Quote:
Originally Posted by shortsaler
On the subject of batteries, I now own my first electric car whcih I bought used. Can anyone tell me if I am suppose to charge it after each use even if I have only driven it 10 miles during the day. I keep getting different answers from people. I also read something about discharging 50% but ok at 80%...what does this all mean?? Thanks!
|
Driving it 10 miles is a definite charge. In general you can plug in a modern charger after any use. It is not good for batteries to remain in a discharged state. That said, I personally do not charge if I have used less than 10 minutes... An example if running to the post office which round trip is less than 5 minutes pedal time.
State of Charge (SOC) of a pack are the 50/80% numbers you are referring to. This is important to the life of your pack. Take some time and review the Trojan battery site.
http://www.trojanbattery.com/Tech-Su...intenance.aspx
Read the pages on Testing and Discharging....
Batteries only have a certain number of cycles in the lives. A cycle is a discharge, then full recharge. The deeper you discharge you batteries with each use, the shorter the life. I try never discharge my 48v pack to less than 48.4 (50% SOC) volts. For me that is 26 miles in one cart and 44+ miles in the other. Here are some examples, percent discharged -- number of cycles
Discharge 80% -- 500-600 cycles
Discharge 40% -- 1400 cycles
Discharge 10% -- 5000 cycles
Here is the meter that came with my carts. The SOC of the pack can be evaluated after a ride by allowing the cart to sit for a few minutes and then look at this meter. From my playing around it seems to me that the pack is discharged as far as I ever want to (50%) when the needle is on the line where the F is. The picture below is of a fully charged 48V pack at 51 volts.
good luck...