Ebike charging using Street EV chargers for electric cars

[WheezyRider]

Totally agree on all points and I've been closely following The Netherlands on this since the late 1960s so am very familiar.

The difference relates to the outcome of WW2. We were far less damaged and our economy and pay packets recovered quite quickly, so our ubiquitous cycling of the 1940s quickly gave way. First to the add-on cyclemotors into the 1950s when the new scooters like Vespa and Lambretta took over, following quickly by adoption of cars from the turn of that decade, all as people got better off.

The Netherlands had a far slower recovery for obvious reasons, so lagged behind us but were just as willingly following the same course. That lead to their government seeing the trend away from cycling early in the 1970s, so they were able to act to stop that happening. Their actions were to start the long term program of cycling facilities and make life less easy for car drivers.

That was still easy for them then since things hadn't gone too far, but here at that time it was already far too late with cars and driving dominant and needing every scrap of road space and more. Also it's far, far more difficult once people have switched to car use and experienced their undeniable huge personal benefits.

We can't undo what's been done without a vast fleet of bulldozers and countless trillions of pounds, plus punitive laws that would prevent any government being re-elected.

Even now the Dutch reckon they are only three quarters way through building their cycling infrastructure after fifty determined years at it. If we set out to match them now, no-one living today would see the full benefit of reaching what they have already. And as I've posted, the decision to integrate e-cars into the power delivery structure in the UK and many other European countries has rather scuppered the chances of getting most people out of cars.
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I agree, but I think we can achieve things much more quickly than the time it has taken the Dutch, as they have tried a lot already and we can learn from their mistakes and successes.

Even if we didn't have a completely perfect system, with targetted, modest investment and proper joined up thinking, a lot could be achieved. I don't think we can just throw our hands up in the air and say "It's too late for us."

Also, I think Paris is a good example. Due to Covid, they have made an effort to install new cycling infrastructure and it has made a significant impact. Car use has dropped significantly.

 

[oyster]

They don't seem impressed, despite plenty of wind on the open oceans. Wind turbines need a large frontal area to capture all the wind's energy, small blades operating area allows far too many losses and too high a ratio of turbulence.

That said and ignoring efficiency, you may get some useful charge, if the wind is blowing!
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I wonder if some form of ducted turbine would be more efficient? Albeit, of course, with the natural consequence of greater weight and awkwardness.

 

[WheezyRider]

I am rubbish at electronics. And interpretation/translation!

Well, I think this is the board you need to tell the socket you want to pull 20V and not 5V, so you get the full 100W out of it.

You would connect this to your DC/DC converter and hey presto, you have 42V.

 

[flecc]

I wonder if some form of ducted turbine would be more efficient? Albeit, of course, with the natural consequence of greater weight and awkwardness.

With shaped ducting, probably, but that could make self correcting vane orientation to head into the wind more difficult.

I think the recognised very poor performance of small area turbines means no-one will bother.
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[WheezyRider]

I think this is the most basic part you'd need:

 

[vulcanears]

I've never seen a public 100W USB-C PD charger in the wild, so this wouldn't be too useful for me personally. I'm using a 400W charger on my trips, so 100W would be way too slow.

If you want to tinker with the concept, make sure that you use a CC/CV DC/DC coverter for charging lithium batteries.

 

[vfr400]

I have the solution. Put another hub-motor in whichever wheel is spare, ideally the front one so that you can put it in backwards, otherwise use a DD motor. Put a three-phase bridge rectifier on the motor wires and connect the DC wires to your battery. Whenever you're in motion, that will act as a generator and charge your battery at nearly the same rate that it's discharging to power the motor that's driving you. That will increase your range by at least 300%, so you would be able to do around 150 miles without having to re-charge. That's around three days riding.

Alternatively, you could switch off the driving motor and use the generating one to completely re-charge your battery.

