488 Pista Battery

Just wanted to mention...

If your Lithium ion battery fully discharges, it will refuse to take a change, yes. However, if you pulse charge it, you can recover it to the point where it will usually accept normal charging and thus can be recovered. Braille battery chargers have this mode built into them; if you do happen to fully discharge your battery, you might want to try using their recovery mode to get it back online.

One caveat: because the pulse mode uses such low power, you must fully disconnect the battery from the car's electrical system during recovery mode. Otherwise, the tiny load from the car will mitigate the pluses and it won't work. Should work on most any lithium battery. The pulse mode takes about 30 minutes, then the charger will automatically flip over to normal charge mode and fully recover and charge the battery back to 100%

Ray

 

Interesting and helpful discussion

I have a question and wonder if anybody could chime in.
I park in a garage where there is no accessible outlet for a trickle charger. It’s no big deal, because typically no more than seven days goes between drives (One of the benefits of living in Hawaii).

However, in the event I were to travel for a longer time, aside from relocating the car temporarily so that it could be plugged in, I wonder if there is an alternative means?

For example, is there an external power source, like a dedicated battery, that could be used in lieu of an outlet to allow the trickle charger to function?

Or would removal of the battery and use of a trickle charger in the home be a reasonably safe alternative? Fairly constant trade winds and good ventilation in my home would make me less concerned about off-gas but it’s obviously a consideration.

Thanks for any insight

 

Any good quality APC backup UPS should provide enough power to get you over the hump if you don't drive the car for a while. Check amazon. The have lithium as well as lead acid style UPS's. When I used to run a lot of network servers, I've powered my entire office for several hours while PG&E was making repairs and/or used them to recharge laptops, etc during extended power outages.

Just charge it up, take it out to the car and plug a tender into it and transfer power into the car's battery.

Ray

 

Thank you for the suggestion
To make sure that I am clear, I would plug in the trickle charger to the APC back up upon my return to provide additional charge to the auto battery before driving. I would not plug-in the APC to the trickle charger before leaving. Is this correct?

 

Yes, that's correct. Think of the UPS as a mobile battery pack kinda of, with an electrical outlet on it.

So you'd keep the UPS plugged in and charged in your house. If you felt like the battery in your Ferrari needed topping off, then you'd unplug the UPS and take it out to the carport or wherever your Ferrari is. Since the UPS would no longer be plugged into house current, it would just think a power failure had occurred at your residence - if you plugged your car's battery tender into the UPS, the UPS would provide power to it. Since the tender would have power, it could charge up the car's battery.

Once the car's battery is charged, disconnect the tender as normal.

The backup UPS will sound an alarm, to let you know it's not seeing any power from your home - but it won't know if it's still plugged into an outlet or if it's out by your Ferrari. ?the alarm can be silenced usually by pushing a button on the UPS.

Different size UPS's provide different amounts of power. However, usually your car battery just needs a little topping off to help get the car started; then the car's own electrical system finishes charging the battery.

They also make a device which draws current out of an almost dead battery and then sends it back in a big burst to start the car - however, I wouldn't recommend using that on a Ferrari, nor would it really work as far as having the battery tender in the mix. The UPS is a simple, robust and low cost solution to what you're wanting to accomplish now and again. The only other option would be a solar panel based battery tender of some sort I think.

Ray

 

Many thanks for that helpful information
I may as well start shopping now. Because they have to ship batteries by boat as opposed to by air, it can take months for one to arrive here. If I can’t find something appropriate locally I’ll go through Amazon.
Best
C

 

Most office supply stores or computer stores sell them also.

Here's the basic idea:

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had my car a week and battery died. Still not sure what I may have left on. Was advised car draws serious charge. It’s a new battery for them. the tow truck company would touch it, not even through F roadside assist because they were told it’s a $10,000 battery and roadside assist could not locate a certified tow co to give it a boost. Saleman actually drove 45 minutes to my house with portable charge back. true full-service dealership. In a pinch, especially at night, it would’ve been a disaster. Takeaway is to keep a battery charge pack handy so you can help yourself and know how to use it. Floor panels must be removed. Need tools to do that and to know where to hook it up. Not so easy at night, dressed for dinner. It’s a shame when you spend money on a high end car and roadside is MIA and my saleman had to bail me out

 

Wow
That is impressive service
Are you planning to buy him a bottle of something nice?

