Ultrabatt lithium batteries

[BlackSheepLogic]

I'm thinking about a drop in replacement for a Yuasa YT12A-BS (10Ah). I'm mostly interested in Ah & long term discharge rates.

[FastBikeGear]

I'm thinking about a drop in replacement for a Yuasa YT12A-BS (10Ah). I'm mostly interested in Ah & long term discharge rates.

What vehicle is it for. Normally for starter batteries we are more interested in Cranking Amps than capacity?

[BlackSheepLogic]

What vehicle is it for. Normally for starter batteries we are more interested in Cranking amps than capacity?

The bike is a Hayabusa, I bought it for touring.

[FastBikeGear]

The bike is a Hayabusa, I bought it for touring.

Our direct experience with a Haybusa and our Ultrabatt batteries tells us the best solution for a Hayabusa daily rider/tourer is a three PowerBlade Ultrabatt. Yes It's a bit of overkill for the Hayabusa, but it's better to have more battery than less to get a higher confidence of meeting our 10 year lifespan target....and to cope with the eventual ageing of your starter motor. The Ultrabatts have the BMS charging system built into the battery so your bikes charging system will charge the battery perfectly every time, so you won't need a special external BMS charger, etc.

For further info and pricing and ordering click on link below. We have heaps of these in stock and you can either pick them up (in which case we will give your bike's charging system a free quick test and health check) or just courier the battery to you overnight.


http://www.fastbikegear.co.nz/index....oducts_id=1197

[yevjenko]

Nearly 400 bucks yet you claim it's cheaper? That's pushing it a bit. I could almost buy 4 agm batteries for that price

[BlackSheepLogic]

The Yuasa is 175CCA 10AH. I can't pull half that capacity out without severally impacting it's useable life time. The limited storage life is another big neg as well.

175CCA seems well over spec'ed for the bike and the climate here. 120CCA should easily start the stock busa. The wiring on busa is not rated for 380CCA anyway and if the bike was that hard to start if would not stay running. A 24V starter circuit would be what I would use if I needed more but my engine is stock so it's not what I'm looking for in an upgrade.

I'm looking for 20Ah in li-ion that's a drop in. With the lithium it's not only a higher power density but I can extract more out of it without killing it. They also only lose 10% of their charge over a year. Shorai in this category looks to be 1/2 the cost.

our direct experience tells with a Haybusa and our Ultrabatt batteries tells us the best solution for a Hayabusa is a three PowerBlade Ultrabatt. Yes I t's a bit of overkill for the Hayabusa ,but it's better to have more battery than less to get a higher confidence of meeting our 10 year lifespan target. The Ultrabatts have the BMS charging system built into the battery so your bikes charging system will charge the battery perfectly every time, so you won't need a special external BMS charger, etc.

For further info and pricing and ordering click on link below. We have heaps of these in stock and you can either pick them up (in which case we will give your bike's charging system a free quick test and health check) or just courier the battery to you overnight.


http://www.fastbikegear.co.nz/index....oducts_id=1197

[bogan]

The Yuasa is 175CCA 10AH. I can't pull half that capacity out without severally impacting it's useable life time. The limited storage life is another big neg as well.

175CCA seems well over spec'ed for the bike and the climate here. 120CCA should easily start the stock busa. The wiring on busa is not rated for 380CCA anyway and if the bike was that hard to start if would not stay running. A 24V starter circuit would be what I would use if I needed more but my engine is stock so it's not what I'm looking for in an upgrade.

I'm looking for 20Ah in li-ion that's a drop in. With the lithium it's not only a higher power density but I can extract more out of it without killing it. They also only lose 10% of their charge over a year. Shorai in this category looks to be 1/2 the cost.

CCA should be overspeced with respect to normal useage, as you want it to start when really cold too I assume? I've had 155CCA labeled batteries struggle to start my 650 v-twin on cold palmy mornings.

Starter batts aren't designed for large capacity, if you really need that it might be worth going dual storage tech like motor homes (have you considered buying a goldwing?), or else you will just end up with an overkill on the available cranking amps.

[FastBikeGear]

The Yuasa is 175CCA 10AH. I can't pull half that capacity out without severally impacting it's useable life time. The limited storage life is another big neg as well.

Not sure why the amp/hours would have any effects on lifespan? Remember while your engine is running, your bike is running on the output of your regulator not the battery. You should expect a minimum of a five year life from a lithium battery and you should have a target life of 10 years (although no doubt some customers will get longer). If you don't get at least twice the lifespan out of a lithium battery the cost of ownership per annum for a lithium battery would be expensive. Underspeccing starting amperage requirements however will shorten the lifespan of any battery. Because wieght and size is not such a priority in cars, car batteries are more often not underspecced for the cranking amps. It"s one of the reasons I believe that car batteries often last so much longer than bike batteries.

175CCA seems well over spec'ed for the bike and the climate here. 120CCA should easily start the stock busa. The wiring on busa is not rated for 380CCA anyway and if the bike was that hard to start if would not stay running. A 24V starter circuit would be what I would use if I needed more but my engine is stock so it's not what I'm looking for in an upgrade.

I might be guilty of overspeccing your battery. You could certainly try two PowerBlades and simply add another if you have any reservations. Have you measured your instantaneous break away current? Typically motorcycle starter motors draw anywhere from 130 to 300 cranking amps in the first half second to initiate the turning of the starter motor and then you will see the current drop back to figure of less than half the break away current to continue spinning the starter motor for the next couple of seconds it might take to start the bike. We know that you can put a smaller two PowerBlade Ultrabatt battery in your bike and it will start it ....but we don't want to have you need to replace it in a few years time ....which makes it expensive to own. The amount of amps drawn in that first instant to get your starter motor spinning is primarily determined by your starter motor not the particular size of your lithium battery (because all lithium starter batteries have VERY little internal resistance). Your stock wiring will easily handle the instaneous break away current your starter motor draws and if your starter motor jams or your solenoid or starter motor, or wiring develops a dead short the excessive current will blow the $2 replaceable safety fuse in the battery. (Surpising how many of these fuses we supply to customers who have htis happen or inadvertnely put a spanner in the wrong place!)

