E bike charging off grid

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Manic

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I just had this come in my inbox and thought it maybe if interest to somebody

www.12voltplanet.co.uk

Off-Grid E-Bike Charging

Off-Grid E-Bike Charging help article from 12 Volt Planet. How to plan an e-bike charging set up in your van, motorhome, caravan or boat and highlight the things to be aware of
www.12voltplanet.co.uk
 
Interesting, but taking nearly 40Ah, 2X for two bikes = 80Ah, out of one's battery bank seems to be a lot when that capacity might be needed for other services, especially in cooler months.

One of the difficulties for charging e-bikes off-grid seems to be that the charging requires 36v, therefore an inverter is needed which complicates and produces some inefficiency, by taking 12v to 240v and back down to 36v.

I do not know if e-bikes could be charged at 12v, but even then I suppose the MH, Caravan and boat market would be too small to justify a new model.
 
Using the inverter/mains charger is a big hit to the leisure battery unless on hook up. One option may be a large Power Bank (for 2 x 400Wh bikes a 1kw ) with an inverter to have a redundant portable system to the leisure and should recharge via mains and the better ones from high input Car (12V in 36V out) & any raw solar (if they have MPPT controllers inbuilt).

I have an Epropulsion 48V electric outboard as an option (other than supplied 48V mains charger) they have an excellent combined MPPT solar controller & car charger enabling recharge from any raw solar or 12V/24V car. The same type of kit would be far more efficient than the inverter etc workarounds.

I think there will be a similar solution in time, eBikes off-grid are a large market if include E-bike camping/touring with car and bike carrier & canal/river boats.
 
We charge ours via an inverter, realistically the batteries normally just need 20-30% top up, meaning "only" a draw of about 40ah in total, given that when we use the bikes the weather will normally be decent, the Solar will normally be producing enough to cope with the demand.
 
Bosch used to have a 12V based charger, but that is discontinued. Dunno why but must suspect the cigarette socket vehicle wiring was inadequate for the current draw over the lengthy charge time, and as the Bosch battery capacities grew the whole thing was overworked.

Realistically the issue of charging in your motorhome is simply one of whether you have big enough habitation battery capacity that you can afford to lose a fair whack for the power transfer, or not. I suspect most who have dual batteries, or lithium habitation are needlessly worrying about their capacity.

I have a 120Ah lithium habitation. Consistently, in a day I would draw around 25Ah for my normal habitation use such as water pump, lighting, radio, heater fan (working on gas) and a fair bit of TV. A lot of that is replenished by the 175W solar, but not always all. Even so from habitation use, over the course of a few days I haven't seen my battery at less than 40% even when I've fully recharged via a small Victron inverter (it must be pure sine wave) either my Bosch 500 bike battery from almost empty or alternatively someones mobility scooter battery. Over the course of 2-3 days, still on site unplugged, most of that had been recovered by solar before I drove off.

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I use a 12v-40v charger on our 36v 17ah batteries (no inverter) , it's slow but works fine, but only in the daytime.
 
We charge our Specialized Vado and Como via the inverter. We also use a dedicated (but no longer produced)
16644506542072848336686262718018.jpg
12v charger. The 12v version draws less from the van but charges the bike batteries slower.
On the not so sunny days its quite a drain on the van batteries so we tend to charge them on hook up or when traveling. But when it is sunny the solar panel (300W) soon tops them up.
 
We don’t use anything……..we don’t have bikes, let alone e-bikes, Pip hasn’t learnt how to ride one yet, her legs don’t reach the pedals!

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I have charged my electric motorbike off grid using an inverter. However, I do it a bit at a time. I have 3 90 AH batteries and 175W solar.

I generally charged it maybe 30% one day and then let the batteries recover a bit using the solar and then charge again the next day. Also charging whilst on the move helps. It's ok if I'm not using the bike too much. Wouldn't work if I ran it flat too often.
 
I use a 500W victron phoenix pure sine wave inverter coupled to a 205Ah lithium leisure battery to charge Mrs GMcG's Specialized Levo SL and my Santa Cruz Heckler eMTBs
I have a 175W solar panels and a 50A votronic vcc1212-50 B2B

My Santa Cruz Heckler has a 720Wh battery. I can't recall if it is 36V or 48V. If we assume worst case of 36V, that's 20A (assuming 100% efficiency.
The charger is 4A, so for an empty to full charge, that's 5hrs (assuming 100% efficiency)
 
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I‘ve been looking at getting e-bikes…..it’s all too hard to do with the charging.

I’ve got a 130w solar panel charging 2 x 110 leisure batteries and vehicle, split 70 / 30. Probably change that more in favour of the leisure when needed.

12v Compressor Fridge, bit of lighting, gas for cooking / heating / hot water.

Charging phones, iPads etc is normally done on the move. I’m simple when it come to power / electric supply and want to keep it simple.

