Do I have a problem?

[Spinalot]

I am told in the manual that I need to condition my battery by using it all up and charging three times. Before today I did about ten miles and then today I did maybe six or seven and my battery ran out. This is alot less than the seventy five miles it is supposed to do. I live in a very hilly area and I weigh 16 stone so I was expecting to not get the full amount they say but what I am getting seems very low. The amount I am getting would not even get me into the city centre and back, it is only a twenty mile round trip.
Another issue I had was the lights were one solid light and one flashing according to the manual this indicates that there is 40% remaining. It went from that to only one light flashing, with no in between step from indicated 40% to less than 10%.
So my question is, Is the battery "conditioning" going to even things out and allow the battery to last longer and is the drop off from 40% to less than 10% normal or do you think there is a fault somewhere?
I am more than a little concerned so I am posting this here as there is no one at 50Cycles today.

 

[Zebb]

How long have you left the battery on charge for.?

 

[Spinalot]

When I got the bike home it took about three to four hours to fully charge.

 

[Old_Dave]

This is alot less than the seventy five miles it is supposed to do.

So errrrrrrrr who told you to expect that

A high mileage is possible (I suppose) if you weigh 6 stone, peddle like mad on a mainly down hill trip.. but 75 miles for Joe Average on journey average is a kinda* pushing the bounds of reality.

* used the word 'kinda' to be kind, I would of preferred to use an F word... but didn't want to join into the recent dissing of a certain retailer

EDIT.. just looked at the web site link

"Max range around 75 miles" ... thats means max which is not related to any average based on reality.

 

[Zebb]

Ok, I would leave it to charge for 12 hours the first few times, so the charger balances the cells, going up hills using the power will eat the amps, plus its cold so that wont help at all. Where did you get the 75 miles from.?

The more you pedal the less the current draw on the battery.

 

[Old_Dave]

hilly area and I weigh 16 stone

The distance you have obtained so far may improve slightly .... but don't hold your breath

 

[103Alex1]

When I got the bike home it took about three to four hours to fully charge.

You need to condition those batteries. I ran mine to power off twice before starting to do top-up charging. The range increased considerably after the 1st two charges. First one dropped off sharply like you have reported.

If your area is very hilly and you are 16 stone, and use maximum power assist at all times and don't cycle above 15mph you should get about 30 miles out of the battery, a little less in cold weather. Charge the battery inside if you can at least to start off with.

I get about 38-42 miles now when using the battery for stop-start town riding / hilly rides on max assist carrying load and I weigh about 10st. You can easily get 75 miles on Sport/Eco mode in regular terrain especially if riding relatively fast on flat so you're not drawing peak power a lot of the time.

 

[Zebb]

I have a 10amp battery which with me doing quite a bit of the pedaling on the flat, with me 12 stone, i can get 30 miles. so you should be able to see what you could expect out of your bike.250 watt brush-less motor.

 

[jackhandy]

Welcome to the realworld of ebikes. Range figures like these are bandied about by sellers all the time.

Yes it will probably improve as summer aproaches - somewhat.

 

[Spinalot]

Thanks for the replies so far. The range is less of and issue than the way it went from supposed 40% (first light solid second light flashing) to less than 10% (one light flashing) with no in between step. This would make me think I have a certain range left and be, not just a bit off, but way off. Kind of like my old Vauxhall cavalier fuel gauge would go from 1/4 tank to empty in a few miles.

 

[RobF]

Range lights tend to go out quickly after the first one goes out.

My understanding is the batteries are designed to give full whack for as long as possible, but that means they go flat quickly when they start to go.

The range lights follow that pattern, so they need careful interpretation.

On the Brommie, two lights left out of three is nowhere near 66 percent of use left, it's more like 15 percent.

 

[103Alex1]

^^ this. I don't have the model you have, Spinalot - mine has an LCD which gives a number of miles left estimator based on the power level selected so it's the same battery but a different output. I did get quite fast tail-offs during the early charges - caught me by surprise actually. But then the early miles shown as remaining capacity took way longer than travelled miles to drop down.

