Yeah, but the LiPO in your phone has a very powerful BMS and they still have issues *cough* Samsung. That why I was saying a LiPo without BMS can be dangerous for large numbers of sales.

 

Who says I don't have a BMS? Mine is in the charger.

 

On another thread I have been talking about the "powerful" BMS in my Android tablet. It isn't as powerful as it could be is my conclusion. Samsung have confirmed that the physical constraints of a stupid race to slimness made them install unsafe batteries. That has nothing to do with the BMS which may have been capable of shutting the phone down when it detected a rise in temperature but that wouldn't have done much good anyway.

Hi Ttxela,

 

What is the battery pack and motor you are using?

 

I know that 15 minute charging will not appeal to everyone, we are either looking for someone who wants a lighter pack, more discreet and secure pack or just likes the idea of being able to recharge in time to go grab a drink

 

Thanks[/quote

 

I am riding a Kalkhoff Pro Connect 9G so its their impulse 2.0 drive and a 15Ah battery.

Hi all,

 

I am new to the ebike scene, but my company has started to develop an Ebike battery that can be fully charged in under 15 minutes and will be charged safer than traditional charging (our IP). We are looking to have this tech mainly sold to bike hire schemes (boris bikes) that will be used significantly but we see a market to sell to consumers also. We already have our technology in industrial applications and in single cell products but we are now pushing our technology towards Ebikes..

 

This is not a advertisement or marketing effort so we will not be saying what business we work for; but we are looking for current owners of ebikes to help us out with what really matters to you as owners. We are about 6 months away from full working 150 and 300Wh battery packs that can charge to 100% in under 15 minutes, below are the specification we are looking to achieving.

 

• 48 volt
  
• 32 cells in the pack with 2 in Parallel and 16 in series layout.
  
• The pack will be approximately 60% of the weight of the lead acid cells, saving weight.
  
• 15 minute charging to 100%
  
• 150 & 300Wh Pack
  
• 1500-2000 cycles (0-100% DOD)
  
• Total weight = 3Kg.
  
• Estimated range: 31 Mile (pedal assist).
  

We estimate that we will be able to retail the battery packs price wise to both Shimano and Bosch, we also know that our packs will last longer and be more durable. So 15 minute charging and longer life are the pros, but we will be seeing a slightly heavier pack and a larger charger to be able to power this kit.

 

Can you let me know what you would expect from this kit? What you miss on the current ebike batteries and motors? Desired features? What you think of the specs we have put above, and do you even care about 15 minute charging?

 

We want to really push the design and development to be ready this year but we feel contributions from the community will be a great addition to creating a great product.

 

Thanks,

 

Leigh.

 

Was going to post this on a new thread but yours is a similiar subject so If you don't mind I will post it here.

 

I have been reading (again) this time ‘Bike Europe’ in which it was stated (5thJan) that MIT and Samsung had developed a solid state Battery (no mention of power or capacity but as the article was in ‘Bike Europe’ one would have thought the subject was relevant) that had no degradation that could last for hundreds of thousands of recharge cycles (14,000 yrs for me) that should be ready for 2018. It was also ultra safe pretty near bomb proof.

 

Now there are obvious ramifications to be overcome if this statement is true. To turn out everlasting Batteries for retail sale would, in the long run, be detrimental to Samsung and so the only answer as far as I can see is for Samsung to do a ‘Microsoft’ and offer its Battery ‘on loan’ with a ‘smart’ key that holds all your details for a small initial fee of say £50.00. These Batteries would not be rechargeable ‘at home’ and would have to be exchanged for a fully recharged one at a (Government has said that it intends to see that there is a fully integrated re-charging structure throughout the Country -24hrs) ‘Docking’ Station/Charging Centre where on ‘docking’ the old battery in a specific ‘docking centre’ machine the information on the old batteries ‘key’ would be transferred to the fully charged ‘exchange’ battery thus enabling the exchange battery to work with the old, registered to you, key. (A Battery of this type would be absolutely useless to anyone else and should eliminate attempts at theft of it from your bike or attempted theft damage at the Charging Centre).