Todd is running a 2 x PowerBlade, Ultrabatt battery in his Hayabusa drag bike but in talking with him I know that he is probably going to add a a third one shortly. He assures me that even though this is a highly modified turboed 9 sec 1/4 mile bike that it is no harder to start than a normal Haybusa.

We have all previously been conditioned to accept that lead acid batteries are consumables (like tyres) and this understandably shaped our attidudes to batteries, but with modern battery technology expectations are changing. For example a Stonk MegaBooster will in most probably last the life of a vechicle (10-25 years?) an in most cases a lithium battery will typically last for the first few owners of a vehicle or if it is a modular battery they might transfer it to their next bike when they change bikes.


Cranking amps on lithium batteries stay fairly constant above 13 degrees Celsius. Some lithium batteries (usually ones using cylindrical cells) perform better than others below this temperature. But in our Temperature Vs Load testing 13 degrees is about the temperature that we typically see the cranking amps of lithium batteries start to decrease. Cold temperature operation is an area where we have seen remarked improvements in the latest generations of cylindrical cells. A123Systems claim their cells have the best cold weather cranking performance and our limited testinfg of a couple of three brands backs this up. However we still like to factor in some margin for cold weather starting and a 175 lithium battery rated at 175 Cranking Amps has little room for margin on your bike. (Remember no Lithium battery has a true CCA rating because CCA ratings are done at -18 degrees Celcius and no lithium battery on the market today can opeate at this temperature - so unfortunately this is where marketing and engineering diverge.)

We also know from testing that similar size and weight competitive batteries on full load testers, that Ultrabatt's have considerably more a/h capacity than the other brand you mentioned and we also know that our target life (and full value replacemet warranty period) are twice that of the other brand you mentioned. You also won't need to buy a special BMS charger for our battery to get this extended lifesapn because the BMS is built into the battery and manages the charging EVERY SINGLE INSTANT your battery is being charged.

There are any number of cheap lithium batteries without BMS systems and safety fuses on the market. And there are also a lot of high quality long lifespan lithium batteries now on the market with built in BMS systems. This is the market that Ultrabatt competes in, What differentiates Ultrabatt is that they have a modular battery and they have a internal user replaceable safety fuse (cost $2). In any month we replace several fuses. In each instance where a $2 fuse blows, the fuse has probably saved the customer $100's. (by not prematurely shortening the lifespan of the battery or damaging other componentry on the bike).

It's amazing how often an Ultrabatt proves to be the 2nd brand of lithium battery people buy. A few posts up I mentioned a BMW bike that we have just installed an Ultrabatt in. That bike had previously gone through two cheap lithium batteries in a very short space of time and earlier this week we replaced another of the same brand of lithium battery for another customer.

Despite some pretty harsh treatment some of our batteries get....and I know I am tempting fate by saying this..... but to date we know of NO customer (NONE, NADA, ZERO, ZIP) in New Zealand who has had to purchase another battery to replace an Ultrabatt PowerBlade battery.

We know that part of the reason Ultrabatt batteries are surviving so well is because:

1. of course they have an in built BMS in them,
2. that they use the very robust A123 Systems nano phosphate cylindrical cells in them,
3. that they have a user replaceable short circuit fuse in them,
4. but also part of the reason I suspect is because we are always keen to overspec rather than underspec cranking capacity.

We know we can't win every customer's business, but with lithium batteries it certainly is the case of you get what you pay for.

[FastBikeGear]

Hayabusa recommendations.

A before and after picture of Todd's Hayabusa drag bike with a two PowerBlade Ultrabatt lithium battery in it. Please see notes in the above post about this specific bike....and yes Todd also uses this 9 second 1/4 mile turbo bike as his daily rider!

[Gravelrashgreen]

Thought about putting 2 x Ultrabatt 'blades' in my 2006 Duc S2R 800, they looked like the equivalent of the standard Yuasa YT12B-BS job, similar looking CCA etc but when I talked to the 'expert' at Fast Bikes he said I would need three blades to be able to offer me the five year warranty as two blades do not have the same CCA (they use some very misleading specs on their applications chart) as the YT12B-BS in cold conditions. Even if I had decided to shell out the almost $400 for their ultra batt it would not have fitted in the holder due to its height, there would have been plenty of room around the sides though. Essentially they would not sell me their batteries as they did not want any to fail because of the resulting bad reputation, fair enough I suppose but maybe these are not so good for day to day riding, more for your race types who want to save every ounce of weight. Looks like I will be sticking with am old school lead acid battery and I will invest in a maintenance charger (about $60-).

[FastBikeGear]

Ultrabatt Lithium battery (with 3 x PowerBlades $389NZ RRP) in a Honda ST1300 Pan European.

[FastBikeGear]

Ultrabatt battery (2 x PowerBlades $289 NZ RRP) in Honda Crosstourer

[Drew]

So, we've found a very real instance that the Shorai is superior.

Quite a major one, in that they are shaped to fit into standard bike holders...and it seems quite a bit cheaper.

[FastBikeGear]

Both here in NZ and in Aus we and our Australian counterparts have been fitting quite a few Ultrabatt PowerPaks into V8s and other cars .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbEXkQjF7jk

[bogan]

So, we've found a very real instance that the Shorai is superior.

Which one?