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[Motoproponent]

I got a charger with my Energica that lists the input range of 120 to 240 VAC. It came with a NEMA 6-20 plus instead of a standard 5-15 like all the outlets in my garage. So I have to use an adapter (5-15P to 6-20R) to use a regular outlet but I found a NEMA 14-50P to 6-20R ($18 on Amazon) that lets me use a 240 VAC outlet and it works just fine. I unplugged my Juice Box EVSE and used the 14-50 outlet that is dedicated to that "charger" with the Adapter and stock portable EVSE cord from Energica. It delivered 14 amps, ~3.3 KW, and didn't heat up or fault.

So the stock EVSE can do level 1 or level 2 with three possible plug types. I'm going to get a TT-30 adapter from the same company. The with a Tesla Tap I'll be able to use all the charging locations the populate on Plugshare (Except of course CHAdeMO and Tesla DC without Magic Dock)

I was apprehensive that the adapter would work after all of Specters warnings, but maybe the 6-20 plug, because it is a standard that supports 240 VAC natively makes the difference?

[SwampNut]

If you go somewhere where it's a J plug, then you are good to go

He said his chargers take a standard EU household 240v outlet.  Are you aware of a way to adapt to a J plug?  Not to mention, he will never run into a J-1772 adapter in Europe; that's a stupid SAE standard.

Here is a reference:

Is type 2 the same as J1772?
No, Type 2 refers to the Mennekes connector used as the charging standard in Europe. It’s a three-phase plug that can charge up to 43 kW. J1772 is a Type 1 connector used in North American EVs. It’s a single-phase plug with up to 19.2 kW of power.

PLEASE be careful when advising people because standards vary greatly.

Very interesting, thank you.

You are indicating that your custom bike will have a household input, but you want to use a public charger, right?  I don't believe it's possible.  You definitely cannot use DC fast charging stations.  In theory you could use a public if an adapter existed, but that seems very unlikely.

Yes, such adapter I was after. "that seems unlikely", pity!

I should go looking around to find some public charging stations and have a look. Thing is, in this country (currently!) I have never seen a public charging place anywhere, lol!
Hence why I am slightly concerned for the planned long road trips, and have ordered another battery from the same Chinese guy.
I was THINKING if old-style gas stations (petrol stations here) let an ebike owner plug their household plug into one of their wall sockets? Or which other "shops" might let us do that? Basically, I fear, everytime I need to recharge, I have to fill myself up with another 5 course menu to be allowed to recharge at a restaurant?

I wonder what other ebikers' experience is there?
As I don't use fb and any such thing, I have no contact to ebike rider groups, if such exist. (not here anyway, I bet)

Bikes do charge like cars, mostly. Mainstream bikes and cars have either public station AC inputs (Zero)

What would "public station AC inputs (Zero)" look like? Do you have a photo of plug / socket?

My zero has 17.3k and charges at 6.6k.

Woah, that I consider very fast! 6.6kW here no household socket can output, afaik (16A *230V is standard max). Thus your Zero can charge at almost twice that max.
Do you have a suitable charging socket at home? And publicly available also?

To answer your question: If the ship from China delivers(!?), I hope to soon have up to ~150Ah * 76.8V nominal = 11.5kW.

"My zero has 17.3k" - Unfathomable for me.  How many miles can you go?? Or, rather (as I count that way): What wattage do you use per km, on average trips?

I noticed, the riding style has more influence than anything else! Except to demonstrate to others, I avoid "fast starts / acceleration" now. Hills here, I cannot avoid, unfortunately. They cost wattage too. When I just keep on flat roads "in the flow" (same, low, speed), the bike uses "almost nothing" (under 20W/km).

The Ukrainians, in their RideBikeShop videos, on their "Long Range Performance", went in a video for an hour at top speed on a highway (I watched the whole video, yeah). 
I like their videos a lot (though don't understand a word). I was going to buy from them, that bike. But then they stopped responding. I read in the news, "all" men were drafted. Terrible situation there!!    

Those are a lot of logical questions, I'll try to hit them.  First, keep in mind that public charge connectors are intelligent, and household/industrial plugs are not.  What this means is that your bike/car has to negotiate for power with the station.  The cord is not "live" unless connected and a smart handshake is made.  With a household plug you just get power, whatever it can do, no intelligence.  This is why the charge cords have a box with a display, to do the intelligent handshake.  These provide an interface from the dumb household connector to the smart input.

