Modern Vespa

Anyone tried this yet they are out of stock right now but plan on getting one. they are only abourt 1.3 lbs and have enough to power accessories. This is the page for the MP3 500 http://www.shoraipower.com/s-44752-MP3-500.aspx
The cost is a little out there but I'm on my third oem Piaggio battery so if it lasts longer it would be cheaper for me in the long run.

You need to find out why your bike is eating batteries first. Is it over or under charging them?
If it's over charging the Lithium Iron could be dangerous.

Go to www.webbikeworld.com and find out as much as anyone knows about these new(expensive) batteries.

Thanks NorCal Randy for the link. The reason the dealer said my batteries were dying is that I do short runs. I can't but my batty on a tender as I live in a condo unless I took it out every night. (that dealer is now out of business in San Antonio and Austin) I ride my bike 365 days a year but my commute is only 1.5 miles and had symptoms ranging from tilt lock and seat senor malfunctions to not starting. Each OEM battery cost 135.00 w only 6 mo warranty so spending 186 for a five year warranty seem good. After reading the webbike world story it sounds like these Li Ion batteries should do just what the lead acid batteries could not.

Sounds like your short rides and no battery charger is what's causing your battery failures. Why don't you ride more/longer ?

You're not doing your motor any good either. It never get's the oil warm enough to get rid of moisture.

I do on weekends but my daily commute to work is only 1.5 miles each way. I never had this issue with my GT200 same battery for 5 yrs before it went kaput, more electronics means more power drain on the 500.

I'd start by getting a battery tender and running it once a week. Surely you can get power to it for, say 12 hrs?

Providing it's not too hot you could probably leave the tender locked under the seat and connected to the battery - just run an extension lead to the nearest power outlet.

PS Lambretta has only one "m"

Gonzo

Maybe you should have gotten a 250 MP3 'cause mine has a small battery and I've never had to touch the battery yet in 2 years time. But I do ride it usually at least 15 miles each time I take it out.

At the same time my Aprilia 500GT battery is sensitive to not getting put on a charger even if it sits for 1 day.

It seems there may be an alternative battery with some positive side effects. It is made/sold by Antigravity: http://antigravitybatteries.com/ . Check them out .

Not sure how that will help him. It's a matter of not enough running time to charge it. This doesn't help him charge the battery faster.

That comment was directed to norCa lRandy. I wasn't very clear in that..... From what I saw it has higher CCA rating at the same AHr rate so apparently lower internal resistance it may recharge somewhat quicker. It also appears to have a much lower internal discharge rate at idle (not is use).

Just an observation.

The Antigrav battery looks like it has the best terminals as far as strength and making a good connection without tools. Assuming the height of the terminals doesn't cause a problem I would probably go with it if I was thinking of replacing my lead-acid battery.

The more I think about it, I think coffedrink should just get a 2A battery charger and charge his flat wet cell battery, switching it when necessary with the 1 in his MP3. I'll bet his old batteries just needed to be recharged as needed. 2 regular batteries + a charger would be cheaper than taking a chance on a $150 battery that doesn't have much feedback for it's performance. Some of these state of the art batteries go dead for life if they get drained too much for their design.

I do what I have to do to keep the wet cell battery happy @ home. If you try to charge a battery faster than it's designed to handle, you warp the cell plates and it shorts out ! All the battery sizes our scooters have can't take more than a 2A charge or they will short out.

How about a solar charger?

This worked for me over the winter. Look for a weatherproof panel. I think you can plug it into the cigarette lighter (I have leads going straight to the battery) but I can't remember if the outlet will charge if the ignition is off. If it does (I think it does) then a solar trickle charger is even easier.

Solar
Why didn't it think of that sounds like a great idea. Found this http://batterytender.com/solar/5-watt-solar-panel.html think im going to give it a try!
Thanks everyone!

