Battery Balancers

Battery Balancers

Note: We recommend that you use an Electric All Wheel Battery Balancer. There are other cheaper balancers available but not of the quality of the Electric All Wheel units. That is what you will see us using on all of our own bikes.

Common battery balancer questions: 

Do I need a second battery and a balancer?  Many new ebike purchasers discover that they are having more fun and want to ride longer distances and at high pedal assist levels than they ever imagined when they purchased their ebikes. There are a number of studies that back this up with stats that ebike owners are riding more miles and farther and more frequently than their non-assisted bike counterparts.  When you got your ebike you may have thought a 20-mile ride would be all you'd ever want to do. After a few rides you began to hit the limits of the mileage that your stock single battery could provide.  Thus enters the need for a secondary battery and  battery balancer. Another factor we see played out is many riders enjoy riding at slightly higher speeds. The difference between riding at a low pedal assist setting and a higher pedal assist setting is huge as far as battery runtime. If you like to run at speeds of 15-18 MPH, you will suddenly start to see rapid drain on the bike's battery. Using a balancer will open up opportunities for riding longer distances at higher speeds.

Which models can use a battery balancer? This is an answer geared to Lectric bike owners. You can use a battery balancer on any single battery Lectric model, including the  1.0, 2.0, 3.0, XP4, Lite, Lite 2.0, XPeak 1.0, XPeak 2.0, XPress 1.0, XPress2, Model ONE and Trike. The XPremium and XPedition are dual battery bikes with a balancer already built in.  The Lite model uses a small battery, and no long-range battery is available from Lectric so it is an excellent candidate for using an extra battery and a balancer.

How do battery balancers work? Battery balancers connect to the bike in between your existing battery and the controller. The second battery you use, either an Amazon or other purchased battery or an extra Lectric factory battery using an ElectricAllWheel battery adapter, will also connect to the balancer via a cable with XT-60 connectors on it. The balancer device keeps automatically switching the load to the higher voltage battery. It does this seamlessly, so there is no interruption in power going to the controller, dash, and motor, so no loss of odometer readings.  The second battery must be the same 48 volts as your standard Lectric battery. It can be a different Ah (Amp Hour) capacity.  It is very common for riders to use a smaller 10Ah battery as their secondary because of its convenient size, and a balancer makes that possible.  

Where would I mount the balancer unit?  Your balancer can be mounted inside the controller compartment or externally.  Some riders will mount the balancer in a bag with their secondary battery.

Can't I just bring along a spare battery to swap?  If you are stopping your bike and switching batteries out manually, this takes a few minutes to accomplish. Depending on the bike model, you will need to unlock the battery from the frame, remove the key, remove the discharged battery, slide in the fresh battery, reinsert the key, turn the key to lock the battery in the frame, and turn the bike back On.  Any odometer trip reading you had will be lost because the dash was turned off during the battery swap.  Contrast that with the battery balancer like the new miniature DateX2 Dx2 30A Electric All Wheel Balancer where you charge the two batteries and just ride with no battery swapping hassles. Your battery balancer may be small enough to mount in the same area as your controller or may be mounted behind the seat tube area of your Lectric bike's frame. Some Lectric owners have modified their Lectric lock bracket to hold their balancer behind the seat. 

Can I climb steeper hills or ride faster with 2 batteries? With the battery balancer, the rider will experience better performance because there is less voltage drop on hills or at speed. Overall, you have the same number of amp hours available to work with in a swapped out battery situation or using a balancer. Don't expect more hill-climbing power or higher top speeds, although you may feel some improved snappiness in throttle response. Most riders of stock bikes will experience diminished pedal assist and throttle response as their battery drops below 47V.  Using a secondary battery with a balancer will take you a much greater distance before you reach 47V.  Your whole longer riding experience will be a lot simpler, and your odometer will not lose its trip reading for your ride as would happen from a physical battery swap.  

What do I do if the battery balancer fails? The first thing to share is that we have never seen one fail in many thousands of miles of riding on a number of Lectric bikes.  A battery balancer failure is unlikely, but this can be easily handled. If your balancer is externally mounted, you can simply remove the XT-60 cable connectors and manually hook them together directly, bypassing the balancer, and you are back in business on a single battery. If you are installing the balancer internally, you can get some extra cables and run the XT-60 connectors externally, and that would allow you to do the same cable swap. When that one battery tires out, you can switch the cables, and you are going again on the other battery. 

How do I charge my batteries in a dual battery configuration? Battery charging remains the same as a stock setup. You will charge the batteries individually.  We will occasionally see individuals saying that they can charge their battery with one charger, and this is generally on bikes where the multiple batteries have been wired together in a parallel circuit arrangement instead of using a battery balancer. There are many pitfalls to the parallel approach. We don't recommend it.  

Can't I just connect the 2 batteries in parallel and not need a battery balancer? There are a few owners who have used this approach, but we don't recommend it because of too many potential problems.   

So you want to ride 120+ miles at 20MPH with a 4 battery balancer? Well, it is possible by using a special 30A QUAD battery balancer from Electric All Wheel. My XPress2 has gone 100 miles using a Quad balancer. https://youtu.be/kG8rXxKV-i8 

Note: There is minimal experience with trying to use a second battery balancer on Lectric XPremium or XPedition models, as those bikes have a balancer already onboard. If we can validate safe options for those models, we will come up with the information as it is available.