C5ALIVE Forum

C5Alive General Category => C5 Chatroom => Topic started by: Luke S on 13, August, 2013 - 17:03:05

Title: batteries?
Post by: Luke S on 13, August, 2013 - 17:03:05
I'm looking for a leisure battery for some upcoming events. The type of battery I would like is one with a long range and to be able to fit where the it would normally go and be around 20 & 40 pounds. I'm not to bothered about the weight as I don't weigh much but I don't want to have to be the incredible hulk  to lift it. Any thoughts or suggestions that you might have. Maybe a battery you are already using.

Great to hear from you

Luke
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: Luke S on 13, August, 2013 - 17:04:43
I would like to get one for brooklands
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: Luke S on 13, August, 2013 - 17:09:05
Oh I'm using a car battery at the moment and I can hardly get 3 miles from it and it dose not work properly because I ran the power down to much
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: Luke S on 14, August, 2013 - 20:10:03
Dose anyone use a battery these days  ??? :'(
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: c5mick on 14, August, 2013 - 22:13:04
Luke
Someone will come to your aid soon ?
I use a battery off my C8 which gives me good miles, I also am watching this space to see what others use, think I need a leisure battery.
Looking and waiting.
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: kamilb1998 on 14, August, 2013 - 22:20:01
I get about 12 miles to a charge off one Yuasa 038 battery, you can get them for around £40?
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: danny7147 on 15, August, 2013 - 08:31:50
Gumtree was my best friend. First one I got was a 100ah Mercedes Sprinter battery for £40... It was new but the guy had bought the wrong battery so sold it cheap. It's a big battery but fits perfectly and does around 30 miles. Then I got a pair of used 36ah scooter batteries for free, a woman upgraded hers and didn't need them, they do about 10 miles each. Lastly, our local Motobitz does a 60ah leisure battery for £55 if you give them an old battery in exchange (we got one for free to trade in after putting a post out on Freecycle) which does about 20 miles. Really worth checking Gumtree though, just be careful it's a good condition battery and will fit :-)
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: Luke S on 15, August, 2013 - 16:49:35
Gumtree was my best friend. First one I got was a 100ah Mercedes Sprinter battery for £40... It was new but the guy had bought the wrong battery so sold it cheap. It's a big battery but fits perfectly and does around 30 miles. Then I got a pair of used 36ah scooter batteries for free, a woman upgraded hers and didn't need them, they do about 10 miles each. Lastly, our local Motobitz does a 60ah leisure battery for £55 if you give them an old battery in exchange (we got one for free to trade in after putting a post out on Freecycle) which does about 20 miles. Really worth checking Gumtree though, just be careful it's a good condition battery and will fit :-)

I'm going to check gumtree now. Thanks for some advice guys. Much appreciated.
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: Luke S on 15, August, 2013 - 20:03:45
I'm guessing the ah s don't matter
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: Luke S on 15, August, 2013 - 20:06:17
At the moment I am looking at a 50 ah battery, is that fine?
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: danny7147 on 15, August, 2013 - 20:25:56
Ah makes all the difference. Think of it as how long a battery will last.

Okay, it varies a lot with makes etc but with mine a 36Ah will last about 10-15 miles happily. That's the same Ah as the C5 originally came with. 60Ah will do about 30 miles and my big 100Ah has done nearly 40 miles and still had charge left. Batteries are tricky though as they also fall into different catagories so I'll try and keep it simple (and others please correct/add as appropriate!)

Lead Acid 12v

Your classic car battery. The problem is they're designed to kick out a lot of power for a short amount of time and not discharge fully, so even a 36Ah one of these will only do a few miles.

Lead Acid 12v Deep Discharge

This is the usual leisure battery. Does same as above except it's designed to release the electricity slowly over a long period of time AND use all it's power before it needs recharging. That's my 100Ah. Drawback is they're bloody big and heavy, but the cheapest decent distance option. Unusual to find a 36Ah one of these, most are 50+, but will happily do 25 miles+

Scooter Batteries - Gel etc

These are the favoured ones now. They're tiny compared to deep discharge lead acid's, so a LOT lighter, do a similar amount of distance, so a 36Ah will do around 15 miles+ BUT they're a fortune brand new. You're talking £80-£150 minimum for a decent one... BUT they do come up for sale second hand. If a scooter's been stolen/recovered, written off, then people sell the batteries but you've really got to be careful they're not just selling them because they're dead...

Charging

This is the flip side of it. Lead acid's will take a standard cheap-as-it-comes car charger happily... scooter's generally won't. It needs to be one designed for gel. I picked up a nice charger last week from Halfords for £40 that does gel, but the charger needs to be a consideration when buying batteries on a budget, because even though you might find a pair of scooter batteries for (let's say) £30, you then need to add the cost of a charger for them on top of that!

Understand now?  :)
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: Luke S on 15, August, 2013 - 22:42:39
Yes I do. Thanks for the effort of typing that up
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: Luke S on 15, August, 2013 - 22:53:35
I think I know everything there is to know after reading all that. I have a budget of around 45 pounds [my pocket money this time] :'( so I can't get anything to vast. Thanks for your help
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: danny7147 on 15, August, 2013 - 23:17:43
No prob, it took me a while to learn it myself lol! If you need any more help just let me know  8)
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: Luke S on 16, August, 2013 - 07:09:26
That's always the annoying proble, you never have enough money
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: Luke S on 16, August, 2013 - 07:36:05
No problem with the gel charger, I already have one
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: Luke S on 17, August, 2013 - 07:53:45
I get about 12 miles to a charge off one Yuasa 038 battery, you can get them for around £40?

What type of terminals have you got on your battery. They are different to the car battery batteries. How do you connect yours to the battery, or have I been looking at the wrong battery  :-\
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: kamilb1998 on 17, August, 2013 - 09:08:22
I get about 12 miles to a charge off one Yuasa 038 battery, you can get them for around £40?

What type of terminals have you got on your battery. They are different to the car battery batteries. How do you connect yours to the battery, or have I been looking at the wrong battery  :-\


Its a normal car battery and therefore has normal car battery  terminals. I posted about it earlier here http://c5alive.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2142.0
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: Luke S on 17, August, 2013 - 16:35:34
I get about 12 miles to a charge off one Yuasa 038 battery, you can get them for around £40?

What type of terminals have you got on your battery. They are different to the car battery batteries. How do you connect yours to the battery, or have I been looking at the wrong battery  :-\


Its a normal car battery and therefore has normal car battery  terminals. I posted about it earlier here http://c5alive.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2142.0

How far can you discharge your battery because I know you can't discharge a car battery to far and how long have you had it
Title: Re: batteries?
Post by: kamilb1998 on 17, August, 2013 - 20:57:25
I've always stopped using a battery when I got a beep from the POD, I don't know what voltage this is at though. I tend to replace each battery every 6 months or so as I find that, with the mileage I do, the range starts to drop after about 6 months,