Of course, your commute doesn't hvae to be only 1.5 miles, just let your stteed have its head.....and away we gooooooooo

Which of the Antigravity batteries would be the replacement? None of them are anywhere near the 14AH the OEM battery is rated for; does one really need the 14AH? The reviews at webbikeworld seem to imply that the lithium batteries continue cranking after the lead battery was completely exhausted, so maybe a much lower AH capacity is not the detriment it might seem? I do see if you had something drawing a continuous low-level power drain (like an alarm or, for that matter, the Coocase I have mounted) then more reserve capacity could be important.

I note that the Shorai "direct replacement" linked by Coffedrink is a 14A1BS (and also out of stock...actually, I checked and EVERY ONE of their batteries are "out of stock"... ), while the Piaggio OEM is a 16BS, but in any event much closer.

There are also a line of Lithium Ions by a company named "Skyrich" that includes a direct replacement for the ytx16-bs (which they promise will not explode!) but they are $269. Yikes!

I also kill motorcycle batteries due to storage conditions (I would need to buy both a plug-in tender AND a solar tender, assuming they really work, because of where my scooter is stored), in fact I think I just killed another one. A battery that doesn't sulphate would be well worth it to me. Hell, when my Shadow battery died I was in a spot and couldn't wait to get to Strauss, and the dealer zapped me (and I knew full well he was doing it) for $150 for a cheap original replacement lead battery.

What counts is CCA (cold cranking amps), I have always be told you want the biggest battery that will fit int he battery tray.
The reasoning behind this is, the more cca the less time for the battery to recover from starting, as less of the reserve is used to start.

>the more cca the less time for the battery to recover from starting

Yes but - that may or may not apply to a new technology. The webbikes' experiment had several lead acid batteries with technically greater current availability unable to turn a starter after three attempts, while the lithium batteries cranked on. It may not be completely useful to compare the old and new technologies directly. I'm personally more concerned that the battery provides at least the minimum current needed to start, and I have no idea how one would even figure that out.

The 8-cell Antigravity has a similar CCA as the OEM (240 versus I believe 250 or 260); the much more affordable 4-cell is only 120 cranking amps. I am dubious that this is enough to turn over a high-compression single thumper. So $200 for the 8-cell Antigravity, whose total energy content is only 4.6 AH or about a quarter of the OEM lead acid - but again, does reserve capacity really matter with a battery with a much flatter current output curve? The $154 Shorai is rated for a much more reasonable 14AH while still putting out 210 amps...but kinda suspicious that they are sold out of every single model - unless they are coming from the Tsunami area.

The 12 volt outlet under the seat is constant hot, not affected by the key. A tender with a male lighter plug works fine. FYI, the diameter of the outlet is a little large for American accessories. GPS units may lose connection while riding. I changed the outlet to US marine unit and it fits tighter.

Used this one, got extras for other projects.

http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=11151&partNumber=6867907&cid=2011Annual

A solar charger would be perfect so long as there is plenty of sun light year around.Another possibility is getting a small portable generator,one that the battery tender can plug into.There is quite the selection of handheld generators out there so you should be able to find something for a decent price.

Good luck.

This post was not quite
What we were hoping to see
Try again, perhaps?

This post was not quite
What we were hoping to see
Try again, perhaps?

This post was not quite
What we were hoping to see
Try again, perhaps?

This post was not quite
What we were hoping to see
Try again, perhaps?

This post was not quite
What we were hoping to see
Try again, perhaps?

This post was not quite
What we were hoping to see
Try again, perhaps?

>If you try to charge a battery faster than it's designed to handle, you warp the cell plates and it shorts out ! All the battery sizes our scooters have can't take more than a 2A charge or they will short out

Seeing as I had nothing to lose, I've been trying the "deliberate overcharging" trick and I can report that it does work - a bit. The first day I tried charging for seven hours at 2A; I got to 64% charged and no more, and the next time I checked it had dropped to 42%. Since then, about every other day I have been zapping the battery at 12amps for 10-15 seconds, back to 2A for a minute, and repeat. First day of this I got to 90%. Next time (starting from 42% again) I made it to 100%, but the next time it had dropped to 48%. And today it started at 55% so it does appear to work to some extent. So this trick may get enough life back into my battery to get me rolling for a while as I wait to see how this whole Lithium-Iron thing pans out.

