ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
Makes And Models => Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2013+ => Topic started by: xmjsilverx on April 06, 2015, 01:35:07 AM
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What kind of charging options do I have to charge my 15 Zero SR? I realize I can buy multiple 1.3kW chargers from zero but I have seen some people buying aftermarket chargers up to 7kW. I have a 240v 30 amp clipper creek charger we use for my wife's Nissan leaf so I would be open to a charger that uses a j1772 plug. I am looking for something that would be garage mounted but if there are options to replace the onboard with something faster I would be open to that too.
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seriously? do you sleep at home? I have an extension cord running from my 2nd floor apartment to the parking lot. 110v. I plug in when I get home and it's fully charged by the time I am ready to go to work. These bikes only take 8 hours to reach a full charge on 110. I have their off board charger I can use WITH the on-board to halve that time, but I never need it.
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I have built a compact portable 7kW Zero charger for my 2012. It can charge from any 240V receptacle or J1772 EV charge station.
I really apprecaite it when it's time for charging during long trip... that's 7kWh per hour
I have modified my ZF9 for a ZF15 and it have 13.4 real usable kWh so it take about 2h to charge a 200-300km run.
When you taste the speed of these cahreging solution you never want to go back to a 110V 1 or 1.3 kW !!
Doc
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The established level 2 charging option to to get two 2.5kW Elcon chargers from Hollywood Electrics. They set them up to work with your bike and you can tie in he onboard charger for about 6.3kW of charging power.
If you want to make your own, talk with Doctorbass. A couple of other people have made them too.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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The biggest reason I don't own a zero is the lack of included j1772 compliant minimal 3.3kw on board charging
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The biggest reason I don't own a zero is the lack of included j1772 compliant minimal 3.3kw on board charging
I just hope Zero are reading this thread and will take account of your comment ;)
This will contribute to accelerate any developpment in that direction 8)
Doc
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Imagine that zero took the charger you built (roughly 6 kw) and made it the basis for their charge speed goal, who could dispute the viability of electric when you travel 200km rest and charge 1hr to full and off you go for another 200km, all while doing it on a standard that is established and widely spread, they have addressed most of the complaints about their bikes except for the ridiculous charge times to make it a useful resource for the average person, you will not sell a premium bike with a 10hr turn around time to go for another ride, sorry but 20k only buys you 1-1/2 hr ride time, not acceptable
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It works for me. :) I don't mind charge times of up to 16 hours. So I am happy with Zero's direction. And you can keep your J1772 gun plug. That thing is just too large and bulky for my sensibilities. I would prefer the 240V type of plug used at motor home campgrounds. That would be much more useful for camping trips.
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At home I just charge overnight at 120V.
I had three offboard chargers for my 2012 ZF9 for a total of 4kW of charging (while plugged into a J1772 charging station using the Quad adapter from Hollywood Electrics). It still took awhile to charge - 25% of 8 hours is still 2 hours - but if you want to do a long ride and can't just charge at night - it's better than nothing.
I have one offboard charger for my 2015 SR (with PowerTank), but I have another one on order. It will still take a long time to charge, but you can ride much further between charges with the bigger battery.
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I have been reading some other threads on here about charging and I'm very interested in all of them. Doctorbass, I would love to know more about your charging setup like, price, size, weight and pics. The 8 plus hour charge time is already not working for me and I have owned the bike less than a week. I took the bike out this morning to run an errand and got back with 55%. A friend of mine wanted to go for a ride this afternoon and I had to wait over 4 hours for the battery to charge to go on the ride.
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An offboard charger made with server power supplies would be pretty interesting.
The cheaper supplies are not very power-dense and probably not very resilient to bad weather. Fortunately neither is a problem when charging at home, provided you have a weather-tight space to charge in.
One thing to consider is that the incremental cost to increase charger power goes up as you increase power. Big gains initially, but later incremental gains are relatively small.
Example: Let's say you add strings of two TDK FPS-1000-48 (http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=3949.0) supplies in series. $170 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/TDK-Lambda-FPS1000-48-S-1000W-Dual-Output-Power-supply-48V-21A-12V-0-25A-/271817946050) per 2 kW on ebay.
Let's say you went on a 40 mile ride that needed about 5 kWh to recharge .. up to 95%.
The 1.3 kW offboard charger would require about 3.8 hours.
1 string of TDK supplies would increase charge rate to 3.3 kW, shave 2.3 hours from the charge time (down to 1.5 hours).
2 strings of TDK supplies would increase charge rate to 5.3 kW, shave an extra 0.57 hours from the charge time (down to 0.94 hours).
3 strings of TDK supplies would increase charge rate to 7.3 kW, shave an extra 0.26 hours from the charge time (down to 0.68 hours).
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If there's ever a chance your bike would get wet with the charger, this is in my opinion the most reliable and easy (plug and play) option:
http://hollywoodelectrics.com/product/elcon-quick-charger/ (http://hollywoodelectrics.com/product/elcon-quick-charger/)
Having a power supply one at home is fine, but one day you might want to take a road trip. DocBass has done amazing things with his setup. But he's also more knowledgeable than most of us about power supplies and in Canada he gets less humidity and rain than many of the rest of us do. You can try anything and I encourage it, but if you want a solution you can receive in the mail and charge your Zero minutes later, I'd suggest the Elcon package from Hollywood Electrics. I'm not just saying that, I actually have used them to charge over 1000 times and go over 75,000 miles of road bumps and vibration on my Zero. So they are extremely reliable and robust too.
Good luck everyone as once you charge fast, you'll never go back to overnight charging again. And you'll see a lot more 300-400 mile weekend day trips on your Zero too.
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The elcons look nice but the price is very steep. It would cost $3000 for the 2 elcons and the j1772 adapter. I would like to wait and see what electric cowboy comes up with. I have clicked the link to his facebook page for it but all I see is a picture of his bike.
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Pricing of $3K just for elcon charging units reminds me of back in the day when I used to build LS6 454s for my boat.
The guys at the speed shop that I would frequent often had a saying that I still remember to this day:
"If you want to play, you've got to pay!" ;D :-\ :-[
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Pricing of $3K just for elcon charging units reminds me of back in the day when I used to build LS6 454s for my boat.
The guys at the speed shop that I would frequent often had a saying that I still remember to this day:
"If you want to play, you've got to pay!" ;D :-\ :-[
I think I've already payed to play. The bikes aren't cheap. ;)
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Yes indeed, being able to pay for a new(er) electric motorcycle is definitely for people with means.
Then to augment it with things like "At home charging options" adds to the expense...definitely paying to play in this new realm of transportation.
IMHO, DC Fast Charging is definitely 'the killer app' that opens up electric power for transportation to the masses, so having options available on charging provisions versus price would help move this more to the mainstream.