Quote from: ggemelos on July 25, 2011, 10:31:16 AM
My alternator is fine.  When the bike is on, the volt meter shows 13+ volts.  Which suggests that the Shorai is having problems being charged in series versus the parallel charging that the Shorai charger does.  I switched back to a stock battery this weekend.  In theory the battery sounded nice, but the more I thought about the in series versus parallel charging, I just do not see how they avoid unbalanced charging over the cells unless you are constantly plugging into their charger.  I have contacted Shorai and will post when I hear back from them.     

seems like they could easily fix it internally (but there'd be no need for their charger anymore), or make a wiring harness adapter to plug into that special port.

One potential issue (not sure if it's related to the others) is that the Shorai unit has a higher voltage than the stock charging system is designed for.  This means one of the following scenarios can play out:

1.  You don't use their charger.  As a result, the 13.5 volts that the R/R limits the charging system to is insufficient to fully recharge the battery.  In theory this isn't a problem--you'll just never have a battery that's charged to capacity.

2.  You do use their charger.  Daily.  In this case, every single time you turn on the ignition, your R/R has to shed the excess voltage as heat.  On my bike the alternator kicks out just barely 13.5 volts at idle, so it isn't really shedding anything as heat.  Once RPMs climb it has to do its job, but it also has air flow.  With the battery having been charged externally, you're starting out with excess voltage and the R/R starts draining it and heating up immediately.

Both of these scenarios are because the LiFePO4 batteries kick out, as configured, 14.4 volts fully charged (four 3.6 volt cells wired in series).  They are considered discharged at 11.2 volts.  Now don't get me wrong, converting excess voltage to heat is part of what the R/R is designed for.  But in scenario 2 you're adding in the excess voltage from the battery, which the R/R simply drains and sheds as heat even when at idle.

For comparison, a typical lead-acid battery has a nominal charged cell voltage of 2.105-2.13 volts.  Multiply this by 6 cells and you have a nominal fully charged voltage of 12.63 to 12.78 volts (which is what a charging system output of 13.5-14.5 volts is designed to handle).  LiFePO4 batteries should be charged at 14.4 volts minimum.

This subject has actually been discussed at length on boat forums, where weight and ability to charge fully (via solar or wind) are important, and where loss of battery power is potentially more dangerous.A

My Shorai arrived with ~13.4V measured with a good DMM.

After sitting for a month in it's box it was still at ~13.4V (wanted to sort out some bike issues before installing).

Got the dedicated charger and hit the "charge" mode button.  Got all the right lights and beeps and ~13.4V when complete 20min later.  Put it into "store" mode where it's been for about a week now.  Was expecting to see something closer to 14.4V, but perhaps the Shorai charger does not quite get it to 100% charge.

The Shorai literature says to stay below 14.8V (14.4V peak) with chargers.

Quick driveway test of my monster charging system gave 13.5V at idle and 14.5V at RPM measured at the Yuasa battery.  Not certain how the allegedly archaic ducati R/R behaves out on the road.  Hopefully it regulates well enough to keep the Shorai healthy.

BK

Quote from: Raux on July 24, 2011, 04:01:34 AM
hmmm thinking speedcell isn't a bad option to look at afterall

We've been there and done that.

We have had much worst problems with the cylindrical A123 based batteries like the Speedcell and other LiFe batteries that we have tested.
When overstressed or over charged, they would over heat and fail in much more dramatic fashion than the Shorai or any other battery -often taking parts of the bike with it.
No such reports of dramatic failures with the Shorai to date in thousands of units sold through our shop alone. The Shorai have "fused links" in it that would sacrifice the battery before it overheated to the point in which it would start leaking hot fluid all over the bike.

For example: The OP cranked the bike over 30X before it started with the Shorai. A Speedcell would have overheated.

In one case with a Hi-comp 2V motor, the owner did just that (and a little more) with an undersized Speedcell and it spit hot battery innards all over the bike rear subframe of the bike. The bike was a 100K Vyrus.

You have to treat these batteries differently than a lead acid or AGM battery. Correct battery size is crucial and you don't want to continue cranking on the battery to the point of overheating them as they will continue to try to produce power until it overheats. A healthy charging system is important with any small battery with less reserve. When RR goes bad, you will know right away .

