ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
Makes And Models => Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2013+ => Topic started by: Aikirob on November 09, 2017, 04:47:01 AM
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Just wanted to know if the bike is capable of charging using the onboard and quick charging ports while your riding it?
was thinking about making a lithium UPS system to increase my range without having to buy extra batteries from zero.
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Sounds like you're talking about just adding another battery. Just get the power tank. Less hassles and it is designed for the application.
If you actually want to CHARGE the bike while you're riding it, you're talking about dragging a big generator behind you that is running on some kind of fuel to generate electricity and you've just eliminated the reason for riding an electric motorcycle in the first place.
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If you can charge at 6kW or more, you'll equal the power consumption of the motor at highway speeds.
Since no one can do that yet, there's no reasonable outcome right now. JaimeC is right that a Power Tank is the most effective upgrade.
"A lithium UPS system" is a battery, to be clear, and probably less power-dense than the Power Tank.
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actually the power tank has shit all in terms of battery capacity and its priced at $4000 in Australia, its an overpriced gimmick that offers very little in terms of range improvements, I can buy tesla 18650 batteries for pretty cheap so if I was after another battery pack I could buy a second hand worn out zero battery pack and exchange the old batteries with 18650's, there are youtube tutorials on how to do this.
what I was asking was can the bike be charged while riding, from your responses I'm thinking yes?
what I was actually thinking is modifying an Uninterrupted power supply, connecting a few solar cells to a windshield and on my side saddles to trickle charge the ups lithium batteries, and use the ups (when its full) to charge the bike (because solar panels don't give enough WATTS to charge the bike directly), if it can be used to put some power into the battery while riding that would also increase the range slightly, I'm guessing the increase would be about 10% on a full trip and also if I stop the ups could remotely charge the bike without needing to be plugged into a power point, great for a bit of extra range.
The Ups can be plugged into a power point to slow charge just like the bike can, or use solar power, the downfall to that is that it would take the UPS like 2 days of direct sunlight to charge completely and could not charge the bike to full in one go anyway, so it would take probably a few days to solar charge the bike in this way.
The point being that you can get all of your power from the sun and get your bike to 100% charge from a setup that's no bigger then a side saddle. Meaning its completely free energy from the sun and no power points required meaning you can camp out and never be stuck as long as you have sunlight. you could also get some fold out solar cells to lay on the ground to help power the UPS if you need it to charge faster, which could halve the time you'd be waiting.
I know its not practical, but it would work.
I have a fast charger for convenience, this idea is just a working theory that I might use to travel around australia for free with...
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With the current state of solar panels you'd need far far more surface area than your bike provides to generate enough electricity to keep it charged. I have panels on my house. My roof is perfectly positioned with a southern exposure and the peak output I'll see on a cloudless sunny day is roughly 5 kW. Those panels are far too big and heavy to be lugging around on a bike.
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Also thought about adding my spare 2 battery packs with 48V 40Ah in series for 96-116v as Site Packs for a longer ride, plugged in the AUX.
Limiting the current feed to 10A to protect them.
Same question, ist it possible and does not brick the Zero ?
... or should I add it parallel to Zero battery packs ?
Gesendet von meinem S60 mit Tapatalk
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With the current state of solar panels you'd need far far more surface area than your bike provides to generate enough electricity to keep it charged. I have panels on my house. My roof is perfectly positioned with a southern exposure and the peak output I'll see on a cloudless sunny day is roughly 5 kW. Those panels are far too big and heavy to be lugging around on a bike.
your not understanding the concept, try re-reading my last post, the UPS stores the power from the solar panel, which can then be used to power the bike, not from the solar panels directly.
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No, I understand it perfectly. The UPS is not "magic," it cannot multiply the electricity generated by the miniscule solar panel that would be practical to carry on the bike into anything that would charge the battery enough to add more than five or six FEET of travel. You'll generate far more electricity from the bike's regen capabilities on a long downhill run.
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Also...I don't know of many UPSes yet which use Li-ion batteries. Most are still using lead-acid batteries, which are much less energy dense than the battery on your bike. You'd be better off just directly charging the battery on your bike from the solar array.
I toy with the idea of making a small trailer to carry around a generator, using the SCv2 to turn the bike into a hybrid for longer trips. I think it would work fine, especially if you tap into the battery at the motor controller instead of through the external charging connector, but....no. Too much work, too much kludge, not enough payoff.
