Originally Posted by
tomzgreat
One thing to keep in mind. All 48v batteries aren't even. Ask the manufacturer what is the top voltage and the cutoff voltage.
I had a Ping Battery Lipo4 that was called a 48v but charged up to 59v
This is comparable to the Luna Cycle 52v battery.
The 48v I bought from Calibike was reasonably priced but only goes up to 54v. I get around 2-3 miles less top speed then the Ping and it's more sluggish on hills.
Good luck.
Yes...this "48V" notation is a bit of a misnomer and I think comes from the old car lead acid battery idea where 4 x 12V batteries were strung together to give "48V" (and those batteries weren't even 12V!).
The two most common chemistries for lithium packs we see these days are LiFePO4 and LiPo.
LiFePO4:
Nominal voltage per cell - 3.3
A "48V" pack is usually made up of 16 cells in series giving actual nominal voltage of (16 x 3.3) = 52.8V
These can usually be charged to about 3.6 volts/cell giving a "hot off the charger" voltage of (16 x 3.6) = 57.6V
LiPo:
Nominal voltage per cell - 3.7
A "48V" pack is usually made up of 13 cells in series giving actual nominal voltage of (13 x 3.7) = 48.1V
These can usually be charged to about 4.2 volts/cell giving a "hot off the charger" voltage of (13 x 4.2) = 54.6V
A "52V" pack is made up of 14 cells in series giving actual nominal voltage of (14 x 3.7) = 51.8V
and a "hot off the charger" voltage of (14 x 4.2) = 58.8V (closer to a 16s LiFePO4 pack)
Some may know more about the actual numbers but "48V" is really not 48 volts.