do you have weight savings listed?

I have one coming to replace my speedcell on Monday.  Bought it from moto, excellent service as usual.

Do they come with a balance plug?

Also, if the pricing is less than $50 for a charger, great.  If not, you can buy a decent digital charger that will work for 40-50 and will also work for Lipo's, nicad and niMh, as well as FE (regular) batteries.

The Shorai batteries for our bikes weight between 1.61 and 2.28 lbs.
The stock batteries on older monsters ( Battery: YB16AL-A2 ) weigh about 11 lbs
The stock batteries on late model monsters after 2000 (Battery: CYT12B-BS ) weigh about 9 lbs.

So one can save about 7-9lbs of weight by going to this battery.

Keep in mind smaller batteries will have less reserve capacity--so you don't want to leave the lights on when parked. If the bike has a constant draw from an alarm, you should keep it on a 2 AMP or higher battery maintainer.

Shorai has just released a new maintainer for their battery:


Shorai Dedicated Battery Management System

I know the smaller 1.5amp battery tenders don't work well with the Speedcell. I was told to use a 6amp or higher for those. We used the ODYSSEY Ultimizer Battery Charger/Maintainer: 6amp on the Shorai but have not used the new Shorai charger.

I have not seen anything for the euro wall plugs - I will check.

You don't need anywhere near 2amps to maintain a battery.  Even a really hungry alarm won't pull more than 100mA (and most should be more like 20mA or less).  Batteries tend to live the longest if not aggressively charged.  I'd use the .75amp battery tender junior or .8amp waterproof tender. 

I bought my battery 3 days ago directly from shorai (they are local for me). I had a long 20 minute chat with the owner about the charger (the battery wasnt my concern but the charging was).

So here's what I got out of the conversation.

1) Lead acid batteries due to their design, naturally stop accepting charge when they are full. So if you have a multi cell lead acid, a normal charger can keep pumping the same amps into the battery and the juice will go to the empty cells and not the charged cells. This means that lead acids are naturally self balancing.

2) LiFePo's dont work this way. If you have a multi cell lithium battery (like the shorai, ballistic, speedcell, etc), each individual cell will accept charge past its designed capacity. According to the owner, the shorai's have a built in overcharge protection to prevent this (which is good)

3) There's a catch. Lets say one of your cells is fully charged and three are not (aka charge imbalance). According to the owner, if one cell is fully charged, the overprotection circuit will prevent charging of the other cells (which are in series) to keep any one cell from going over its designed limit. Which means that the charge imbalance is not resolved and the other three cells are not fully charged. Over time this will lead to faster decay of the uncharged cells.

4) The shorai charger (and batteries) have a separate port (not the positive and negative leads of the battery) where they connect. This lead is tied into each cell directly not via series so technically each cell can be charged individually if there is a charge imbalance.


Bottom line, your battery will only be as good as its weakest link in the chain. Its like putting 1 good and one dead battery in your TV's remote control, it still aint going to work. Over time, all these batteries will have a charge imbalance. The owner was kinda walking around the issue by saying its not an issue if you use the bike regularly BUT its a small but important difference between lead acid and lithium style batteries that greatly affects longevity. Sure if you ride regularly this is going to be less of an issue but if you store the bike for the winter (like many of us do), its probably going to be better if you got the balanced charger than use a standard one that you may already have.

Since its coming up on summer I will probably hold off on buying the shorai charger until winter comes around. Ill be riding more frequently for now anyways.

I hope this helps clear things up.

Quote from: bikepilot on May 13, 2011, 07:01:44 AM
You don't need anywhere near 2amps to maintain a battery.  Even a really hungry alarm won't pull more than 100mA (and most should be more like 20mA or less).  Batteries tend to live the longest if not aggressively charged.  I'd use the .75amp battery tender junior or .8amp waterproof tender. 

It clearly says on the BOX in BOLD dont use trickle chargers or chargers with desulfication modes (this is a setting where excess voltage is applied to a lead acid to improve storage capacity)

I would follow the instructions on the box.