You said your bike has a household input.  It's dumb.  It cannot negotiate with a public charger.  You are at the mercy of finding a plug at places you might stop.  I'm not sure what is the background on your custom bike, but this is really not the way to go for travel.  Your bike is a local city bike only, unless you want to wait hours and fight to find a random plug.  Your 2400 watt charger will take almost five hours to take your battery from say 5% to around 98%, and more to get to 100%.

My bike can do close to 200 city miles, 110-120 combined driving, less than 100 straight highway at 75, and if I ride it hard, even less.  Hard acceleration and deceleration, if you have regenerative braking, is actually not a range killer.  Holding high speeds is.

American homes have 120v 15a or 120v 20a sockets around the house.  Many/most also have a few 240v 50a sockets for clothes dryers, water heaters, and stoves.  In my case I installed a 240v 30a outlet in the garage for my welder and Tesla charging.  At home I mostly charge the bike on a 120v 20a outlet overnight.  I can also charge it on the 30a to go faster.  Around my region, RV parks are plentiful, and they have both 120v 30a and 240v 50a outlets; many will let you park and charge for a few dollars.  There are also Tesla destination chargers that I can use.  I cannot use Tesla Superchargers with the bike, only with the Tesla.

[MyFirstElectric]

then made pigtails to plug into that that were

Do you have a photo of that? 
It may give others an idea (me too)

[SwampNut]

Do you mean the Mennekes connector?  I'd recommend you google it.  But it won't help you, no matter if you build an adapter, it will NOT work without the intelligent negotiation.  I've tested the J adapters, and there is NO POWER without a vehicle to negotiate power.  You'd need some advanced electronics skills to make a device.

[Specter]

The problem is.   overseas both power legs are HOT legs, then there is ground, or earth. ie PE (potential earth)
In the USA,  there are 2 hot legs BUT, there is also a neutral, AND also a PE, or ground or earth.    so hot to hot will give you 240, but hot to neutral gives you 115.  We have a split phase system. Either  hot to PE will give you 115 as well, since PE and Earth, ideally are the same thing.
Ok, the hard core are going to argue with that, as technically it is not, but on an earth grounded system that is working properly, it's at ground potential.

On a 240 system, you never want one of those legs to touch ground, that is a bad thing.
on a 115 system, the other leg of it IS GROUND,   So instead of hot to hot you are going either Hot 1 to ground/neutral or Hot 2 to ground/neutral to get that 115 instead of the full 240

often times when you get a 240 to 115 adapter, the see the 115 as  Hot-Hot-Ground  it has two hot legs, and a ground.  what they don't realize is that for 115 it's really  Hot-Neutral/ground-ground.  so, not knowing what to do with the other hot leg on the 240 side of the conversion, they just tie the one hot of the 115 to BOTH the hot legs of the 240.. (because you don't want to put hot to ground right???) so you end up with the 115 hot side, going to both power ends of your 240 charger, it's putting the same potential at both ends, so there's nowhere for the power to flow!

You either have to make one yourself, using the neutral and tying it to the other hot leg on your charger, or you can play with the charger and a jumper but id not recommend the latter.

In your case  if it came with a 115 volt ability already there, they have it wired already to take care of that.

Aaron

[Specter]

Type 1 is 115 volt AC in the US
Type 2 is 240 volt AC in the US  as the source of power
The power comes out of a plug, and they feed a charger, which then is hooked to a J-Plug which is what plugs into your vehicle.
Type 3-4 would be your fast chargers.  ie the CCS plug.  THey use CCS1 in the US,  CCS2 elsewhere and ChaDemo and some other variants, including tesla's variant.

In order to charge with ANY type of power you NEED a charger, you can NOT just plug it into a wall and have it charge.  The charger needs to negotiate with the vehicle to turn on the power and regulate how much is going into the vehicle etc.

The plug now, is where you plug the charger into a source of power.  Again, you NEED a charger.  and the pigtail I was talking about is to convert from the different sizes of plugs.

If your charger has a nema 14-50 plug on it, it won't fit in a 6-20 plug.  You can make a pigtail that WILL have it fit, it basically has a male 6-20 plug, and a female 14-50 plug, (for your charger that was build with the Male 14-50) to plug into.

As for the interface for the communications, it's really just a simple circuit board you can buy for a few dollars, but there's a bit more than just the board to make a safe charger.

Here is an active e bay link that shows some pigtails to convert the plugs to fit what you need
https://www.ebay.com/itm/254924998981

now of course being overseas you'd want to use an e bay link that is from someone with you but this will give you some pictures to see

aaron

[MyFirstElectric]

The cord is not "live" unless connected and a smart handshake is made.