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Exactly. And dragging that trailer behind you would lessen your range, speed and acceleration to begin with. "TANSTAAFL*"
*Note: There Ain't No Such Thing As a Free Lunch"
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Just wanted to know if the bike is capable of charging using the onboard and quick charging ports while your riding it?
was thinking about making a lithium UPS system to increase my range without having to buy extra batteries from zero.
I think plugging in disables operation. It does on most EVs.
A DC-DC boost circuit would be a more likely route to success in your endeavor. These are SMPS that consume more amps at lower voltage to produce fewer amps at higher voltage maintaining the same watts in and out (minus a little power to run the circuit, lost as heat).
I'm also interested in an external battery or battery trailer, but I think you need to be more technical about the electronics, not just buy an off-the-shelf UPS and plug it in.
I've got a 900 watt DC-DC boost circuit from ebay that I plan to test and then build a battery pack for. I have a couple of kwh of 18650 cells...
But yes, nothing as "plug and play" as your idea.
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I think plugging in disables operation. It does on most EVs.
That's why I said you may have to tap into the battery directly at the motor controller. I'm pretty sure the MBB has no control over that (or even awareness)....it's a direct battery connection through the main contactor.
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No, I understand it perfectly. The UPS is not "magic," it cannot multiply the electricity generated by the miniscule solar panel that would be practical to carry on the bike into anything that would charge the battery enough to add more than five or six FEET of travel. You'll generate far more electricity from the bike's regen capabilities on a long downhill run.
again not what I'm saying at all, the ups has a lithium battery that can store power from solar cells, the energy stored in the ups battery can then be used to charge the bike over a long period of time, the solar panels arnt there to provide a direct charge, they are there to provide a trickle charge to the UPS battery, the UPS battery can then use the build up charge to power the bike battery.
At no point did I say I was magically multiplying anything... at this point I'm thinking your putting words in my mouth or simply trying to troll...
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Just wanted to know if the bike is capable of charging using the onboard and quick charging ports while your riding it?
was thinking about making a lithium UPS system to increase my range without having to buy extra batteries from zero.
I think plugging in disables operation. It does on most EVs.
A DC-DC boost circuit would be a more likely route to success in your endeavor. These are SMPS that consume more amps at lower voltage to produce fewer amps at higher voltage maintaining the same watts in and out (minus a little power to run the circuit, lost as heat).
I'm also interested in an external battery or battery trailer, but I think you need to be more technical about the electronics, not just buy an off-the-shelf UPS and plug it in.
I've got a 900 watt DC-DC boost circuit from ebay that I plan to test and then build a battery pack for. I have a couple of kwh of 18650 cells...
But yes, nothing as "plug and play" as your idea.
thanks for being the only person who gave me a straightforward answer to my question.
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Also...I don't know of many UPSes yet which use Li-ion batteries. Most are still using lead-acid batteries, which are much less energy dense than the battery on your bike. You'd be better off just directly charging the battery on your bike from the solar array.
I toy with the idea of making a small trailer to carry around a generator, using the SCv2 to turn the bike into a hybrid for longer trips. I think it would work fine, especially if you tap into the battery at the motor controller instead of through the external charging connector, but....no. Too much work, too much kludge, not enough payoff.
All of the newer model UPS systems are now using li-ion batteries, one of interest is the PLUG, you can see it on indygogo and kickstarter, can be directly plugged into with solar and household plugs.
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after getting in contact with a UPS company, They have informed me that the ups can be used to power the bike, so unfortunately this system cant charge the bike while your riding it, but it can charge it while you are stopped meaning my theory was sound.
You CAN use a ups system and solar panels to systematically charge the zero motorcycle in the way I said, just like you would plug into a normal power point for slow charging, meaning you can get energy from the sun to power the bike at a VERY slow rate.
From my calculation it would take roughly a day for the UPS to charge and it will put 5% back into the battery(over another 8 hours), so it would take 20 days to reach full power off a small trickle charge.
As I said its not practical at all, but in a situation where you don't have any available power and still be able to get %5 per day into your bike, its a pretty cool failsafe if you get stuck somewhere and its not bulky or cumbersome at all, A larger UPS and SOLAR array could be used for better results, but that would add too much weight and luggage and bypass any benefits, the setup that I've theorized will take up not more space then your average laptop would.
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That's why I said you may have to tap into the battery directly at the motor controller. ...
