How can I cheaply replace a Powabyke Euro battery pack

[mikeonb4c]

Hello

I'm new to this forum and this is my first post.

I recently bought a Powabyke Euro and am very happy with it except for one thing. A replacement battery for it seems to cost around £135 from a v quick internet trawl. Since I presume it is just 3 x 12v motorbike batteries linked in series, this seems very expensive and has a significant impact on the economic benefit of my e-bike over using the car. I'm very keen to 'go green' but I feel e-bike suppliers are taking a short term view towards their captive market and this in turn will inhibit market growth.

But to be specific, anyone know if you can do a DIY job on replacing the internals of these bespoke battery packs? If so, what woud be the right battery to get (i.e. suitable for the discharge rates involved including full discharge / recharge ability).

Whilst writing, I've been told the battery will do around 200 full cycles befor it gives up. I'm using it daily for a a 10 mile thereand back commute and it is taking 2hrs to recharge as against 4hrs for a full recharge. Does thsi mean I may get 400 charges (or at least rather more than 200 charges) since I'm only partially discharging it each day?

Grateful for any advice and thanks.

Mike

 

[flecc]

Yes, anyone can replace the batteries inside the pack Mike, but I'm not sure offhand which ones you have. Once you ascertain that you can buy them from Maplin or on the internet, ebay for example.

Actually, the price you mention is cheap compared with NiMh or Lithium batteries, where prices on 36 volt units range from £250 to about £500, though they they do last a bit longer usually. There's no fixed absolute life or number of charges on batteries, it varies according to individual use, but in general, part charges don't completely count as full charges so you should be ok for some while.

Powabyke always used to do an exchange scheme where you got money back on a battery swap of old for new, since many parts can be recycled. I don't know if that's still running, but it's worth checking via their site.

P.S. Here you are, I've got the answer from their site, copied below:

"Battery recycling costs £115 through our recycling programme and includes the collection of your old battery and its return complete with new battery cells. The service normally takes two weeks. In most cases, your local dealer can provide a much faster turnaround time. Total running cost works out at roughly 1.5p per mile."
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[mikeonb4c]

Thanks flecc - wow,what a quick reply!

I guess I'll have to see how I can undo the Powabyke battery pack cover to get a look at the batteries (it doesnt look obvious on a quick glance) and/or speak with one of the e-bike battery suppliers. One of these - I've just discovered on ebay - advertises Powabyke packs @ £96+£10 postage approx. which is cheaper than Powabykes recycling scheme (see ebay item 170147214571). Also on ebay they seem to offer the same standard of battery is as used by Powabyke for £25ea +£10 carriage (item 170147214575), so it sounds like this may be the way to go (although I did see some discussion about buying Yuasa batteries from RS Components when I browsed this forum a little whie ago - maybe cheaper?)

Mike

 

[flecc]

I know some other members have used ebay Mike, but it's certainly worth checking all options.

We try to be quick to answer in this forum, and actually my answer was a quite slow response, it's often only a few minutes. That's because it was in the Battery FAQ section and missed for a while. You'll usually get the quickest answers in the main Electric Bicycles forum, since it's there that everyone is usually browsing.

That's why you've only seen one answer so far.
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