This might whet your appettite Wheezy:
befree-solarbikes.com
You'd have no problem with solar charging while riding since there's a perfect defence. A following wind propels you, as does a downhill gradient, showing that power derived from the environment is acceptable, inevitable and often unavoidable.
This has piqued my interest. I suspect the difference would lie in the presentation- if it looks like a lash-up you're gonna draw attention, whereas if it looks professional (i.e. with the generator enclosed) the old bill would never know (and never hear it from inside their car).
It's partly because the charge into the battery in use can in some systems just as easily go directly to the motor when it's a common path. Those pesky electrons aren't labelled "Not for motor use".
www.bicyclejunction.co.nz
That article has it pretty much spot on. You can charge by pedalling, but it's a very inefficient way to get the energy to the wheels. (I wouldn't have expected it to be as bad as the 10% the article mentions.)Were E Bikes self charging the battery by pedalling ever a viable thing?
Seems not, for now.
A quick Google tells me this is called regenerative pedalling/braking ?
FAQ: Will an electric bike recharge as you ride?
It can. Technology exists that allows an electric bike to recharge its own battery through braking: when you use the brakes, a brake sensor triggers the motor to kick into ‘reverse mode’ and use the energy of the bicycle’s forward motion to charge the battery (instead of dissipating this energy...
But if you told a town planner "I've got a technology that can cut congestion by 70%, make people a lot healthier and happier, save the NHS billions per year, dramatically reduce pollution, improve road safety, boost local economies etc etc..." they would bite your hand off...that is until you told them that it involved bicycles...
This might whet your appettite Wheezy:
The solar powered e-bike with unlimited range
If this fascinating contraption ever takes off, we might have to change our name from eBikeTips to solar powered-tips... because yes indeed, this homemade 'Sun Bike' runs off solar power, with a range of 40-60km on rainy days and unlimited juice when the sun is shining!ebiketips.road.cc
I think the issue with it in the UK is efficiency rather than legality- you need a lot of solar square footage to generate enough in a reasonable timescale....
You definitely wouldn't need your new "traffic boom" if you were towing that beast behind you!
I think you'd have to make a sound proof box and fit an extra silencer...
I've got the teeshirt:I love your utopian vision @oyster but that would require a government capable of planning beyond the end of the next parliamentary term!
@vulcanears this is an interesting subject, and I really like the idea of being able to tour long distance on an ebike.
Are you in the UK? If so, you'll know that most EV charge points here are in urban environments, which doesn't sound like an ideal camping environment.
What about putting one of these....
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....in a trailer so you're totally independent of "the grid"?
For summer holidays (i.e 17-19 hours daylight per day) the solar idea would certainly add some value and is a lot more consistent than wind.I've seen someone on the web with a quadracycle fitted with a solar roof and they rode it from Europe to the Pacific...or somewhere like that very far away. That way you get power and a sun shade/rain shield!
It's not all doom and gloom in the UK for solar. Eg, even if you could only get 50 to 100W, that would be useful. Max sun is about 1kW per sq m. Solar cell efficiency has increased to between 15 and 20% for silicon mono crystalline cells. 1sq m on a trailer is not too difficult, that would give you up to 200W in direct sun. OK, on a bike it's going to be hard to keep it in the correct orientation all the time, but it would still give a useful output. The great thing is when you are stopped somewhere, you can set it up at the best angle and leave it to do its thing.
Not great in winter or in long overcast spells, but in summer I think it would be very useful. You can also buy semi flexible panels now which are a lot lighter.
I've also wondered about a mini wind turbine for use when wild camping somewhere overnight. A telescopic pole and off you go generating power
Yowzers VFR, did you make that? Is that one of those old Kipor (kipper!) generators? That must weight 20KG without the trailer!
That Kipor generator weighs 10kg. I now have the one suggested above that weighs 9kg.
Good work! Did you use your trailer for any of the long range/ off grid riding that this thread was (originally) about?