Quote from: bikepilot on May 13, 2011, 07:01:44 AM
You don't need anywhere near 2amps to maintain a battery.  Even a really hungry alarm won't pull more than 100mA (and most should be more like 20mA or less).  Batteries tend to live the longest if not aggressively charged.  I'd use the .75amp battery tender junior or .8amp waterproof tender. 

What does that mean? If my Scorpio alarm is left on for weeks, it's proven by me that it's bad for the battery. Unless I use a charger, which I can't with no winter storage outlet available. If it pulls 100mA - how long before a substantial part of the juice is drained? Is there an easy formula?

Quote from: EEL on May 13, 2011, 07:04:34 AM
.....
.......
.........

I hope this helps clear things up.

Yes, it does - thank you!

Quote from: EEL on May 13, 2011, 07:11:20 AM
It clearly says on the BOX in BOLD dont use trickle chargers or chargers with desulfication modes (this is a setting where excess voltage is applied to a lead acid to improve storage capacity)

I would follow the instructions on the box.

I agree and a battery tender isn't a trickle charger and is specifically approved by Shorai.  I was just saying NOT to use a 2-amp charger as a prior poster said to do.

Quote from: stopintime on May 13, 2011, 07:26:17 AM
What does that mean? If my Scorpio alarm is left on for weeks, it's proven by me that it's bad for the battery. Unless I use a charger, which I can't with no winter storage outlet available. If it pulls 100mA - how long before a substantial part of the juice is drained? Is there an easy formula?

Not really because you cant quantify how much battery life is remaining. Realistically, the long term storage issue is resolved by just pulling the negative cable off the battery. Other option is to pull the battery and put it in the fridge if you dont want to charge. I doubt that helps you if you need to have the bike secured during storage. I opted for the LFX 18 model for the larger storage capacity.

battery fits like a glove. It conveniently has just the right amount of room for my power commander to slip right in next to the battery.

Just checked the temperature under the tank after a ride and the battery was sitting at 110 to 140F.  I'm curious to see what the life of these batteries is, as some literature (from FMA in Frederick, MD, USA) indicates a reduced number of charge cycles when operated at temperatures higher that 140F

Yeah im a little concerned about that too, but I'm wondering what constitutes a cycle. A lot of the battery tests I saw involved the LiFePO4 batteries as the primary source of power (like hobby planes, robots, etc) where these batteries are fully drained and recharged on a regular basis. On a normal street bike, its used for literally 2 seconds of juice before the alternator takes over. I dont know if those tests would have any correlation or not.

Guess we'll both have to wait and see.

Quote from: bikepilot on May 13, 2011, 07:01:44 AM
You don't need anywhere near 2amps to maintain a battery.  Even a really hungry alarm won't pull more than 100mA (and most should be more like 20mA or less).  Batteries tend to live the longest if not aggressively charged.  I'd use the .75amp battery tender junior or .8amp waterproof tender. 

LiFe batteries like the Speedcell and even some AGM batteries like Oddysey will not charge on a 1.5, .8 or .75 battery Tender. You are thinking about traditional lead acid batteries. The Shorai battery charger is 2 amps.

The Speedcell and most A123 batteries I have used like 6 amp or more to charge it. The little battery tenders tend to cause damage to the A123 batteries from our past experience. Speedcell does not recomend the small chargers less than 6 amp.

-M

I see the LFX18 L2 is still out o' stock... i got one of themthere old Monsters using the "L" polarity, and my one-off battery box uses the case size "2".   Any word when these will be coming in?


AND, the picture for the Shorai charger leads me to believe it can charge more than one... is that right or no?  (looks like two ports on the side to me)

Got my shorai today.  It's pretty remarkable how this small/light thing can replace a heavy lead-acid battery.  Would take a gazillion dollars in Ti/carbon fiber/etc to match the overall weight reduction.  Very impressive.

BK