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[SBK74]

My garage is unheated and it gets below freezing in the winter around here all the time.

I put the bike on a rear stand, and turn the bike on to run mode, kickstand up, and let it sit and get the electrons flowing warming the battery a bit.

At the same time, I use a hair dryer positioned to blow against the battery for about an hour before charging and it does the job well enough to start the charging process.

I start the charge at 5 amps for a half hour to further warm the battery, then go to the full 15Amp level 2.

Works.

I ride with full body heated gear.  If you can snowmobile in the winter and deal with the cold, why not enjoy motorcycling! 

@Pard
What Firmware and what year is your bike, you have the latest model? You are getting 57Ah on a ice cold battery, I am only getting 50Ah on a semi-cold battery and 55Ah on a warm battery.

[Pard]

2023 Rebelle RS version 42 (not going to risk a firmware update yet)

[SBK74]

Then they apparently increased the capacity with the latest battery. Thanks

[Specter]

Im getting my bike out of the shop today from some work being done on it.  God I hope they didn't give me a courtesy update to the firmware.  Was having no problems before.  Not that there is anything wrong with the new, I honestly dunno but why fix what ain't broke......Let's see

Aaron

[weck]

My garage is unheated and it gets below freezing in the winter around here all the time.

I put the bike on a rear stand, and turn the bike on to run mode, kickstand up, and let it sit and get the electrons flowing warming the battery a bit.

At the same time, I use a hair dryer positioned to blow against the battery for about an hour before charging and it does the job well enough to start the charging process.

I start the charge at 5 amps for a half hour to further warm the battery, then go to the full 15Amp level 2.

Works.

I ride with full body heated gear.  If you can snowmobile in the winter and deal with the cold, why not enjoy motorcycling! 

Does your bike refuse to charge until it is warm enough, or are you proactively waiting to start the charge until it's warmed up?

I have an Experia, and as far as I know, it does not have the engineering screen.  I could probably get to battery temp via the OBD port if I wanted to however.

Anyway, after a couple of days with lows down to 14F overnight, its a balmy 42F out there now, so I pulled the bike out of the garage to warm up in the sun a little before heading to a client meeting this afternoon.  First time I've seen the battery indicator blue on this bike.  I may turn it on and let it set for a little bit to get the electrons flowing... thanks for the insight on that.

Once winter sets in proper, we get a lot of salt residue on the roads, so it's going to be put away for good pretty soon unit the spring rains wash all that crap away.

[Pard]

Proactive.  I preheat it when I know the battery is not supposed to be able to charge.  I have never actually tested to see if the bike will not charge.  Makes sense to me to heat it up a bit regardless to help the charging process proceed more efficiently.

[Specter]

A few things to keep in mind.

The temperature is being measured internally too, not just at the surface.
The battery has a fairly large thermal mass so it will take a bit to get both cold, and warm again.

Being in the sun will help it.

Does energica have heaters in their batteries like some of the cars do or not?

Aaron

[Pard]

I have never seen any reference to Energica batteries having internal warmers.  They are designed for warm weather use, so am sure that never was even a consideration.

[DonTom]

Just keep in in LPR. But it will not charge when it is too cold, as the BMS will automatically prevent the charging until it is warm enough to safely charge.


Just don't expect any charge when below 40°F or (below around  4°C).


As long as it gets above those temps once in a while, all should l be fine in the LPR mode all winter long.


-Don-  Reno, NV

[jotjotde]

Cannot confirm that.
LPR'ed by bike standing in open carport two weeks ago at 81 %SOC when the weather turned nasty with subzero temperatures at night and not much above zero during the day.
Checked after a week, SOC was down to 77 % with blue battery symbol. When I came home yesterday ( 2 °C) I heard the charger fan running. According to my counter, approx. 1 kWh were sucked in the end.
So, I doubt that the charging depends on the temperature. If it should get below -10 °C, I will unplug the bike to be safe.

