Solar Powered Ebike Charging Station - Battery Types and Charger Types

[Alex_Solar_Powered_Charger]

Hi Everyone,

I will try to make a long story short. Im doing a masters in renewable energy technologies and my project is to design and build a solar powered ebike charging station. It will have its own onsite storage etc and be able to charge around 3 bikes at a time. This is a first prototype and designed for where charging stations cannot get access to the distribution grid. For example in the mountains (useful for people wanting to do a multi day bike). The general design (number of panels, batteries, charge controller, mppts etc) are easy to find, design and build. The problem I am having is with the connection to the ebike batteries. I need to know the different connection types. I want to build the station with all the different types of male plug adapters already on the market so people do not have to carry around the heavy chargers with them (it will also save on power losses though DC>AC>DC converting. You bring your bike to the station, lock it up, select the type of charging cable you need then your good to go. Does anyone in the community have any way of finding all the different charging connections on the market without me having to go to every single manufacture of ebikes and finding out the type of charger connection they use. It will be a massive help. Any other pointers, tips or suggestions will also be much appreciated. Everything I am doing will be open source so all information will be available to share at the end of the project

Kind regards,

Alex

 

[rich c]

You'll also need variable DC currents available, 36,48, and 52. Can't say how many companies have smart chargers, but some may void a warranty by not using a supplied smart charger that works with the battery management system on the proprietary battery packs. I also expect you'll need quite the variety of cables.

 

[Ann M.]

@Alex_Solar_Powered_Charger , where are you doing your masters research? There are a lot of charging station designs already around that could be adapted to solar; however, I wonder if you have access to solar panels with enough energy density to be portable. If I read your post correctly, you are actually trying to design 2 different systems. Who is your current sponsor and what college are you working with?

 

[Alex_Solar_Powered_Charger]

@rich c You hit the nail on the head. I need variable DC currents at different voltages. 36V, 48V and 52V. We plan on solving this using a variable DC/DC converter which will enable each person to enter the voltage/amps required for their battery. The main problem at this stage is the variety of cables on the market and having them all available to use. As the Ebike market is still new, every producer of ebike batteries has there own charging cable. Just like when cell phones first came out. Until they because standardized. I want to try get maybe the most common 5 cables on the market and have them all available at the station. However at this stage I am struggling to find a resource of this information and even where to purchase them.

@Ann M. I am studying at Grenbole INP in France and working with Ideas Laboratory Grenoble on this project. I didn't mean to confuse in my post... I am only trying to produce one product. Its not a portable charging station which may have been thought when I was saying you could charge your bike in the mountains (like you mentioned, solar panels are not energy dense enough to be portable). It would be a fixed structure at a refuge in the mountains. That way you could rest at a refuge while your bike is charging, They would be put at strategic locations along popular bike routes. However this is only one example of the potential application, they could be used anywhere that a distribution grid is not easily accessible. I hope that makes the plan more clear.
Another option, instead of supplying cables of all the different types on the market would be to just provide a AC power and force everyone to carry their chargers with them. However I wanted to avoid this because it is annoying to always carry around bulky chargers and a lot of inefficiencies are created in the system. I would need an inverter to convert the stored DC to AC, to plug in a charger that then converts it back to DC power for the battery. Do you have any resources of charging stations that are already on the market. I only found two online?

 

[Bingxie Zhang]

@rich c You hit the nail on the head. I need variable DC currents at different voltages. 36V, 48V and 52V. We plan on solving this using a variable DC/DC converter which will enable each person to enter the voltage/amps required for their battery. The main problem at this stage is the variety of cables on the market and having them all available to use. As the Ebike market is still new, every producer of ebike batteries has there own charging cable. Just like when cell phones first came out. Until they because standardized. I want to try get maybe the most common 5 cables on the market and have them all available at the station. However at this stage I am struggling to find a resource of this information and even where to purchase them.

@Ann M. I am studying at Grenbole INP in France and working with Ideas Laboratory Grenoble on this project. I didn't mean to confuse in my post... I am only trying to produce one product. Its not a portable charging station which may have been thought when I was saying you could charge your bike in the mountains (like you mentioned, solar panels are not energy dense enough to be portable). It would be a fixed structure at a refuge in the mountains. That way you could rest at a refuge while your bike is charging, They would be put at strategic locations along popular bike routes. However this is only one example of the potential application, they could be used anywhere that a distribution grid is not easily accessible. I hope that makes the plan more clear.
Another option, instead of supplying cables of all the different types on the market would be to just provide a AC power and force everyone to carry their chargers with them. However I wanted to avoid this because it is annoying to always carry around bulky chargers and a lot of inefficiencies are created in the system. I would need an inverter to convert the stored DC to AC, to plug in a charger that then converts it back to DC power for the battery. Do you have any resources of charging stations that are already on the market. I only found two online?

The boost solar controller I used in my solar bike can take variable input voltage to up step the voltage and the cost is very reasonable. Only thing is that the controller only step up not down. You can use 12V panel to charge 24V battery, but no 36V panel for 24V battery. You can have 24V solar panel connection with one pair of output MC4 cables available to connection. Put the controller on the bike itself with direct connection to the battery.
Amazon Solar Controller $50

Check out my solar bike project at
http://www.instructables.com/id/Sun-Basket-Univeral-Solar-Bike-Upgrade/