Levo Gen 2 What is best for the battery? charge

motoadve

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Jun 15, 2019
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Lets say I do a short ride and use only 25% of the battery.
Is it better to charge it to full for the next ride or just ride at 75% and charge it when battery gets low again.
 

wepn

The Barking Owl ?
Jul 18, 2019
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Option 2 definitely. Keep it at 50% overnight or in between rides then charge to ~75% before your ride not after. This graph illustrates the benefits pretty well I think.

charge.png


The Satiator, Programmable Battery Charger
 

EME

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Aug 14, 2020
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Hi @wepn . I read the report / claim / advert ( which is what it is) but as there is no substantiation at all , is there any independent proof to that ?
 

EVILTaylor

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Sep 8, 2020
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Spokane Washington
Hi @wepn . I read the report / claim / advert ( which is what it is) but as there is no substantiation at all , is there any independent proof to that ?

This is pretty well known in the lithium world. Tesla cars by default will not charge past 80% unless you tell it to. Same even goes for your phone, it is harder on them to charge every night and sit at 100% for hours.

In my opinion, two things are hard on lithium batteries. Fully charged (maintaining 100% charge), or fully depleted. The latter is much worse.
 

mak

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Dec 27, 2019
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I like to deplete the battery now and again, I could be wrong but I cant be arsed with charging every ride, I guess it depends if you have an epic ride planed the next day.

From fully charged the other week I managed 4 small rides totalling 75 miles with 16% battery remaining.
Loads of riding without getting hung up on charging every night :unsure:

That's a bosch 625 2020 system in a cube bike, I guess all bikes and batteries are different but don't let them rule your your life .
 

EVILTaylor

New Member
Sep 8, 2020
27
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Spokane Washington
I like to deplete the battery now and again, I could be wrong but I cant be arsed with charging every ride, I guess it depends if you have an epic ride planed the next day.

From fully charged the other week I managed 4 small rides totalling 75 miles with 16% battery remaining.
Loads of riding without getting hung up on charging every night :unsure:

That's a bosch 625 2020 system in a cube bike, I guess all bikes and batteries are different but don't let them rule your your life .

And FYI - I agree. Right now my SL is hanging in my garage fully charged. I don't lose sleep on it :)
 

wepn

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Jul 18, 2019
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wepn

The Barking Owl ?
Jul 18, 2019
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I cant be arsed with charging every ride
Me neither. I just make sure if it's idle it's in a wide ballpark area of 50% not 100%. That's not difficult.
This is pretty well known in the lithium world
Yes it is but hardly known at all in the wider world.
don't let them rule your your life
Right now my SL is hanging in my garage fully charged. I don't lose sleep on it
And that's perfectly fine. If I tracked all devices and attempted to keep them all at around 50%, I'd get no sleep. But it's easy to keep a car & a few bikes at 50% until required & charge upwards to 80% or 100% before driving or riding as required.
 

urastus

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May 4, 2020
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Me neither. I just make sure if it's idle it's in a wide ballpark area of 50% not 100%. That's not difficult.

Yes it is but hardly known at all in the wider world.


And that's perfectly fine. If I tracked all devices and attempted to keep them all at around 50%, I'd get no sleep. But it's easy to keep a car & a few bikes at 50% until required & charge upwards to 80% or 100% before driving or riding as required.
It's pretty easy for me. I use a timer for the ebike, charge it to 60% after most rides. Once a month or longer I charge it to 100% and generally do two rides on that before charging again. For my phone I just use the timer on the phone to check the amount of charge - I generally charge it to 80% (when it drops to about 30% or less) because it's using energy right away.
 

EME

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It wasn’t an ad, it was the source of the graph.

This is all very well established. This article covers the effects of high state of charge on expected cycle life.

Tesla battery expert recommends daily charging limit to optimize durability - Electrek.
Thanks for the article .. as someone who has always charged phone batteries et al to 100% and never cared about taking them off charge that's very illuminating. Surprised that experts seem to say keep at 50-70% unless you really need to.