Have you seen if the procedure is written up in the manual on how to uncover the battery? I don’t have it in front of me to look up but I’m wondering if it’s even in there.

 

I have a video on youtube that shows installing the Braille battery into my 488 GTB. The pista should be pretty much the same. You might find it informative.

With any modern car, or motorcycle, etc, - and especially your Ferrari, which has extremely expensive electronics and ECU's - you've got to exercise a very high level of care when working with the battery and electrical system. With that said, it's still a car battery. The procedure I use is to simply isolate the battery from the car, by disconnecting the ground and usually also the positive terminal, just to be extra safe. Then just use a charger to charge the battery up. Then reconnect following the directions in the owners manual, with regard to the start up sequence for the car.

If you have a lithium battery, such as perhaps in the Pista, then you need to use a lithium ion type charger that is designed for lithium. Using a standard charger (e.g. as found on your typical tow truck) can damage the cells.

The Braille lithium ion battery I ran in my 458 and 488 was about $3000 all in, so I don't doubt something similar from Ferrari could be quoted via the dealership at over 3 times as much.

I'm happy to post the video here or just search for it on YouTube under "Ferrari 488 braille battery" and it will provably pop right up

Ray

 

That was great. Thanks for taking the time to make that video. It definitely makes me not want to need to replace a battery on the roadside. It’s almost comical how much more involved that is than changing the battery on my 911.

 

On the 458, it's a little easier. On the 488, it's a job. I wouldn't want to do it on the side of the road, that's for sure.

Ray

 

Removing the cover is not the issue, it is having a proper Lithium ion charger pack. The charger is the size of an envelope, which is impressive because my car was down to zero battery and this little Mighty Mouse brought it back to life by itself. Good thing to keep in the car. The whole package is about the size of a small first aid kit
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Please educate me on a charge pack for the lithium battery vs regular ? Is it the power /current ? I have a smart power pack - but what is difference ?


NOCO Boost HD GB70 2000 Amp 12V UltraSafe Lithium Jump Starter





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It’s a post about batteries so I don’t want to continue on this but you are wrong. I know exactly where they get the bolts from and they are NOT Chinese.

 

That's correct. I've purchased lug bolts directly from the company that supplies lug bolts to Ferrari as well. I'd have to go check my records to see if I still have the name of the company and where they are located, but it ain't China.

Ray

 

Taking a step backwards for a second, your 488 Pista battery died. That portable lion charger pack, designed for lithium ion car batteries, was brought by your SA. Attaches direct to the car battery in the passenger floorboard, and brought the lithium car battery back to life enough until you got the new OEM replacement? No trickle charger I guess to go straight to the horse's mouth

Trying to peel this onion because I'll have a go at driving my incoming 488 GTB on the regular battery, without a tender, living in an apartment building. So this discussion has been helpful, as I may well need to have this in mind in case of emergencies knocking on wood

So I would need to make sure I have the tools to access the floor panels & the lithium pack designed for a AGM car battery charged and on hand. If **** really hits the fan with the electronics/AGM battery, based on my driving routine and if my pursuit of a 12v outlet fails, my plan is to go for the big boy braille lithium bat and pray to God that solves it. But this is interesting if the Pista can even kill the lithium ion bat if the OEM one is similar to the Braille?

 

Dead batteries and modern Ferrari's not starting - it's kinda like riding motorcycles and might I crash - it ain't about if, but when.

Anyone who's ridden a motorcycle for any length of time will tell you the same thing: no matter how good a rider you are, eventually you're gonna go down. The trick is having good gear in advance. The best gear for street bikes is much less than a hospital visit to the ER to see which bones are broken and/or for road rash injuries.