 

[sjpt]

I have the solution. Put another hub-motor in whichever wheel is spare, ideally the front one so that you can put it in backwards, otherwise use a DD motor. Put a three-phase bridge rectifier on the motor wires and connect the DC wires to your battery. Whenever you're in motion, that will act as a generator and charge your battery at nearly the same rate that it's discharging to power the motor that's driving you. That will increase your range by at least 300%, so you would be able to do around 150 miles without having to re-charge. That's around three days riding.

Alternatively, you could switch off the driving motor and use the generating one to completely re-charge your battery.

I'm sure there is some variant of this for a tricycle that would be even more effective?

 

[vulcanears]

I have the solution. Put another hub-motor in whichever wheel is spare, ideally the front one so that you can put it in backwards, otherwise use a DD motor. Put a three-phase bridge rectifier on the motor wires and connect the DC wires to your battery. Whenever you're in motion, that will act as a generator and charge your battery at nearly the same rate that it's discharging to power the motor that's driving you. That will increase your range by at least 300%, so you would be able to do around 150 miles without having to re-charge. That's around three days riding.

Alternatively, you could switch off the driving motor and use the generating one to completely re-charge your battery.

Well, either that or I could carry a reactor of a decommissioned nuclear submarine on my rear trailer. I hope I'll find one on ebay!

 

[ChuckingFeet]

Or just use an acoustic bike lol

 

[oyster]

I've never seen a public 100W USB-C PD charger in the wild, so this wouldn't be too useful for me personally. I'm using a 400W charger on my trips, so 100W would be way too slow.

If you want to tinker with the concept, make sure that you use a CC/CV DC/DC coverter for charging lithium batteries.

I agree it isn’t quite there but could make all the difference if you could plug in while wandering a shop or at work. Or overnight at any random location.

 

[flecc]

Well, either that or I could carry a reactor of a decommissioned nuclear submarine on my rear trailer. I hope I'll find one on ebay!

Unfortunately the removed ones get buried just west of the Rockies, cheap decommissioning.
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[WheezyRider]

Well, either that or I could carry a reactor of a decommissioned nuclear submarine on my rear trailer. I hope I'll find one on ebay!

I was thinking, a great way to carry battery extra capacity would be to strap cells to your body...maybe to some kind of vest perhaps...and then have a handy little thumb switch to activate charging...

Best not to walk into an airport wearing it though...

 

[Gavin]

I was thinking, a great way to carry battery extra capacity would be to strap cells to your body...maybe to some kind of vest perhaps...and then have a handy little thumb switch to activate charging...

Best not to walk into an airport wearing it though...

Hang on a minute Wheezy- you've just said on the other thread that you wouldn't want a powerwall in your house, yet here you are trying to put cells in your pants!!

 

[WheezyRider]

Hang on a minute Wheezy- you've just said on the other thread that you wouldn't want a powerwall in your house, yet here you are trying to put cells in your pants!!

Vest, not pants! would not want to be sitting on the things I don't want to literally go like a rocket...

 

[WheezyRider]

Well, either that or I could carry a reactor of a decommissioned nuclear submarine on my rear trailer. I hope I'll find one on ebay!

So, when you are not relying on your di-lithium crystals, I forgot to ask, is your sytem 36V? Is it 10s 9p?

 

[Bobajob]

By the way - The Netherlands and Germany have a lot of these Ebike charging stations and they are usually free. This would be ideal, but I've never seen one in the UK.

That would never work here.
When you come back someone would have either disconnected it or stolen the bike lol

 

[sjpt]

So, when you are not relying on your di-lithium crystals, I forgot to ask, is your sytem 36V? Is it 10s 9p?

Mental flashback there as I read it; you'd never get a system for ten and ninepence.

 

[vulcanears]

So, when you are not relying on your di-lithium crystals, I forgot to ask, is your sytem 36V? Is it 10s 9p?

Yes, I have two 10s9p batteries in Reention DP-9 cases.

 

[WheezyRider]

Yes, I have two 10s9p batteries in Reention DP-9 cases.

Nice, what sort of cells and BMS do you use? Do you know how much current is available for balancing? I'm wondering at what point of adding more cells in parallel it becomes impractical as the BMS can't supply enough current for balancing.