Long Term Battery Storage

Hi everyone, I have a question regarding the storage of my battery.

Because my battery has more than 100WH and I am moving abroad I will have to leave the battery of my board behind with my girlfriend. Do you have advice or any tips for how to store it for 6 month to up tp a year? It is currently almost empty (>10% I think). Should I charge it a little? or all the way to 100%?

Charge it up to 3.5v/cell. That is the ideal storage charge. Keep it in a cool and dry place.

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3.5V for 18650, 3.7V for prismatic lipo.

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And if I don’t have a voltage meter? :grin: Is it risky to leave it at around 10%?

Yes. Go buy a $5 voltmeter.

10% is crazy low, ideally your battery should never get that low. It can damage the battery. That said cells deal better with fading to a low charge under no load (storage) than they do in use (heavy load). Maybe store it a fire safe bag? or somewhere fire-safe at storage charge, but get it up from 10% or in a years time it will be ready to put in the bin.

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also disconnect the bms if it’s gonna be really long.

10% is crazy low? You mean to store or in general? isn’t 10% still above 3.0V?

the BMS is packed in the shrink wrap with the battery…

10% is crazy low anytime!

BMS could drain it faster, is hooked up for dischange?

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Mhm, maybe I need a refresher here. As far as I understood so far it is safe to run them between 3.0V and 4.2V and 10% would be somewhere at 3.1V. I might not have the time and tools to recharge the battery since I am leaving tomorrow morning. So a fireproof bag and hope the don’t loose to much capacatity or “dump” them? :-/

Just a matter of prioritizing service life or run time, running down to 3v shortens the service life as compared to more conservative application. What about the BMS? that could drain your battery…

What sort of battery is it?

You don’t have a battery charger? No battery meter on your board? No Bluetooth module on your vesc? You could just normally charge your battery till 3.5v. Just check from time to time which voltage you reached and switch of as soon as you reached 3.5v. Shouldn’t take a lot of time…

It’s a diyeboard kit and the problem is, that everything except of the battery is already packed in a big box that I don’t have access to any more. I know, me asking is very last minute or to late. I just wanted to know if there was anything I could do. I honestly thought storing at low voltage was correct and safer regarding a fire hazard. This situation is obviously not planned. I just need to decide if it’s ok to leave the battery with her like this or tell her to bring it somewhere to get rid of it and accept, that I need a new one when I’m back.

I think that the risk here is that at your return you will lose a lot of capacity on the battery.

I guess I have to live with that. It can be my battery when I visit her and bring my board without the battery…