Spot on. Then I won't be able to charge at public chargers: My batteries (my bike has NO household or any other input, by the way, I lay cables from the batteries to where I need the power, and to charge the batteries, I will be able to take them off the bike to take them into a building for charging, or, to charge them while left on the bike, if I have a long enough cable / park up close to a socket), so, my batteries ...
don't come with any "handshake" protocol stuff, they are just Lifepo4 with Ant BMS. 
So, sounds like I will try to charge at RV parks (great idea!! Thanks) and similar public places. I don't mind paying for recharging, after all the establishment has to pay for energy also. (Power doesn't cost much here, like in US, ~25c/kWh, subject to your state (California)). That comes out at cheap traveling, much cheaper than combustion engine for sure (I had a Suzuki V-Strom which is one of the cheapest to run, but my ebike now is a fraction of that).

Your 2400 watt charger will take almost five hours

Yes, that what I calculated too.
Only that I will use power between SOC 92-ish % to 15-ish% only, because I studied Lifepo4 lifecycle in depth, and this makes them live longest, as per current knowledge base. You guys, I think, all use Li-on derivatives, they have different requirements, I get it. (I have always been an outlier / nerd  )

My bike can do close to 200 city miles, 110-120 combined driving, less than 100 straight highway at 75, and if I ride it hard, even less.  Hard acceleration and deceleration, if you have regenerative braking, is actually not a range killer.  Holding high speeds is.

Cool, and spot on. 200 city miles is amazing for such powerful bike (compared to mine, I mean).
IF I get both batteries ordered, I calculated, with ultra-soft / smooth riding, I will easily go > 300km, which is about 200 miles also.

Here's some fun fact that I learned today when researching CAR ev watts/km comparisons:
The Porsche Tycan uses more power in city than on highway. While all other cars seem to use more on highway than in city: https://insideevs.com/reviews/344001/compare-evs/
No idea, why!?! Just interesting.
I was surprised how FEW watts the Model S uses, as compared to other cars. (same table)
Again, no idea, why, just interesting.

No, I don't know of a similar table that compares BIKE evs, sorry. 

So, I read you have a Tesla CAR also. Woah, good man!  You will know more detail there then too.

[MyFirstElectric]

Okay, I looked up images for all the plugs and adapters and sockets you guys have mentioned. I haven't seen one of them here, no, sorry. I did watch a video of a guy who showed "all" (he said) types of plugs /sockets available at "super(?) chargers" in the UK. None of the 3 (no more) I would be able to use for my baby bike, no. Not sure if a Harley or Energica could use those.

The IDEAL, would be we charge DC to DC. I wanted that for my tiny home (fully offgrid, charging straight from solar), but on a solar forum everyone (rightfully) advised against that: voltage and amps just fluctuate way too much to be safe (good) for battery health.
Like Aaron already pointed out: chargers must match the battery. It would be impossible for me to build the "smart" electronics he mentioned, to replicate or emulate the stock AC to DC charger. I won't even try.
So, I will keep charging the bike (stupidly) with the AC to DC stock charger, despite that my AC first comes from DC also! Each step has conversion losses....

[SwampNut]

The cord is not "live" unless connected and a smart handshake is made.

Spot on. Then I won't be able to charge at public chargers: My batteries (my bike has NO household or any other input, by the way, I lay cables from the batteries to where I need the power, and to charge the batteries, I will be able to take them off the bike to take them into a building for charging, or, to charge them while left on the bike, if I have a long enough cable / park up close to a socket), so, my batteries ...
don't come with any "handshake" protocol stuff, they are just Lifepo4 with Ant BMS. 
So, sounds like I will try to charge at RV parks (great idea!! Thanks) and similar public places. I don't mind paying for recharging, after all the establishment has to pay for energy also. (Power doesn't cost much here, like in US, ~25c/kWh, subject to your state (California)). That comes out at cheap traveling, much cheaper than combustion engine for sure (I had a Suzuki V-Strom which is one of the cheapest to run, but my ebike now is a fraction of that).

Your 2400 watt charger will take almost five hours

Yes, that what I calculated too.
Only that I will use power between SOC 92-ish % to 15-ish% only, because I studied Lifepo4 lifecycle in depth, and this makes them live longest, as per current knowledge base. You guys, I think, all use Li-on derivatives, they have different requirements, I get it. (I have always been an outlier / nerd  )

My bike can do close to 200 city miles, 110-120 combined driving, less than 100 straight highway at 75, and if I ride it hard, even less.  Hard acceleration and deceleration, if you have regenerative braking, is actually not a range killer.  Holding high speeds is.

