Here guys is an example of some valuable User experience on replacing GEL with Lithium
I don’t know if anyone else has done this but just thought I would make a thread about upgrading the batteries in your pavement scooter.
I have a Pride Go-Go Traveller Elite LX but as with other scooters of this type the batteries are very heavy and can be a chore bring them into the house after every use to charge them back up.
I’ve been looking at the scooter that have Li-ion batteries with the like of the CareCo Li-Tech scooters and may well get one of these in future however my Go-Go is a very capable scooter so got me thinking about upgrading the batteries to Li-ion ones.
Having got information about this I was all set to buy two Li-ion batteries to replace the GEL batteries in my scooter. Then I read a few reviews of folk who had already done this and it just left me confused.
The batteries in question are a direct replacement for 12V 12 Ah GEL batteries already in my scooter so advertising guff says to simply swap out your batteries and you then have a Li-ion lightweight scooter. Well not quite? The Li-ion batteries come with a 12V charger and here’s where some confusion sets in.
In one review of these batteries someone said the batteries don’t charge properly and he or she went on to say they take the batteries out of there box and charge each one individually with the 12V charger and went on to say what a pain that was and yes I can imagine it is.
With that in mind I contacted the seller about this problem and the fact they say these batteries are a drop in replacement. There answer was they are indeed drop in replacement but when you order them you have to tell them there for a mobility scooter that has the common wired in series batteries so they then changed the 12V charger to a 24V charger with the standard scooter charging plug and once you change your batteries over you use your new supplied 24V charger just as you did with your old GEL lead acid charger. The two are not compatible so don’t charge your Li-ion battery with your old lead acid charger and visa versa.
One downside to using Li-ion batteries is the chargers are fan assisted and that means while the batteries are being charged there is the noise of a fan that continuously runs until the batteries are charged then the whole lot closes down. So that means it can be a pain charging the batteries in the same room your watching TV but I’ve found it convenient for me to charged them under my stairs and most folk will have somewhere out of the way to charge them not that its that loud, its just annoying.
Reading up on the workings of Li-ion batteries they have electronics built into the battery casing that monitors each cell with-in so as to make sure each individual cell is kept in tip top condition. How this works when charging the batteries the very first time had me worried? In the instruction manual for the charger it says “if the charger LED does not changed from red to green in a reasonable time then turn the charger off as Li-ion batteries can be damaged by constant charging” hence the charger shutting down as noted above when the batteries are charged. Only thing is, it does not say what a reasonable time is. The guff that comes with the batteries says they are 80% or more charged on delivery and can be used right away. With that in mind and the fact the supplied charger is only a cheap 2 Amp version that takes 6 hours to charge a completely flat battery I took it to charge the batteries should take less than 2 hours given that there already at 80% however after 6 hours the charger and its fan are still going.
Worried that I might damage the batteries I stopped the charging and put the batteries on my scooter (more of that below) and took it for a spin then got back home connected the charger again and after a short while the charger turned itself off so a great relief for me this set up was working as it should.
Li-ion batteries do not have to be charged after every use so this means you can just leave them on the scooter until the battery meter on scooter is showing low but to be sure they don’t run flat while out and about its best to recharge them after about 3 or 4 medium distant uses or if your going to go a long way on them. It does them no harm to charge after every use or every five minutes if you wanted so its up to you and how you use your scooter when to charged, oh and also you can store the batteries long term with no need to trickle charged them if your not using them say like during the winter.
Now using the batteries in my scooter for the past week they have given a massive boost to its performance and although these scooters are governed to 4 MPH it seem like its going that little bit faster and going up hill the scooters battery meter shows no sign of the batteries being put under stress whereas my old GEL batteries would shown a deflection on the meter even when they just came off the charger.
I used the scooter for a full week without recharging but not massive distances but around local supermarkets and B&Q and the likes with battery meter still showing full and I only seen one slight deflection of the meter while going up a very steep inclined at a garden centre.
Not had them long enough to say how much further the scooter will go on one charge but with the scooter being about 7 Kilos lighter that alone would give me another mile or so.
That’s the other advantage of these batteries, they only weigh 25% of the GEL batteries so I can quite literally lift my scooter battery box with my little finger, of my good hand. There is a downside to the less weigh though and that it can make the scooter a bit top heavy so be careful taking bends at full speed. That may sound funny at 4 MPH but I can even get my scooter to do what they call “a hand-brake skid” very slight but put her into a tight turn on a supermarket smooth floor while letting go of the wigwam speed controller sends the back wheels in to a slide, a small slide of a few mm ?but shows how these Li-ion batteries preform over standard batteries.
One last thing is the cost of these batteries and there are no doubts about it, they are expensive, or are they?
The batteries are sold on Amazon and E-Bay and each battery cost about £110 so with there being two of them its about £220 including the charger. It’s the same seller from both of the above with Amazon being about £10 dearer and another thing there is no option for VAT exemptions so you have to pay the VAT but to be honest I never asked but there’s no drop down menu to apply VAT exemption.
At first 200 odd quid sounds expensive but apparently Li-ion batteries last up to 4 times or longer than the old lead acid GEL batteries so long term you should save money but it will be awhile before I can confirm that.
Just one more thing going back to the 12V or 24V charger, on Amazon there is only one option to buy one battery or multiples of but this means you will get a 12V charger however on E-Buy the batteries are listed 3 time, one as Amazon and another with discounts for buy more than one battery but both of these option come with the no good to us 12V charger with crocodile clips however there is a listing for two batteries and a 24V charger with the standard charging plug for scooters just for the likes of us and this is the one you need for mobility pavement scooters.
now that's cooking on gas :|