We are on the same page : - )
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From my calculation it would take roughly a day for the UPS to charge and it will put 5% back into the battery(over another 8 hours), so it would take 20 days to reach full power off a small trickle charge.
And THAT is the point I was trying to make. 20 DAYS?? That's an awful lot of effort and work for very little return. Your best bet is just to use an ICE bike if you're going someplace where recharging is in the least bit questionable.
I use my Zero as a daily commuter, local runabout and occasional sport riding on nearby back roads. For anything else, it is one of my two ICE bikes. Gotta use the proper tool for the job. Just because you can bang in nails with the head of a screwdriver doesn't make it the best tool for the situation.
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thanks for being the only person who gave me a straightforward answer to my question.
No problem.
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Aikirob you have one thing going for you, there is no lack of sun in Australia. After all they do solar racing over there for a reason.
The Zero is just too power hungry for such a project, but if you'd took a motorcycle around 4kW you should be able to power a significant part of you need. 4kW seems not enough on the first place but with a Vetter fairing you should have power enough due to the minimal drag and on that fairing there a lot of surface area to mount flexible solar panels.
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Aikirob what you're thinking about is absolutely possible. But why do you want so use a UPS or chargers to do it? You'll have multiple conversions then, all of them reducing efficiency.
You can connect another battery which is in about the same voltage range directly in parallel to the Zero pack, either using the AUX port (100 A max) or a direct controller connection. I think Terry has done this in the past and is doing this currently with two longbricks on the side of his bike. The Zero won't be able to detect the second battery once its running, it will just show a very low consumption due to foreign current coming in ;-) The range indication may be far off as well.
However, you need to be very careful with balancing the two packs. They shouldn't have any big difference in voltage, otherwise you will get very high compensation currents once you connect them to each other. That can become very dangerous.
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Aikirob what you're thinking about is absolutely possible. But why do you want so use a UPS or chargers to do it? You'll have multiple conversions then, all of them reducing efficiency.
You can connect another battery which is in about the same voltage range directly in parallel to the Zero pack, either using the AUX port (100 A max) or a direct controller connection. I think Terry has done this in the past and is doing this currently with two longbricks on the side of his bike. The Zero won't be able to detect the second battery once its running, it will just show a very low consumption due to foreign current coming in ;-) The range indication may be far off as well.
However, you need to be very careful with balancing the two packs. They shouldn't have any big difference in voltage, otherwise you will get very high compensation currents once you connect them to each other. That can become very dangerous.
Thanks for the info lenny, I didn't know if this would work, so if I make a couple of extra batteries with the same voltage and capacity as the 13kw/h battery already on the bike and connect them I could increase my range, that's very cool, I'll definitely give it a go, just terrified of breaking my bike, since the nearest person who fixes them around me is 4 hours away >.<
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Yeah, that would be a big risk. Something gentler than trying to match up voltages would be safer. Definitely you'd want fuses on anything you do.
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Soo waaay back on thursday I started a reply right when this was posted. I then had to leave work for a family emergency and just got back today...
but since I typed it out, I figure I would post it anyway...
actually the power tank has shit all in terms of battery capacity and its priced at $4000 in Australia, its an overpriced gimmick that offers very little in terms of range improvements, I can buy tesla 18650 batteries for pretty cheap so if I was after another battery pack I could buy a second hand worn out zero battery pack and exchange the old batteries with 18650's, there are youtube tutorials on how to do this.
Thats a great theory, but its really hard to find a used zero battery pack, and near impossible to find a worn out 2013+ zero battery pack.
Even once you do, its just a box. The BMS would not work for you, so just make a box.
Now that you have a box, take your 18650s and ideally pack them for the max amount in the space.. You will find you can not fit the same capacity, because a decent percentage of space is wasted by the areas between the round cells. the zero pouch cells are flat and take up almost 100% of the space. also each one of your cells has a case around it, meanwhile the larger cells of the zero mean theres less space wasted by the case.
All that is irrelevant though.. if you pack the hell out of them in a box, and then use the resulting power to charge the bike, that would be cool.
what I was asking was can the bike be charged while riding, from your responses I'm thinking yes?
Depends on how.
I dont think the stock onboard charger for the newer S models will work... there should be some kind of CAN interlock that says not to move if its plugged in the wall, but I have not tried that. If you have a zero you can test this by using an extension cord and trying to ride down the driveway.
ok, if it works, great. The stock charger is only 1200w or so... BUT you can use DC voltage to power the charger.. so if you stack your Tesla cells to about 90v or higher it can directly charge the bike via the onboard.
