Carrying a battery in a pannier
Posted by InformalMedium2810@reddit | ebikes | View on Reddit | 30 comments
Chatgpt is suggesting I carry my 48v 21 ah battery in a pannier (Ortlieb) that is clipped onto the side of a rear rack (Topeak). Does anyone else have experience doing something like this? Will my battery be safe? Will I be able to ensure that the battery doesn't wobble when the bikes goes over potholes?
jim914@reddit
It’s probably the worst idea you’re better off having it secured to the rack instead of in a pannier because they tend to move quite a bit. The more times you shake and bang around a battery the greater the chances of causing the spot welds on the cells to break and that leads to battery fires! Even with it mounted on a rack you want to avoid hitting potholes.
auld-guy@reddit
So, every bike is prone to spot weld issues from potholes? With the state of our roads these days, I'm surprised we don't hear more about this.
jim914@reddit
I didn’t say the bike is prone to issues but yes I’ve had a frame ruined by potholes. My comment says the spot welds on the cells of the battery and I’ve had to replace 1 battery already due to that exact problem and I had to have a second one fixed because the spot welds were loose and causing unequal charging! The shop that repaired it said it wouldn’t be such a huge problem if the manufacturer had the pack of cells mounted better inside the housing but they just had it loose inside the housing with one piece of foam strip at one end. They fixed the welds and wrapped the battery pack better and it doesn’t bounce around inside the housing. Yeah roads are terrible and I bother to try remembering where the worst holes are not so much about the battery but those potholes hit at 25 mph can also ruin rims and cause spokes to break.
auld-guy@reddit
I’ve never heard of an issue where the welds in a battery come loose from bumpy riding.
jim914@reddit
It’s not just bumpy riding we’re talking potholes that when you’re doing 25 mph and hit them it’s sending you flying some in Chicago can be the entire width of the bike lane and rather deep impossible to avoid without going into traffic that’s speeding along usually well over the speed limit. As I stated earlier the battery I had issues repaired on wasn’t mounted properly inside the case the manufacturer had the cells inside the grid housing and just laid that into the rest of the housing. So the actual battery was bouncing around inside the housing with one little strip of foam on one end. After the shop repaired it it was firmly mounted with more foam underneath to reduce any movement. They said it’s also possible that the spot welds were not done properly from the beginning so I’m lucky I didn’t have sparks happening and have a battery catching fire. No bumpy ride has ever caused me problems before either I’ve been riding an e-bike for over 6 years. But lately the condition of the bike lanes is horrible and it’s actually ruined the rim on my rear hub which was a very solid rim, luckily the manufacturer deemed it defective even though they knew I hit a bad pothole and they replaced it for free.
auld-guy@reddit
So it’s not really the potholes, you bought a crappy bike.
jim914@reddit
No it’s not I bought a crappy bike it’s a Fuji Crosstown 3.0 with a conversion kit to electric. Part of it is having suspension on the front fork but a rigid triangle on the rear the front suspension hits a pothole and causes you to bounce! Your assumption is like everyone’s assumption just a bad opinion my bike is not some Amazon scrap for $500 and the conversion kit is from a reputable company that has a warehouse and retail store here in Chicago named ebikling which is how I got the damaged rim replaced they have a full inventory of replacement parts and provide service. I’m not new to this been building bikes most of my life and if they hadn’t offered to build my rear wheel with the replacement rim for free I would have built it myself I have a truing stand and I build my own wheels. As I said infrastructure in Chicago is completely pitiful and not maintained the only work currently being done is removing protective barriers on many of the bike lanes built in the last 5 years because they are more concerned with having happy drivers than the safety of cyclists!
auld-guy@reddit
Just sayin’…I’ve never heard of anyone else with batteries that just fall apart at the welds.
jim914@reddit
I didn’t say that it fell apart I took it in to be checked because it wasn’t charging properly and they found the damaged strips. You’re in Texas so you have no clue what we deal with here in Chicago thanks to winter weather and road salt degrading the roadway. Yes constantly shocking the battery with hitting huge potholes unlike the perfectly smooth path you have in your videos will damage a battery it’s just a spot weld done by a machine in mass production and rarely are any of them checked in any of the Chinese factories! The shop that rebuilt my battery has videos of how batteries catch fire and they have proof that it’s usually from excessive vibration such as the kid’s doing wheelies on the electric motorcycles. It happens and I was lucky mine was caught before it was a real issue!