BTW I looked for some trace heating pads to put on the bike. In the end you just need a few Watt to keep the battery above 0 °C, like with water ducting.
Apparently there are heating pads available for relatively small money which are used for gardening or for fish tanks with about 60 W power. Connected to a time switch that should do the trick.

[hotsauce]

I ride year round (hooray for battery-heated gear!) so I'll tell you what I do and you can decide if it would work for you:
1) Pet store chains use rectangular pieces of bubble foil insulation as packing material and the stores just throw it away. Go to one and ask the manager if they can hold on to about 20 pieces for you to come pick up and they'll give it to you for free. Use this and a bunch of duct tape to build a shell that fits over your bike when parked.
2) Buy an electric throw blanket. They're around $30 on Amazon.
3) Buy a thermocouple-controlled outlet. The Inkbird ITC-308 is $35 on Amazon
4) Place temperature probe of thermocouple close to battery. Set thermocouple to turn on at 35 degrees.
5) Plug electric throw into "heating" plug on thermocouple. Drape electric throw over battery. Feel free to toss another blanket or two over the bike.
6) Cover bike with insulated shell
7) Charge as normal

A little paranoia won't hurt. When it's really cold, check the temperature display on the thermocouple every so often to make sure that the blanket is able to keep the battery above freezing

[Pard]

Love it!  @hotsauce  my kind of enthusiast!

[DonTom]

Cannot confirm that.
LPR'ed by bike standing in open carport two weeks ago at 81 %SOC when the weather turned nasty with subzero temperatures at night and not much above zero during the day.
Checked after a week, SOC was down to 77 % with blue battery symbol. When I came home yesterday ( 2 °C) I heard the charger fan running.

It is possible that the charging will not shut down until 0° C. But I do know many lith batteries shut down a little above this temp to be safe. Since you were at 2° C, the BMS may have still accepted the charge.


But of course, disconnecting is fine. I would also want to disconnect before it got to 0°C if the BMS is still allowing it to charge. Always better to be safe than sorry.


-Don-  Reno, NV

[Specter]

@hotsauce excellent suggestion.
I do something similar with my plants outside when it gets frosty and the ones who can't take the frost need help.

Those little christmas tree lights, the incandescent ones, are a few watts each bulb, I will wrap the strand of lights around the tree, then wrap a blanket, or in my case I use burlap bags since I get 100's of them with my mail order coffee business, around the lights and the tree.  This keeps the lights in place and helps keep the heat in.

If one would take a strand of lights wrap it around the battery a few times, and shit, you would wrap it with a few trash bags taped or bungee'd together it would probably put out just enough heat to keep the battery happy and chargeable.   Just another cheap way to heat things that need heating.

In a garage the blanket would work, and hopefully rats / mice don't make a home of it and chew the wires and start a fire.  The plastic bags are good outside so that moisture / rain don't soak them and wreck them like it would with cloth covers.

Another idea, cover the bike with a blanked as you said, or a plastic sheet,  and put a 40 watt or a 60 watt light bulb under it inside the blanket.  IF you are worried about fire, put it inside an empty coffee can.  the heat from the bulb will keep the bike warm.  We do this when motors meg out too low to help dry the windings out a bit, we'll throw a bulb in the rotor hole,cover the ends and let it stew for a few days, re megger it and then put it back together and run.

aaron

[Motoproponent]

You guys are pretty hardcore. I just pay a premium to live in a very temperate climate. But since we're on the subject of charging issues. I have seen many members talk about the cell balance. Like they know how many millivolts discrepancy the individual cells have.

Can that information be gotten on an Experia without special tools?

Also, now that I've said how pleasant the year round weather is here....this morning's commute through a brief biblical level, end-of-days stormagedden was fine. The Experia handled riding in a downpour, meeting the bow waves of passing trucks,  and riding through significant amounts of standing water at significant speeds with no problems.

The more I ride this bike the more I love it.