 

A suitable fee charging structure would have to be worked out to make the prospect attractive but the prospect has its merits. A Weekend at the Seaside (80 mile away for me) by bike would become a feasible prospect with a bit of planning as to where to pull in for a recharged battery (up to 8 of them for me-there and back, around a tenner sounds about right).

 

My question is: if the above prospect becomes fact and Battery power and capacity reasonable would you give up your present system? and how much would you be prepared to pay for access to exchange batteries? My present Battery worked out at about £60.00 per year plus charging costs so £1.50 per week or £75.00 per year would not be unreasonable as far as I am concerned especially given the advantages. At that rate those of you that had to buy the Bosch £800.00 batteries would be quids in. And what about bike costings? think of it, £800.00 off a Bosch with a £50 battery even I might be tempted to buy one of those then.

 

That’s enough from me

 

 

Linfitter.

Most new bikes are coming with 500w batteries as the market progresses i would personally be delighted if my 500 w could be recharged in an hour never mind 15 mins. The biggest downside I have found on Ebikes is range even with 500w range is around 30 mile. If you developed a charger that could recharge quickly and was light enough to carry that would be fantastic.

Was going to post this on a new thread but yours is a similiar subject so If you don't mind I will post it here.

 

I have been reading (again) this time ‘Bike Europe’ in which it was stated (5thJan) that MIT and Samsung had developed a solid state Battery (no mention of power or capacity but as the article was in ‘Bike Europe’ one would have thought the subject was relevant) that had no degradation that could last for hundreds of thousands of recharge cycles (14,000 yrs for me) that should be ready for 2018. It was also ultra safe pretty near bomb proof.

 

Now there are obvious ramifications to be overcome if this statement is true. To turn out everlasting Batteries for retail sale would, in the long run, be detrimental to Samsung and so the only answer as far as I can see is for Samsung to do a ‘Microsoft’ and offer its Battery ‘on loan’ with a ‘smart’ key that holds all your details for a small initial fee of say £50.00. These Batteries would not be rechargeable ‘at home’ and would have to be exchanged for a fully recharged one at a (Government has said that it intends to see that there is a fully integrated re-charging structure throughout the Country -24hrs) ‘Docking’ Station/Charging Centre where on ‘docking’ the old battery in a specific ‘docking centre’ machine the information on the old batteries ‘key’ would be transferred to the fully charged ‘exchange’ battery thus enabling the exchange battery to work with the old, registered to you, key. (A Battery of this type would be absolutely useless to anyone else and should eliminate attempts at theft of it from your bike or attempted theft damage at the Charging Centre).

 

A suitable fee charging structure would have to be worked out to make the prospect attractive but the prospect has its merits. A Weekend at the Seaside (80 mile away for me) by bike would become a feasible prospect with a bit of planning as to where to pull in for a recharged battery (up to 8 of them for me-there and back, around a tenner sounds about right).

 

My question is: if the above prospect becomes fact and Battery power and capacity reasonable would you give up your present system? and how much would you be prepared to pay for access to exchange batteries? My present Battery worked out at about £60.00 per year plus charging costs so £1.50 per week or £75.00 per year would not be unreasonable as far as I am concerned especially given the advantages. At that rate those of you that had to buy the Bosch £800.00 batteries would be quids in. And what about bike costings? think of it, £800.00 off a Bosch with a £50 battery even I might be tempted to buy one of those then.

 

That’s enough from me

 

 

Linfitter.

It won't happen... electric cars have been around long enough and the infrastructure isn't there to support it, either in this fashion or any indication for the future. The Renault Zoe and Nissan Leaf were designed to allow a quick change of battery (drops from bottom of vehicle)... the Renault dealers have to send for a specialist from France to do any work.