I confess I don't fancy reducing my useable battery life by minimum 30% in permanence so will continue to charge up to 100 but I'll try and change that to the 'night before' and 'bigger rides only'
 

Konanige

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Feb 29, 2020
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It's pretty easy for me. I use a timer for the ebike, charge it to 60% after most rides. Once a month or longer I charge it to 100% and generally do two rides on that before charging again. For my phone I just use the timer on the phone to check the amount of charge - I generally charge it to 80% (when it drops to about 30% or less) because it's using energy right away.
I take it you don't ride very far then!!
 

urastus

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I take it you don't ride very far then!!
My usual circuit is 20km but has a lot of climbing. I only use eco and that is in the 2nd lowest setting. Sometimes I use trail if I'm sessioning an obstacle. Sometimes when riding with a friend I stay on trail - it's a good match for his setting - then I can use around 80%, but not often. If riding with him I generally charge to 100%. When it gets drier I have even more climbing because of a different route - I'll probably have to go to 70% then; I forget what I used to do. Far is subjective. It suits me, still takes me two hours generally (includes sessioning jumps and technical challenges), but I'm not in a hurry. It actually keeps me pretty fit, for example I find a 40km urban jaunt on my ancient mtb with 2.3 balloon tyres pretty comfortable.
 
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Konanige

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Mostly seem to use up most of my charge every time I ride so I keep her fully charged all the time. I don't think people should get too concerned about how much they charge their batteries, I've been using Lithy ion battery tools in all weathers for years, and you will find that no matter what you do they will either last or they won't. I can get my batteries re-celled pretty cheaply and I'm pretty sure it won't be long before you can do the same with bike batteries.
 

wepn

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Jul 18, 2019
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you will find that no matter what you do they will either last or they won't
They won’t. Charging to 100%, especially if left fully charged, expect 500 cycles. Charging to 80%, expect 1,500 cycles. That is the difference between lasting - or not.
I can get my batteries re-celled pretty cheaply and I'm pretty sure it won't be long before you can do the same with bike batteries.
That would be an achievement with a Spesh pack. The BMS and assembly don’t like being repacked and looks more like a job for a precision robot.
 

TheBikePilot

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I think you will sell the bike before it becomes a huge issue. If I know I'm not going to use it for a couple of weeks I'll charge to about 60-80%, got a timer on the plug from Amazon, was about £10..

You've also got 4 years on Battery/Motor/TCU so I wouldn't get too anxious about it..
 

wepn

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You've also got 4 years on Battery
4 years warranty on a battery is extremely generous for electric bike packs but you generally can't make a warranty claim for capacity loss - unless you fry a cell & it's a drastic loss. Capacity fade is the main avoidable outcome. Cycling in the 45% - 65% range & charging to 80% up to 100% before you ride is a very very easy way to substantially reduce capacity fade.
 

urastus

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I think you will sell the bike before it becomes a huge issue. If I know I'm not going to use it for a couple of weeks I'll charge to about 60-80%, got a timer on the plug from Amazon, was about £10..

You've also got 4 years on Battery/Motor/TCU so I wouldn't get too anxious about it..
That isn't for all specialized though is it? I thought it was just for models that have troublesome motors? And for those that do get the extra 2 years on the motor, is that also for the battery?
 

aarfeldt

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My electric car has a hidden 20% battery capacity.
So...even if I charge to 100%, it's actully only 80% charged.
They actually recommend charging to 100%.
This is to protect the battery life....quite clever IMO.

Does our TurboLevo use the same method ?
 

TheBikePilot

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Apparently yes. The BMS does this for you. It is never fully charged or fully flat.

According to Spesh when we spoke to them, two states are dangerous for the cells, fully charged and fully depleted. The reason these batteries go through such rigorous testing is they can be a fire risk in these conditions.

The final bar of charging is always super slow to make sure it doesn't get overcharged, I believe this is called conditioning.