I don't think I can recommend the overcharging trick generally (especially since at one point Saturday the battery emitted a loud POP at the end of a ten-second cycle) but if you are going to toss the battery anyway, it may be worth a try provided you can deal (physically and emotionally!) with a cracked battery if it comes to that.

EDIT: After a long ride my charger now says the battery is at 85% (from dead!), which I suppose saves me from having to buy a replacement battery (lithium or otherwise) this year. I guess that desulphanizing trick does work after all. Thanks to...um, well whoever posted it!

Perhaps this post
Was just what you
Were hoping to see?

The desulphanizing trick will work till the stuff that came off builds up enough, that it touches the bottom of one of the plates and shorts that cell out and you turn the motor off, go to start it again and it does nothing.

Your battery is trying to warn you, you should listen to it or you will get stranded somewhere.

Point taken. Like coffedrink I have had it with motorcycle lead acid batteries - arguing about whether or not I failed to care of them, which I will gladly concede, doesn't change that fact - and I am eager to try out one of these newer Lithium batteries...but I'd like to wait some months before making the leap to see how these new companies and their products stand up. So if I can get at least a little more life out of my existing battery, even with little sulfur time bombs floating in it, that's a good thing in my book.

But you are also working your stator/regulator harder by making it charge the battery all the time.

I'm not sure I agree with that. When the best I was doing was 40% charge (i.e. a full 13+ volts but only 40% of amp-hour capacity being utilized) I would say you're right. But if I have 85% capacity back, that's probably no worse than a "good" battery that's several years old and losing capacity to other reasons such as plate crystal migration. I'm guessing you wouldn't toss an otherwise good battery just because it has lost ten or so percent of its capacity. Heck for that matter, if some of the sulphuric acid is precipitating out then that is itself lowering the capacity of the electrolyte right there - even if the plates were completely clean I'd be reading something less than 100% capacity (and no way to measure specific gravity with these batteries). So the real issue, as I see it, is the sulphate contamination and the very real risks you correctly point out.

Edit: I see that Jerryw has just posted elsewhere a replacement MP3 battery for $60 including free shipping, so now I have to have a debate with myself about holding out for the new technology...

Getting back to the original topic. Something else that has not been mentioned in this thread, but if any of those lithium-iron manufacturers are reading (hint hint): when my MP3 battery died, I knew just what to do - I went straight to my truck and got my lead-acid-powered emergency jump kit. Which was, of course, deader than a doornail for exactly the reasons described above. It doesn't self-trickle, so I can't leave it plugged into the cigarette lighter all the time, but it's lead-acid, so if it is not trickle-charged it sulphates and shorts. So a massive, bulky, and expensive piece of junk that I've been hauling around with me (and paying for extra fuel to carry it) that failed the one and only time I needed it, $60 completely wasted. Sure seems like these lithium-iron batteries, if they really work as advertised, would be a natural for this type of application but I am not seeing anything like them - just a few lithium-ions (no "R") for over $250. I should think you'd need cranking amps but not necessarily a lot of reserve amp-hours (e.g. those small but supposedly very powerful Antigravities).

Million dollar idea?

don't know if I agree with this. The stator is always producing when the engine is running It doesn't cycle on/off. it works no harder on a fully charge or half charged battery.

It always turns while running, but on a half drained battery, it will be cranking out more amps to charge the battery AND provide power to everything else that needs it.

so what your saying is the stator can decide how many amps it can produce at a given rpm based on whether the battery is low or fully charged?

Actually the regulator does that, but still more amps = more heat, which = stress on the components.

ok now the regulator is working harder? If the battery is low the regulator lets x amount of voltage and amps thru kinda like a dam, if more is needed open the gates. Now that the stator is still producing x Amount ALL the time and the battery only needs say 1/2 that where does the other half go?

Now you're just messin' with us!