Battery disconnect switch

So my battery is definitely dead and I ended up buying a scorpion lithium iron phosphate battery from batterystuff. I have been doing some reading on the lithium batteries and think that it might be a good idea to put in a battery disconnect switch to easily and quickly disconnect the battery during long storage or even for a week or two. Without the slow drain from the clock and computer it should be able to be stored for much longer than I will ever let it sit.

Has anyone put a battery cut off switch on the ST1300? And if so what switch did you use and how did you do it? I'm looking at the space available and I'm having a hard time figuring out where I might be able to fit one of these in a convenient location. Maybe under the seat somewhere?

I'm not sure what the battery cavity looks like on a 1300, but usually there's not much space left over for switches, besides switches large enough to isolate a battery are , in a word BIG.( again I don't know the 1300, but stored information could be lost too) you might do better by installing a quick disconnect for the accessories that are causing the problem...even better, rearrange the circuitry to feed 'em using only one circuit. then a simple quick connect plug. located under the seat will suffice. if it simply has to be the total battery that need to be isolated, you might look at the battery plugs used to disconnect power to a trailer from an auto/truck.

Normal bike load off is 2.5ma shouldn't be an issue.
LiFe batteries have a pretty low self discharge rate.

A few thoughts:

1. putting in a battery cutoff switch is just asking for it to fail on you at the most inconvenient time, I wouldn't do it.
2. put the new battery in and measure it for a few weeks to see if you even have any drainage problem to begin with.
3. if you determine there is an actual drainage problem, then either do as was suggested and remove the offending load during storage, or connect the battery to a trickle charger to solve the problem. I've heard of people connecting trickle chargers to their garage door opener light outlet, so it gets a few minutes a day, every day.

st1300r said:

Normal bike load off is 2.5ma shouldn't be an issue.
LiFe batteries have a pretty low self discharge rate.

Click to expand...

Put those two together and you could probably let a ST13 sit for a year with a LiFe battery and still be fine shape.

Now if you drawing more than normal bike load, it would be a different story.

How about just putting it on a battery tender when not in use?

Put a pigtail off the battery (BT comes with it) and plug it in when you store it, and forget about it. Unplug it when you want to go for a ride and enjoy a nice, charged battery. No timers, no fuss.

If you do go with a charger, make sure it's the correct type. I copied this from the Shorai's FAQ page.

How do I maintain my Shorai LFX Battery?

LFX? batteries should be recharged whenever voltage drops to 13.1 volts, or sooner. If you have a vintage, custom, or off-road vehicle which has NO draw on the battery when key is OFF, then you should only need to charge your LFX? battery once a year. However, most modern street bikes have a draw even when key is off, to support clock, computer, alarms, or other devices. This draw will eventually drain the battery, which is damaging and could void your warranty. So if you are not riding twice a month, then you should charge the battery every few weeks. ?Smart? lead-acid chargers with automatic cutoff may be used for periodic charging, but will NOT work as a tender/maintainer and should be disconnected immediately after charge has finished. Older lead chargers without automatic shut-off should never be used. Improper charging is dangerous and will void your warranty. A Shorai BMS Charger - with Store Mode - is highly recommended for anyone who rides less than twice a month. Alternatively, you may disconnect the negative cable from the battery for storage, and charge once per year in that case.

Can I use Lead-Acid battery chargers or charger/tenders?

Yes. HOWEVER, you may NOT use a charger/tender if it has an automatic "desulfation mode", which cannot be turned off.

If you are storing your vehicle and want to check the remaining capacity, or you're a racer with a constant-loss system, you'll want to know how resting voltage (i.e. with no load or load under 200mA) maps to remaining capacity. LFX batteries should be maintained such that 20% capacity remains at minimum, as best practice. Use a good-quality voltmeter to check remaining capacity, and consider recharge whenever the battery capacity falls to about 50% remaining. Of course, if you get the Shorai dedicated BMS01 charger, you can just hit the "Store Mode" button and leave it to do the work for you.

I've always used a battery tender for the agm batteries, but I've seen some contradicting information about using a normal battery tender on a LiFe battery. Some say it is fine and others say that a battery tender will over charge a LiFe battery. I was thinking that a switch would be a relatively simple way to avoid the battery tender for long term use and take advantage of the low discharge rate.

If the bike only uses 2.5 mA when off, then there probably isn't a problem. Next winter I will just check it occasionally over the winter and charge if necessary. I may even get a lithium battery charger and use the normal one for other batteries. Heck 2.5 mA is about 10 potatoes worth right? I'm just hooking up potatoes to the thing for winter.

Thanks for talking me out of the battery cut off switch and turning me onto spud power.

If you are just talking about keeping things in shape for winter storage... it would take a whole lot more time to figure out installing a disconnect switch rather than just disconnecting the negative lead. Bet you can do it in less than 5 minutes.

A standard float charger will not overcharge a LiFe battery. To overcharge you would need 15+ volts, a charger with de-sulfation will do that.

Battery disconnect switches are, in the scale of things on the ST, huge. These things have been used on sailboats for years and years, and they tend not to fail when needed most - probably because they are well made, relatively expensive (this does not mean they will never fail - it is a consequence of being well made) and installed in protected locations (often inside, but not always).

You might check out this link: http://www.texasindustrialelectric.com/switches.asp Scroll all the way down. They are there if you must have one.

I would think that bikes in good electrical condition should not have an issue with the battery, even when you only ride once a month. I've had regular lead acid batteries in my bikes for years and have always just hooked each one up to a batter tender whenever I park the bike. Just a habit. If Shorei BMS chargers are too expensive, and you ride rarely, then it sounds like periodic charging is the only way to go if you don't want to or cannot find the room to install a disconnect switch.