Cool, and spot on. 200 city miles is amazing for such powerful bike (compared to mine, I mean).
IF I get both batteries ordered, I calculated, with ultra-soft / smooth riding, I will easily go > 300km, which is about 200 miles also.

Here's some fun fact that I learned today when researching CAR ev watts/km comparisons:
The Porsche Tycan uses more power in city than on highway. While all other cars seem to use more on highway than in city: https://insideevs.com/reviews/344001/compare-evs/
No idea, why!?! Just interesting.
I was surprised how FEW watts the Model S uses, as compared to other cars. (same table)
Again, no idea, why, just interesting.

No, I don't know of a similar table that compares BIKE evs, sorry. 

So, I read you have a Tesla CAR also. Woah, good man!  You will know more detail there then too.

You're not listening to either the person asking, or me.  This is about converting a PUBLIC CHARGER, with a Mennekes, to a bike with a household input.  This doesn't exist, that I can find, is not supported for sure, and would take some good engineering skills to make (not impossible).

Converting from household/industrial to J-1772 or Mennekes is trivial, as you note.

[SwampNut]

The IDEAL, would be we charge DC to DC. I wanted that for my tiny home (fully offgrid, charging straight from solar), but on a solar forum everyone (rightfully) advised against that: voltage and amps just fluctuate way too much to be safe (good) for battery health.

That's so bizarre, in the US all solar as far as I have seen is DC to DC charging.  And I've worked on some BIG solar stuff...

Definitely no AC in here, in fact the entire infrastructure runs on 48v, pretty normal here.

[Specter]

You can absolutely charge your bike from solar!  I do it all the time at home here.
Yes the voltages can fluctuate and amps IF it's cloudy / windy out.  But if it's nice and sunny the power is pretty rock steady save for the bell curve that's the natural dawn to dusk curve.

If you wanted to hook the panels directly to the battery, probably not recommended unless you really know what you are doing, panels have current limiting due to the nature of them, and the volts of the panel are going to match whatever the battery is at. (As long as OCV is higher than the battery's) The only problem area will be once you are charged up, the battery voltage will rise very rapidly and you'll need to disconnect before you trip something in the BMS or cause a bad problem.

Most people have the panels feeding into a battery bank just to keep it super smooth and buffer it, especially on those windy cloudy days, and an inverter to run a standard charger to push the DC you want.

Two ways to get the DC you need AND have it regulated.
A.  Have an AC input DC charger, yes it can be a fast charger
or have a DC input DC charger, which is a fast charger.  Typically these run on 300 to 400 ish volts input.  I am in the process of building a small 10 KW fast charger that runs on 48 volts though.  Yes its going to need about 250 amps which is really pushing a single string battery  bank unless you start going with the industrial sized batteries.  the group 8D and crap, I can't remember is it 600M the phone switch / train batteries?

One idea to cut out the charging circuit on a high voltage reached is run it thru an SSR with the high V as the pilot signal as a cutout.  Once the voltage is reached it turns OFF the SSR until the voltage returns back to the set level.  A simple circuit and you can add a lockout to that as well.

Aaron

[SwampNut]

Ok, maybe there's a language barrier here.  You can do DC-DC charging WITH A CHARGE CONTROLLER.  That's perfectly safe.  You should never do direct panel to battery.

[Specter]

Myfirst electric.

Lets try a reboot here:  I think comms are getting crossed and other inputs are getting confusing.

what is the voltage your battery is running at?  Give me that and I can give you ideas how to charge it, with either AC or DC and possibly even ready made chargers if the voltage is within their specs.

Aaron

[SwampNut]

He said 76.8V nominal and 11.5kW.  Probably 72v but rated in Chinesium watts.

[Specter]

You can buy a charge controller COTS that will handle that voltage, and it is fully programmable.

outback.com   midnightsolar.com

goto
altenergystore.com and they can give you guidance,  they ship overseas too, also you can call and talk to a person who can then understand exactly what you need and offer you advice, and products that might work.

Most newer charge controllers can safely handle up to 96 volt battery with some taking inputs as high as 200 to 300 vdc, so right off the panels, into the charge controller, into your battery.

Always put a fuse in the circuit though, that way if something accidentally drops, or touches, you don't have full battery source current backfeeding a growing arc.

Aaron