I have the Shorai on 4 of my bikes now. The bikes start faster and never need to be left on a charger even though they are not ridden weeks at a time. They are easier to start in cold weather than the A123 batteries that we used on the same bikes. Shorai is also a bigger company than most of the other A123 based suppliers. They are more responsive and have the resources to take care of problems quickly.

It will be interesting to see how they take care of the problem w/ the OP's battery. They have been very good with our last couple problems we had
Considering how many we have sold, we have not experienced many problems at all. We've had more problems with the Yuasa YTZ7S and Oddysey 310.

-M

What's considered a healthy charging system, or 'healthy enough 'to use with a Shorai?

The voltmeter on my bike (built into the Motogadget classic) never shows a voltage above 13.5v (at about 3K RPM) and it gets as low as 12.0v at idle (12.5v if I turn the lights off)

Quote from: moto on July 26, 2011, 11:27:08 AM
In one case with a Hi-comp 2V motor, the owner did just that (and a little more) with an undersized Speedcell and it spit hot battery innards all over the bike rear subframe of the bike. The bike was a 100K Vyrus.

That's epic in it's horribleness 

Quote from: Drunken Monkey on July 26, 2011, 02:25:55 PM

What's considered a healthy charging system, or 'healthy enough 'to use with a Shorai?

~~~SNIP~~

+1, my voltage regulator did perfectly fine with the conventional batteries for 8 years.

Quote from: kopfjäger on July 23, 2011, 12:28:41 AM
Speed Cell

Nothing but problems...first hand.

Latest was that Josh asked me to send the battery back to him so he could "check" it.  After 6 emails back and forth I've given up.  Kept saying he'd call, replace the battery, now he is out of town, out of country, he's back but busy.

make the beast with two backs speedcell.

Quote from: BK_856er on July 26, 2011, 09:27:01 AM
My Shorai arrived with ~13.4V measured with a good DMM.

After sitting for a month in it's box it was still at ~13.4V (wanted to sort out some bike issues before installing).

Got the dedicated charger and hit the "charge" mode button.  Got all the right lights and beeps and ~13.4V when complete 20min later.  Put it into "store" mode where it's been for about a week now.  Was expecting to see something closer to 14.4V, but perhaps the Shorai charger does not quite get it to 100% charge.

The Shorai literature says to stay below 14.8V (14.4V peak) with chargers.

Quick driveway test of my monster charging system gave 13.5V at idle and 14.5V at RPM measured at the Yuasa battery.  Not certain how the allegedly archaic ducati R/R behaves out on the road.  Hopefully it regulates well enough to keep the Shorai healthy.

BK

Just FYI, I had some communication with Shorai today regarding my 13.4V vs. the expected post-charge 14.4V.  I performed a second charge cycle and watched the DMM throughout.  Sure enough, the Shorai charger took the battery slowly up to 14.4V and then completed the cycle, leaving the battery at 14.4V (still at 14.4V 30min later).  Seems to be working/measuring correctly.  My earlier discrepancy might be due to surface charge dissipating or ??.  Need to get this baby installed and shed some pounds!

BK

I have a little LFX14 in M900 (hi comp). It starts the bike in the cold just fine but you can tell it's working hard on the first crank after a couple of squirts of the accelerator pump has bumped the compression up even further. Could have got 18 but the little bugger just digs deep and does it!

My LFX18 has been sitting for 1 3/4 months.  Started with the first press of the button. 

I have one for my new-to-me Bandit (1216!), so once the tank and tail section are bolted up (they're out for paint), I can report on their behavior on a non-Ducati.

Quote from: Speeddog on July 26, 2011, 02:31:14 PM
+1, my voltage regulator did perfectly fine with the conventional batteries for 8 years.

Well, correlation isn't causation but at the same time I think I'll stick with lead acid for the time being 

Mine arrived from Motowheels today, and I couldn't resist taking this two-finger picture:



I'll know more once I get a chance to replace the dead stator (which, hopefully, didn't take out my one hour old regulator when it shorted to ground...)

Quote from: TAftonomos on July 26, 2011, 06:46:53 PM
Nothing but problems...first hand.

No problems at all...first hand. Cranks first time, no matter how long it sits.

Quote from: kopfjäger on August 01, 2011, 10:57:54 PM
No problems at all...first hand. Cranks first time, no matter how long it sits.

Good for you.  You find out how good a company is or isn't the first time you have trouble with their product.  In my case, I got hosed.  If they arn't going to fix it after telling me they would, I'm not going to shut up about it.