OR
you could power a second charger of your own choice. they would also work on DC power. Most switching power supplies will. then plug this into the charging port. that should work without issue in 99% of the cases. Im sure there is some seasoned expert **cough*Terry?**cough** that can explain any possible issues to look out for if you choose this path.
what I was actually thinking is modifying an Uninterrupted power supply
Bad idea. You're taking a DC voltage upping it to AC at the wrong voltage then feeding it into another device(the charger) that just makes it DC again and corrects the voltage for the bike.
cut out the middleman, put the DC power directly to the charger. MUCH more efficent.
connecting a few solar cells to a windshield and on my side saddles to trickle charge the ups lithium batteries
This is one of those things that sound great in theory, until you do the math. If I said I had an unlimited supply of AA batteries, so I will connect them one at a time to a massive EV pack to recharge the pack, you would think I was nuts... but all of your surface area of the bike, covered in solar panels in ideal light (impossible since atleast one side is shaded by the sun btw) you would get the equlivent of less than 8 AA batteries.
Think of the big panels you see on the roof of homes. one of those HUGE panels makes about 250watts. Your charger requires 1200watts.. or about 5 of them. so to run your charger 1 hour, you need 1 of them to charge for 5 hours... or about the entire day of "solar time" for most of the world. outside these ideal 4-5 hours of time the panel puts out less and will make less than 250w.
I'll rephrase this again. Lets say you drag out 5 massive panels on a trailer. you set them all up and aim them perfectly, all during the ideal riding time... your bike takes 8 hours to charge. that is the majority of daylight time to charge.
In otherwords, solar is cool when you have the space and time... but it is not practical for EVs.
and use the ups (when its full) to charge the bike (because solar panels don't give enough WATTS to charge the bike directly)
It also doesnt make enough wattage to charge your add-on pack in a week... ;)
it can be used to put some power into the battery while riding that would also increase the range slightly, I'm guessing the increase would be about 10% on a full trip
highway crusing you're using just over 6kw.
Your charger consumes about 1.2kw and about 90% of that goes in your pack... so about 1kw. so fudging a bit, you may get 15% more range, even with the tiny stock charger, IF you're just highway crusing... 10% average if you're really riding sounds reasonable.
also if I stop the ups could remotely charge the bike without needing to be plugged into a power point, great for a bit of extra range.
as I pointed out, solar is not practical to charge, but if you make the battery the same voltage as the zero, you can flip the chargeport charger into the extra battery and charge it on a second EVSE.
This would allow for further distance and quick charging.
As noted earlier, even if you had massive house size panels, solar isnt really an option right now.
The Ups can be plugged into a power point to slow charge just like the bike can, or use solar power, the downfall to that is that it would take the UPS like 2 days of direct sunlight to charge completely and could not charge the bike to full in one go anyway, so it would take probably a few days to solar charge the bike in this way.
again, the UPS aspect can just be removed in favor of just an actual battery... but even if it was not, any UPS that fully charged in 2 days of sunlight with panels the size you described, would only have enough power to get you a kilometer at low speed... maybe less distance than that.
The point being that you can get all of your power from the sun and get your bike to 100% charge from a setup that's no bigger then a side saddle.
You either have to throw out the side saddle size concept, or throw out the solar charging one.
Meaning its completely free energy from the sun and no power points required meaning you can camp out and never be stuck as long as you have sunlight. you could also get some fold out solar cells to lay on the ground to help power the UPS if you need it to charge faster, which could halve the time you'd be waiting.
This is a cool idea if you have a day or two and want to recharge... however it would be a custom travel trailer. you could then stack home size solar panels to unpack at camp... charge its battery and have that battery charge the bike with a DC-DC converter.
We're talking a decent size motorcycle trailer stacked with several panels, the battery and electronics... and then I would assume room for packing camping stuff too.. This could be cool.
However, its not "free". What Im thinking of will probably be about 2,000USD if you did it on the cheap, knowing what you're doing. very cool... but it would take me 2 years for my house to use that much money worth of power, nevermind the bike.
I know its not practical, but it would work.
If its not practical... is it really working?
I have a fast charger for convenience, this idea is just a working theory that I might use to travel around australia for free with...
again, for this to work, it would cost so much in equipment that calling it "free" is out of the question.... or it wont work at all but you'll have one of those bikes with a bunch of electronic junk all over it, not charging but looking like it could.
