Orbea Gain

[Scaleyback]

Solom01, I'm kinda of curious also. My bike is in AZ where it is stored in my house all summer as we are snowbirds and I ride in the winter months. Have been wondering what the hot dry temps are doing to the battery. House AC is set at 86F all summer but it is warm and dry.

Zeek48, do you know Orbea recommend the battery is charged I think it is every 2 months ?

 

[Zeek48]

Hi Zeek. I wouldn't worry about 86, that's not bad at all, and for longest life if you're not going to ride it all summer try to make sure it is left at about 50% or so charge (not at 100% and definitely not super low). In my case I've never ridden my bike when the temperature hasn't been at least 90 degrees with humidity in the 80s or above - that's our normal temperature in Summer in the Gulf coast of Florida. Don't know where you're from but we have tons of snowbirds here especially from Canada. A lot of them leave the AC in the 80s while they're up north and come back to mold coming out of the ducts and all over everything. Oh well, at least in the winter time it's be in the 70s and sunny - no snow or black ice, so there's that to look forward to. I normally don't get this hung up with battery life on my other bikes because when they die you simply bite the bullet and buy a new one, but without an Orbea dealer near me and a non user-replaceable battery I don't know what will happen when it dies. I guess I might just have to use it as a non ebike, which at least you can do with the Gains unlike a lot of other really heavy bikes.

Thx Solom01, our problem is definitely not the humidity and mold. We would like to see some. Our problem is everything drying out. Wood furniture, rubber etc. One of the reasons I'm a little concerned about the battery is we are lucky to get 24-36 months out of car and golf cart batteries in AZ because of the summer heat. In Canada even with the cold we rarely have to replace until 7-8 yrs. I'm hoping storing inside at 86F will work rather than the 110F+ the garage can get to in the summer. Looking forward to getting back down there.

 

[Zeek48]

Zeek48, do you know Orbea recommend the battery is charged I think it is every 2 months ?

Have read that. Left it at about an 75-80% charge. Difficult to do anything more when it's left for 6 months.

 

[Zeek48]

Ironically I will have a similar issue with my bike left at home in Canada during the winter. I have a Bianchi eroad Aria here. Will be left in house but heated all winter.

 

[Solom01]

Zeek, I wouldn't worry too much about it. There's nothing magic or particularly new about lithium battery technologies, it's all a series of compromises. Vendors constantly say things to protect themselves against warranty claims while making their range look good. There is no doubt that charging a lithium battery above 80% or so or letting it get much below 20% will drastically shorten it's lifespan by a factor of 2-4X, but if you're an eBike vendor can you imagine stating the range with those margins built-in? You'd never sell a bike. They always say to make sure you charge the bike from anywhere between 30 days and 90 days if you're not using it - but that's just to prevent it from going to 0% which will kill the battery in no time. Since you're not there to charge it there's nothing you can do, but if you leave them at a 75-80% charge I'm thinking that it will still have at least a 30% charge by the time you return? Yeah, Arizona is a bear when it comes to batteries. The Nissan Leafs there were experiencing battery degradation left and right because of the extreme heat and the rudimentary battery cooling systems they have. Nissan replaced more Leaf batteries under warranty in that one state than in the rest of the country combined.

 

[NickWi]

Well, it does what it says on the tin. It recharges the main battery as you ride along! I know that sounds like stating the bleeding obvious, but it does it smoothly, unobtrusively and if you didn't know it was only the main battery that could power the motor you'd swear it was the Range Extender Battery (REB from now on) doing it as the Iwoc power display on the bike stayed on White for the entire ride with the REB display slowly going through the change what's left colous as it used up its juice.

With both batteries powered up the phone app says 200%, you don't get a breakdown by battery, maybe one for the suggestion box. The bottle cage and glorified elastic band held everything in place, no rattles and I couldn't feel the extra weight when riding. Looking down to see what colour the Iwoc button on the REB became a new habit and it turned from White to Green at about 15miles. When it eventually died at 46miles (and if the button on the REB did the red flashing thing for less than 10% power left I didn't notice), but when I did noticed it had expired I stopped and looked at the power in the main battery on my phone. It said 95%. The REB could have died anytime in the last mile, but I was riding uphill on a busy and narrow country lane and I had other things to concentrate on.

The ride today wasn't particularly hilly, I average 13mph with 1,600ft of climbing in 50.2miles (and yes, I had to ride around the block to get that magic extra couple of fractions of a mile in). I rode mostly on Green Level 1 with the occasional foray into L2 or L3 for the odd hill or two, but boy was it hot today. 30deg C the weather man says and I believe him. For those of you who live in warmer climates that may not sound much, but to us Lilly White Brits, trust me, that’s hot. I’ve just had a tot up, I got through 3⅓ litres of water out on the ride, plus tea before and several large glasses of water when I got home.

