Let's talk Battery Replacement

[bonesteel]

Did a search here, but did not see a thread on the topic. Is it worthwhile to spend up on a gel type or is something like this perfectly fine?

http://www.beiterbattery.com/toyo12volt1820ahslabattery.aspx

My bike will be back from the shop this week and the one thing beyond basic work I had done it needs is a battery, which even I can do myself.

TIA

JB

[Justin B.]

I have one of these in my R100 and wife's R65.

http://www.staabbattery.com/product/sla-12/UB12220-V.html

[skippyc]

I wish i could get a battery for twice that price over hear my last battery cost me more then 3 times that amount.

[Tony Smith]

I wish i could get a battery for twice that price over hear my last battery cost me more then 3 times that amount.

I could not agree more Skippy. A constant source of wonder to me is the price our American brothers and sisters can buy batteries for.
 
Locally I've made the reviewable decision to fit AGL batteries for their low maintenance and leak-proof nature.

I'd love to try a lithium battery, but am not prepared to mortage a kidney for one.

I have tried four brands of AGL battery.

Panasonic - really unable to comment of quality or longevity  as I was sharked by a fleaBay seller and the battery I bought was 2.5 years old at purchase (I now know to look at the manufacture date, so I suppose I owe him thanks for a cheap lesson). Suffice it to say it was initially just fine, but died a little short of 1.5 years after installation. I contacted Panasonic to complain about their product and was informed that what I had was a UPS battery that was neither rated for, or suitable to be used as a start battery. Lesson learned.

Motobatt, this one died just out of 1 year warranty, it was fitted to the wife's bike prior to all our bikes gaining battery tender connections.  The supplier felt it should have lasted longer and offered a substantial discount on a new one providing we bought another motobatt - it has just passed the one year mark and is just fine.

Volt. I bought this for my R65 to replace the Panasonic, that was now nearly 4 years ago, it is still working just fine. BUT, perusal of motorcycling reviews suggests that my volt battery is a mutant and most reviews are complaining about their short life. I don't think I'll buy one of these again.

Exide. I don't know who really makes these, but they are sold under the Exide brand by SuperCheap Auto. I bought one when the battery that had been fitted to the GSA when I bought it died just before we set out on a two day trip (and what really got my goat is that we had gone for a 100km shakedown ride the evening before to check load distribution, suspension setup etc.). The Exide battery will fit the airheads and are guaranteed to be less than 3 months old (ex-manufacture) when you buy them at Supercheap, and you get a warranty for 2 years (I've lost mine, so it goes). It was also reasonably cheap at $115, a bit more than the volt and a lot less than the original Motobatt.

All in all I reckon I'll be going back to Supercheap for my next battery, unless something with a longer warranty and a cheaper price, backed by positive user reviews, appears in the meantime.


BTW, I consider the local prices of Lithium batteries to be wholesale robbery. There are only a limited number of manufacturers of cells that make up the battery and most of the quality manufacturers use LG cells.

Now I recently bought 4 LG 6.4KwHr 48V Lithium batteries, they cost me $4,400 each including delivery (they weigh about 60kg each). Now if you look at the capacity of the average lithium motorcycle battery and cost them on the same KwHr formula then they should cost about $40. Of course there are packaging, storage costs etc, but $300 is a tad expensive - just saying.

[Justin B.]

Tony, you ever check into the really high capacity Li for solar!  I almost fell out of my chair...

I have one of the Universal batteries in each bike.  Maybe contact Universal Battery and see if they have any distribution down under?

http://www.upgi.com/products/

[Tony Smith]

Tony, you ever check into the really high capacity Li for solar!  I almost fell out of my chair...

I had a long hard look at every conceivable type of storage battery I could find. The primary constraint was that the cost per KwHr had to be within reason and they had to be available here and now, not in 6 months or next year.

The secondary constraint was dictated by the laws relating to grid connected Solar in my jurisdiction, The only Inverters available (at the time) that had an approved "Emergency Power Supply" mode and which were capable of continuous duty in EPS and were "affordable" were made by Solax, this placed further constraints on the type of battery to be used, in fact this turned out to be essentially either Solax's own brand Lithium (quite literally LG RESU battery packs with modified firmware and Solax stickers over the top of LG ones, or LG RESU cells (I chose LG because their firmware only allows discharge to 20% whereas Solax allows to 18%, which is probably the reason Solax warranty is not as good as LG).

I did consider going grid-independant, but due to some really screwy laws here, I woudl still have been paying out local electricity supplier approx $1 per day because their distribution mains are in the ground outside my home.

As regards batteries.

Salt water batteries.
Cheap and cheerful (compared to anything else), the main problem was that I wanted at least 25KwHr reserve capacity and that many salt water batteries would have required buidign a structure to put them in.

Super Capacitors
These are a coming thing, 100% discharge possible without damage, longer life than Lithium and (as in today) price compatible to Lithium. It is a testament to how quickly things are moving in this industry, that when I bought my RESU units they were almost exactly 50% of the price they commanded 12 months prior. At the tiem i bought (three months ago) super capacitors were approximately 135% of the cost of Lithium, they have parity now with Lithium and Lithium batteries have dropped since I bought mine.

Bromide flow batteries.
I so want these to succeed, if for no other reason than they are an Australian invention. 100% discharge without damage, indefinite storage without preparation and without damage, currently guaranteed out to 10 years,. but the manufacturer say privately that that will be extended to 15 years shortly. When they do reach EOL, they can be refurbished cheaply and should then run a full life span again. Drawbacks are the physical size (10KwHr is the size of a 4-drawer filing cabinet) and the need for the battery to perform a complete self discharge and refurbishment process every 14 days, a process that takes 24 hours to complete. This means that if you need (say) 30KwHr of available storage, you have to buy 40KwHr worth of batteries. At the current price of $17k for a 10KwHr battery, that gets expensive pretty fast. The manufacturer, if you are interested, is Zcell, and unfortunately the only inverter currently approved to use with them is a Fronious - good brand but they do not make a grid-tied EPS model (yet).

I have one of the Universal batteries in each bike.  Maybe contact Universal Battery and see if they have any distribution down under?

http://www.upgi.com/products/

Shall do - thanks.

[Tony Smith]

Sorry, just want to tack on one more small comment.

This is out of left field but a small NZ company called Whispergen make a 2.5KVA  stirling engine generator powered by burning diesel. They have just commenced preliminary research to use a solar PV array to electrically heat sodium to liquid form in a insulated vessel and then use the Sodium to provide a heat source for the Stirling engine.

Costs are terrifiying ATM, the existing diesel powered Whispergen is $17k which is an awful lot for 2.5KVA.

But, if it scaled to say 5KVA (enough to run an average home with say 10KwHr worth of batteries and a 5Kw Inverter to provide assistance at times of high load, and the if the entire system, Whispergen, battery, inverter, PV array and sodium heater and containment could be constrained to around $55~$60k, there would be a market given that you would have an alternative fuel capable primary generator (stirling engine would not care whether power came from liquid sodium or burning diesel it would make a magnificent. eco-friendly permanent off-grid power source.

[Barry]

I'm over 4 years in using a cheap generic AGM very similar to the one that you linked and that Justin linked. At the price they are excellent value. I would suggest an expensive AGM such as an ODYSSEY PC680 would have to have a guaranteed life of 10 year to be financially viable by comparison.

[skippyc]

Panasonic - really unable to comment of quality or longevity

My bike came with one of these. I flattened it by leaving the parking lights on so I replaced it with a motobat. It is 10 years old and it charged back up and gets used to power 12v things around my shed including a starter motor which i use to start my stationary engines.