 

As a Zoe owner electric is great and I like the fact I don't own the battery as they are just under £7k to buy but you take deal with degradation risk etc; oddly they have a cost for the battery but dealers here are clueless on replacement of the battery.

 

I would add nothing is useless/worthless (i.e without the key), there is the potential to rework what's in it (well beyond me though there are plenty on here who are competent enough) or just value in materials, e.g when catalytic converters were £50 a pop in scrap they were literally falling off cars overnight.

 

John

From a consumer point of view why reinvent the wheel (ish) with a complete system, your focus appears to be on the battery. Certainly quicker charge times would be welcomed by most users, though an hour would be a good balance... think of the 15 minute battery chargers for AA, AAA batteries etc, the relative purchase price to charge time isn't appealing to consumers.

 

but he didn't re-invent the wheel. The technology is there, the reason it didn't get more traction is because it is a niche requirement. What the customers like more is range. What the suppliers like more is high gravimetric density.

70 miles range is about as much as needed. That's easily accomplished with a 500WH battery.

You come home, plug the charger in and forget all about it until the morning. Or better still, charge only once a week.

this is the 48V 5A fast charger from Luna Cycles:

 

https://lunacycle.com/batteries/chargers/48v-5amp-ebike-lithium-fast-smart-charger/

 

but he didn't re-invent the wheel. The technology is there, the reason it didn't get more traction is because it is a niche requirement. What the customers like more is range. What the suppliers like more is high gravimetric density.

70 miles range is about as much as needed. That's easily accomplished with a 500WH battery.

You come home, plug the charger in and forget all about it until the morning. Or better still, charge only once a week.

Hi Woosh the reference to reinventing the wheel was with regards to the OP looking to produce a full kit... why bother when there are plenty of suppliers out there already?

 

I ride my bike a lot commuting, shopping, leisure etc (500-700 miles a month), all three of our bikes are electric. Large batteries are good if a) you can afford them and take the risk after warranty period b) you want to lug the extra weight round and c) happy to replace if they get stolen (at a higher cost than a smaller battery.

 

Obviously I'm a consumer rather than a retailer, I know from our experience with the bikes and the electric car, that although the selling point is always the range, the reality is that you never do as many miles on a charge as you think.

 

I charge overnight as you describe, however I'd prefer to get back in and charge in say an hour as it gives more flexibility to pop out again later (e.g. early morning ride then to go shopping) or if I go a longer distance and stop at a cafe etc. My biggest dislike is of all the ebikes I've had they have all had different batteries, it's a pain in the backside to have different mounts, connectors etc.

 

 

John

With a 2A charger, every mile you ride will take roughly 6 minutes to recharge, so it's easy to estimate how long it will take to top up and set a wallplug timer to put your mind at rest. A 4A fast charger will take half the time without worrying about BMS compatibility.

Sure, different batteries require different connectors, if I were in that situation, I'll fit Anderson to my charger and get an adaper for each battery. You can find plenty of adapters from Anderson to XLR, to RCA jacks, to XT60, to DC jacks 5.5 etc. -

70 miles range is about as much as needed. That's easily accomplished with a 500WH battery.

 

If only that were true, I'd have to be extremely economical with the assist power on my bike to achieve 70 miles from 500 wh, it's more in the region of 30 miles or less for me.

Whatever you decide I would check out the latest developments on the proposals for new regulations on EU standardization for electric vehicle charging.

 

Check out this site:

 

http://extraenergy.org/main.php?language=en&category=extraenergy&subcateg=&id=88293

Funny really.... I read that article about 'standardisation' and only see intensions of proprieterisation and market control. That's just how they roll in Germany though.

Most new bikes are coming with 500w batteries as the market progresses i would personally be delighted if my 500 w could be recharged in an hour never mind 15 mins. The biggest downside I have found on Ebikes is range even with 500w range is around 30 mile. If you developed a charger that could recharge quickly and was light enough to carry that would be fantastic.

