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EarthX Battery Review

48K views 251 replies 42 participants last post by  Goat 
#1 · (Edited)
So as some of you know I bought the EarthX lithium iron phosphate (LiFeP04 ) battery recently and there was some interest in my evaluation of it once I had time to ride with it in for a bit, mainly in hot start situations.

Well I took Marilyn out to stretch her legs over the past few days as the weather here in Northeast Florida was absolutely beautiful, 86° and no rain (eat your heart out Scott (my polish Brother)).

Although it was not extremely hot the way it gets in the middle of summer here I am still glad to report that after stopping for gas 2-3 times on both days the bike never once hesitated to start, you can just breathe on the starter switch and she roars to life.

I will keep you all posted how she does this summer in the 100°+ temps but I don't forsee this being an issue.

For those of you who may have missed my posts in the other thread about "what replacement battery did you buy" here is the link and info:

ETX36C - EarthX Motorsports

This is the biggest (cranking amp) baddest battery that I could find as a direct replacement battery for our bikes.
It is physically the same size as our stock battery but puts out almost 3x the cranking amps and also has 36AH rating vs our stock 11.4AH battery.They also sell a direct replacement size comparable to our stock CCA and a mid grade that has a bit more CCA than the one previously mentioned and they are a lil bit cheaper but I figured if your gonna go you may as well go all out and get the big one and not worry about hot starts ever again.

It also has its own built in BMS (battery management system) so there is no special charger needed as with other LiFePO4 batteries. You can maintain it off of any lead acid battery maintainer as long as it doesn't have a desulfation mode. But in reality if you are riding on a somewhat regular basis there is no need for a maintainer because with the built in BMS it self regulates the charge from the bikes alternator and balances all the cells within the battery. And if you are storing the bike for the winter just disconnect the battery from the bike as these batteries don't have the high self discharge rate like lead acid batteries do. The company claims a 10% voltage loss over a 1 year period when there is no parasitic drain (such as our clock on our bikes) so on a fully charged battery (13.4v) you would only lose 1.34 volts in a year so you would still have 12 volts when you go to start the bike a year later.


It is also ALOT lighter, weighing in at only 3.5lbs compared to our lead acid AGM type batteries which are in the 10-12lb range.

It comes with a full 2 year warranty for manufacturers defects. If your battery craps out within 2 years they will send you a brand new 1 for free. Its not a prorated warranty like most manufacturers offer. And they claim that this battery should last approximately 8 years since the BMS keeps the cells balanced for good battery health.

The BMS also has overcharge protection so if your rectifier/regulator goes bad and lets the alternator overcharge the battery will shut off the power coming in.

It also has low voltage protection so if you forget your key on and your headlight runs your battery down it will shut the power off (at a certain voltage) coming out of the battery to keep the battery from entering a fatally low charge (if you kill a LiFePO4 battery just once it is junk and not recoverable) its kinda like flipping a circuit breaker.

I know this is kind of a long post but here is the best part in my opinion.

Its made in the U. S. A.

Is it a little on the pricey side? Yes

Does it make me feel better knowing that some poor working class guy like me was able to make a paycheck by building this battery here in the good ole USA? Abso-freakin-lutely

Is it worth the money? I would say yes because it is very annoying when you stop for gas and everyone wants to come over and talk to you about your beautiful gorgeous sexy bike and ask 1.7 million questions about it and then when you go to start it and CLUNK it won't start so you have to put it in gear and roll it backwards to get the engine off the compression stroke so the starter has enough gumption to turn the engine over. With this battery (so far) that is no longer an issue.

And lets be honest, we spend $8-k$14k for these bikes, are we really gonna miss a meal over a $350 battery? Why skimp on something that important?





 

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#3 ·
Thankyou for the review. I looked on their website, and I kinda like the ETX18C. Over $100 less than your battery, with specs better than the stock battery. I think the 18C would do perfectly. Once the weather gets to 100F, give us another write-up.
 
#6 · (Edited)
Thats what I was thinking.... and for someone like you with the heated gear and what not the extra 24.6AH would be handy.... not sure that it would be necessary but it wouldn't hurt.

Or someone who has a lot of led under lighting that likes to leave them on while parked. The extra AH would be great.

Not sure how good this battery is in the extreme cold weather but most of you guys up north don't ride in the winter anyway so I doubt it would be a problem and the excess CCA, above what Honda calls for on this bike, would probably overcome any cold start problems associated with the LiFePO4 batteries anyway.
 
#8 ·
I'm sorry if this is a hijack, but I'm sold on lithium batteries in general. I got one off amazon for $99 shipped. It was smaller in size than the stock battery, but came with spacers, and was rated higher in cca. It fired right up this week. That's 2 winters it's made it thru. It's never been out of the bike, never been on a charger, and never any hot start problems.
 
#9 ·
Well to update this thread... I have not had a single hot start problem since installing this battery.

I did not but a charger with it since it has all the fancy electronics built in it can be charged off of any charger.