Likewise, the cost of a high quality battery in advance might seem high. So many people say they'd never spend $3k on a good battery for their Ferrari. However, when faced with a modern day Ferrari not starting on the side of the road or in a parking lot - and what is required to get back on the road - that money you saved will quickly seem like nothing compared to the headache of having to deal with tow truck morons, traffic, your wife never wanting to set foot in your exotic again, etc. etc. Not to mention the risks to the car's ultra expensive electronics.

As I think I mentioned above, the best practice is to charge the battery up (should it go dead) with the battery totally isolated from the car itself; that means disconnecting the battery terminals, which is a drag even when you're in your nice toasty warm garage

It would be interesting to know which Lithium battery Ferrari used for the Pista. The Braille battery is so expensive because it uses very high quality cells. There are other lithium batteries out there that cost much less, but probably don't perform as well. Also, my experience with the 488 was that the charging system differed from how the 458 works, such that the 488 didn't seem to do a very good job of fully charging the battery. This might be why it's more prone to going dead in the 488.

Ray

 

charge pack allowed me to start and drive for a half an hour to self charge, drove home and used trickle charger overnight to bring it back to normal, I hope. did not need replacement battery

 

The comment about wife never wanting to set foot in exotic again - 100% accurate!!! I had the experience last summer. You’re right - it’s not a matter of if, but rather when...



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Doesn’t the battery depleting affect the Pista’s lithium battery unlike AGM? Either way thanks again for the info and heads up


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With a normal battery, the depletion curve is rather linear. So as your normal battery sits, the voltage drops relatively gradually until at some point the voltage dips below what will properly start the car. It doesn't mean the battery is fully discharged; it's just low enough not to crank the car over correctly. With my motorcycle, for example, (before I switched to a Lithium battery) I used to run into that situation if the bike sat for more than 2 weeks: the bike would crank over fine, but it wouldn't fire up. The voltage was below what the bike needed to spark (I presume), but there was still plenty enough energy in the battery to turn over the starter.

So with the Ferrari, you can run into a very similar situation. The standard battery has just drifted below the threshold where it fires up the car, even though technically the battery wouldn't be described as totally drained. Also, in this case, often the first attempt at starting almost works, but then that attempt really knocks the battery down - down to a level where you're just out of luck at that point. That scenario is usually accompanied by a light show on the dash and all sorts of beeping and failure warnings. Now, if you try again to start the car, sometimes it actually will take and start. However, if it does, you then have to shut the car off again and do a clean start up (a few minutes later) to clear the warnings, etc.

Now, with a Lithium battery, the discharge isn't slow and gradual, but more binary. The charge voltage will hold pretty steady, but then near the end (as the cells fully deplete) the power in the battery just totally falls off a cliff. If you look at a chart of how Lithium cells discharge, you can kind of see what I mean. So if you deplete a Lithium battery, it doesn't mean the voltage has just drifted down a bit too low to start the car, but rather you've totally drained the battery dry.

This also explains why a normal "dead" car battery may only require a relatively brief recharge to get you back in business, while with a Lithium battery, it might require going through a recovery pulse phase before it wants to accept a charge. Lithium batteries can drop down so low that they won't take a normal charge, but this doesn't mean they can't safely be recovered or that they need to be replaced. It just means they require a slightly different approach / method to being brought back up to 100% charge again, as compared to a lead acid battery or AGM style battery.

Ray

 

Update

Super-B is going to release a smart battery (i.e., including electronics to prevent over- and undercharging) this August, so I will wait until then. It is basically a 'standard' LiFePO4-battery which includes something like this https://www.samlex.com/product/bdb-250/ which Super-B sells under their own name as well ( https://www.super-b.com/en/accessories/sb-dbd-250#product-applications ).

See https://www.super-b.com/en/automotive/sli-starter-batteries/car-1/smart-starter-12v25ah for their smart battery to be released in August.

 

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The Pista lithium-ion battery is produced by A123 Systems in Czech Republic
A 123 Systems belongs to Wanxiang since 2013
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