 

 

Our system could likely do a full recharge on a 500Wh pack in 30 minutes. That may suit you?

Hi Woosh the reference to reinventing the wheel was with regards to the OP looking to produce a full kit... why bother when there are plenty of suppliers out there already?

 

I ride my bike a lot commuting, shopping, leisure etc (500-700 miles a month), all three of our bikes are electric. Large batteries are good if a) you can afford them and take the risk after warranty period b) you want to lug the extra weight round and c) happy to replace if they get stolen (at a higher cost than a smaller battery.

 

Obviously I'm a consumer rather than a retailer, I know from our experience with the bikes and the electric car, that although the selling point is always the range, the reality is that you never do as many miles on a charge as you think.

 

I charge overnight as you describe, however I'd prefer to get back in and charge in say an hour as it gives more flexibility to pop out again later (e.g. early morning ride then to go shopping) or if I go a longer distance and stop at a cafe etc. My biggest dislike is of all the ebikes I've had they have all had different batteries, it's a pain in the backside to have different mounts, connectors etc.

 

 

John

 

Hi John,

 

That's the thing, our charging system is fundamentally different to the existing suppliers. We do not charge with DC and that's what makes us different technology wise; just because we have the same casing etc doesn't make us the same as market competitors.

 

Our patents actually originated from try to make a simpler and safer charging system which allowed us not to rely on temperature readings (which are a poor metric) and also found out that Lithium cells lower internal resistance the way we charge; we are also able to sample internal impedance (a very important and accurate metric) on the fly and up to 100 times a second, a serious improving to safety. Our charger acts much more like a portable lab than anything else.

 

So yes, we are very much different to what you see out there are the moment and why we think this is a viable market to enter.

Funny really.... I read that article about 'standardisation' and only see intensions of proprieterisation and market control. That's just how they roll in Germany though.

 

To be honest I can understand why companies like Bosch and Shimano lock down their systems (at least the charger, BMS and cells) as we are going to do the same.

 

The simple reason is safety and liability. If someone creates a cheaper generic battery pack to use on our charger and the cheaper cells develop a fault, where do you think the legal liability will strike first? Us.

 

Locking down the system is a no brainier to be honest, a lot of companies that don't do this either originate in China where the manufacturer will very unlikely face liability or they are a ticking time bomb regarding safety.

 

Unfortunately that is life my friend.

That's helpful, it moves him from a crank trying out ideas to a genuine entrepreneur.

 

Thanks :-)

I suspect manufacturers locking down their battery to stop customers overloading their components.

There are already plenty of Lithium ion charger chips, like the TI-bq-25871/25872 with 1MHz I2C sensing. In what way your system is better than those chips?

Woosh,

 

All of our systems have been made from scratch, the reason is our charger charges batteries in a fundamentally different way, I cannot get into the very fine details but it doesn't charge through DC so we have to develop our own BMS to sense and monitor cell is a different way.

 

What it allows us to do is create a different topology with our charger, so it is more reliable and less complex to push costs lower and maintain a high level of safety through the online analysis on internal impedance.

 

Thanks,

Our system could likely do a full recharge on a 500Wh pack in 30 minutes. That may suit you?

 

That would be awesome would it be available to charge a Bosch battery and if so when do you expect to bring the product to market ?

We are transitioning to this project at the moment, there is always an issue working with other OEM products as most of them have safety features, we will be able to bring out a 500Wh pack of our own if demand is high enough.

 

This is why we wanted to set this topic up to discuss the technological requirements from the community so we can build on our development units. We are not advertising our company or selling products on here as it is against the forum rules.

but it doesn't charge through DC

whichever way you monitor the charging process, the charge current goes one way, so it's the same way for all chargers.

 

That would be awesome would it be available to charge a Bosch battery and if so when do you expect to bring the product to market ?

