50% is almost impossible by voltage.

Ok, so what is the bottom voltage with your pack? I can't say, because I don't know what chemistry your pack is. If it is made from the typical round 18650 cells, then the lowest possible voltage for each cell is 2.5v. If you have lithium cobalt, like RC flat pouch cells, the lowest is 3.5v.


Assuming you have 18650's, then 2.5v x 20 cells in series gives you 50v as the absolute lowest possible empty voltage. But since you have 20 cell groups in a series, your pack will have its bms shut off discharge when any one of the 20 groups hits 2.5v, or perhaps a bit higher like 2.6v. So don't be too surprised if your pack shuts off when it gets to around 53v.


At 66v, your cells are at an average of around 3.3v, which like we all said, is about the middle. But somewhere in the middle between 70 and 40% discharged.


Based on just some experience, what you should get riding pretty fast, how far you went, you are in the middle on that ride. You should expect 20 miles per ride, but maybe less if you really haul ass. You have enough watt hours for 30 and 40 mile rides, but much slower and pedaling medium hard.


All you can do is run the battery a few more times about that 10 mile distance, and recharge full after each ride. Wait a half hour after the charger finishes, then unplug the charger and plug back in. If it starts charging then, let it charge and repeat, till it won't start recharging. This is balancing the pack, and getting every cell as full as possible. Do this once in a while as long as you have the battery.


Once you are sure that the battery fills well each charge, time to ride it a long ways, and get it empty or nearly empty. It does not really matter how well your watt meter is calibrated, what you need to know is what the total ah you have is when you use it all. Then after that, you know that with this battery, using that wattmeter, you expect to have x amount. That is your real capacity, even if the measurement is not perfect. Divide that in half, and now you know where 50% is, in ah. Simple math also now gets you any other %, in ah.

Now, when you reach 80% discharged, you can either stop, or at least slow down a lot to take it easier on your cells. They won't like a lot of amps discharge in the last 20% left. Assuming you get about 18 ah of real world capacity from that pack, measured with your watt meter, you need to slow down and pedal more when you get to about 16 ah used up.


When you really haul ass the whole ride, don't be too amazed if your total capacity is only 16 ah. Those capacity tests they do that rate your cells at 20 ah are done at a rate that would be similar if you rode 15 mph. At 30 mph or more, you will get less capacity.. Where did it go? the cells got all hot. If your battery gets really hot every ride, SLOW DOWN. It should get quite warm, but if you cant hold it in your hand, its getting killed.
 
Thanks to all for the information guys.I am happy with the battery considering the low price. It is made from 18650 cells. I guess I need to go for a longer ride next time to see how much juice was left. My plan is to stop riding when my resting voltage drops to 69v and I wont let the amps under load drop below 62v. If these numbers sound damaging to the battery let me know. I can't see getting anywhere near 20amph usage. I was riding for over an hour and the power was still good.



dogman dan said:
Some decent advice above, but I'd like to clarify. Voltage after you stop, is a very good indicator of state of charge, at the end of the discharge. Say, from about 80% used up on down to 100% used up. The middle will be more like the same voltage for a large part of the discharge, 75% discharged may not look very much different in voltage than 60% discharged, and even 40% discharged will be pretty close to the same as 75%. So judging the exact middle, 50% is almost impossible by voltage.

Ok, so what is the bottom voltage with your pack? I can't say, because I don't know what chemistry your pack is. If it is made from the typical round 18650 cells, then the lowest possible voltage for each cell is 2.5v. If you have lithium cobalt, like RC flat pouch cells, the lowest is 3.5v.


Assuming you have 18650's, then 2.5v x 20 cells in series gives you 50v as the absolute lowest possible empty voltage. But since you have 20 cell groups in a series, your pack will have its bms shut off discharge when any one of the 20 groups hits 2.5v, or perhaps a bit higher like 2.6v. So don't be too surprised if your pack shuts off when it gets to around 53v.


At 66v, your cells are at an average of around 3.3v, which like we all said, is about the middle. But somewhere in the middle between 70 and 40% discharged.


