Looking for Giant Suede E 9 Amp Hour (AH) Nickel Metal Hydride battery

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duckcy04

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New Orleans, LA
I looking for a replacement battery for my Giant E Suede Electric Bike. There is one company in New York City that sells them but they want a wapping $475.00. That's half the original cost of the bike. Can I rebuild this thing with individual cell packs. It's a 9 Amp Hour NMH, picture attached. Anyone have any ideas on a less expensive way to rejunivenate nickel metal hydrides? I have about 300 cycles on the battery and it's not charging at all now.
 

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Have you checked the battery with a multi meter? Is it dead or just constantly low?

You most likely could rebuild the thing as long as you manage to open it in a "not too destructive" manor, however you may be able to find a battery at a better price then the individual cells would come to (ebay maybe?).

Personally I would try to rebuild it first - I used to rebuild batteries for handheld two-way radios (icom, maxon, relm...) for the sawmill when I worked at a radio-tv repair shop. 9 out of 10 I usually managed to get apart in a way that I could put them back together (the sawmill wasn't very prudent about looks as long as it worked). Gooped the cells up with silicone so they wouldn't rattle a JB welded the battery back together. Very often it was only one or two cells that went bad (I think it was usually the first & last in the serie). If the other cells checked out OK we would leave them and replace only the bad ones (bosses orders....), and the battery would often be good for another year (used pretty much daily) before another cell failed. This was only worth it because the radio batteries were grossly overpriced when bought from manufacturer.

If you don't have experience with electronics repair I can't really recommend trying it, after all, we are talking about batteries, with hazardous chemicals inside, with a potential for a fire or explosion if anything goes wrong. On top of that the cells will most likely be wired in some crazy series-parallel way...

If you go for it, please proceed with caution.

Dilly Bar Rob
 
Advice on Rebuilding NMH Battery

Dilly Bar Rob- Thanks for the good advise. I have considered trying to rebuild the battery but I have no experience with electronic repairs so need to find someone locally who has the knowledge and equipment if I'm going to take that route. I spent a bunch of time of browsing the web for the latest models of electric bikes with Lithium Ion battery packs. It seems economical to upgrade rather that sink a bunch of money into a replacement NHM battery. One alternative I am also considering is trying to retrofit my existing bike with a Lithium battery.
 
duckcy04 said:
Dilly Bar Rob- Thanks for the good advise. I have considered trying to rebuild the battery but I have no experience with electronic repairs so need to find someone locally who has the knowledge and equipment if I'm going to take that route. I spent a bunch of time of browsing the web for the latest models of electric bikes with Lithium Ion battery packs. It seems economical to upgrade rather that sink a bunch of money into a replacement NHM battery. One alternative I am also considering is trying to retrofit my existing bike with a Lithium battery.
Click to expand...

You should be able to do the transfer no problem. Just make sure you stay close to the same Voltage, you can easily go up 12v to overamp your motor for a bit more power. At least most controllers will handle that jump, check yours first. I found a 36V 15ah battery for a friends La Free that actually fit right in to the original battery box the SLA's came in. Made a world of difference rangewise (from 15 to 30 miles) and the conversion cost about $450 a few years ago.
 
If you have a batteries plus in your area, they'll install new cells in most battery packs.

in LA, they're in Houma, Lafayette , & Shreveport.
 
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