Wisper 905se battery price.

[Wisper Bikes]

Retrofit

An old chestnut of a question, I know, but do you have any plans to make the new battery features available as a retrofit to the 2008 model bikes?

Hi Straylight, I am sorry but I do not believe will be able to be retrofitted, however I will email our controller manufacturer now to see if it is possible.

Best regards David

 

[Wisper Bikes]

Seeing Lights

which LED's do people mean? on my 2009 Wisper there is a "traffic light" on the handlebars and also 5 LEDs on the battery, 4 green ones and one red one. I have just completed the third of during the conditioning charges and had only got to the last battery LED but not the red one- as by that time (one green LED) the power was already noticeably sluggish (not quite cutting out like the salisbury does but you could tell the battery was run down) and I didn't want to be stranded!

I've not seen the red LED on the battery light up other than to flash once as you turn the key (maybe thats all its supposed to do?) - haven't found anything in the manual about this.

Hi Alex

Basically (and I mean basically!) the lights on the handle bars show the voltage in the battery, when you use power from the battery i.e. when using assist the Voltage will drop and one or two of lights will extinguish, if you use full throttle the Voltage will drop even more and more lights go out. Wen you stop pulling power from the battery the voltage immediately recovers and the lights go back on again.

The lights on the battery can only be seen when you press the button and therefore gives an accurate reading at all times as no power is being drawn. The red light should flash once when the battery is turned on and will appear when the battery is at it's cut off point.

I have just emailed my battery company and Dapush to give me a full technical explanation how the Dapush system is not effected by the Voltage drop and shows a true reading at all times. I will report back.

All the best David

 

[Wisper Bikes]

LiIFeP04

The new LIFeP04 batteries are expensive But should last 2,000 charge discharge cycles before loosing any capacity not toxic can be put in land fill
Thats what you are paying for

Other lithium type battery s only 500 charge discharges

They are also toxic dangerous can explode and cost over £120 to be disposed off sent to USA . Don't put them in the bin you will pollute the local water supply with nasty s

That is down to the company who imported the battery they have to collect from you and disposed of it at no cost to you Please Check when you purchase a bike with a lithium battery there disposal policy




Frank

Hi Frank

Just to put your mind at rest.

1. Phosphate batteries should last 2000 charges and Li Po should last 1000 We are currently on 638 complete charges and discharges of our 14A Li Po battery and have not yet lost 20% of it's original capacity. This trial has been going on for more than a year. We are all waiting for field trials of Phosphate batteries before we even think of switching.

2. They do not cost £120 to dispose of, indeed we offer a £50.00 discount from the price of a new battery when we get the old battery back, we dispose of them safely and properly for a lot less than the figure you mention. We offer the £50.00 so we can make certain they are not thrown in the river or bin. When we change to Phosphate are you recommending that it is then OK to put them in the bin after their life has expired? Are you suggesting they will have no impact on the environment if we do that?

3. The old chestnut of lithium batteries exploding as a bit of an urban myth, now being dragged up by Phosphate battery manufacturers. There were some problems in the early days but all our batteries and I assume all electric bike batteries have fail safe controls within them to ensure they are perfectly safe.

4. The problem with the Phosphate battery is not the price as much as they do not hold the power as well as a Li Po battery are about 30% heavier and have about 30% more volume. When you guys have solved these problems out we will be very interested in offering the choice of both Li Po and LIFePO4 to our customers. However by the time these problems are sorted I would think the new capacitor technology will have been finalised making both Li Po and Phosphate batteries redundant.

All the best David

 

[Alex728]

AFAIK the "explosion" paranoia came from small scale testing of lithium batteries about 30 years ago - intended for portable radiotelephone equipment used by mobile workers and the Emergency Services.

Of course firemen took a very dim view of hand-held radio sets what set the Fire Station alight when put on charge, thus delaying the uptake of these batteries for some years, until the 1990s... But in those days they hadn't perfected the miniature BMS circuitry used in todays Li-Ion cells.

and there have recently been a few prototype laptops with faulty BMS system (including one I saw take fire in the middle of some tech exhibition, causing a load of Japanese to evacuate their trade stand!) but I trust Wisper and other e-bike manufacturers to put a lot of effort into safety!

Also I think under WEEE regulations it is now a criminal offence to put any sort of batteries and other unwanted electronic equipment in the normal rubbish no matter what type they are..

 

[flecc]

Just to clarify this, the phenomenon of lithium batteries catching fire and exploding resulted from two causes combined, the use of cobalt cathodes and poor manufacturing standards.

When the standards of production cell quality fell, it was possible for the imperfect materials to form metallic particles of lithium within the cells under normal working conditions. These grow with a sharply jagged form and eventually would puncture the insulating films and cause a dead short between poles. The resulting high internal electrical discharge caused fire generating heat which in turn resulting in a runaway failure with an explosion.

