AGM lithium hybrid battery for v11

[orangem2]

i have a Motus MST and needed to replace my battery.

One of the riders in the Facebook group recommended the Motobatt hybrid lithium/AGM MHTX20... since the stock one always seemed to labor a bit when started.

The benefit of the lithium CCA but can be charged with any smart battery charger like an AGM... holy crap does it light off the bike fast.

looking into the one that will work in a guzzi V11. Currently using an Odyssey PC545.

Has anyone tried a hybrid like this?

 

[Pressureangle]

Never the hybrid, but my 1100 Sport did like the straight lithium battery.

Motus. I think I've seen you on the Cherohola Parkway during the South'n Spine Raids twice.

[FreyZI]

Also not the hybrid, but a straight Anti-Gravity Re-start lithium battery.  I have them in my R1200R and my F800GS; another in a V11.  There's a disconcerting lack of push on a rather cold morning (never not started up, but you've got to wake up the battery a bit before it really wants to crank) -- not that that'll be a problem for you in Georgia.

[po18guy]

I went with an EarthX LiFePO4 battery, as it is assembled/tested in Colorado, USA and Earth-X has an FAA (aircraft) rating on many of their batteries. 2-year replacement warranty, although life span is expected to be considerably longer.  It is tiny (150mm L x 86mm W x 93mm H) and light (1 Kg) and zero problems spinning the V11 over. It replaces a 5-year old Yuasa AGM. Was 229 USD. 

I have it on a programmable LiFePO4 charger. 

Edited October 17 by po18guy

[orangem2]

1 hour ago, po18guy said:

I went with an EarthX LiFePO4 battery, as it is assembled/tested in Colorado, USA and Earth-X has an FAA (aircraft) rating on many of their batteries.2-year replacement warranty, although life span is expected to be considerably longer.  It is tiny (150mm L x 86mm W x 93mm H) and light (1 Kg) and zero problems spinning the V11 over. It replaces a 5-year old Yuasa AGM. Was 229 USD. 

what model Earth X battery did you get?

 

[po18guy]

10 minutes ago, orangem2 said:

what model Earth X battery did you get?

 

ETX18F. 

[Tomchri]

My 1100 Sport came with a lithium Exide battery, a few hundred grams, but saw red charging light a couple of times, never after installed a AGM battery. Just me, but still don’t thrust lithium.

cheers Tom.

[Gmc28]

On 10/17/2025 at 2:27 PM, po18guy said:

ETX18F. 

I have same.   very happy.

also put one in the 12 duc, then had (the previously reported) relay failure that killed that new, lovely, expensive EarthX battery, draining it down to about 1.5 Volts.  But after I tricked the smart charger into thinking it was ok to charge (do that at your own risk, with proper precautions...), it came back to life, and has been kicking like-new now for another (almost) year. 

[po18guy]

4 hours ago, Gmc28 said:

I have same.   very happy.

also put one in the 12 duc, then had (the previously reported) relay failure that killed that new, lovely, expensive EarthX battery, draining it down to about 1.5 Volts.  But after I tricked the smart charger into thinking it was ok to charge (do that at your own risk, with proper precautions...), it came back to life, and has been kicking like-new now for another (almost) year. 

'Smart' chargers are smart for the battery makers. Once a battery dips below a set voltage, the charger will not charge it - the hint being that you should simply purchase a new battery. I was given two DeWalt 18V batteries which the DeWalt charger claimed were DOA. Oh yeah?  VOM showed that they had about 10V remaining. So, I dug into my pile of chargers and attached a "dumb charger" to both batteries. It brought them up to 16V and then the DeWalt charger topped them off. They have been fine ever since. Japanese cells, which I'm sure makes a difference.  

Edited yesterday at 12:44 AM by po18guy

[Lucky Phil]

16 minutes ago, po18guy said:

'Smart' chargers are smart for the battery makers. Once a battery dips below a set voltage, the charger will not charge it - the hint being that you should simply purchase a new battery. I was given two DeWalt 18V batteries which the DeWalt charger claimed were DOA. Oh yeah?  VOM showed that they has about 10V remaining. So, I dug into my pile of chargers and attached a "dumb charger" to both batteries. It brought them up to 16V and then the DeWalt charger topped them off. They have been fine ever since. Japanese cells, which I'm sure makes a difference.  

"Smart chargers" and lets call them "basic modern chargers" are different things. Smart chargers have a charging/recovery profile for variuos battery types and "basic modern chargers" don't but have a simple low battery voltage threshold below which they won't charge the battery. Why? Because they don't trust the person connecting the battery to the charger to have the ability to monitor a charger for a battery in a very low state of charge during the recovery period and avoid the possible danger in doing so. So "basic modern chargers" are for late model dumb owners. 

Edited Thursday at 11:55 PM by Lucky Phil

[po18guy]

Dad gave me the instruction necessary to see through such schemes. A knowledge of broken human nature explains everything aside from natural disasters - and it explains some of them as well. 

[LaGrasta]

I run lithium in nearly all 8 of my bikes. They work great, however, I do ride all of my bikes regularly. That may or may not play a factor.

I will say one thing that has changed with lithium, they all now have a circuit built-in to address overcharging. Thus chargers are not the problem they were prior. I only trickle charge a battery if needed, never high amps.

[Pressureangle]

3 hours ago, LaGrasta said:

I run lithium in nearly all 8 of my bikes. They work great, however, I do ride all of my bikes regularly. That may or may not play a factor.

I will say one thing that has changed with lithium, they all now have a circuit built-in to address overcharging. Thus chargers are not the problem they were prior. I only trickle charge a battery if needed, never high amps.

I have a lithium in my Aermacchi. It was taken from my 1100 Sport as a necessity of the moment; I needed a battery, and when I got it home I stuck it in the empty hole of the 'Sport rather than swapping. The lithium has been sitting there waiting for probably 2 years now, in the 350; it's attached to a Shindengen regulator. I start it maybe every 3-4 months, and it has never failed to crank on the electric starter. FWIW. I have once or twice put the NOCO smart charger on it, but it always showed full charge just about the time I would walk away from it.

[audiomick]

8 hours ago, LaGrasta said:

... I do ride all of my bikes regularly. That may or may not play a factor.

I'm not exactly a battery expert, but do use a lot of things with various types of batteries in the course of my work. With that background, as far as I know, lithium batteries are much less sensitive to standing around doing nothing than lead-acid batteries, and the various other types of batteries that were used 15 or 20 years ago. No more "memory effect" if they aren't always fully cycled before re-charging, much less loss of charge on the shelf, and so on. Basically, you can leave them for ages and they are still good when you need them.

The thing that kills them, once again, as far as I know, is not so much that the age on the shelf as that the devices that they are in draw a bit of current even when off. The batteries like to be at around 75% charge when stored. They don't like being run flat. An example: we have a GoPro at work that more or less doesn't get used. The battery in it died. The only explanation for that is that the camera is not really off when it is off, and drained the battery and killed it. 

 

[docc]

[disclaimer: this post is for entertainment purposes only, and may or may not have anything to do with batteries . . .

My favorite literature professor in college (a New Orleans jazz pianist "by trade") loved to tell stories of "Lithium Lynn, the Fontana Girl ".  (Fontana Hall was a residence hall just off campus where the well-healed were housed. ) Lithium has long been used to treat bipolar disorders. There are accounts that the renowned jazz bassist, Jaco Pastorius, might have been involved with such, perhaps contributing to his unfortunate demise.

If there is any storage device take-away, she did not like to be cold, was easily overcharged, could suddenly discharge, and was potentially explosive.

The more things change, the more they stay the same . . .