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Re: Corroded battery terminals. home made lithium battery p
Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 7:49 am
by Triangles
Monday night it's supposed to get down to -16°F for S&G's I'll try to start it Tuesday morning.
Re: Corroded battery terminals. home made lithium battery p
Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 10:03 pm
by Turbojoe
Triangles wrote:Monday night it's supposed to get down to -16°F for S&G's I'll try to start it Tuesday morning.
Good luck on that one with any chemistry battery!
I've been lucky and it hasn't been below 41 degrees in a while so starts have been uneventful. I still need to put together that emergency back up pack and connector because I know we'll have some cold nights again soon.
Joe
Re: Corroded battery terminals. home made lithium battery p
Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2014 7:40 am
by Triangles
It got down to -15°F overnite and it was -13°F when I got up to try and start the bike. I "woke up" the battery enough to get it turning over but after about 5 mins my hands were starting to freeze so I gave up. I guess -13°F is too cold for Lithium batteries.
I'm not sure if it was metal shrinkage from the cold or thick oil, but you can hear in the video the starter clutch slips a number of times! I guess there is not enough friction for it to function properly at those cold temps. You'll also see me fiddle with the key a couple of times. I don't know why but the oil/water lights weren't coming on. I figured flipping the key a couple times might correct this. I might have gotten it to start if I continued but my bare hands couldn't handle the cold any longer. Also on a side note late in the day at a balmy -1°F I was able to start the bike and let her warm up while I cleared the snow off the driveway. It was probably aided by the fact the bike had been in the warm approximately 30°F garage all day. Based on my experience with this battery I would say; 10°F+ no problem starting, 0-10°F may or may not start, and below 0°F unlikely to start.
Re: Corroded battery terminals. home made lithium battery p
Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 12:20 pm
by Triangles
I was tossing around some ideas to help in cold weather and I began to ponder adding some super capacitors. I began searching and found this video which is exactly what I want to try.
the guy was able to use these without a battery but they would discharge over a couple days. He posted in a follow up video that he added a lithium iron phospate RC pack to make a hybrid setup as I was pondering. Should be interesting to see how well this works. Unfortunately I probably won't have time to try it this year but I might get something assembled over the summer for next winter.