Shimano Battery Life Poll

[Spiff]

Okay so you're using some kind of app that measures the total charge that the battery carries after being fully charged by an oem Shimano charger is that correct?

Correct.

This is the APP:

STUNLOCKER - Aplicaciones en Google Play

Libera el poder de tu bicicleta eléctrica

play.google.com

 

[Cyclopath1000]

Does all this translate to less mileage and less elevation from one full charge? I can definitely agree with Shimano and rejecting all of these claims if in fact you can't prove significantly decreased mileage or elevation I don't see how in the world you have a issue.

 

[Spiff]

Decreasing battery health means decreasing miles and altitude.

This battery health number is calculated by Shimano software inside the battery and this number is stored in battery internal memory, and can be read by etube and STUNLOCKER.

I keep track of of all my routes in an Excel file:
Battery health
Battery charge
GPS track
Mileage
Altitude gain

And I have verified that my mileage has decreased after battery health number decreased.

 

[Cyclopath1000]

How much is lost ? So from what I've read previously to this post is that one of a stack of 10 batteries and there are five stacks has decreased performance and is putting out a voltage less than the 3.6 think that's the number that is within specs. So that one bad cell is responsible for the degradation of 20% of the battery life. There were at least two American companies in soquel that can take these batteries and test each cell and replace the one bad cell put the whole thing back together again for way less than the cost of a new battery. I was going to do that with my original battery that seems to have the condition I just described. But at this point I am holding off because of all the distractions that have occurred because of the pandemic. I don't really think that this is a Shimano quality control issue it's just the nature of these cells that are used to create one gigantic battery and that the actual individual cells are very high quality ones. When you see 60% that means that two of the five columns of 10 or not functioning correctly and that's when I would send my battery in to the aftermarket repair place and either get all new cells put in or identify the bad cells and just replace those. I honestly don't think the technology of lithium ion cells is so advanced that you would expect 500 charge and reach discharge cycles but maybe they said that once and I can definitely understand why they removed all documentation because in the real world it ain't happening these batteries have flaws that become more manifest with time I mean come on how many years do you keep your cell phone for.

 

[Cyclopath1000]

Plus if you're one of those fanatics that rides all the time and boost then whatever is going on with your battery you shouldn't be doing that they didn't design these motors to run boost all the time the battery draw is way too much and they get too hot and they degrade even faster so if you are such a devotay of super you know hard hitting it on boost all the time well I just think that just too damn bad if your battery has a shorter lifespan. It says if you went and bought a Corvette racing on the track for 5,000 miles blew the engine the bits and then came back to the dealer demanding a new engine I think they should throw you out of the dealership with you do that one

 

[Spiff]

This quick battery health decrease only happens to Shimano batteries, other brands behave much better. Something is wrong inside Shimano batteries.

I read about an electric cargo motorcycle used for package delivery that has a battery health of 85% after 100000km = 62000 miles and 1000 charge cycles. This means that Lithium battery technology is mature and a good design provides good results.

 

[Spiff]

Plus if you're one of those fanatics that rides all the time and boost then whatever is going on with your battery you shouldn't be doing that they didn't design these motors to run boost all the time the battery draw is way too much and they get too hot and they degrade even faster so if you are such a devotay of super you know hard hitting it on boost all the time well I just think that just too damn bad if your battery has a shorter lifespan. It says if you went and bought a Corvette racing on the track for 5,000 miles blew the engine the bits and then came back to the dealer demanding a new engine I think they should throw you out of the dealership with you do that one

I ride mainly in ECO, I use TRAIL around 10% of the time and BOOST 1% of the time.

 

[jimbob]

How much is lost ? So from what I've read previously to this post is that one of a stack of 10 batteries and there are five stacks has decreased performance and is putting out a voltage less than the 3.6 think that's the number that is within specs. So that one bad cell is responsible for the degradation of 20% of the battery life. There were at least two American companies in soquel that can take these batteries and test each cell and replace the one bad cell put the whole thing back together again for way less than the cost of a new battery. I was going to do that with my original battery that seems to have the condition I just described. But at this point I am holding off because of all the distractions that have occurred because of the pandemic. I don't really think that this is a Shimano quality control issue it's just the nature of these cells that are used to create one gigantic battery and that the actual individual cells are very high quality ones. When you see 60% that means that two of the five columns of 10 or not functioning correctly and that's when I would send my battery in to the aftermarket repair place and either get all new cells put in or identify the bad cells and just replace those. I honestly don't think the technology of lithium ion cells is so advanced that you would expect 500 charge and reach discharge cycles but maybe they said that once and I can definitely understand why they removed all documentation because in the real world it ain't happening these batteries have flaws that become more manifest with time I mean come on how many years do you keep your cell phone for.

Whether this is the case or not, Shimano have stated their battery will have a certain performance (80% of original capacity at 500 cycles). Using their own diagnostic tool, the readout from the battery BMS, it shows that their product is not meeting this.

They should therefore honour the warranty.