I fully charge mine if I am going to use it in a week otherwise, leave it at around 60% as mentioned.
 

salko

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My electric car has a hidden 20% battery capacity.
So...even if I charge to 100%, it's actully only 80% charged.
They actually recommend charging to 100%.
This is to protect the battery life....quite clever IMO.

Does our TurboLevo use the same method ?
I doubt its the same with ebike batteries. Car batteries cost lot of money to replace (especially if you directly compare them with ebike batteries) and it makes more sense to use such method with cars as is not that big problem to have a little extra weight to carry around and to make batteries last 5+ years while charging it almost every day (you'll probably produce much more charging cycles as you will ever have on ebike battery). But with ebikes every kg matters and you also want as much range as possible, so I think they also get actually charged to 100% cell capacity, otherwise charging the last bar wouldn't be so super slow ...
 
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urastus

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Would be nice if our BMS was programmable.....so I could adjust my max charging %.
It sounds like a safety feature, if you mean you'd like to squeeze in that extra % and disreguard the safety aspect? If you're talking charging to 60% or 80% a cheap timer is good for ballpark +/- 10%. That's what I do.
 

aarfeldt

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I charge at night (cheap), but since my rides (and batterys) are so different, I have no idea how many hours to charge for, to reach a good end point.
So thats why I would like the BMS to do that for me :)
 

TheBikePilot

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It sounds like a safety feature, if you mean you'd like to squeeze in that extra % and disreguard the safety aspect? If you're talking charging to 60% or 80% a cheap timer is good for ballpark +/- 10%. That's what I do.

Yup me also, I got one of these..Works really well. I just bang in 2 hours when I am not going to use it. Put it on 8hrs for a full charge. The Spesh charger still draws 16w even when off, so it switches off the charger when done. 6 hours is the max it ever takes to charge the battery from flat..

I doubt the cells are at full 100%. Someone posted a link to a Rosenburg smart charger that could charge at different amps but I wouldn't use it personally.
 
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urastus

⚡The Whippet⚡
May 4, 2020
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I charge at night (cheap), but since my rides (and batterys) are so different, I have no idea how many hours to charge for, to reach a good end point.
So thats why I would like the BMS to do that for me :)

Yes, it would be good. There is an awesome timer charger thing - the picture way above is the brand - you can do it with that, say stop at 80%. It is prohibitively expensive though - something that a bike shop might keep.

I have kept a record of charging times and percentages. It's pretty rough, but good enough. The reason it is rough is because I only have 5 bars as feedback, each one is 20%. So if I have 2 bars left it is somewhere between 21% and 40% - that's where the guessing comes in. I have a slow charger and I have worked out that for up to 80% the time is linear, then it speeds up for the last 20%. That doesn't bother me because I usually aim to charge to around 60% mostly, and sometimes 100% to balance the cells. So for my charger each 1% of charge takes 255 seconds. If I have one bar left (20% or less), and I guesstimate it to be at 10% then I need to add another 50% charge. 50 x 255 seconds. Divide the result by 60 to get minutes = 212 minutes = 3hrs 32mins. It's pretty quick. I only guesstimate to 5% increments. Now I have a table of the percentages of charge ie 50% = 3hrs 32mins. 45% = 3hrs 11mins and so on. It gets me in the ball park to within 5%, sometimes 10% usually, which is fine.
 

Konanige

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They won’t. Charging to 100%, especially if left fully charged, expect 500 cycles. Charging to 80%, expect 1,500 cycles. That is the difference between lasting - or not.

That would be an achievement with a Spesh pack. The BMS and assembly don’t like being repacked and looks more like a job for a precision robot.
Good luck with 1500 charges Spesh are quoting 300 Charge cycles till you should see any drop in performance, and by 'charge cycle' they mean from 20% which is when assistance cuts out to 100% which is when your charger 'Automatically' stops charging it. As for Repacking its only a matter of time.
 

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