The initial cure was for cobalt to be abandoned as a cathode material circa 2006 and replaced with completely safe manganese. Since then, research has re-enabled the use of the superior properties of cobalt as a cathode in complete safety with complex compound cathodes using several elements. The particulate construction of today's polymer types has rendered these even safer yet and no-one should have any fear of them in normal use.
.

 

[MR Xipi]

lLIPEp04 Batteries

Hi I did NOT say put Batteries in land Fill I said call the battery supplier He must collect them free and dispose of them correctly

Most good suppliers

will ask you to put your old battery in the packing the new battery came in

and supply a potage free return label

Lead acid batteries your local council recycling Centre will have a container for old car battery s or bike battery s or UPS Battery s they sell them at a profit

If you cant return any type off battery I suggest you ask your local recycle centre which container to put them in you must not NOT put any type of battery in the rubbish BIN IE battery s from you TV remote or toys or watch battery s most places where you purchase domestic battery should have a recycle bin for your old battery s


LIFep04 battery s at 2,000 charges should still be 100 percent capacity

Thanks Frank

 

[Wisper Bikes]

Thanks Frank

I was misunderstanding you I thought you were saying Phosphate batteries were safe to dispose of any where you wanted.

If a Phosphate battery is still at 100% capacity after 2000 charges why do you say it only has a life of 2000 charges?

If that is the life of the battery what is it that goes wrong with them at 2001 charges?

I am seriously interested in Phosphate batteries but mixed messages like this keeps me tied to the tried and tested Li Po chemistry.

Best regards David

 

[Wisper Bikes]

Thanks Flecc

Just to clarify this, the phenomenon of lithium batteries catching fire and exploding resulted from two causes combined, the use of cobalt cathodes and poor manufacturing standards.

When the standards of production cell quality fell, it was possible for the imperfect materials to form metallic particles of lithium within the cells under normal working conditions. These grow with a sharply jagged form and eventually would puncture the insulating films and cause a dead short between poles. The resulting high internal electrical discharge caused fire generating heat which in turn resulting in a runaway failure with an explosion.

The initial cure was for cobalt to be abandoned as a cathode material circa 2006 and replaced with completely safe manganese. Since then, research has re-enabled the use of the superior properties of cobalt as a cathode in complete safety with complex compound cathodes using several elements. The particulate construction of today's polymer types has rendered these even safer yet and no-one should have any fear of them in normal use.
.

Thanks Flecc, may I pinch that explanation, so succinct.

You truly are the man and font of all knowledge!

All the best David

 

[flecc]

Please feel free to use that as you wish David.
.

 

[Mussels]

Just to cclarify this, the phenomenon of lithium batteries catching fire and exploding resulted from two causes combined, the use of cobalt cathodes and poor manufacturing standards.

When the standards of production cell quality fell, it was possible for the imperfect materials to form metallic particles of lithium within the cells under normal working conditions. These grow with a sharply jagged form and eventually would puncture the insulating films and cause a dead short between poles. The resulting high internal electrical discharge caused fire generating heat which in turn resulting in a runaway failure with an explosion.

The initial cure was for cobalt to be abandoned as a cathode material circa 2006 and replaced with completely safe manganese. Since then, research has re-enabled the use of the superior properties of cobalt as a cathode in complete safety with complex compound cathodes using several elements. The particulate construction of today's polymer types has rendered these even safer yet and no-one should have any fear of them in normal use.
.

Do you know what the recent problem was with Sony batteries (The exploding Dell laptops used Sony cells)?

 

[flecc]

It's the same Mussels. The cobalt cathode that was commonly used in laptop batteries, as in most lithium batteries originally, when subject to poor quality control of the cell content purity could form sharp crystalline metal particulates which behaved as I described.

When lithium batteries were first produced, among the dozen or so suitable cathode materials, cobalt was the highest ranking that could be used with the knowledge that existed at that time, so it became universal. There was nothing wrong with that if the cells were made with sufficiently rigorous production standards, it was sloppy production that caused the problem. Cobalt cathode batteries have performed perfectly for well over a decade now, and we watch TV via satellites powered during their once a day dark phase by cobalt cathode lithium batteries that last a minimum of ten years. They haven't caused any of the explosions seen in "Casualty" on BBC1!

The manganese that was adopted as an emergency measure after many fires is inferior to cobalt as a cathode and that lead to the premature failures in some of our bike batteries when used with powerful motors, eZee suffering the most with that.

The theoretically most perfect cathode material is iron, but it's taken years to find out how to use it, though with iron phosphate that has now been realised. Once we learn how to mass produce them with complete reliability, no doubt we'll all use them.
.