solar charging e-bikes
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URL: http://www.rpod-owners.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=2525
Printed Date: 20 May 2025 at 9:07am
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Topic: solar charging e-bikes
Posted By: ajzuma
Subject: solar charging e-bikes
Date Posted: 26 Apr 2012 at 7:28pm
| Hi Everyone, Thinking of buying a electric pedal assist mountain bike. It has a 500 watt rear hub motor that is powered by a 36 volt 12 ah lifepo4/ li-ion battery. Is it possible to re-charge the battery with a solar panel system. I own a 80 watt portable solar charger (two 40 watt panels) used to charge 12 volt rv batteries while boondocking. Have anyone tried this and how? Thanks, AJ |
Replies:
Posted By: techntrek
Date Posted: 27 Apr 2012 at 7:53am
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It is possible, although that battery chemistry can be tricky to charge safely. I recommend you head over to the Wind Sun solar forum and post your question there. Lots of full-time off-gridders there which can point you in the right direction.
http://www.wind-sun.com/ForumVB/forum.php - http://www.wind-sun.com/ForumVB/forum.php
------------- Doug ~ '10 171 (2009-2015) ~ 2008 Salem ~ http://www.rpod-owners.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=1723 - Pod instruction manual 
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Posted By: TIDALWAVE
Date Posted: 27 Apr 2012 at 9:41am
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Warning about e-bike batteries! I own an e-bike which uses a 36V10aH Lithium-Polymer battery. When I bought the bike I was told that the battery could be charged 800-1000 times. What they don't tell you is that if you if let the "automatic" battery charger stay on for any time longer than a full charge...the charger will click on and off. This off-on action acts as if it were one of the charge times. You must use a charger specifically made for lithium batteries, quite a few cases of fire/explosions when using a non-lithium charger. I did not allow the battery to go below 20% charge (I carefully followed the charger instructions). Max battery power dropped to 80% after the first summer, 50% the second summer, and now won't charge higher than 20% at the beginning of the third riding season. Battery replacement will cost $350! I contacted the retailer and was told the 800-1000 charge times (as advertised for most e-bikes) is the "maximum' to be expected...not average. If you don't believe me about lithium bike batteries, browse a couple of e-bike forums...you will find a lot of disappointed/angry pedal-assist e-bike owners. ------------- TIDALWAVE |
Posted By: ajzuma
Date Posted: 28 Apr 2012 at 2:45pm
Posted By: ajzuma
Date Posted: 28 Apr 2012 at 4:17pm
| Hi again, I'll wait for battery technology to improve. Can still pedal a regular bike though I'm slowing down. Might just convert a regular bike to a e-bike when its time. Would it make sense and be safe connect a e-bike battery charger to a inverter that's connected to a agm battery that's connected to a solar panel? Trying to avoid using a gas generator. I have a 400 watt inverter. Thanks for the heads-up guys. AJ |
Posted By: TIDALWAVE
Date Posted: 01 May 2012 at 8:51am
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As long as the solar panel/battery/inverter system produces 110VAC you should be ok. You need to be certain that the inverter will shut off power completely if it cannot produce adequate AC voltage/current. Less voltage might burnout the e-charger. My e-charger takes about 2 hours to do a complete charge using household current.
------------- TIDALWAVE |