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Aikirob what you're thinking about is absolutely possible. But why do you want so use a UPS or chargers to do it? You'll have multiple conversions then, all of them reducing efficiency.
You can connect another battery which is in about the same voltage range directly in parallel to the Zero pack, either using the AUX port (100 A max) or a direct controller connection. I think Terry has done this in the past and is doing this currently with two longbricks on the side of his bike. The Zero won't be able to detect the second battery once its running, it will just show a very low consumption due to foreign current coming in ;-) The range indication may be far off as well.
However, you need to be very careful with balancing the two packs. They shouldn't have any big difference in voltage, otherwise you will get very high compensation currents once you connect them to each other. That can become very dangerous.
You do NOT want to do this.
There either needs to be a DC-DC converter between the two, or there needs to be some logic electronics and a contactor like Zero uses for the FX models.
While it may appear that terry "just connected extra batteries" what you're calling a battery has a contactor, BMS and custom logic that does not let the extra battery connect until it matches in voltage with the other batteries. Without this the batteries WILL have massive surge currents when connected and will probably burn the bike to the ground.
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Soo waaay back on thursday I started a reply right when this was posted. I then had to leave work for a family emergency and just got back today...
but since I typed it out, I figure I would post it anyway...
actually the power tank has shit all in terms of battery capacity and its priced at $4000 in Australia, its an overpriced gimmick that offers very little in terms of range improvements, I can buy tesla 18650 batteries for pretty cheap so if I was after another battery pack I could buy a second hand worn out zero battery pack and exchange the old batteries with 18650's, there are youtube tutorials on how to do this.
Thats a great theory, but its really hard to find a used zero battery pack, and near impossible to find a worn out 2013+ zero battery pack.
Even once you do, its just a box. The BMS would not work for you, so just make a box.
Now that you have a box, take your 18650s and ideally pack them for the max amount in the space.. You will find you can not fit the same capacity, because a decent percentage of space is wasted by the areas between the round cells. the zero pouch cells are flat and take up almost 100% of the space. also each one of your cells has a case around it, meanwhile the larger cells of the zero mean theres less space wasted by the case.
All that is irrelevant though.. if you pack the hell out of them in a box, and then use the resulting power to charge the bike, that would be cool.
what I was asking was can the bike be charged while riding, from your responses I'm thinking yes?
Depends on how.
I dont think the stock onboard charger for the newer S models will work... there should be some kind of CAN interlock that says not to move if its plugged in the wall, but I have not tried that. If you have a zero you can test this by using an extension cord and trying to ride down the driveway.
ok, if it works, great. The stock charger is only 1200w or so... BUT you can use DC voltage to power the charger.. so if you stack your Tesla cells to about 90v or higher it can directly charge the bike via the onboard.
OR
you could power a second charger of your own choice. they would also work on DC power. Most switching power supplies will. then plug this into the charging port. that should work without issue in 99% of the cases. Im sure there is some seasoned expert **cough*Terry?**cough** that can explain any possible issues to look out for if you choose this path.
what I was actually thinking is modifying an Uninterrupted power supply
Bad idea. You're taking a DC voltage upping it to AC at the wrong voltage then feeding it into another device(the charger) that just makes it DC again and corrects the voltage for the bike.
cut out the middleman, put the DC power directly to the charger. MUCH more efficent.
connecting a few solar cells to a windshield and on my side saddles to trickle charge the ups lithium batteries
This is one of those things that sound great in theory, until you do the math. If I said I had an unlimited supply of AA batteries, so I will connect them one at a time to a massive EV pack to recharge the pack, you would think I was nuts... but all of your surface area of the bike, covered in solar panels in ideal light (impossible since atleast one side is shaded by the sun btw) you would get the equlivent of less than 8 AA batteries.
Think of the big panels you see on the roof of homes. one of those HUGE panels makes about 250watts. Your charger requires 1200watts.. or about 5 of them. so to run your charger 1 hour, you need 1 of them to charge for 5 hours... or about the entire day of "solar time" for most of the world. outside these ideal 4-5 hours of time the panel puts out less and will make less than 250w.
I'll rephrase this again. Lets say you drag out 5 massive panels on a trailer. you set them all up and aim them perfectly, all during the ideal riding time... your bike takes 8 hours to charge. that is the majority of daylight time to charge.
