Can I recondition a bicycle battery myself?
If you have an electric bicycle yourself, then you will probably agree that cycling has become a lot more pleasant due to all weather conditions. Bicycle batteries in electric bicycles make cycling just that little bit easier. It becomes less fun of course if your bicycle battery suddenly breaks down or if its capacity decreases. Fortunately, you can easily recondition a bicycle battery yourself . How you can do this is discussed extensively in this article.
An electric bicycle can be powered by different types of batteries. We can mainly divide these into Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMh) batteries and Lithium Ion (Li-ion) batteries.
Contents
Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMh) batteries
These types of batteries work best if they are charged regularly. Nickel Metal Hydride batteries are much cheaper than Lithium Ion batteries, but on the other hand they are heavier and cumbersome.
If your electric bike has a Nickel Metal Hydride battery, make sure you use it intensively. After all, these types of batteries discharge relatively quickly when they are not being used. Also keep in mind that the performance of these types of batteries can decrease in extreme cold.
You can easily overhaul a NiMh bicycle battery yourself by completely discharging the battery and then recharging it again.
This is not only a very easy method, but also a very effective method. To make things a little easier for you, we would like to give an overview of the 5 steps that must be followed.
5 Steps To Overhaul A (NiMh) Bicycle Battery
- Step 1: have the bicycle battery fully discharged.
Place the NiMh battery in your bike and use it up completely. If you have cycled the battery completely empty, then you remove it from your bike.
- Step 2: let the bicycle battery cool down to room temperature.
Do not proceed to step 3 if the bicycle battery has not cooled completely. Keep in mind that this can take half an hour.
- Step 3: place the bicycle battery in the charger.
Once the battery is at room temperature, you can place it in the charger.
- Step 4: fully charge the bicycle battery.
With the charger you can fully recharge the battery. Keep a close eye on this process. Overcharging can damage the battery.
- Step 5: Repeat the entire procedure 4 to 5 times.
Repeat the procedure several times. Make sure the bicycle battery is well cooled before you put it back in your bike.
Lithium Ion (Li-ion) batteries
These batteries can be found in the latest generation of electric bicycles. The cells of these types of batteries work best when the battery is fully charged and discharged the first three times. A major advantage of Lithium-Ion batteries is that they are lighter and more compact than the Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMh) batteries. Two additional advantages of this type of batteries is that they are much less sensitive to cold and have virtually no problems with the memory effect.
Lithium-Ion batteries have a long service life and will rarely discharge themselves, in contrast to NiMh batteries that lose half their capacity within a month.
Despite the fact that Lithium Ion (Li-ion) batteries in bicycles fail quite often, it is nevertheless interesting to know how to overhaul a Lithium Ion bicycle battery.
If the Lithium Ion battery no longer charges properly, it is probably because the voltage of the battery is so low that the charger no longer recognizes this battery. So we will have to increase the voltage of the bicycle battery. During this entire process of overhauling a bicycle battery yourself, 6 steps are generally taken.
6 Steps To Overhaul A (Li-ion) Bicycle Battery
- Step 1: increase the voltage of the bicycle battery with the correct energy source.
For this you can use a different battery with the same voltage.
- Step 2: connect the empty bicycle battery to the energy source.
Connect the red probe to the positive pole of the battery and the energy source and the heavy probe to the negative pole of the battery and the energy source.
- Step 3: Check the voltage of the empty bicycle battery.
Before you connect the probes, you will notice that the battery has a low voltage. Once the battery is connected to the energy source, the voltage of the empty battery increases rather quickly. If the battery voltage stabilizes, go to step 4.
- Step 4: disconnect the bicycle battery from the energy source.
- Step 5: place the bicycle battery in the charger.
Now that the voltage of the battery is sufficiently high, the charger recognizes the battery again, so that it will charge without any problems.
- Step 6: Let the bicycle battery cool down and put it back in your bicycle.
If you carefully go through all the steps for both NiMh bicycle batteries and for Li-Ion bicycle batteries, you no longer have to cycle by a bicycle repairer to repair your bicycle batteries, but from now on you can overhaul your bicycle battery yourself.
Do you want to discover more tips about how you can overhaul your bicycle battery yourself? Check if our battery recycling program is for you. After all, we will discuss how you can breathe new life into an old cell phone, laptop, car, traction battery, bicycle batteries, batteries for golf carts, boats, fork lifts and many other batteries.
Recondtioning bicycle batteries but also many other batteries is not at all as difficult as it would seem at first sight and you can save a lot of money with it.
Want to know more about overhauling bicycle batteries? Then be sure to check whether our Battery Overhaul Program is for you!
