CHARGER DIFFERENCES??

[mr harris]

hi all i have a kalkhoff pro connect with the 26v 18 ah panasonic battery i need a replacement charger, the 26v charger on 50cycles is the one i need BUT they have a fast charger for 18ah & 24ah batteries for near on the same price

does anyone know how much faster this charger is and does a fast charger decress the life of the battery at all?
also can the ipulse chargers work with these batteries although the only one i could find on 50cycles is 36v

any info would be a great help so thanks in advance

 

[flecc]

As a general rule with lithium batteries, the faster the charge, the greater the battery stress so the shorter the battery life, but that does vary with the particular battery chemistry in use.

I don't know that faster charger at all so cannot pass any judgment on it and don't even know if it's suitable for the Panasonic brand battery. Kalkhoff introduced their own brand BMZ-made Kalkhoff batteries later so the fast charger was probably designed for those.

So I'd judge by which battery you have. If the battery casing is branded Panasonic, play safe and buy the usual charger. If the battery case is branded Kalkhoff you'll be safe with the faster charger.

Internally the two batteries can be quite different. For a long time Panasonic favoured using soft pouch battery cells, while Kalkhoff-BMZ have always used 18650 hard cylindrical cells.
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[mr harris]

Hi flecc thanks for your input the battery i have is branded kalkhoff, i just assumed it was made by panasonic as all the info i can find online states panasonic,even on 50cycles it only gives you a choice between panasonic and impulse chargers & batteries -as thier main tiltle pluss theres realy no information/description on any item

this may seem like a silly question but would the impulse 36v charger work with my battery ,the main docking part looks to be the same shape?

 

[flecc]

That is definitely not a Panasonic battery. Kalkhoff's first e-bikes from late 2007 used the Panasonic unit but after a while they decided to supply their own name branded batteries with it, made for them by German battery company BMZ.

You can use the bottom two chargers on this webpage, but definitely not the 36 volt charger.

On the fast charger where they say "for Panasonic 18 and 24 Ah". that really means use with the Panasonic unit. Panasonic have never made a battery for their unit larger than 16 Ah, that charger being for the BMZ batteries like yours.

So either of those bottom ones, the slow charger for maximum battery life, the fast charger for convenience but possibly slightly shorter battery life, though that wouldn't be especially noticeable with your BMZ battery.
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