Misc: Charging Systems Altons and Lithium

Vincent Brake

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Me for over 25000 km
But its not nice to fully emptey a shorai.
Allthough i have the special charger. It never fully came back to life.
But it still spins the starter no problem.

I use the biggest one they have.
21 A? Or is it 18.


I will put that scoop on it to look what happens
 

vibrac

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the podtronics part is interesting what is the regulator supplied with the Alton? (the modern one that you can leave without isolating Alton)
As I understand it the Ah of a Li is roughly equivalent to a normal battery 3 times bigger in Ah
 

BigEd

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Thinking I needed to replace a battery I looked up the Shorai that Big Ed (?) recommended. Maximum charge rate was listed at 4 amps so I wondered if they would be safe with a Walkernator?
I use a Shorei Lithium battery on my electric starter equipped Rapide. I have a Walkernator charging system. They work together very well. The Miller ammeter goes all the way to full charge after I have used the electric start but this does not seem to have caused any battery problems. The needle soon returns back to a small positive charge once I'm underway.
I have had one major battery failure. The separate regulator unit has three wires. One of the wires (Earth) broke underneath the insulation at a connector. This put the alternator to an unregulated output that destroyed the battery and blew bulbs that were in the circuit at the time. I think the result would have been the same whatever alternator or battery was in use if it had a major regulating failure. I made up the connection that failed so the problem was self-inflicted, guilty as charged.
It is also worth checking for AC leakage on an alternator\rectifier system. Switch your multimeter to AC and put it across the DC output on the regulator. Any reading should be below 0.5 Volt. Poor quality rectifiers are likely to be one of the most likely causes of alternator and battery problems.
 

Martyn Goodwin

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Alton, Podtronic Regulator and Shorei Battery. Been in use for 8 years and 50,000 miles and still going strong!

What Vincent (@#11) says about excessive draining of the Shorei is correct - if drained to far then they will not accept a charge and appear to be trashed BUT I found if you put such a battery on an old conventional battery charger for just TEN SECONDS and then immediately put it onto the correct Shorei charger then it can be restored to life.
 

vibrac

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Couple of points at this stage
The wakernator is not a single phase alternator what my question related to was the Alton which I believe is
Secondly relating to the podtronics regulator and the regulator supplied with an Alton kit are they the same thing? If not then it's the supplied regulator Alton and li battery that is the real subject of my question because I guess that's what any new buyers will encounter
 

Monkeypants

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Alton supplies the Podtronics reg in their kit now. That wasn't always the case. Paul Hamon tried a few different regs before settling on the Podtronics.

Actual AH of a Li battery is about 1/3 of the PbEq rating, which is the number used to indicate battery model size.
For example, a Shorai LFX 18 has a Pb EQ rating of 18 . PbEq stands for " lead acid equivalent" .
Actual AH of the LFX18 is around 6 amphours.
So it can cold crank, once only, like an 18 amphour lead acid battery.
On the other hand, if the headlight is left on with engine off, the LFX18 will drain flat in roughly the same amount of time as a 6 amphour lead acid battery.


Glen
 

vibrac

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Thank you Glen the fog begins to clear now there is just the safety aspects of the single phase alternator and Li battery to make a judgment call on.
 

Normski

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When you rectify A.C. to D.C. you end up with a sawtooth pattern of current ranging from zero to max, crudely speaking single phase would give you a rougher sawtooth than 3 phase but the quality of the rectifier regulator would also have an effect on the form of the sawtooth. I believe the current (no pun intended) Alton is single phase and the supplied regulator/rectifier a podtronics which is a good one, whether that is enough to guarantee safe use of a Litium battery I do not know.
 
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