In otherwords, solar is cool when you have the space and time... but it is not practical for EVs.
and use the ups (when its full) to charge the bike (because solar panels don't give enough WATTS to charge the bike directly)
It also doesnt make enough wattage to charge your add-on pack in a week... ;)
it can be used to put some power into the battery while riding that would also increase the range slightly, I'm guessing the increase would be about 10% on a full trip
highway crusing you're using just over 6kw.
Your charger consumes about 1.2kw and about 90% of that goes in your pack... so about 1kw. so fudging a bit, you may get 15% more range, even with the tiny stock charger, IF you're just highway crusing... 10% average if you're really riding sounds reasonable.
also if I stop the ups could remotely charge the bike without needing to be plugged into a power point, great for a bit of extra range.
as I pointed out, solar is not practical to charge, but if you make the battery the same voltage as the zero, you can flip the chargeport charger into the extra battery and charge it on a second EVSE.
This would allow for further distance and quick charging.
As noted earlier, even if you had massive house size panels, solar isnt really an option right now.
The Ups can be plugged into a power point to slow charge just like the bike can, or use solar power, the downfall to that is that it would take the UPS like 2 days of direct sunlight to charge completely and could not charge the bike to full in one go anyway, so it would take probably a few days to solar charge the bike in this way.
again, the UPS aspect can just be removed in favor of just an actual battery... but even if it was not, any UPS that fully charged in 2 days of sunlight with panels the size you described, would only have enough power to get you a kilometer at low speed... maybe less distance than that.
The point being that you can get all of your power from the sun and get your bike to 100% charge from a setup that's no bigger then a side saddle.
You either have to throw out the side saddle size concept, or throw out the solar charging one.
Meaning its completely free energy from the sun and no power points required meaning you can camp out and never be stuck as long as you have sunlight. you could also get some fold out solar cells to lay on the ground to help power the UPS if you need it to charge faster, which could halve the time you'd be waiting.
This is a cool idea if you have a day or two and want to recharge... however it would be a custom travel trailer. you could then stack home size solar panels to unpack at camp... charge its battery and have that battery charge the bike with a DC-DC converter.
We're talking a decent size motorcycle trailer stacked with several panels, the battery and electronics... and then I would assume room for packing camping stuff too.. This could be cool.
However, its not "free". What Im thinking of will probably be about 2,000USD if you did it on the cheap, knowing what you're doing. very cool... but it would take me 2 years for my house to use that much money worth of power, nevermind the bike.
I know its not practical, but it would work.
If its not practical... is it really working?
I have a fast charger for convenience, this idea is just a working theory that I might use to travel around australia for free with...
again, for this to work, it would cost so much in equipment that calling it "free" is out of the question.... or it wont work at all but you'll have one of those bikes with a bunch of electronic junk all over it, not charging but looking like it could.
I did the math and the finances, using the new technology I can get 1/13th of the battery capacity back on the bike from one charge of an external solar powered UPS system that will only cost me $600 to set the whole thing up and I can pack it into my side saddle. You are right, there are more efficient ways to do this, but my way doesn't require a trailer or much space at all, it isn't cumbersome.
It isn't Expensive and it doesn't require you to mess with any of the bikes internal wiring at all, its a plug and play accessory, meaning its idiot-proof.
I'm not going to follow through with this as a project, I was just figuring out how to solar charge my bike on the go and what it would take to do so in a convenient way.
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: - )
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I've given SOME thought to strapping on something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Generac-6866-Starting-Inverter-Generator/dp/B0128KR4EE/ref=sr_1_10?s=lawn-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1510866983&sr=1-10&keywords=generator&refinements=p_n_feature_browse-bin%3A13883100011
It might have a use case for motorcycle camping; fire it up and charge over several hours, ready for the next day. I think it could be done, but it's pretty bulky, heavy, expensive and not all that useful, however. The ROI just isn't there.
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I bought at 3500 watt generator last year for less than that.
But too big to strap on, would have to make it in to a trailer.
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...would have to make it in to a trailer.
That's the thing I'm eyeballing now. Get a trailer just big enough to mount my bike and a 6kW generator, maybe haul it to Colorado and watch the Pike's Peak hillclimb, spend some time riding around, recharging with the SCv2 on the generator. I could explore some much more remote areas than relying on public charging stations. Might be a nice few days' riding.
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Taper the tail?