 

You can't charge your Bosch battery faster. If the charging current exceeds 0.2C (eg 3A for a 500W battery), the BMS has to have sensing circuit to protect the cells. The reason inunell can fast charge his is because he uses LFP cells which can charge 10 times faster than Lithium-ion cells.

whichever way you monitor the charging process, the charge current goes one way, so it's the same way for all chargers.

 

 

 

You can't charge your Bosch battery faster. If the charging current exceeds 0.2C (eg 3A for a 500W battery), the BMS has to have sensing circuit to protect the cells. The reason inunell can fast charge his is because he uses LFP cells which can charge 10 times faster than Lithium-ion cells.

 

 

This doesn't make sense, commercially avalible chargers charge via Direct Current (DC) using a fixed amperage and a ripple free voltage curve until the CC/CV phase has finished. Ours is fundamentally different to DC so it is not the same.

 

You are right about the Bosch BMS, we are also evaluating different cells and do not have a fixed cell type yet, yes we use power dense cells rather than energy dense, but our tech charges those cells up faster and safer than current charging tech. That's why we have the patents behind this process.

This doesn't make sense, commercially avalible chargers charge via Direct Current (DC) using a fixed amperage and a ripple free voltage curve until the CC/CV phase has finished. Ours is fundamentally different to DC so it is not the same.

 

You are right about the Bosch BMS, we are also evaluating different cells and do not have a fixed cell type yet, yes we use power dense cells rather than energy dense, but our tech charges those cells up faster and safer than current charging tech. That's why we have the patents behind this process.

 

 

There are some knowledgeable people on this forum, in order to change the state of charge in a cell one must drive a greater voltage into the cell than the retarding potential difference due to the material. Whether this isas a steady DC , a pulsating DC , Pulse width modulated over voltage or whatever. If it is pulsed, then there is plenty of time to measure resistance during an off time, or even to measure over voltage decay as a function of time as the energy is absorbed . Modern electronics makes these type of monitoring low cost

Anyway I wish you well in your endeavours.

There are some knowledgeable people on this forum, in order to change the state of charge in a cell one must drive a greater voltage into the cell than the retarding potential difference due to the material. Whether this isas a steady DC , a pulsating DC , Pulse width modulated over voltage or whatever. If it is pulsed, then there is plenty of time to measure resistance during an off time, or even to measure over voltage decay as a function of time as the energy is absorbed . Modern electronics makes these type of monitoring low cost

Anyway I wish you well in your endeavours.

 

 

I am not denying that at all, the reason I started this thread was to focus on what we could add to our system to make it work for the community, such as the 30minute 500Wh version, not to talk about the viability of our tech as we know it works.

 

One of the biggest discussions we have been having is the formfactor of the battery casing, most of the products being sold have been focused on the bottle frame style design and there are several options:

 

• Bottle frame style
  
• 'in tube' battery
  
• Panier battery pack
  
• hub battery
  

All of these have their pro's and cons, but the two that have been front running are the bottle style or the in tube, the in tube has a big advantage of harder to be stolen but the frame is a more universal design.

 

What are your experiences and issues with what is on the market at the moment?

Thank you danidl for explaining. I meant exactly that.

Inunell, I wish you well in your endeavour too. I know how hard it is to get a project off the ground, you don't need doom merchants like me to make it more difficult. I concur with Daniel, there are a lot of technical people here on the site, they can help you go further and more cheaply. I think you need to go further than what has been achieved with the likes of the TI charger control chips to make a commercial product. I can envisage a fast pulse charger - piggybacked onto the balance leads.

Edited January 26, 20179 yr by Woosh

I don't think the market needs fast charging. Schwinn tried that with their lithium titanate batteries. They struggled to sell their bikes. In the end, they had to reduce the price of their bikes by 50%. Those batteries could be charged in 5 minutes and have a nearly infinite life. I have a couple if anybody wants to come and get them.

 

Instead, you should concentrate on specific energy. People want light-weight batteries with around 500 Wh.