just wanted to give everyone a heads up about the Ballistic lithium battery for Harley's.. do not waste your $$. I purchased one and installed it in my 2010 Fatboy Lo because it was smaller than OE and I wanted room for my Fuelpak under the seat. Once installed it worked fine for the first day; started the bike right up. Because of rainy weather I didn't start the bike for 6 days.. needless to say it didn't have enough juice to start the bike and after 3 clicks of the starter button, it was COMPLETELY dead.. wouldn't even light up the dash panel.. luckily i was able to get a full refund except the return shipping which ran over $20.00, the headache of getting a refund and removing and re-installing the old battery. definitely one of those products not worth a crap

 

Balistic is well regarded in the sport bike market since its so light, and have a good amount of cranking amps for their size. I'm surprised to hear you had an issue, what size did you get?

The LiFePo4 batteries are awesome if built correctly and sized right, but if they aren't balanced often the voltages can and will walk out of balance quickly and then you basically have dead cells. That reduces the effective cranking amps and makes it an expensive paper weight. However, when properly balanced and built these batteries have a very low discharge rate. I built one my self using a123 battery cells and it was holding nearly a full charge after me not touching for over a year. A123 was the best manufacturer of these cells and I thought ballistic used them but I a123 stopped making these cells a few years back.


Being the weight of a Harley there is little to no benefit of using LiFePo4 batteries in them, except the cool factor. In fact most bikes don't need one unless your a racer looking to save a few ounces here or there. Most bikes charging systems aren't the best option for charging these batteries since there isn't a way to balance each cell.


Sucks that you got a dead one though.

 

Yea is sucks you got a bad one but like everything made today their are duds. Nobody should judge anything on one sample. I do hope these batteries work out who ever makes them. Their is no room on most Harleys to put even a tuner under the seat.

As far as A123 batteries they were great back in the day for RC because high discharge rate and fast charge rate. Also I think they were bought out or up buy another company.

 

So the new battery that by most accounts only have a partial charge on it when delivered, was installed and not run long, shut down and left to sit for 6 days and did not start at that point. Got it.

Did you attempt to charge it? I know I would attempt to give it a boost before I **** canned it. I would think a partial day on the charger would have cost a bit less headache and money then trying to return it.

Are we missing part of this story?

 

at $259 for a battery I would absolutely judge it by one sample.. it was the Ballistic Lithium Battery 16 Cell HD 100-014 and it didn't need to be charged before install.. not to mention I rode it that day so it shouldn't had any issues whatsoever. I wasn't going to risk charging it and getting no refund because I didn't use the balancer.. like I said at $259 wasnt risking charging it and I wont be using any lithium battery in the the future..

 

and yet another FAIL for new technology....

 

Sorry to hear about this as I was looking in to lithium batteries to use in an old 6 volt bike..

 

There are Lithium-Ion batteries and then there are Lithium-Iron batteries.

Ion is an older, less expensive technology and has some problems as Boeing found out.

The Lithium-Iron batteries that we sell do not have the issues the Ion batteries have.

Click HERE for more details.

 

Very good point and one almost always missed. Lithium Iron Phosphate is the new technology. Most of the newer manufacturers heard the users when it came to not wanting to have a "special" charger or special conditions under when and how the batteries are charged and added intelligence to the system to prevent issues and allow a standard battery charger to be used.

Unfortunately in this case Ballistic also uses LiFePo4 *Lithium Iron Phosphate* technologies.

I would have gotten a replacement, but that's just me.

 

Would sure like to find a good replacement for the H2 which is a 6 v0lt in my Flathead..