Once upon a time ........

barbagris

Mad Scientist
Joined
Aug 1, 2010
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12,988
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On the verge of insanity
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1979 Guzzi V1000G5 - 2018 KTM 790 Duke
A moderately loony greybeard made his own Lithium Starter battery. 560CCA.



Was made for my old Guzzi - which has for some reason always eaten batteries. Initially a version was twice as big - but the resulting CCA was enough to smoke a Starter motor. And then one of the cells was damaged (I did say moderately loony) . So the 4 cell was put in service with no issues until last month. Starting issues etc.

Today saw very unstable charging voltage - was the last straw so stripped it and discovered one of the cells would not hold more than 1.8V (instead of about 3.5V). Replaced it and all is well. Sadly seems A123 have stopped making these big cells - Happily I still have 2 spares.

But does show that just because it's Lithium it does not mean a cell cannot die. This week I saw a Serious deformed flat-pak cell Liithium battery too.

If anybody else fancies making a starter Battery - Bausätze 12V - Bausätze i-tecc LiFeEnergy - I would use the RED cells. If one goes just replace it and not the whole battery. Though personally I'd be more tempted to make one using lots of A123 ANR26650M1B cells.
 
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