Replacement batteries?

[Si]

Any electrics experts out there?

I've a really old Lumicycles battery pack...I believe that they are NiMH batteries (does that sound right?) connected to either halogen or HiD lamps depending on where I'm riding. It's always worked very well but now age is creeping up on it (must be at least ten years old) and it's not holding charge as long as one might want it to.

I looked on the Lumi site and they are now all Li-lon batteries and very expensive. No doubt they are lighter or last longer than my NiMHs but my NiMHs did the job for me and so I'd be happy to go with the same again, but want to get them as cheap as possible. So, can anyone please tell me what I need to order and from where (trusted discount on-line battery sellers?). I'm happy to string them together myself but am not sure exactly what I need. Obviously they have to be usable with my existing Lumicycles NiMH 'fast' charger.
cheers.

[Brucey]

ideally you need to open up your battery pack and see what is in there. You may find the cells are marked up in such a way as you can identify them and therefore order replacements.

BTW you may find that in addition to the simple wiring for the batteries, that there are additional wires and components in the pack to allow for charge monitoring/charge cutoff. You need to understand exactly what is going on there if you are going to rebuild the pack correctly.

BTW my suspicion is that for offroad riding an e-bay cheapie LED/Li Ion system will probably be cheaper than buying new NiMh cells....

cheers

[gaz]

+1 for Brucey's investigative surgery advice. Post back the results for further guidance.

Last time I did it was on a 12v Night Sun water bottle battery pack. The contents, 10 x 1.2v NiCad C-cells soldered in series and a lot of expanded filler foam.

The back of your charger may have some electrical output information, it won't mean much to the likes of me but it will be helpful for others.

From other posts on the forum I have determined that there are good NiMHs and there are rubbish NiMHs, cheap is not always cheerful particularly in terms of discharge rate when stored.

[Si]

ideally you need to open up your battery pack

Unfortunately the battery pack doesn't have anything on it as it's wrapped in plastic which I don't want to remove as it appears to be the waterproofing. The charger has "10-12 cells. Out: 1.1A" and "230vac 50-60hz 0.4a"

BTW my suspicion is that for offroad riding an e-bay cheapie LED/Li Ion system will probably be cheaper than buying new NiMh cells....

Had a look at these, problem is, I don't have the experience with them to know how bright they are or how long they will run for. With my existing lights I got about 4hrs on the HiD lamp.

[Brucey]

I'm not quite sure why you would want to retain the waterproofness of a defective battery pack myself... and I am sure that you won't be able to fit new cells to it without cutting it open. Were you thinking of building a new battery pack from scratch?

Re LED/ Li-Ion systems; most of them say how long they run for in the blurb. Typically they will run for three or four hours on 'full' but have different power settings. So my Cygolite runs for 3hrs @ 310 lumens, 4 Hrs @ ~240 lumens, and 14.5 hours at ~60 lumens and there is a very low power 'walking' mode which runs for 85 hours. There are warning indicators that give warning of impending battery drain, so you get a half-hour warning. The whole shooting match weighs about 240g and is brighter (on main beam) than some motorcycle headlights I have 'enjoyed'. Even the low setting is enough to see by on the road when cycling on dry roads.

From what I can tell the cygolight is much less dazzling for others because the beam shape is good and there is less beam spill. The beam spill is greatly reduced because there is no direct line of sight to the LED emitter itself; this greatly reduces the chances of 'off beam' dazzling of others.

cheers

[Norman H]

In the past I've usedhttp://www.recellyourbattery.com/ for Dive Light batteries.

I hope this helps

[Si]

I'm not quite sure why you would want to retain the waterproofness of a defective battery pack myself

Only because it still holds charge for a while - enough to get me home from my Tuesday evenings out - and so I don't want to put it out of action until I've got the replacement.

However, having found the other lights thread, that C&B Seen is very appealing.

[Si]

In the past I've usedhttp://www.recellyourbattery.com/ for Dive Light batteries.

I hope this helps

thanks, handy to know, although I guess that they are a little more expensive than DIY.

[mill4six]

I've used them too and very happy with the job and the price.

[hexhome]

Might be something here http://www.componentshop.co.uk/batterie ... above.html

[Graham]

I'm still using my Lumicycle 4.4 Ah NiMH pack.

At an appropriate moment I am likely to buy a Lithium Ion replacement from this supplier . . .
http://www.mtbbatteries.co.uk/

mtb batteries specialises in the Custom and OEM Market of Lithium-Ion, Lithium-Polymer & NiMH batteries.

He/they are well-known on the SingleTrack forum : trusted & knowledgeable by all accounts.

I was about to rant on about your old halogen bulbs not surviving very long with the nominal 15V output from Li-ion, but I see that Lumicycle are offering a battery upgrade without any mention of the jump in nominal voltages.

Probably best to contact mtbbatteries and ask them what they can do for you.

[mgronow]

Enix make a single lead lumicycle bottle clone: http://cellpacksolutions.com/Search_Data_Sheet.asp?ID=MMH2801

Regards martin