Same effect really - just a different output. I reckon your "old Vauxhall" effect is mirrored in pretty much every battery meter installed on eBikes to a greater or lesser extent. You get used to it - and some are more reliable than others - but it's just a guide. I'm sure others can explain the technical reasons for the non-linear drop that's mirrored in your remaining capacity indicator lights.

The main thing is making sure you get the capacity / range out of your battery overall, then you can adapt to interpret the capacity indicator accordingly.

Take any capacity indicators with a pinch of salt (even the predictive ones make assumptions about terrain and conditions versus battery use based on past inputs and not future expectations ... sometimes you get a nice surprise and other times they turn out to be over-optimistic.

 

[Kudoscycles]

Spinalot,
Unfortunately so many sellers use the words 'up to' or 'maximum',these words render the range figures pretty meaningless. Put Bradley Wiggins,told to pedal hard, on a Kudos Ibex bike,on the flat,with the wind behind and on minimum PAS setting and the KUDOS IBEX BIKE WILL HAVE A RANGE UP TO 100 MILES.
We try to be reasonable about achievable ranges-Jim and Jazper use their Kudos bikes on varied terrain,perhaps they could give some impartial idea of ranges they achieve,Jim has 10 Ah and Jazper 9Ah.
I looked at the spec on the Kalkhoff Agattu C8 impulse-I assume that is your bike? It has crank drive and a 15Ah battery? The crank drive we have found to be 10% more efficient than hub drive,because you can select the correct torque setting for any hill.
Our 'rule of thumb' is for average riding,rider weight and terrain you should achieve 3 miles per Ah battery,so if the bike were hub drive I would expect 45 miles plus 10% for crank drive,less 20% for your weight,40 miles should be a good average.
Hope that helps
KudosDave

 

[Geebee]

My bike the on the first charge did the same and the range was short, since then the range is greater than spec'ed and the gauge seems to work ok but I have never got it very low since that first effort when it went from 4 of 5 Led's still lit to dead instantly

 

[RichB]

Well I seem to have the exact opposite problem.
Having bought my Cyclotricity this week, I've done an initial 12 hour charge and have been riding around trying to flatten the battery fully for a second 12 hour charge.
Having done 25 miles on high assist mode, for the last two days I've done about 10 miles on throttle only and it still isn't flat!!! The actual battery is still showing 2 green lights out of five.
Shouldn't complain I suppose.

 

[flecc]

I second what KudosDave has said above. 12 watt/hours per mile is a reasonable average e-bike consumption, giving you 43 miles from your 540 watt/hour battery. A minimum would be about 35 miles if using the high power mode unnecessarily, a maximum for you going all out to put in the most effort from yourself might achieve well over 60 miles.

 

[johnc461165]

Quote A high mileage is possible (I suppose) if you weigh 6 stone, peddle like mad on a mainly down hill trip.. but 75 miles for Joe Average on journey average is a kinda* pushing the bounds of reality...........

That means I need to move house and loose 10.5 stones in weight

 

[Old_Dave]

Yes John....

But that goes for most of us


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[flecc]

Yes John....

But that goes for most of us

How smug I feel at 10 stone 1 lb this morning!

It had crept up to 10 stone 9 lbs six weeks ago, that was time to act so the 8 lbs lost since then.

 

[Spinalot]

Thanks for all the replies and advice.
I am somewhat relieved but still a little perturbed as I only got at most 20 miles. I am crap at estimating distance, compounded by the fact that the journeys were over two days. But I am pretty certain I have not been further so I seem to be getting less than I should.
I will do as suggested by some and wait a few charge cycles and see what changes. Hopefully it is a combination of, my poor judgement, battery conditioning and learning to use the right gear in the right situation. A bike computer will help alot, better head down to Decathlon and grab one. I think they have some basic ones under a tenner.