So, my conclusion (albeit after only one ride with a REB); Well as I said previously it’s an ugly bugger, but the REB does what it’s supposed to do. 46miles down and with 95% left in the main battery I know I, (no I’ll rephrase that), I know a rider with better legs than me could easily have ridden 100 plus miles using power assistance, and that's an extended range. How it would cope with more climbing and/or steeper hills I don’t know, but as it stands, for my type of riding, at my speeds and for the gentle undulating terrain in my part of the world, it does what it says on the tin, and does it very well.

Just a quick update on the Range Extender Battery, but with a slight twist. I went out for a ride today but left the assistance of max assist most the time as an experiment to see how the REB coped with continuous high demand. Again not a particularly hilly ride, 36miles and 2,500ft of climbing and if being honest, not a lot to report really. As I as said above the main Iwop display on the frame stayed on White all the time and the REB recharged it without any drama. The only thing I noticed this time was that when I coasted or was going downhill the white light on the main Iwoc pulses to show it's accepting charge. Obviously it most do this all time the main battery is accepting charge and if it did that last time I didn't notice it, but the increased demand from the main battery made it more requent and therefore more noticable. Not unreasonably the REB didn't last very long today, about 25miles before it was depleted, but nonetheless an interesting experiment.

Lastly a confession, it was rather nice wafting along on full power!

 

[Milkfloat]

I am incredibly shocked that people leave air conditioning on in an empty house for 6 months.

 

[Solom01]

Sounds incredibly wasteful, doesn't it? I guess I won't say anything about having to irrigate the lawn every month of the year. On the other hand I don't ever have to heat the house, and the pool is usable 11 months a year. I don't know what the weather is like in the UK, but if our Canadian members left their homes unheated all winter long I'm pretty sure every single pipe in the house would burst. The joys of living on the edge.

 

[Storck]

Sounds incredibly wasteful, doesn't it? I guess I won't say anything about having to irrigate the lawn every month of the year. On the other hand I don't ever have to heat the house, and the pool is usable 11 months a year. I don't know what the weather is like in the UK, but if our Canadian members left their homes unheated all winter long I'm pretty sure every single pipe in the house would burst. The joys of living on the edge.

After working in Canada for one winter, I could see why they would leave the heating on. Also why I was eligible for cold weather clothing allowance.

 

[Zeek48]

I am incredibly shocked that people leave air conditioning on in an empty house for 6 months.

I'm not even going to get into that debate with you. It certainly isn't because we prefer to.

 

[Southernguns]

Hi folks. Quick question, can you guys confirm the battery capacity of the main battery in your Gains from the information given in the engineering mode section of the eBikemotion app? I'm a bit worried about battery longevity because even though I never let my battery go below 30% and try to not charge it to 100% the weather here is really hot and humid which is not great for lithium batteries. I keep the bike inside, but when I ride the temperature is often at or near 100 degrees F. My current capacity is 237.2 which is a bit below what it's supposed to be (but well within normal variances I guess) and it has remained at that amount since I started looking, but I was just wondering what other bikes are showing. Thanks

Just charged and checked mine - 242.2wh out of 243.3wh at 100% charge. I have not done many rides on mine, only 273 miles (possibly 15 - 18 rides). I am based in the UK so no extremes in weather conditions and I have always charged to 100% but, having read comments on here, will start charging to 80%.

 

[Scaleyback]

A rough and ready calculation but I have just charged my Gain from 23% to 85% and it took around 3 hours so around 20% of charge per hour.
Do you guys agree with that or is the charge rate not linear ?
I use a timer these days and charge my battery when it falls to around 25% and I charge it to around 85%.
Depending on the rides of course I get a minimum of two rides (usually more) so do not consider this charging regime too troublesome.

 

[CXRAndy]

Not linear, charge current reduces as it begins to reach 70%

 

[Solom01]

Hi guys. This is already complicated enough. As a lawyer and not an engineer I have no clue what the answer is, but does anyone know if the BMS in this system balances the cells at the start of charging or at the end? Since the last 10% seems to take a bit of time I think it balances the cells at the end. If so, even though 100% charging is hard on the battery (and eBikemotion mentions this multiple times in their instructions) you occasionally have to do it to balance the cells. Should it be done once every 5 charges, 10 charges, once a month? I don't have a clue. Oh well, I'll think about it on my afternoon ride with a 16mph headwind. I'm happy that the terrain here is flat - but not happy that being coastal there's a constant wind that somehow or the other always seems to be a headwind. At least when you have hills there's always a downhill part to enjoy.

 

[Southernguns]

At least when you have hills there's always a downhill part to enjoy.

But its over so quickly!