One question I have about the Shorei and similar lithium batteries. We have all heard about the Boeing Aircraft batteries, a few (2 or 3) Tesla car batteries, and Apple computer batteries catching fire. Have there been any similar incidents with auto/motorcycle configuration batteries? Certainly these incidents, if there have been any, have been few and far between.

I suspect that the problems reported in these forums with Lithium batteries are a function of most of us not being familiar with the new technology and their quirks - surely there have been many many issues with Lead-Acid batteries over the years that we simply now shrug and take in stride.

SMSW said:

Battery disconnect switches are, in the scale of things on the ST, huge. These things have been used on sailboats for years and years, and they tend not to fail when needed most - probably because they are well made, relatively expensive (this does not mean they will never fail - it is a consequence of being well made) and installed in protected locations (often inside, but not always).

You might check out this link: http://www.texasindustrialelectric.com/switches.asp Scroll all the way down. They are there if you must have one.

I would think that bikes in good electrical condition should not have an issue with the battery, even when you only ride once a month. I've had regular lead acid batteries in my bikes for years and have always just hooked each one up to a batter tender whenever I park the bike. Just a habit. If Shorei BMS chargers are too expensive, and you ride rarely, then it sounds like periodic charging is the only way to go if you don't want to or cannot find the room to install a disconnect switch.

One question I have about the Shorei and similar lithium batteries. We have all heard about the Boeing Aircraft batteries, a few (2 or 3) Tesla car batteries, and Apple computer batteries catching fire. Have there been any similar incidents with auto/motorcycle configuration batteries? Certainly these incidents, if there have been any, have been few and far between.

I suspect that the problems reported in these forums with Lithium batteries are a function of most of us not being familiar with the new technology and their quirks - surely there have been many many issues with Lead-Acid batteries over the years that we simply now shrug and take in stride.

Click to expand...

Here is some information on the batteries catching on fire

http://www.dotheton.com/forum/index.php?topic=23613.0

http://badweatherbikers.com/buell/messages/142838/721535.html?1379407559

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=820156

http://www.ducati.org/forums/1098-1198/36278-2009-1198s-caught-fire-last-week.html

SMSW said:

Shorei and similar lithium batteries. We have all heard about the Boeing Aircraft batteries, a few (2 or 3) Tesla car batteries, and Apple computer batteries catching fire. Have there been any similar incidents with auto/motorcycle configuration batteries?

Click to expand...

Different chemistries of Litium batteries exist. The ones that are know for catching fire are not what we put in the bikes.

Lithium Ferrite goes in the bikes.
Lithium Manganese (especially the ones with Cobalt) are the ones with issues. These are in phones, computers and most devices labeled lithium.
Generally these are referred to Li-Ion or lithium polymer. Lithium ferrite are technically lithium ion, but because they chemistry is different, they are usually called different.

Now some of these problems occurred because the cells were pierced, and if you were to pierce a lead-acid battery you would have issues too, just different ones. I can vouch from personal experience that you do not want to break the outer casing of a lithium-ion battery, bad things happen fast. I have sliced open a lithium ferrite battery, it died, but no over heating or other problems.

So why would anyone want to keep using the 'dangerous' variety? Energy density. A whole lot more power can be packed into a lot smaller space with a lot less weight.

Lithium-ion batteries can have issues if pierced, over charged or over-discharged.
Lithium ferrite batteries are not subject to exploding or fire if faced with the same issues.

The argument that I have seen about overcharging the LiFePO4 batteries is not that the voltage is too high from a battery tender. Measuring my battery tender when connected reads 14.7V, which is close to the limits of 14.8-15V that I've seen for these batteries. What I have seen is that the battery tender can charge them for a longer time than what it should be and decrease the life of the battery. There is a lot of information on these batteries below and definitely worth a read if anyone is interested.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries

Honestly I'm not completely convinced by the argument above do to a lack of data presented on their part. It seems to me that, in general, the way that battery tenders work is appropriate for a LiFePO4 battery but the voltage limits, capacitance limits and time limits may be slightly different for an AGM vs LiFePO4 battery. Without knowing the exact voltage, and amperage cutoffs on a battery tender it is hard to say for sure what the long term use would do. There may be something to the argument because Battery Tender looks like they are starting to offer a lithium battery charger to address this. Although they don't say what changes they made for this charger.
http://batterytender.com/battery-tenderr-plus-lithium.html

Probably the best charger at the moment for LiFePO4 batteries is the one for the Shorai batteries because they monitor and charge each cell independently. Which would allow the charger to ensure that each cell is charged properly. The alternatives that I've found use 2 leads like a traditional charger, including the battery tender plus lithium. The down side to this is that the charger doesn't monitor each cell separately and charges them all at the same rate regardless of the actual state of each independent cell.

It just occurred to me that all of this could be avoided if there was simply no load on the battery, which could be done by removing the negative terminal or a cutoff switch. But I agree that a switch seems like it's more trouble than it's worth, even if I could figure out a way to fit it on the bike. Based on all the comments in another feed (https://www.st-owners.com/forums/showthread.php?95497-Shorai-Lithium-Iron-Batteries) it may not be a problem at all, even without a charger, as long as there are no other accessories attached to increase power drain when the bike is off. Just something I was considering and I really appreciate the feedback.

1) If you take away anything from battery university, check it against other sources. Some bad info on there.. and incomplete, has been for years. Like the page you referenced, he talks of li-ion charging no Li-fe.

When a series pack of LiFe cells is charging, once one tops off the rest are only allowed to charge at an absolute minimal rate. Lead batteries will let the excess current pass through, LiFe will not.

Yes, monitoring individual cells is best. But you need a port that has access to each cell and a charger that understands what to do with it.
I think the EarthX batteries are coming with a built in BMS that would balance the cells. But you will pay for it.