Ebike Battery First Use! Best Practices!
You have just received your e-bike battery and are ready to breathe new life into your e-bike battery. But what are things to consider when using your e-bike battery for the first time?
The first use of a bicycle battery is crucial for the lifespan and quality of the bicycle battery. There are a number of tips that we would like to give you to ensure the quality and range of your battery. This is everything you need to know before using the new bicycle battery:
What should I do when I receive my battery?
When you receive the battery for your e-bike, you first fully charge the bicycle battery, without interrupting the charging process. So place the bicycle battery on the charger and charge the bicycle battery to 100%, without removing the plug from the socket or removing the plug from the bicycle battery.
After that you can start using the bicycle battery, discharging the battery is important. Discharging an e-bike battery is the emptying of the battery. This does not to be done in one go, but can be done in several cycling trips. Emptying the bicycle battery means that you empty the battery to 10-15%, completely empty cycling is not necessary. You go through these steps a total of three times. In short: when the battery is below 10-15%, fully charge it again and discharge the battery again by cycling the battery empty to 10-15%.
Charging
The charging time of a battery differs per battery. Larger, stronger batteries have a longer charging time than smaller batteries. With a standard charger, you should take into account about 6-8 hours with larger batteries and 3-5 hours with smaller batteries. With a fast charger, this process is almost twice as fast as with a standard charger.
You can calculate the charging time of a bicycle battery yourself. You can do this by looking at the number of Ah (Ampere hours) of a bicycle battery and the number of A (Ampere) of a charger. You divide the number of Ah of the bicycle battery by the number of A of the charger, for example:
If a bicycle battery has 14Ah and the charger 2A, then it takes 7 hours before the battery is fully charged. If you have a 4A charger, it will take 3.5 hours before the battery is fully charged. So the higher the amperage of the charger, the faster your battery is charged.
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Storage
Preferably store the battery in a dark and cool place with a temperature between +5°C and +25°C.
Storage for a longer period of time
If you will not be using your e-bike battery for a longer period of time, it is important to remove the battery from your bicycle and store the battery in a dry and cool place, preferably in a bicycle battery bag. Never store the battery empty to avoid deep discharge. Every battery or accumulator suffers from self-discharge, whereby the battery slowly drains, unfortunately, this is unavoidable. When you store the battery empty and the battery slowly discharges itself, deep discharge can occur. This can eventually destroy the battery. Our advice is to store the battery with a charge between 60 and 80% and to recharge the battery to 60-80% approximately every 3 months.
Weather conditions
Please note that when riding in low and high temperatures, the bicycle battery performance and range will be reduced. This is because the cells of your e-bike battery are liquid. These cells perform better at certain temperatures, and less so at cold or hot temperatures.
Read how you can prepare your e-bike for the winter months and colder days! And read here what you can do to protect your bicycle battery against the heat.
Extending
lifespan The lifespan of your battery cannot be determined unambiguously and depends on various factors such as; environment, storage, and use. With aging, the capacity of the battery can slowly decrease, despite good care. Here you can read more about extending the life of your battery.
Disposal of old bicycle
batteries You can usually go to recycling points for the disposal of used and no longer usable bicycle batteries. It is important to recycle your battery in the right place so that bicycle batteries can be recycled in a sustainable way.
