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Shorai LFX Lithium-Iron Battery Charger

Thanks everyone for all of the useful information. There's a lot here of which some I've found myself.

The upshot is that the battery is toast. ST Guy called it in an earlier post. That battery will not charge because it's been fully discharged. Current voltage, off the bike, is 9.8V! As you'll see from VAR's post with Shorai's table is that the battery shouldn't be discharged below 12.9V. So, lesson(s) learned and a new battery will be bought.

It's likely that I didn't notice the effects of the parasitic draw on my bike beacause I ride pretty much everyday. I'll try to isolate what is causing the problem using the tips in this thread. I should also check the charging system just to be sure that the battery was getting the full charge. Electrical gremlins are not my favourite!
 
Quick class in Lithium batteries

Lithium-Ion - most common in consumer electronics/power tools. They are in basically every computer/electronic gizmo you can think of. Not in use for super high amperage draw for anything that I'm aware. For stuff that draws a little bit of energy at a time (ie: not to start an engine, but your phone has one)

Lithium Phosphate (or Lithium Iron Phosphate) - newest up and coming and considered the 'safest' of the Lithium chemistries when the batteries fail or vent. Pretty decent discharge rate for high amperage applications

Lithium Polymer - known as the most dangerous but also the highest current capable of the 3. These are the ones I use in my RC Airplanes. They discharge fast but they are very finicky and can explode and fuck your shit up.

All these batteries need to be treated with respect. If they ever catch fire or vent...if you EVER see smoke coming out of them or fire...walk or run away. That's Hydroflouric Acid and it will basically screw up your internal organs and can kill you.

Look up HF poisoning for more detail.







Consumer grade Lithium cells generally hold around 3.7 volts fully discharged and 4.2 volts fully charged. That's right - they work in a .5 volts range. They can drop to around 3-ish volts before the cells go bad but generally you don't want to do that to them. If more than 3.7 volts is needed they are wired in series which adds the voltage up, or wired in parallel for more capacity, or in series and in parallel for both increased voltage and capacity. Your cordless power tool for example..if it's 18.5 volts has 5 lithium ion cells in series. 3.7x5=18.5

Disclaimer: I don't know anything about these Shorai batteries. They might be a different chemistry or have special protection circuitry inside as some lithium batteries do to prevent over-discharging
I don't know if they can be brought back to life. If they are regular LiFePO4 cells then your combined voltage shouldn't be below 9 volts assuming it's a 3 cell setup. Grab a multi-meter on DC voltage mode and test the voltage on the battery

Damn............amazing the depth of knowledge one can fine on BARF :thumbup

fwiw, why mess w/ these batteries in a bike? The '05 kawk fires up w/ it's original battery as does the '07 dyna. I generally rotate between the three but any one of them can go a week or more w/o being ridden. Never used a tender.
 
Quick class in Lithium batteries

Lithium-Ion - most common in consumer electronics/power tools. They are in basically every computer/electronic gizmo you can think of. Not in use for super high amperage draw for anything that I'm aware. For stuff that draws a little bit of energy at a time (ie: not to start an engine, but your phone has one)

Lithium Phosphate (or Lithium Iron Phosphate) - newest up and coming and considered the 'safest' of the Lithium chemistries when the batteries fail or vent. Pretty decent discharge rate for high amperage applications

Lithium Polymer - known as the most dangerous but also the highest current capable of the 3. These are the ones I use in my RC Airplanes. They discharge fast but they are very finicky and can explode and fuck your shit up.

Good basic info but I'll add this:

All the types you listed are lithium ion batteries. But sometimes the word "ion" gets dropped and a word like iron or cobalt is substituted to tell the consumer a bit more info about the particular chemistry of the battery. But they're all lithium ion batteries.

See here: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/types_of_lithium_ion and here: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/the_li_polymer_battery_substance_or_hype
 
I didnt read everything but I think ST Guy doesnt like shorai or any other Lithium battery
 
I don't know if I'd use one on a vehicle unless someone can give me a cost benefit analysis. My R1 sat around for 8 months and fired up with no problem with the stock battery. Plus we can all look forward to lithium getting uber expensive. It's the new petroleum
 
I didnt read everything but I think ST Guy doesnt like shorai or any other Lithium battery

'Nothing wrong with lithium based batteries. Just pointing out that technically bikes and other motor vehicles do not have charging systems designed for lithium based batteries. Obviously people are using them and seem to be getting good enough results.
 
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