auld-guy@reddit
Well, I grew up in ND so I do know. I also know that Chicago potholes are just potholes. No different than anywhere else. So it didn’t “fall apart”…it was “damaged”. Because it was sub-standard, not because of potholes that everyone deals with.
jim914@reddit
Wrong these potholes can be as wide as the bike lane and some are very deep enough for an entire wheel to drop in and I’m riding on 700c wheels! Yes it was possible that it was a manufacturing defect but that battery was in service for 2 years not just one day! Please take a break on being the authority on conditions in Chicago you don’t live here!
auld-guy@reddit
Please take a break on believing that only Chicago has potholes. You are not special.
jim914@reddit
Yeah if these were potholes I wouldn’t think it’s unusual but we’re dealing with what amounts to sinkholes!
geekroick@reddit
Are you talking about leaving it there all the time? As in, the permanent position for the battery you're using every day?
Why not mount it somewhere?
InformalMedium2810@reddit (OP)
I ordered the bike online and I now find that there isn't sufficient space inside the triangle.
bahaboyka@reddit
I do this all the time when I'm on a long, long ride. I also use 1 of my Ortleib panniers and it works great.
InformalMedium2810@reddit (OP)
How do you ensure that the battery doesn't wobble? Especially on poor roads.
DonnPT@reddit
Give it some comfy padding so it isn't banging on anything.
If it suffers any severe impact - like, you crash on it - keep it outside for a while afterwards. I don't know how long - days, weeks. The problem isn't just spot welds. Any damage to the cells can drastically increase the chance of a fire.
Of course if the battery you put in the bag is already hard cased, less of an issue.
Late-Stage-Dad@reddit
I tried carrying my 20AH 52V on my rear rack and the ride was horrible. I felt every little bump (hard tail) and the higher center of gravity made the bike tip easier. Moving the battery to a battery bag in the center of the frame was 100% better.
Zenigata@reddit
Why not in the main triangle?
Anyway I encountered someone who does this a while back. Was locking my bike up next to his converted bike and couldn't figure out where his battery was. He said the battery was too heavy for his bottle bosses and broke them so he put it in a pannier instead, said it worked.
lunkdjedi@reddit
I've done that with the same exact pannier. Used the foam that the battery was shipped with to protect it in the bag.
Slight_Nobody5343@reddit
id want that much weight centered instead of on the sides, unless you counter balance just pad the rack and strap it on top.
PipeLong5050@reddit
Unless it's the only option, that's a fairly crappy place to put a battery. It puts in in harm's way in the event of a crash, as well as adding additional awkwardly long cable run, which might mean sizing up to a lower gauge battery cable depending on the length and amp draw. If you can't mount under or on rack, frame pack is a lot better
auld-guy@reddit
He doesn't need a cable. He just wants to carry it.
auld-guy@reddit
That's where I keep my spare, but I didn't need AI to tell me. How do you protect your battery in your bike from jolts from potholes? My guess is you'll be fine.
Miao_Mix@reddit
Just try it instead of relying on what chatGPT or randos on reddit tell you you bot
InformalMedium2810@reddit (OP)
Not a bot. Just a noob who is scared to end up with something that's unusable/unsafe (after having spent a lot of money).
CommercialSignal7301@reddit
There’s a video on YouTube where a builder in the Netherlands made a bike with a bagged battery for reasons of mainly aesthetics. I would want it secured wherever it’s mounted.
gladfelter@reddit
I've done it with smaller batteries than that, and only in padded cases. That monster must weigh 15-18 pounds, which is close to half of a typical rack's carrying capacity. You can do it, but your bike will feel less balanced and if you don't have padding it'll get banged around more than I personally would want.
Militant_Triangle@reddit
AI is stupid. It found some comment by an idiot on the internet and is telling you the same shit that idiot said.
21 AH battery weights like 12 pounds. Can you put 12 pounds offset on a bike? yes. Will it be balanced the same..no. If you do eat it. on THAT side of the bike, the battery could take damage. But getting bumped and jostled will not be an issue. its no different than what the battery IN your bike is going though, unless you eat it on top of your unbalanced load bike.
I would NOT put a 12 pound battery off set in a pannier bag Unless the other side was around the same weight. But that's me... Around town, your probably fine. But eh...FUCK that. On the bike with a rack I would put that ON the rack behind me strapped down in a hard-shell bag strapped to the rack. On my bike with nothing back there I use an Aeroe fattire spider rack with hard shell pod.
chat gpt has never ridden a bike as far as I know so why would you ask it about such? ...