There are lots of ways of measuring the health of a battery. Getting the customer to compare their rides is not one of them!

 

[jimbob]

Plus if you're one of those fanatics that rides all the time and boost then whatever is going on with your battery you shouldn't be doing that they didn't design these motors to run boost all the time the battery draw is way too much and they get too hot and they degrade even faster so if you are such a devotay of super you know hard hitting it on boost all the time well I just think that just too damn bad if your battery has a shorter lifespan. It says if you went and bought a Corvette racing on the track for 5,000 miles blew the engine the bits and then came back to the dealer demanding a new engine I think they should throw you out of the dealership with you do that one

I dont think that is a fair comparison. The equivalent of what you have suggested on a car would be to not use the 5th and 6th gear.

Boost will not have a significant current draw relative to the battery capacity. It should be easy to design a battery which copes with these demands.

 

[Spiff]

Whether this is the case or not, Shimano have stated their battery will have a certain performance (80% of original capacity at 500 cycles). Using their own diagnostic tool, the readout from the battery BMS, it shows that their product is not meeting this.

They should therefore honour the warranty.

There are lots of ways of measuring the health of a battery. Getting the customer to compare their rides is not one of them!

I do not have SM-PCE002, so I can not use etube and I use STUNLOCKER, which reads the same BMS register. After 5 months, 10cycles and 800km my second battery shows health of 90%, so I will be using it as my main battery and waiting if it reaches 80% health during the 2 year warranty period.

I keep the battery data and GPS tracklog of my rides and I can do comparisons but I am not using it to calculate battery health just to confirm that decreasing health causes decreasing mileage and altitude. I explained this to another forum member that was questioning the mileage decrease with the health decrease.

 

[Cyclopath1000]

I dont think that is a fair comparison. The equivalent of what you have suggested on a car would be to not use the 5th and 6th gear.

Boost will not have a significant current draw relative to the battery capacity. It should be easy to design a battery which copes with these demands.

Well I was riding with my boost obsessed buddy on a super hot NorCal day and my bike shot out an error code and turned off . It all got too hot. Back in trail it was fine. Yes extremely unscientific!!

 

[jimbob]

I do not have SM-PCE002, so I can not use etube and I use STUNLOCKER, which reads the same BMS register. After 5 months, 10cycles and 800km my second battery shows health of 90%, so I will be using it as my main battery and waiting if it reaches 80% health during the 2 year warranty period.

I keep the battery data and GPS tracklog of my rides and I can do comparisons but I am not using it to calculate battery health just to confirm that decreasing health causes decreasing mileage and altitude. I explained this to another forum member that was questioning the mileage decrease with the health decrease.

Indeed, apologies, I was agreeing with you.

Thats not to say your measurements aren't useful / show a trend, I was just saying that it shouldn't be the metric Shimano use to accept or reject a warranty claim.

 

[electricbogaloo]

I dont think that is a fair comparison. The equivalent of what you have suggested on a car would be to not use the 5th and 6th gear.

Boost will not have a significant current draw relative to the battery capacity. It should be easy to design a battery which copes with these demands.

It is a pretty good comparison though. Higher Power draw when its hot outside will degrade the battery faster. It's even worse for electric cars. If you would race comparable cars one electric and one gas engine on a a racetrack you can do that with the gas powered car at pretty low cost for years. An electric car will have its battery have to replaced in a very short time which will be very expensive. A lithium ion battery is basically like a gas tank that gets smaller over time no matter what you do and even faster the more and harder you use it in unfavourable conditions.

I don't really get why bike magazines don't test this more scientifically like they test other stuff especially in europe. They could analyze the cells and do comparisions on a test stand. Comparisons in the real world are not really usable because of the many variables.

 

[TG1971]

This is Page 19 of Shimano Steps Service Manual that states 80% battery health after 500 charge cycles, show it to your LBS and have Shimano honour their statement in their own documentation.
View attachment 68072

My bike went into Lbs had reports done from SME2 attached to a pc there latest E-TUBE version but it doesn’t show the battery health anymore so I did it on my computer with the older version which shows 80%, madison didn’t get back to LBS for weeks even after countless emails I used to get 10-12 miles on fairly flat rides depending on mud or wind now getting 5-7 in eco on same rides wife’s shimano e8000 bike is the same age done same rides is at 99% after same cycles, thanks I will send this to my LBS

 

[Spiff]

My bike went into Lbs had reports done from SME2 attached to a pc there latest E-TUBE version but it doesn’t show the battery health anymore so I did it on my computer with the older version which shows 80%, madison didn’t get back to LBS for weeks even after countless emails I used to get 10-12 miles on fairly flat rides depending on mud or wind now getting 5-7 in eco on same rides wife’s shimano e8000 bike is the same age done same rides is at 99% after same cycles, thanks I will send this to my LBS

Shimano etube for windows using adapter SM-PCE02 is the Software tool used by LBS and Shimano Service Centers to diagnose battery issues. And you say that in the latest version Shimano has removed the BATTERY HEALTH diagnose capability so it is not possible to verify if the battery is defective or not.

