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[Aerplay]

Has anyone tried charging a zero with one of these or something like this? http://www.goalzero.com/p/164/Goal-Zero-Yeti-150-Solar-Generator

Could this work at all?

Im sure its just a fantasy, but im fascinated with the possibility of potentially doubling the range and/or occasionally cutting the charge time in half just by carrying one of these on the back of the bike.

[firepower]

This can store 150W at 12V the zero stores 12,000W at 96V
This will be useless for charging or starage.

You would need 640 of these to charge the Zero 

640 x $230 = $147200

these are designed for charging phones, tablets, laptops. 5W to 50W loads.

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

You would need about 20 sq ft to charge an electric motorcycle effectively.

[Aerplay]

 thanks for the humor firepower,  i needed that to stick around

...and ask less silly questions with more research first in the future

[protomech]

It's a little better than that! 11000 Wh / 150 Wh = 73 .. call it 80-100 units with charging losses. That's about $20k in power packs.

But let's say you want to use this while out and about. Camping for example.

First understand that this is going to be pretty inefficient. Solar panels output DC, voltage and current will vary throughout the day and I'm not sure the smaller Goal Zero generators use a MPPT charge controller. (The larger ones do). Then you need to charge the internal AGM battery, then discharge it into the inverter to produce AC power, then convert it BACK into DC with the bike's onboard charger, then charge the internal battery.

The first limitation will be the inverter can only supply 80W continuous AC. The S ZF12.5 normally charges to 95% in 8.1 hours at 1300W; if you could dial the onboard charger down to 80W, then the bike would charge about 0.72% in 1 hour.

It's not clear how long the Yeti 150 would power a 80W load. Probably about an hour, lead acid doesn't like continuous steep discharges. After depleting the Goal Zero and charging the bike 0.72%, then you would need to charge the Goal Zero again. This will take 3-6 hours with the Boulder 90W, which is about a day of sunlight.

So it'll take about half a year to charge the Zero, and the internal AGM battery will probably be cooked.

***

But! Goal Zero also sells larger units, like the Yeti 1250. This has a much larger 1250 Wh lead acid power pack and a beefier inverter, which can supply up to 1200W continuous. This is large enough to actually work, provided that you use a smaller 1 kW DeltaQ QuiQ external charger. The onboard 1.3 kW charger can pull up to about 1500W continuous at full load, so it's still a little large for the Yeti.

The 1 kW DeltaQ will deplete the Yeti 1250 in about an hour, and charge the Zero S ZF12.5 about 9%.

The same Boulder 90 will charge the Yeti 1250 in 27-54 hours of sunlight, which is give or take about 9 days. The Yeti can accept up to 240W of solar panels max across two inputs; two Boulder 90s would cut the charge time in half, to about 4.5 days. This averages out to about 2% per day, so the bike will be fully charged in about 2 months.

***

Obviously this is a somewhat silly exercise, but it's interesting and it gets brought up from time to time. There are ways to do it better; the most efficient route will be to charge the bike battery directly with solar panels controlled by a MPPT charge controller. This might not even be terribly expensive; 1000W of solar panels cost less than the Yeti 1250 and could give the bike about a 50% charge on a nice sunny day. But, this requires that you leave the bike attached to the solar panels for a long time while it's out in the sun, when it'd be more fun to go riding!

If you have a Zero FX then you could conceivably leave one set of batteries charging while you ride around with the other. With a sufficiently large solar array you could charge as quickly as you discharge; Hollywood Electrics used a solar array and a generator together to do just that in several M1GP endurance races in 2013.

Another option would be to build a large custom battery bank, charge that with solar, and then quickly charge the bike (need a DC to DC converter) when you come back to "base". This is sort of a scaled up version of the Yeti system. Lightning Motorcycles does this; they have a 9-panel (about 2 kW) solar array mounted on a frame on top of a Dodge Sprinter van which can charge a 36 kWh battery pack inside the van. Their race bikes can charge from this larger battery pack between race sessions, and the solar panels can charge the internal battery pack in between races (likely 3-5 days).

[firepower]

My math was also putting them in series to get 96V
thats is making same size pack as the zero. charge at 1C no waiting.

I know it just silly.

Also if camped by a river you can charge using hydro turbine to a battery, think some users also do that.

[trikester]

Also if camped by a river you can charge using hydro turbine to a battery, think some users also do that.

I think firepower is referring to my posts about hydro-power charging after each days' ride on my FX or my e-trike (FX powertrain). I was staying at a resort (kayak school) in the Klamath National Forest and riding the mountain fireroads each day. The lodge uses a turbine (Pelton) driven by water piped from a spring located 600 feet above the facility to provide power except at peak times like meal prep. During those times they also use a diesel generator. Of course none of this was portable power.

The lodge's hydro generator can produce a continuous 750W which is stored in LA batteries when not needed. My on-board charger is the stock Mean Well which draws 640W while charging. Because of the nature of the lodge's business, white water kayak instruction, the students would be out on a river when I would get back from my rides in the afternoon and the place would be "dead", with very little load on the power. I could plug in and recharge without draining the storage batteries. If I were to use my Delta Q (1100 W) I would normally wait until the diesel was running in the evening and morning.

I got a lot of pleasure on each ride from knowing that the thing pushing me up steep climbs, for thousands of feet, was the power from that little spring high up on the mountain side.

Trikester

[Aerplay]

Wow, thank you so much protomech for putting these power packs completely into perspective.  I look forward to learning more through school in the near future.
SEI http://www.solarenergy.org/ looks pretty promising.

Ive recently become particularly interested in self-sustaining, battery-based systems because I am building a tiny mobile home, which will ironically end up someday in Beatty, OR where the Klamath National Forest is all around   

The Zero DS will help ALOT when it comes to keeping miles off the truck that hauls the bike, and the house, and everything else.

Definitely gotta think about the long-term pros and possibilities when it comes to justifying such large purchases