sla batteries

electric.mike

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jan 16, 2007
342
49
grimsby
just a quick question do sla batteries need a few disharge and recharge cycles before they reach there best or is it there straight away.
mike:confused:
 

Beeping-Sleauty

Esteemed Pedelecer
Dec 12, 2006
410
5
Colchester, Essex
Hi Mike
i have SLA on my Whirlwind and found that i get better mileage after leaving the charger on for a couple of hours after the light has gone green, this may be due to the batteries rebalancing, but at the moment i get better range now than i did when the bike was new four months ago.

i get the impression from other electric bikers that SLA are old hat, but having seen the range they quote, i get more miles per charge, double on average and this bike weighs in excess of 40kgs, perhaps this is because i always pedal and never allow the battery to do all the work, but i'm not really sure.

hope this helps,
beeps



just a quick question do sla batteries need a few disharge and recharge cycles before they reach there best or is it there straight away.
mike:confused:
 

electric.mike

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jan 16, 2007
342
49
grimsby
beeps
its just i have had my two 15 month old sakura packs rebuilt, and one seems to be better than the other, i didnt want to complain if they may need time to settle in.
thanks
mike
 

Beeping-Sleauty

Esteemed Pedelecer
Dec 12, 2006
410
5
Colchester, Essex
Mike,
you could try leaving the batteries charging overnight, i read this somewhere else and tried it out of curiosity, something to do with cell balancing and the improvement was about 10%,
good luck,
beeps

beeps
its just i have had my two 15 month old sakura packs rebuilt, and one seems to be better than the other, i didnt want to complain if they may need time to settle in.
thanks
mike
 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
52,765
30,351
I'd agree with Beeping Sleauty about that long charge.

There's no obvious reason why ordinary lead-acid batteries should need other than an initial single charge to reach full capacity, but since SLAs use a paste electrolyte it''s quite possible that three or four charges would improve capacity as the electrolyte evened out the charge content.