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Tailwind makes some nice aero trailers:
(http://tailwindtrailers.com/images/gallery/Al%20and%20Deb%20at%20HomeLoR%20copy.jpg)
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Too wide to go through the door I would need to go through : - )
I'm thinking a battery that could serve as whole-home UPS and peak-to-off-peak load shifter but also could go on the road as a trailer for extended range.
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Just wanted to know if the bike is capable of charging using the onboard and quick charging ports while your riding it?
Answer is simple: Not possible.
Shortly after I got my Zero SR 2017, I had an issue with my onboard charger.
While driving, the onboard charger thought it was connected to the mains power and I saw the charging indicator light up.
This gave no issue while driving, but as soon as I came to a full stop the bike went into safety and wouldn't move anymore until the charging indicator went out.
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Too wide to go through the door I would need to go through : - )
I'm thinking a battery that could serve as whole-home UPS and peak-to-off-peak load shifter but also could go on the road as a trailer for extended range.
They might be able to do a sleeker one, I've seen Zero's with small trailers before on this forum. For the batteries, Tesla has a nice density and form factor for in a trailer.
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This was too funny not to include
https://xkcd.com/1924/ (https://xkcd.com/1924/)
(https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/solar_panels.png)
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This was too funny not to include
https://xkcd.com/1924/ (https://xkcd.com/1924/)
(https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/solar_panels.png)
accurate.
Also the XKCD hoverover:
This works for a surprising range of sunlit things, including rooftops (sure), highway surfaces (probably not), sailboats (maybe), and jets, cars, and wild deer (haha good luck).
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Just wanted to know if the bike is capable of charging using the onboard and quick charging ports while your riding it?
Answer is simple: Not possible.
Shortly after I got my Zero SR 2017, I had an issue with my onboard charger.
While driving, the onboard charger thought it was connected to the mains power and I saw the charging indicator light up.
This gave no issue while driving, but as soon as I came to a full stop the bike went into safety and wouldn't move anymore until the charging indicator went out.
Aikirob's answer is related to *the onboard charger*. Doesn't really speak to the "quick charging ports" part of the question, which I interpret to be is the Anderson AUX port or the bolts at the controller, both of which provide access to battery voltage when the main contactor is closed. If you could detect when the contactor was closed and apply appropriately current-limited DC power at a voltage slightly higher than battery voltage but below 116.2vdc, I don't think there's any way the bike could reject it. In theory. That's the main power that feeds the controller, which the controller taps for make variable frequency AC to feed the motor.
This has not been tested. High voltage power is dangerous. You could break your bike or kill yourself trying this.
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...I don't think there's any way the bike could reject it. In theory. That's the main power that feeds the controller, which the controller taps for make variable frequency AC to feed the motor.
That's pretty much my take on it, too, except for one thing. There is the 100A fuse on the Anderson connector; if that blows the bike would definitely "reject" the charging current. I'd want to tie into the controller wires directly.
It still tempts me...you're essentially creating a plug-in hybrid motorcycle, except that you can unhook the trailer when you don't want/need it. None of the burden of the "range extender" motor unless you want to chalk up some serious miles.
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Yes, Anderson AUX has a lower amp limit than the controller
connection. I was thinking an external battery should be
connected the a rate-limiter that would be below that level,
maybe 3kw as long as battery is showing between 90 and 115v.
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...I don't think there's any way the bike could reject it. In theory. That's the main power that feeds the controller, which the controller taps for make variable frequency AC to feed the motor.
That's pretty much my take on it, too, except for one thing. There is the 100A fuse on the Anderson connector; if that blows the bike would definitely "reject" the charging current. I'd want to tie into the controller wires directly.
It still tempts me...you're essentially creating a plug-in hybrid motorcycle, except that you can unhook the trailer when you don't want/need it. None of the burden of the "range extender" motor unless you want to chalk up some serious miles.
Those fuses have been blown with less than 100A so watch out with them. But even if your charge with 'only' 70A while riding you pretty much have unlimited range provided that you do road legal speeds.
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But even if your charge with 'only' 70A while riding you pretty much have unlimited range provided that you do road legal speeds.
Eh, you don't even really need that. Even if you have a literal iron butt, you still have to stop for food and restroom breaks every once in a while. I'd bet ~50 amps would eliminate the recharging bottleneck as far as time management goes.
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Absolutely. I think the biggest challenge here is to make the generator and Zero battery behave nicely with each other.