The Nomad
Free Member
Hi guys - we are in the early days of considering getting two ebikes.
They'd likely be 16 or 20 inch wheel folders, as they'd have to be stored in the overcab part of our motorhome.
We wouldn't need massive distance-munching capacity; perhaps 30 or 40 miles maximum per day, and mostly less than that.
But there's one issue that might be a deal breaker for us...... Ebike battery recharging without mains hookup.
We live here in the very sunny Costa Blanca region of Spain and go away for quite long periods....normally to other, similarly sunny mainland European countries. But we almost never use full facility campsites, but instead prefer Aires or simply wild camping. Thus we almost never use mains electric hookup when touring.
We rely on our 3 roof mounted solar panels. They total a notional 220 watts.
We are very low users of 12volt DC electrics in the MH, all lights are leds, we rarely watch any tv and if we do it's watching preloaded films/series on a portable laptop not a big "proper" tv.
The laptop take 19 volts, so we recharge it via a 12volt DC socket in the MH through a universal 12volt-to-19volt transformer.
We've got two, matched, really good quality leisure batteries (120 amp each from memory), which we hardly ever dip into much though the hours of darkness, before the next mornings sun tops them back up.
We can go indefinitely, parked up week after week after week without any electric hookup.
We've also got a little plug-in-to-12-volt socket 150watt mains inverter which I use for my mains razor,, and also a hard-wired-in whopping 2,000 watt mains inverter too (for running wife's hairdryer and hair crimper thingies 2 or 3 times a week).
So, to the questions:
1.If we had 2 pedal-assist ebikes, how much juice does it take to recharge their batteries if we did (say) 10 to 20 miles per day?
2. Would 3 or 4 hours of our solar panels output provide enough for them?
3. Could we use a simple dc step transformer to get us from the notional 12volt dc of the van to the "X" volts that their charger needs?
Many thanks for any help or advice on this!
They'd likely be 16 or 20 inch wheel folders, as they'd have to be stored in the overcab part of our motorhome.
We wouldn't need massive distance-munching capacity; perhaps 30 or 40 miles maximum per day, and mostly less than that.
But there's one issue that might be a deal breaker for us...... Ebike battery recharging without mains hookup.
We live here in the very sunny Costa Blanca region of Spain and go away for quite long periods....normally to other, similarly sunny mainland European countries. But we almost never use full facility campsites, but instead prefer Aires or simply wild camping. Thus we almost never use mains electric hookup when touring.
We rely on our 3 roof mounted solar panels. They total a notional 220 watts.
We are very low users of 12volt DC electrics in the MH, all lights are leds, we rarely watch any tv and if we do it's watching preloaded films/series on a portable laptop not a big "proper" tv.
The laptop take 19 volts, so we recharge it via a 12volt DC socket in the MH through a universal 12volt-to-19volt transformer.
We've got two, matched, really good quality leisure batteries (120 amp each from memory), which we hardly ever dip into much though the hours of darkness, before the next mornings sun tops them back up.
We can go indefinitely, parked up week after week after week without any electric hookup.
We've also got a little plug-in-to-12-volt socket 150watt mains inverter which I use for my mains razor,, and also a hard-wired-in whopping 2,000 watt mains inverter too (for running wife's hairdryer and hair crimper thingies 2 or 3 times a week).
So, to the questions:
1.If we had 2 pedal-assist ebikes, how much juice does it take to recharge their batteries if we did (say) 10 to 20 miles per day?
2. Would 3 or 4 hours of our solar panels output provide enough for them?
3. Could we use a simple dc step transformer to get us from the notional 12volt dc of the van to the "X" volts that their charger needs?
Many thanks for any help or advice on this!