Safely Charging Lithium Powersport Batteries

TK4

TK4

Well-known member
This is an important read - I had a buddy set fire to his GSXR600 because the lithium-ion battery overheated.

adventuremotorcycle.com

Respect Your Regulator: Safely Charging Lithium Powersport Batteries - Adventure Motorcycle Magazine (ADVMoto)

The particular charging requirements of these batteries is often not clearly stated by the manufacturer, and plenty of misinformation spread online doesn’t help either. Using the same voltage regulator that worked just fine with your old battery can potentially result in a dangerous lithium-ion...
adventuremotorcycle.com adventuremotorcycle.com
 
If it regulates to 14.0 - 14.4 volts, it's fine. There is a certain range of years of GSXRs that have the voltage regulator on the left side of the bike behind the radiator and above the exhaust system ... hmmm, let's take something with cooling fins on it and put it in the hottest spot we can think of. A cooked regulator that keeps on rectifying but is no longer regulating, could overcharge the battery.

I've been using lithium batteries for years. I had to replace OEM (and failure-prone) regulators on older bikes designed for flooded lead-acid with modern MOSFET regulators - those regulators struggled to put out 13 volts at the best of times, not enough to keep a lithium battery charged. The newer bikes (designed for modern sealed batteries) all regulated to 14.2+/-0.2 volts anyhow.
 
If you are going to swap in a mosfet regulator, get an OEM one.
They are all over Amazon and Alibaba... and they're garbage. EVERY one I have tried has been replaced with an OEM. Most don't work out of the box, and if they do work, they fail within hours.
I think the Can am Razr one is the cheapest... but I can usually get the Honda part faster. (They're OEM on dozens of bikes and ATVs and welding machines and, well, pretty much anything anymore).
The regulator doesn't have to switched on/off, wire it directly to the battery, it pulls very little current.
They work on two phase or three phase systems
... and YEAH, mount it where it gets some air circulation.

OH
I'm talking about Shindegen Fh020 which is the current part, or Sh775 which is an older design that works as well (Internet legend is the mosfets used in SH775 were made in a factory that got wiped out in a tsunami. When they built a new factory they made faster mosfets and we got the FH020). They look the same and use the same mountings, they're inter-changeable
 
I have two bikes with the Shindengen regulators (in place of crappy Yamaha OEM regulators that don't put out enough voltage), and they have been fine.
 
TK4 said:
This is an important read - I had a buddy set fire to his GSXR600 because the lithium-ion battery overheated.

adventuremotorcycle.com

Respect Your Regulator: Safely Charging Lithium Powersport Batteries - Adventure Motorcycle Magazine (ADVMoto)

The particular charging requirements of these batteries is often not clearly stated by the manufacturer, and plenty of misinformation spread online doesn’t help either. Using the same voltage regulator that worked just fine with your old battery can potentially result in a dangerous lithium-ion...
adventuremotorcycle.com adventuremotorcycle.com
Click to expand...

Keep in mind, this was written by an RMSTATOR employee. I was looking all over for "Advertisement", because that's what it reads like. They failed to mention that the higher-end LiFePO4's have a BMS that can additional issues like over-voltage or under-voltage. I've been using LiFePO4's since Shorai started selling them around 10 years ago. I admit I killed my first Shorai within 2 years due to undersizing, improper use, and treating it like a lead acid. I replaced it with a Ballistic which is still working fine to this day, and have a few Antigravity batteries as well. Never any problems with a normally functioning stock R/R. The best advice I can give is to make sure you size correctly for the lowest temperature you expect the battery to be at when you try to start the bike.
 
I bought a Shorai lithium to try and solve the cranking issues on the Capo
spec wise it had higher CCA rating, real world it was worse

was supposed to have built in charge management circuitry
whatever it had, it didn't like the Noma 12V solar charge kit
forgot it was hooked up and went away for a few days

bottom had blown out of that expensive POS
luckily it didn't burn the shed down
 
Two of the key points seem to be-
(1) use a lithium specific remote charger - I think the newest Battery Tender has that feature.
(2) watch 'on the bike' charge rate and for the possibility of overheating.
Just like in your cell phone or laptop ?
 
Also, lithiums don't need trickle charger over winter.
Just unplug. You can bring it inside if you think you're garage gets cold.
Upgraded to a lithium in my previous speed triple, cranked much better and never had any issues with it.
You have to know how to start them in cold temps, turn on the bike and let it warm up first for a bit before cranking.
Gave me a little bit more underseat storage.
 
J_F said:
I bought a Shorai lithium to try and solve the cranking issues on the Capo
spec wise it had higher CCA rating, real world it was worse

was supposed to have built in charge management circuitry
whatever it had, it didn't like the Noma 12V solar charge kit
forgot it was hooked up and went away for a few days

bottom had blown out of that expensive POS
luckily it didn't burn the shed down
Click to expand...

Shorai has no batteries with onboard battery management system (BMS), which is why they need to be charged with a special charger through a dedicated charging port. Also, the CCA ratings on LiFEPO4's are deceptive. When cold, they will barely crank due to high internal resistance. But if you keep cranking the,. they get stronger and stronger as the cells heat up. Ballistic used to have a video to demonstrate this, but the consensus was that this was hard on the batteries and it was better to gradually warm them up by turning on the headlights for 10 minutes or so before cranking. It's very counterintuitive and I still don't feel confident in the cold, even though I know from experience that it will eventually start. The other thing is that while cranking cold, your bike will see a voltage drop and you will need to reset the clock, which is a pain. When properly sized, this reportedly is no longer an issue. All of mine are apparently still undersized...
 
I've upgraded my R/R's to Shindengen SH847's and they work really well with modern sealed batteries and lithium. I normally buy them from Jack Fleming at ROADSTERCYCLE.COM as you can be sure they are genuine, and he also has super fast shipping.

As Brian mentioned old ones tend to rectify but no long regulate... LOL.

There is a great article on Jacks site on how to spot a fake, but if you see a SH847 or 775 on eBay for $50, its probably not Kosher.
 
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