Based on just some experience, what you should get riding pretty fast, how far you went, you are in the middle on that ride. You should expect 20 miles per ride, but maybe less if you really haul ass. You have enough watt hours for 30 and 40 mile rides, but much slower and pedaling medium hard.


All you can do is run the battery a few more times about that 10 mile distance, and recharge full after each ride. Wait a half hour after the charger finishes, then unplug the charger and plug back in. If it starts charging then, let it charge and repeat, till it won't start recharging. This is balancing the pack, and getting every cell as full as possible. Do this once in a while as long as you have the battery.


Once you are sure that the battery fills well each charge, time to ride it a long ways, and get it empty or nearly empty. It does not really matter how well your watt meter is calibrated, what you need to know is what the total ah you have is when you use it all. Then after that, you know that with this battery, using that wattmeter, you expect to have x amount. That is your real capacity, even if the measurement is not perfect. Divide that in half, and now you know where 50% is, in ah. Simple math also now gets you any other %, in ah.

Now, when you reach 80% discharged, you can either stop, or at least slow down a lot to take it easier on your cells. They won't like a lot of amps discharge in the last 20% left. Assuming you get about 18 ah of real world capacity from that pack, measured with your watt meter, you need to slow down and pedal more when you get to about 16 ah used up.


When you really haul ass the whole ride, don't be too amazed if your total capacity is only 16 ah. Those capacity tests they do that rate your cells at 20 ah are done at a rate that would be similar if you rode 15 mph. At 30 mph or more, you will get less capacity.. Where did it go? the cells got all hot. If your battery gets really hot every ride, SLOW DOWN. It should get quite warm, but if you cant hold it in your hand, its getting killed.
 
999zip999 said:
Its ah . 40 amps should be doable with most 18650 20ah pack. It does depend on the cells. Do you have a link ?

The pack can handle 50 amps short duration 30 amp continuous according to seller. My setup draws 40 amps max.
 
A link to your pack, ideally a datasheet, or at least a guess as to its specific chemistry would help us help you more precisely.
 
Stopping point volts under load doesn't matter so much, its the resting voltage that matters. You CAN run the pack to lower voltage than the empty voltage resting. Unless a bms shuts it off, or controller lvc.

Even if you were being real conservative, and stopped at 3v per cell, 3x 20 cells is still 60v. But, once your under load voltage is at or near the voltage empty, its time to slow down, lower the load, and lower the voltage sag. This makes the end of the run easier on your cells, and avoids the bms shutting down too early just because you have a lot of sag.

If your sag under load is more than 6 volts, that battery is suffering under that load. It will get hot, and shorten lifespan. But unfortunately, my limited experience with 18650's has been at least 6v of voltage drop, even at a reasonable cruise speed. I'm not saying you can't hit the throttle and get going fun, just saying don't sustain an 8 volt sag under load very long.

Basically, if you are hammering the battery too much, it will tell you. It will get very hot while you discharge it. If you need to let it cool before a recharge, back off. But if its at 110F, warm to the touch but not like hot coffee, that's fine. Again, too high discharge at the very end of the discharge can heat the battery much more than when its more full.


If you are running out, and the pack shuts off, and unplugging it and replugging it starts it again, the pack BMS shut it off. You can still limp home, crawling at 10 mph and pedaling hard.


If you are running out and the power cuts off, but starts up again when you get off the throttle, that is the controller LVC shut it off. Again, you can still limp home at 10 mph, till it won't run at all anymore.
 
I am impressed. I did 25 miles a may be able to get 35 miles total out of a charge which is more than I was expecting. I will keep an eye on voltage under load. I am sure that a higher quality battery will have less sag. By the time I called it quits my sag was about 6 volts. But most important is that I had a blast. If I put this battery in my scooter I will shed 120lbs and my voltage under load will be higher. It should feel like I lifted an anchor, a lead anchor.
 
Likely you can go farther, but I do recommend lowering your speed to keep sag under 6 volts. And then at the very end, it might be you need to creep to get home, if 4v sag trips the bms or controller lvc.

Not good to have to creep home every ride, but you can manage your speed to greatly increase range when you need to. Keep the whole ride under 20 mph, and you can double your range. So 50 miles possible, but not any of it fast.
 
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