I am trying to find an alternate solution to the mini battery we now use, and I found this:

http://www.tekbattery.com/
&
http://www.carrito.net/board/showthread.php?t=172499

It is basically a lithium Ion battery with 12v and good cranking power and even better weight savings.

I don't know if it is safe or even efficient to use such a thing but I want your opinion to see if you think it is worth it to buy it and try it out.

 

I don't know about that specific battery, but the new lithium ions can handle being cycled a lot and charge rather quickly.

 

thats cool, a big cell phone battery lol

 

Yeah I run a 12v SUPER small RC car battery in my latest old school chopper I built. It's pretty amazing the power and size battery are now a days.

 

It only took like 10 years for laptop battery technology to work it's way into the automotive industry via battery powered cars... why is everything so slow! ?

 

I would think the reason it took so long is that LiPo batterys are rather unstable and seem to cetch on fire under high load.

 

I would think it is because of the price $798 - $2290 and low demand. WOW thats too much for a battery.
12volt Model / Duty / Inches: Tall x Deep x Wide / Weight Lbs. / Continuous Amps / 10 Seconds Amps / AHr / Sale / Price Bin
4s5px2m / MaxBagger / 7 x 6.6 x 6.6 / 11.9 / 700 / 1200 / 23.0 / $2,290 / 4-1798

 

Little thing called thermal run away. Say you run your LI battery dead by accident then put a charger on it to jump start it. There is a chance that battery will blow up in your face.

That's what lawsuits are made out of.

OP, there are also Voltprheak and Valence to look at if you want to go this route.

 

/\/\ thats what I was getting at.

 

Tony from Voltphreaks here. Want to add, that our batteries use the newer Lithium Iron chemistry which isn't susceptible to thermal runaway.

Our batteries also contain full over and under charge protection, making it virtually impossible to overcharge or overdischarge the battery!

Other lithium car battery manufacturers most likely also include protection also with the pack, even though the lithium iron chemistry is much safer than standard lithium cobalt used in cell phones and laptops.

It is expensive, but for higher-end racing teams (LeMans, NASCAR, prototype, etc) it is a no brainer to spend $1000 to $2000 to save 30 pounds, when they are willing to spend $10,000 to save 1 pound by replacing a small part with a custom carbon fiber part!

- Tony

P.S. If anyone is willing to do a writeup of our newer VPH400 or VPH700 model on this forum, in exchange for a discount, send me a PM.