I do not know the reason, but for me it looks like a plot of a big company trying to reduce financial exposure for warranty claims of defective batteries.

 

[TG1971]

Shimano etube for windows using adapter SM-PCE02 is the Software tool used by LBS and Shimano Service Centers to diagnose battery issues. And you say that in the latest version Shimano has removed the BATTERY HEALTH diagnose capability so it is not possible to verify if the battery is defective or not.

I do not know the reason, but for me it looks like a plot of a big company trying to reduce financial exposure for warranty claims of defective batteries.

I agree

 

[jimbob]

My bike went into Lbs had reports done from SME2 attached to a pc there latest E-TUBE version but it doesn’t show the battery health anymore so I did it on my computer with the older version which shows 80%, madison didn’t get back to LBS for weeks even after countless emails I used to get 10-12 miles on fairly flat rides depending on mud or wind now getting 5-7 in eco on same rides wife’s shimano e8000 bike is the same age done same rides is at 99% after same cycles, thanks I will send this to my LBS

That is pretty poor indeed if that is the case.

 

[Intermtb]

My external 504wh battery dropped to 76% capacity, and Shimano US warranty it, no questions. I don't remember how many cylces, it was less than 1 year, about 3500 miles. The lbs took my old battery to be "disposed properly".
I ride mainly in trail, very few eco and boost.

 

[Intermtb]

Also shimano battery I think maybe they use 18650 cell. while YT decoy, Orbea Rise, Norco, they use their own battery, maybe 21770 cell, better density, their batteries have much better range than shimano's.

 

[Spiff]

My external 504wh battery dropped to 76% capacity, and Shimano US warranty it, no questions. I don't remember how many cylces, it was less than 1 year, about 3500 miles. The lbs took my old battery to be "disposed properly".
I ride mainly in trail, very few eco and boost.

Finally a good new from Shimano, as they are applying a No Question Warranty for batteries at 76% capacity, at least in USA, let's hope they are doing the same in the rest of the world.

 

[Spiff]

In the following web, the older etube for tablet versions (3.3.0, 3.3.2, 3.3.3) are available and they are supposed to have the Battery Diagnostic including the Battery Health number. I installed them, but they do not connect with the BT of my display SC-E7000 because it was released after this etube version, but they might work with older display like SC-E8000, so if you need it and have an SC-E8000 you can give a try.

Newer versions of etube for tablet (3.4.0, 3.4.3) includes the battery diagnostic but it only test the SWITCH ON and OFF of the battery LEDS, which as everybody knows, are the most important part of a battery and knowing the battery health is not important and besides that, it is a pain in the neck for Shimano that we find it out and then we do battery warranty claims, so they decided to remove this Battery Health in new versions of all their software.

https://androidappsapk.co/download/com.shimano.etubeprojectmobile.droid.tablet/

 

[lightning]

My battery is at 82% after 40 charge cycles. lf it drops below 80% l will make a warranty claim.

However l've not noticed a drop off in actual range, l can still get 30 miles off road, you would think l would notice a 20% drop in range but it's barely reduced.

My charger is the E6002 and battery is BT-8035 504Wh

 

[eMullet]

Now 800km, 8 cycles, 100%

BT-8036 and EP8 with E6000-1 charger

 

[lightning]

My battery "health" stayed at 100% until l had done 10 charge cycles then it dropped to 90%

 

[SEBA]

Decreasing battery health means decreasing miles and altitude.

This battery health number is calculated by Shimano software inside the battery and this number is stored in battery internal memory, and can be read by etube and STUNLOCKER.

I keep track of of all my routes in an Excel file:
Battery health
Battery charge
GPS track
Mileage
Altitude gain

And I have verified that my mileage has decreased after battery health number decreased.

but we are not supposed to do that

 

[SEBA]

My external 504wh battery dropped to 76% capacity, and Shimano US warranty it, no questions. I don't remember how many cylces, it was less than 1 year, about 3500 miles. The lbs took my old battery to be "disposed properly".
I ride mainly in trail, very few eco and boost.

how did you justify the % ? by a screenshot ?

 

[SEBA]

adsuming etube removed the battery diagnosis in newer version , which android app to use to get the battery health ? ( for a warranty claim )

 

[Spiff]

adsuming etube removed the battery diagnosis in newer version , which android app to use to get the battery health ? ( for a warranty claim )

There are older versions of eTube for tablet that show this battery diagnostic, but they do not work with the newer display SC-E7000 or SC-EM800, but probably the older SC-E8000 should work fine. They can be found here:

https://androidappsapk.co/download/com.shimano.etubeprojectmobile.droid.tablet/

 

[penguinni]

Just shy of 1700 miles on my E8000 and battery life is showing 96% on ST Unlocker app.

 

[Zimmerframe]

Just shy of 1700 miles on my E8000 and battery life is showing 96% on ST Unlocker app.

I think for 99% of cases, the problems seem to occur on the internal Shimano batteries, not the external ones - so you should be ok.