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Lithium battery question


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I think I’m getting to the end of life of a Li battery I installed many years ago. But it isn’t behaving how a traditional lead-acid battery does when it’s done. With an AGM battery, it will struggle to turn over, stop, then maybe I’ll here the starter relay click when the button is pushed. 
last week when I went to start my bike, the engine began to turn over, then it lost all power it cut out quickly and completely, including the lights and digital clock. 
if I recall, with an AGM, the lights would come back on when the starter button was released if there was still a little juice left, just not the CCA to turn the engine over. 
Does a Li battery behave differently because of its design?

i brought the battery into a shop to be tested and he said the meter was telling him the CCA was reading low but he wasn’t really confident b/c he wasn’t sure the reader was set up for Li batteries. 
I put the battery on my Deltran Li charger and after about an hour it showed full charge, but I don’t know if it should have taken longer. The clerk at the store said if it showed fully charged quickly it could mean the battery capacity was limited. 
i don’t keep the Li battery on the tender like I used to with AGM batteries. With AGM batteries I kept them on the tender every night, all the time (I ride every day) and I would get 7-8 years out of a battery. It’s probably been about that long that I’ve had this Li battery installed, so it very well could be the end of its life. 
But if what I’m describing sounds more like a short or something I want to try to find that problem. 
Because the bike was able to start after the initial trouble. The next day after the first time I experienced the “dead battery” it started right up. But that’s when I took it out to get tested. 
 

Paul in SoCal 

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  • 1 month later...

They do behave differently. They can deliver and accept charge much more quickly, so I wouldn't be concerned about it showing fully charged quickly.

 

Typically they have less capacity than AGMs: less weight and volume, more CCAs, but can only deliver it for half as long. So if it doesn't start soon-ish, you can't keep cranking like with an AGM. What you experienced seems similar to me. I've let a couple run down and they seem to give their all and stop with no recovery.

 

If they get below the level a 'smart' charger detects them as healthy and it refuses to charge, you can put them on a dumb charger and hit them with a high current... they should come back. My '96 VFR has a parasitic power drain which emptied the Shorai battery, it was reading 3V. Battery tender wouldn't charge it. 10 mins on an old-school charger at 4-6 Amps and it came good, once it hit 12V I put it back on the tender for a gentler conditioning charge.

 

Cheers

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  • Member Contributer

All energy packed in storage presents some risk and Lithium-ion batteries
have about seven times the energy density of traditional lead-acid
batteries, which means you can get much more power from a much
smaller-and lighter-battery pack. As with any new, unfamiliar
technologies, lithium~ion batteries have spawned various alarmist
views but used properly, they're superior to their old lead-acid
predecessors.

 

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