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[xmjsilverx]

Has anyone done this with some type of portable charger?  Obviously if you have solar panels on your roof this is no problem to do but I was wondering if any type of portable panel would do any charging of these bikes.  Looking at these panels they appear to be in DC volts so I am not sure what type of voltage we would need and is there even a way to charge it with DC.  I am sure any panels small enough to travel with the bike would take a long time to do much charging but I was just wondering if anyone has done it and what kind of setup I would need.

[nigezero]

Much as I love solar, this is impractical for recharging. Theoretically you could charge directly off DC by series connecting panels, via a regulator at the right voltage into the fast charge port. However, even if you said 500w, half what the stock AC charger does, that's still 2 panels and almost 4m2. Too big.

[Erasmo]

Jup the only practical way to do that would be to tug along a little trailer with solar panels and set them up when you want to charge. More or less like in The Martian.

[Killroy]

From a bang for the buck perspective, solar is much better fixed on a roof and probably connected to the grid.  Mobile solar is not great because, everything is very sub-optimal.  Shading and poor solar alignment are the enemies of solar energy production and when solar is on a vehicle, it is not always in the sun and pointed directly at the sun.

[mrwilsn]

At the efficiency of current solar cell technology this isn't really practical if you are talking about panels that you would carry on the bike.  Even pulling a trailer behind the bike you could do it but still impractical due to cost and weight.  That said....I would LOVE to see someone build it just to prove that it can be done.  You would need a trailer with panels that can fold out to a large area and possibly a large battery on the trailer too.  It would be a lot of weight for the bike to pull.  It could do it but you are going to pay the price in range.

However....Lightning Motorcycles DOES solar charge their bike while they are on the road.  But they do it from panels that are installed on the roof of their van and use the panels to charge a battery pack that is on board the van.  Then they charge the bike from the battery pack.  The solar panels can keep adding energy to the setup while the bike is charging but the panels aren't charging the bike directly.

https://youtu.be/KuoSp2tFtGI?t=37

[ElectricZen]

I was thinking it would make more sense if you could find a super efficient micro hydro system.  Something like a submersible propeller system that was portable.  It wouldn't be fast but would certainly free you from range anxiety.  Lots of fast flowing water being the requirement.   

Sent from my Nexus 9 using Tapatalk

[grmarks]

One way is to charge a battery pack from which you can use an inverter to output 240 (or 110) volts and plug into the onboard charger. The voltage coming out of solar panels varies, so you would need to regulate it to charge a battery pack.

[Erasmo]

You can direct charge, a DC/DC converter is nothing new.

At the efficiency of current solar cell technology this isn't really practical if you are talking about panels that you would carry on the bike.  Even pulling a trailer behind the bike you could do it but still impractical due to cost and weight.  That said....I would LOVE to see someone build it just to prove that it can be done.  You would need a trailer with panels that can fold out to a large area and possibly a large battery on the trailer too.  It would be a lot of weight for the bike to pull.  It could do it but you are going to pay the price in range.

However....Lightning Motorcycles DOES solar charge their bike while they are on the road.  But they do it from panels that are installed on the roof of their van and use the panels to charge a battery pack that is on board the van.  Then they charge the bike from the battery pack.  The solar panels can keep adding energy to the setup while the bike is charging but the panels aren't charging the bike directly.

https://youtu.be/KuoSp2tFtGI?t=37

Best thing I could find was this solar powered scooter:

[mrwilsn]

You can direct charge, a DC/DC converter is nothing new.

Agreed. If I was misinterpreted to say it wasn't possible, that's not what I meant. Of course if you can use the solar panels to charge a battery in a trailer then you could also use solar panels to directly charge the battery on the bike.  But the extra battery allows you to collect some energy while you are moving or while the trailer is parked and you are ridding around.

I like the pic of the scooter charging from solar [emoji2]

However, it will take forever and a day to charge a 10kWh+ battery with those panels... literally more than a days worth of sunshine.  Unless you at least have more panels its not practical to ride around til the battery is dead and then charge up for a couple hours and be fully charged ready to go ride.  Having more panels means a trailer and the extra battery means the ability to collect energy from one or two panels while moving.

Sent from my XT1060 using Tapatalk

[xmjsilverx]

Well it's disappointing but about what I expected.  I was hoping that maybe with the right setup of foldable panels that could either go in a backpack or side cases we could add some miles back on the battery in a few hours of intense sunlight.  But it seems it won't even do that.

[Erasmo]

It still might be done but it all depends on what you want and what roads you plan to travel.

A vetterised bike covered in flexible pv could get you a long way.

Or if you do a North-South tour in Australia it wouldn't matter if you had a frame like this because it are long straight roads:



You should be able to suck in 400W while riding but it has also offset the added weight and drag.

If you're talking side cases, these are foldable so you should be able to take a lot with you:

[Killroy]

Good luck getting 400 watts of solar charging while riding. 

When the "Solar Taxi" was on tour in the SF Bay Area, I went to ween him talk at HP 

Here is his 'motorcycle' since it is a 3-wheeler

Note that he still had to plug in since he did not get enough juice from the sun per day.  He said he offset his plug in by a similarly sized PV system at home.

[grmarks]

Erasmo, you can't DC charge a zero as the auxiliary charge plug doesn't operate unless the AC plug is energised. And to do that you need an inverter. So why bother with a DC/DC converter as well. There wouldn't be enough power to run the AC charger to its fullest let alone the auxiliary plug.

[xmjsilverx]

Just to clarify, I wasn't talking about charging while riding.  I was talking about stopping for a few hours, laying out the foldable panels and charging.

[Erasmo]

Erasmo, you can't DC charge a zero as the auxiliary charge plug doesn't operate unless the AC plug is energised. And to do that you need an inverter. So why bother with a DC/DC converter as well. There wouldn't be enough power to run the AC charger to its fullest let alone the auxiliary plug.

Actually you can charge on the fast charge port without energizing the AC plug.

Good luck getting 400 watts of solar charging while riding. 

When the "Solar Taxi" was on tour in the SF Bay Area, I went to ween him talk at HP 

Here is his 'motorcycle' since it is a 3-wheeler

Note that he still had to plug in since he did not get enough juice from the sun per day.  He said he offset his plug in by a similarly sized PV system at home.

Hence my remark about location etc. They hold the World Solar Challenge in Australia for a reason.
And of course if you want to pull off charging while riding you're not looking at domestic solar panels that you put on your roof but more in the market of space rejects.

Just to clarify, I wasn't talking about charging while riding.  I was talking about stopping for a few hours, laying out the foldable panels and charging.

That might be do-able, you should be able to take more than a kilowatt of foldable/rollable solar with you in two adventure side cases. But it isn't gonna be cheap.