Advice and tips how to increase range.

DIY Builds
21

I guess you are right.

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22

This might only be some anecdotal evidence, possibly not backed by science, but my personal observation is that 40t packs don’t seem to last as long as p42a packs.

I have the one 40T pack, a 12S8P I mentioned earlier, that still gets OK range even though it too is starting to come out of balance. I rebalanced it manually a couple months ago but it did not take long at all to go back out, just a couple of charge cycles. It is a little over 2 years old now. It’s not a he delta, still totally ridable, but its there and is gradually getting worse.

But I also have a p42a pack, a 12S4P that actually gets ridden more and is maybe a couple months younger than the 40T pack and it is perfectly balanced and has more charge cycles on it.

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, or maybe they’ve had an opposite experience. I don’t have any other older 40T packs to back up the observation, all my other boards are p42a packs.

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24

I have noticed this on my 40T and P42A 12s3p packs. Another symptom that has come to light is an increase in voltage sag of the 40T pack over time.

I’ve had both packs for around 1.5 years now. Same setup for both the packs.

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25

I’m glad I’m not just seeing things. Thanks for the confirmation.

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26

This seems to be the general consensus.

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27

There’s a chart but, 12s and 190 kv motors was the sweet spot for the losses if I remember correctly.

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28

Yea, exactly what happens here ! it keeps coming back. I balance it, and after few month and few charging cycles it begins to divert again :frowning: Don’t have experience with p42a cells so got nothing to compare with. I have other packs with other cells, and it happens only on this one.

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29

You might get more range if you switch to bigger tires.

It’’s anecdotal but I know @rafaelinmissouri gets more range with kenda 200mm tires vs metro 155mm.

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30

that did happen, and it was quite unexpected for me.
and I had adjusted the gearing too.
my suspicion is that it had to do with not just the tire diameter, but also the compound softness, and larger contact patch of the smaller tires.

It may have been mentioned here already, but I usually notice a smidge more range when I have taller gearing…

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31

Yeah tire choice makes a pretty big difference. I lost 20% efficiency going from MBS knobblies to CST slicks, which seems counterintuitive, but I think makes sense from a tire construction perspective. The MBS is thinner and softer, and therefore runs higher PSI and has less deformation. Meanwhile the CST has stiff sidewalls and has a PSI rating 20PSI lower than the MBS, so the wear patch is noticeably wider.

32

It has been my observation also that softer, higher PSI tires get better range for exactly those reasons. I may have mentioned this at Carve and I think I got laughed at.

and also, obviously, not running max pressure will drop your range due to the extra energy required to continually overcome the additional tire deformation.

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