Fast charger bad for your battery?

I was just wondering if there is any solid proof the the fast charger that Evolve sells significantly decreases your battery life? I have seen a lot of people saying that it does but I would have thought if it did significantly it would say so on the Evolve site.

 

"Charging and discharging Li-ion above reduces service life. Use a slower charge and discharge if possible. This rule applies to most batteries."

Fast and Ultra-fast Chargers - Battery University

Fast chargers tend to build up heat in the cells which add stress. Charging heats up cells no matter what, it becomes greater as you add more amps hence a fast charger. However fast discharging does the same thing, builds up heat, so if your running your board at high speed for a prolong period of time its discharging the battery fast and building up heat and stressing the cells, especially going up hills and when its under load. As batteries get bigger, such as in Electric Vehicles, and water cooling is added to help reduce the temperature of the pack, the stress gets distributed out more evenly so its not as hard on the batteries. Lastly when you fast charge you typically don't get as much charge into a battery as with a slow charge. Its the same thing as filling up a bucket of water with a garden hose vs say a fire hose. You can fill the top of a bucket up nicely to the top with a garden hose, with a fire hose, much gets pushed out over the top of the bucket and lost, its not the most efficient way of filling up a bucket. But with the charger its electrons you're filling the batteries with and not water.

With my MetroBoard I have both a 2 amp slow charger and a 4 amp fast charger. Ilan of MetroBoard says to not use my 4 amp fast charger on my 10 mile battery pack. I have a 10 mile short board and a 40 mile long board. Reason being is that there's not enough batteries in the 10 mile pack to dissipate the stress and heat of the fast charger and can damage the pack. However the 40 mile one is 4 times bigger in capacity than the 10 mile one, so it does a better job to reduce the stress of the fast charger. However I use this fast charger only when I really need it and don't make a habit of using it every day, only if I'm riding up in the city all day, need to charge fast to keep me going and to not hold me up. I don't have any metrics or personal test data on how much longer the battery lasts if you keep it off the fast charger, but I do understand the principles of LiPo battery technologies which there has been much testing over time to come up with them, hence why I follow very strictly to them.

 

I've noticed a decrease in range since I got mine. I'm okay with it for now. I hope it doesn't get worse.

 

I don't know what Evolve charges for replacement batteries - we could likely source those too - but at least they are not soldered onto the motor controller - everything has a connector - nice

 

It would be nice if the fast charger had 2 modes. Fast and slow. Nice to have options.

 

Thanks for the input, it would be nice to have some empirical data on our specific packs and chargers, I wonder if Evolve has done that... probably not

 

I use fast charging when I'm on the road.. once home I charge up my board with the normal charger... I think using combination is ok.

 

Uh, how did you break the normal charger?..

 

I don`t see the point in upgrading to a fast charger.
I use mine for up to 2 times 15-20km rides every day. usually morning/mid day and afternoon/nights.
Im usually around 50% after 15 KM (Drive mostly in Fast mode, Only use GT on long and steep hills, So charging when Im back home only takes 3 hours max. (Im a light rider...only 75kg so I get a lot of range, and the board flies up every hill we have in Spain. )

Have never been able to ride much over 20 KM whit-out a break. So I don`t even want the fast one if I could swap for free .