I am in need of one, not for woodmaking equipment. Curious about everyone's 'go to' choice for brand? My dirtbike's battey has left the building after ~ 5 years. It was a lithium variety in order to save 4.5 lbs over the factory Yuasa lead acid unit. Brand was actually Battery Tender. I bought it because it had a great price on Amz. They are no longer available for purchase. Today looking at two brands to replace it...AntiGravity who specializes in offroady stuff and Motobat which is a brand that I have used before in my street motorcycle. The Motobat is generally considered 'generic' but has incredible spec at same price point as the AntiGravity unit. AG has a fancy phone app thingy...which I'm not really interested in. Always have trusted Yuasa in the past for powersports stuff, my bike is a little portly in the scheme of things so I have tried to save weight where possible leading to these Lithium units. AC Delco was my favorite Auto battery back when I was young. Stayed with Toyota's True Start (Interstate) batteries while I drove them with Excellent service lives. Dunno who/what the Nissan I have now uses, but it don't look big enough to me coming from Group 27's in my Tacomas (overkill but one of the best places for overkill in a truck...the battery). What do you like/use? Opinion based off of service or price points? Bit o both?
I've had an antigravity in my ktm for maybe 5 years now. I've seen it flat dead and it charged back to life, several times. Buddy put an antigravity in his ktm and it was dead in about a year. According to Internet pros, Shoria is a good choice. From what I've read, some prefer them over anything else. I've never owned one myself.
Never heard of them...must be one of those brands that have popped up since my day to day changed from bikes to "almost everything else" Like was mentioned, Yuasa was always the big dog...
Go ahead and correct me if I'm wrong but I can't recall seeing a lithium battery offered from Yuasa. Rocky mountain only offers a lead acid Yuasa for my bike.
Specs are higher than the others excepting the amp hour (6.0 vs 5.0). The one I put in the motorbike sat for three years (on a tender) and was totally fine when I sold the bike. Guy I sold it to had the bike listed couple months ago and didn't mention a new battery so that's about 5 years or so unless he replaced and did not mention in the ad. An independent shop here sells their AGM's fairly regularly but doesn't stock the lithiums.
I have an Antigravity in the Duc. Been great. Prior to that, I had the WPS house brand lithium called Featherweight Firepower. I ran that in the Ducati for 4 years, then it started cranking slow. Thinking the battery had run its life (this was my first lithium), I replaced it with the AG. Turned out the starter was going bad, so I put the FP in my Simplicity lawn tractor and it’s still working great. I bought that darn battery when I worked at the bike shop (left 2017). So I would not hesitate to recommend them. For autos I’ve had great/excellent experiences with Walmart Everstarts (used to be made by Johnson Controls). Typical to get 7-8yrs in my truck.
I was marinating on this earlier. I have several machines that take the same basic powersports battery design. They never last too long and its a hassle keeping them on a float charger. I want to convert all my machines over to using power tool batteries. Should be doable but dealing with the charging system would be more complex than just hooking them up. You'd essentially need a battery receptacle, and then a small amount of electronics so it can provide power to start the engine and then disconnect the battery so it doesn't take power from the alternator, then you'd also want a relatively large capacitor since with no battery the charging system will go haywire without the stabilizing effect. Then, when you want to run your mower or SxS or whatever, you just pop a power tool battery in the socket and go. Completely doable. Seems like this product should already exist, actually.
Sounds like you're on to something. Guy I know uses a power tool battery to power the headlight on his MX based dirt bike. Light works for over 3 hours. No charging system to deal with there.
I did a little research using ai (ugh. I know. I knowww) Anyway, couple take aways: - No, this doesn't exist and is probably an unexplored business opportunity. you could have a makita/dewalt/milwaukee/greenworks option easily. - The biggest challenge is you need to use a high-current buck convertor (DC voltage dropper thinggy) which is around $100 by itself, to get the starter chooching - Both the AIs I tested this with disregarded the need for a cap on the charging system side which to me seems like an extremely dumb idea to skip. I converted an old hot rod scooter to kick start and one of the things I added was a big cap to remove ripple currents - An Ideal Diode can handle partitioning the batt from the charging system But yeah the concept electronically and physically can work and wouldn't be particularly hard to develop. Main issue is the pricey buck convertor. That said an interesting shortcut might be to see if starting motors can eat 18V which bypasses quite a number of design constraints.
Buddies dirt bike light is led and it's rated for more than 18v. All he had to buy was a "battery adapter" from Amazon which is basically the tool side with bare wires. I would think a starter motor should eat 18v for awhile before it became a problem, if it ever does. There are some electric motors guys on here. I think brenndatomu is one of them. He can probably remember the others. They'd probably know better.
Yeah, it might take 18v for a bit, but just how long that would be exactly would be a trial n error thing...a 50% increase is begging for a smoke show IMO. The old N series Ford tractors would take an 8v battery in place of the stock 6v ok, but that's only a 33% increase, not 50. You certainly would not be able to grind on the starter for very long at a time!
Operating voltage on most 12V systems is ~14V. I doubt 18V nominal is going to bother a starter. Common practice on old tractors to switch from 6V to 12V. Change the charging system, the lights, and add a ballast for running the ignition if it is still points based and run it. The 6V starter lived happily on getting a 12V kick.
But, those were not cheap Chinese starters though either. And if I recall correctly, part of what was being overcome by the extra voltage was a bunch of bad connections and so so cables, etc...
I've had great experiences with caltric brand powersports batteries. They are inexpensive, but work. I tried buying a cheaper brand, but it came to me totally dead and would not take a charge.
Ah yes, but point of order. Cheap starters are cheap and periodic battery replacement is expensive. I just checked, and a starter is half the price of a battery for my zero turn.
