Solar panels for ST1 Platinum. Charge and ride.

[Husky]

I saw a sweet deal on an Anker solar charger ($49.99 crruently) http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E3OL5U8/?tag=kinjadeals-20

It opened my mind to the idea of wiring this to my ST1 Platinum and riding on a sunny day. I ordered it. I plan to mount on my rear rack for nice exposure.

Electrical engineers, what are my next steps?

 

[Shea N Encinitas]

Not an EE, but use that to charge your phone & buy at least a 100 watt panel when you are ready to put together something that will trickle charge your Stromer. -S

 

[Husky]

Not an EE, but use that to charge your phone & buy at least a 100 watt panel when you are ready to put together something that will trickle charge your Stromer. -S

Thanks for that advice. I'll try out the Anker charger for my phone etc. to see if it's worth keeping. I'm wondering how much juice the Stromer takes to charge at full capacity like it's plugged into the wall. Even charging at half the rate seems viable for a 40 min or so rest stop during a long ride.

 

[Paul E.]

Not an electrical engineer, but I'd think that the Watts are not enough: a charger needs to spit out at least as many Volts as the nominal voltage of the battery you're charging, so a 5 Volt USB charger is no good for any ebike battery.

 

[Berlin]

I think it isn't that simple...
Here a link of nice Belgium pionier

http://www.ridethesolarwind.be

 

[bluecat]

@Berlin Nice idea, makes people believing, the small panel is enough to run a Stromer ;-)

@Husky Anker claims 5V / 2A output. IMHO, this is 10W. The stromer charger delivers 4A @ 36V = 144W. With Other words: No way for reasonable charging of the Stromer battery. But similar to to USB charging plug @ ST2. Good luck and sunny days.

 

[George S.]

My wall charger draws 90 watts, to charge a 36v Prodeco ebike battery. The charging voltage is in the mid 40's, so the amps run about 2. If my battery (16ah) is fully discharged, it takes 8 hours or so. A 100w solar panel would be fine, but the voltage output would be wrong. Given that most ebikes put some of the charging circuitry in the battery box, and some in the charger, the only 'really safe' way to do this is with another battery that you use to charge the bike, with the bike charger (and an inverter).

You can't take a 5v solar panel (which is USB voltage) and charge much of anything else. I can link you to a DC-DC upconverter that would let you charge a 12v deep cycle battery, but at 14w it would take too long to be useful. Relatively speaking, 100w panels are cheap.

Solar systems tend to be 5v for folding stuff, 17v for lead acid batteries people use in RV's. An ebike is a 36v to 48v system, so mixing and matching is not simple.

This only weighs 20 pounds, so you could put it in a little bike trailer. I guess this isn't where people want to go, or how they want to get there. Something like that.

http://www.amazon.com/Powerhouse-60...qid=1427498918&sr=8-5&keywords=500w+generator