charging and electric bike

[tidewatcher]

Has anyone charged an electric bike battery via an inverter when driving? If so what inverter. Looking at 36v battery so not possible to cut out the middle man unfortunately.

 

[colinm]

Yes, have a cheap Aldi one (300w ?) more than enough. Note AandN are working on a dc-dc transformer which should be more efficient.

 

[Steveboy]

Yes, have a cheap Aldi one (300w ?) more than enough. Note AandN are working on a dc-dc transformer which should be more efficient.

I have a 600w pure sine wave inverter + a 3 110amp hr battery pack + solar panel. Plenty leccy to charge my Freego 16amp hr battery. I am off grid for 95% of my fultime moho'ing.

 

[Kontiki]

I have a 700 watt inverter, had our electric bikes for about 7 years they are the folding ones from AS bikes. Was told when we bought we would need a minimum of 600wattstocharge them. Did try the 300 watt one we had & it just didn't work, no problem though with the 700 watt. It is made by Silverline which offers free 3 year warranty, we got ours from Argos, found it was getting very hot & fan didn't seem to be working after about 3 months. Spoke to Silverline & they said to return it for replacement or try taking it back to Argos. Tried Argos & they replaced within a couple of days.

 

[phillybarbour]

Our 2000w inverter does the job, only charge while on the move.

That seems to be the best solution.

 

[shortcircuit]

My 150w modified sine does the job absolutely no problem. 2000w total overkill.

 

[wildebus]

I agree, however my 150W modified sine wave charger will only charge one battery at a time. We have two bikes, two chargers and the inverter can't quite power both at once.

It might be worth looking at that 500W MSW inverter I got from Amazon for my "B2B style" charging experiment? Output genuinely over 400W and cost just £21. Apart from the rubbish croc clips on the cables, it seemed to be a pretty decent job, especially for that price.

 

[tidewatcher]

Thanks

Ok it seems a 600 to 700 watt should do the job and I only intend to use it while driving. Thanks for confirming the basics, I will sort it from here.

Thanks to all who took the time to respond.

 

[EarthDemon]

So how long does it take to charge your all batteries while you're driving then?

 

[colinm]

So how long does it take to charge your all batteries while you're driving then?

The best bet is to charge little and often, charging from flat takes hours.

 

[EarthDemon]

How long it takes to charge a battery depends on the size of the battery, its current state of charge, and the power of the charger. So that's a question that can't have a definitive answer.

Fair enough, my understanding is that leisure batteries do well on little and often but lithium batteries don't - what about electric bike batteries?

 

[shortcircuit]

2000 watt inverter was already installed when we purchased MH. It is wired up to three house type electric wall sockets, one in garage, where ebikes are kept. the other two within hab area. A handy addition, certainly not overkill.

2000w against 150w, get real, very much overkill

 

[EarthDemon]

While on the subject on inverters anyone know a cigar charger one that's nice and quiet? - I've got a 300W from Halfords and it sounds like a hairdryer.

 

[rockape]

That seems to be the best solution.

I have the same and do the same.

 

[colinm]

Fair enough, my understanding is that leisure batteries do well on little and often but lithium batteries don't - what about electric bike batteries?

Lithium batteries should not be charged from flat to full all the time, it shortens their life, little and often is best.