Don’t want inverter’s or power banks, so I’m guessing when parked up and no EHU I’ll have to stick with good old manual pedal power and forget e-bikes?🤷‍♂️
 
gerry mcg said:
I use a 500W victron phoenix pure sine wave inverter coupled to a 205Ah lithium leisure battery to charge Mrs GMcG's Specialized Levo SL and my Santa Cruz Heckler eMTBs
I have a 175W solar panels and a 50A votronic vcc1212-50 B2B

My Santa Cruz Heckler has a 720Wh battery. I can't recall if it is 36V or 48V. If we assume worst case of 36V, that's 20A (assuming 100% efficiency.
The charger is 4A, so for an empty to full charge, that's 5hrs (assuming 100% efficiency)
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Our system is 2x100ah lithium
500va victron inverter
Votronic 45a b2b
275w solar panels

These charge 2x 500w ebikes
100% offgrid for 8 weeks, France and N Spain
850 miles on ebikes.
3 way fridge, tablet, phones and laptop.
We charge both bikes simultaneously, whilst stationary. The habitation batteries will charge at 45 amps whilst driving, whereas the inverter is only drawing 23amps whilst charging ebikes, so you need approx half the time driving ignoring solar.
Working for us
Jon
 
No need for an Inverter... or lithium.

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Sapper520 said:
I‘ve been looking at getting e-bikes…..it’s all too hard to do with the charging.

I’ve got a 130w solar panel charging 2 x 110 leisure batteries and vehicle, split 70 / 30. Probably change that more in favour of the leisure when needed.

12v Compressor Fridge, bit of lighting, gas for cooking / heating / hot water.

Charging phones, iPads etc is normally done on the move. I’m simple when it come to power / electric supply and want to keep it simple.

Don’t want inverter’s or power banks, so I’m guessing when parked up and no EHU I’ll have to stick with good old manual pedal power and forget e-bikes?🤷‍♂️
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Ridgeway said:
I charge mine with weetabix or porridge but the motor is getting increasingly slow and creaky these days…
Click to expand...

Similar way I charge mine, but I also give it a supercharge with a pint size mug of tea.👍

The two pistons are lubricated with cod liver oil and generous amounts of joint rub…..not forgetting the reinforced bracing around the left piston knee area…🤦‍♂️
 
Ours charge from our Lithium no problem...we have loads of Free Solar, I've been field testing various options over the past 3 years...charging our bikes Off Grid is essential....
Our final method...tried and tested is.
Solar...350w one rooftop tilting, one folding freestanding.
160 amp Lithium
Inverter 1500w.
Lots of Spanish rays.... locally available.
Bluetti Power pack as reserve..

Happy with this setup....ride in the morning, charge in the afternoon, recharge the lithium next morning with Solar or Victron DC2DC whilst traveling....for us this works...
Expensive to setup, but you cannot put a price on enjoyment...not of this type....others yes..
 
The benefit of electric bikes, for us, is the greater opportunity they offer. We found that riding steam bikes began to lose its attraction, we could not ride up any hills.
Our predominant rides are voie verts / vias verdes and canals. With ebikes, we can now go up the steep hills without heart attack, so round trips are possible rather than out and return.
For us the inconvenience and worry of charging and has gone, thanks to the addition of lithium with their ability to recharge at a very high rate.
Solar has not been as good as in the summer, but it is November even in Spain.
The b2b though already installed, makes all the above useable with minimal travel.
In summary our ebikes, with our usage would not work off grid without the whole system. We travel to the EU only in late winter, early spring and autumn.
In the uk summer we park up for a couple of weeks off grid but we dont use our bikes, just recharge glider batteries.
The ebikes keep us more active, seeing a bit of the countryside and give us a focus to our wanderings.
The cost of the support technology was significant, and could possibly be done without the inverter, though we do use that for other things eg glider battery charging. On the other hand the extra stuff takes much of the calculation and concern as to whether we have enough power or need to move.
Jon

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Kannon Fodda said:
Bosch used to have a 12V based charger, but that is discontinued. Dunno why but must suspect the cigarette socket vehicle wiring was inadequate for the current draw over the lengthy charge time, and as the Bosch battery capacities grew the whole thing was overworked.
Click to expand...
It was expensive £150, only charged at half the rate of the mains charger took 5 - 6 hours to charge a 400 watt battery.
 
I have a Honda Vision 125CC …I top up with €7 of unleaded and it lasts 120km going like the clappers….

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Hugoman said:
I have a Honda Vision 125CC …I top up with €7 of unleaded and it lasts 120km going like the clappers….
Click to expand...
Nice.. but what's that got to do with electric bicycles?
 
PeterCarole29 said:
Is this a better option than using your inverter if it was hard wired to the leisure side but fused first
Click to expand...
So many different Plugs for eBike charging...I sent ours to a specialist, he replied NO....If anyone knows an outlet for YT Decoy bikes I would appreciate it greatly..
 
Hugoman said:
Just saying 😊
Click to expand...
Why though?
You HAVE to wear a crash helmet, you HAVE to be insured, you cannot use the miles of cycle paths, especially in The Netherlands and France.. add the costs associated with maintenance etc.. and you are disadvantaged.
 
Remember if you have a Bosch battery, loads of places in france now offer free charging when you get into towns and if you take your charger with you there are a number of places we have seen that you can lock up your bike and charge it for a returnable euro inside a box contraption.

Heres the Belgian ones. Adjust map to choose country. Pop in, drop your battery into the place (often TOs) come back with extra charge for free.

www.bosch-ebike.com

Bosch eBike charging stations in tourism regions

Bosch charging stations for eBikes: Find charging stations for Bosch eBike systems in tourism regions in Switzerland, France and Italy.
www.bosch-ebike.com www.bosch-ebike.com

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