I had a problem with my micro displays backlight staying on and it killed the battery, by killed I mean it dropped down to 9V or whatever the built in cut off voltage is and the battery disconnected itself internally to keep it from dropping to low to recover from, I hooked jumper cables up from the wife's bike to mine and the minute it sees the spike in voltage it resets the circuit breaker inside and she fired right up.

Aside from that one time, which was not the batteries fault, it has worked flawlessly and it is great stopping for fuel and having people gawking over your bike and NOT having to worry about whether she will start or not when hot.
 
#18 ·
This will have to be next on my list.
I thought you were going for the kick start mod,

My current battery won't hold a charge for more than a week and needs replacing. $350 for 8 years of hassle free performance is a deal.
Then I finished reading your post...
 
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#22 · (Edited)
When I bought my brand new Yamaha XT500 in 1976 I got blisters under the soles of both feet after a couple of days from kickstarting it. :eek: Then I started to read the manual that came with it. A decompression lever is your friend when kickstarting big single cylinders. Never had a problem since. Well, maybe that KTM 6-honey I had was a bad MF to start, but it ran like hell ;)
Anyway, a piston allready in the compressionstroke when pushing the starter button is very likely the cause of the hot start problem. As the video shows, that pressure is able to withstand the weight of a grownup jumping on it. :grin:
 
#23 ·
I agree it is definitely the piston being on a compression stroke while the engine is hot that is the culprit of the hot start problem.

Hot engine means tighter tolerances so higher compression means it takes more power to spin it over. Combine this with the fact that a hot starter requires more amperage to spin than a cold starter and you have a great combination for a hot start problem. I still think it was a case of under engineering on Honda's part due to there budgetary and size constraints.

Put plainly, there is simply no room to hide a bigger battery and installing a higher amperage battery of the same size (lithium) would have raised production cost so it just simply wasn't going to happen.

Luckily for those of us that have purchased the EarthX 36C, it is like having an 800 pound Gorilla kick starting your bike for you... Lol:grin:
 
#24 ·
Back in the day when BSA was manufacturing "single lunger" monsters that were near impossible to cold start without breaking a leg or tossing the rider over the handlebars. They put ignition retarders (spark retard) to aid the owner starting (without injury) their ride. I don't recall but I'm reasonably certain Harley used the same principle on knucklehead/panhead engines.
 
#25 ·
i have been using Lithium batteries in my radio control stuff for years. i can tell you when my lead battery acts up. i will replace it with this "new" type in heartbeat ! thanks op for your info
 
#26 ·
Just a word of caution... Look at the CCA before you buy a new battery.
I had a few hot start problems while running an old OEM battery. So I bought a lithium battery to replace it and tried to save a few $$$ by choosing the closest to OEM CCA. I love the battery never failed on me, no more hot start problems, but some times feels like is working a little bit to hard to start the bike. Get higher CCA than OEM if you can...
 
#35 ·
just installed the ETX36C after a long upstate NY winter, hit the start button and DAYUM she roared to life effortlessly.............my battery was almost 5 years old so i was due, but i think this is gonna be THE battery to have.....bought the optimate charger with mine also................t
 
#37 · (Edited)
I actually just purchased another EarthX for my wife's bike yesterday... Should be delivered by the end of the week I hope. I went with the "standard" replacement size for her bike because it is a VT1100 and has never suffered from the hot start issue. The ETX18C still has 30 more CCA's then the stock battery.
 
#39 ·
Just fitted the ETX36C. Out of interest weighed the two batteries on the wife's kitchen scales.

OEM battery came in at 8.37 lbs - that's 3.798 Kgs



EarthX 3.6 lbs - 1.637 Kgs



That's 4.76lbs - 2.161 Kgs lighter.

More tinkering over the weekend as I need to swap the US re-flashed ECU back in, fill with higher octane and see how we get on with the hot start/dying idle.
 
#42 ·
Blah blah blah

a bunch of stuff about an awesome replacement battery for the fury

blah blah blah
Ok, I have never had the hot start issue, but this morning the bike wouldn't start. Granted it was 36 degrees out, but I rode it about a week and a half ago. So I will be ordering the big one, as I don't like my shit not working properly when asked. I put an Optima redtop in my truck, this is a comparable upgrade. Cost? Sometimes you get what you pay for.
 
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#45 ·
Got the battery today, took a whole 3 days USPS. Of course it came from only 50 miles away. Damn thing is LIGHT! I was expecting that, but I think it's lighter than I was expecting. Put it in, fired right up. As long as it doesn't run down like the old one, I will be happy. And may I never see the dreaded 'hot start' issue!
 
#46 ·
Its almost unreal how light they are... I was shocked when I picked it up, I thought they had accidentally sent me a display model with nothing iinside... Lol

Here is the $64,000 question.... Did you remember to let the ECU relearn the IACV???

Also you said you hope it doesn't run down, do you have something that is causing more parasitic loss than normal?

My bike sits for 6-8 weeks at a time and she fires right up every time without fail.
 
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