*Ray's Top Tips* Off grid Vehicle power supply kits are not new, I engineered them first in military vehicles fitted with RADAR in the late 1960’s. Prior to this date, inefficient rotary converters were used to produce a 230 V supply. 24 V solid-state inverters were followed by 12 V units and are reliable and have efficiencies above 80%. Off-Grid, means having your own independent 230 V AC power supply. You can use an inverter based kit to power domestic 230V equipment, including ebike chargers and other small electrical appliances. My tips for getting going with an inverter outfit that will get you ‘Off Grid’. Inverters ● Choose the right size of the inverter, 300W charges any ebike, 1000W drives most small appliances including fridges. ● It's the total power draw you need to consider, look on the appliance label, fridges run at 45-120W but take 700W+ starting. ● Inverters work from 11.5 to 14.5V DC. Switch on without a load, they take 10W, loaded, a 1000W unit takes around 1200W . ● Inverters are fused inside or out, most use auto blade fuses. Most inverters shut down at around 11.5V to protect the battery. ● Inverters driven directly from the vehicles battery must be limited to 300W they can draw more than 30 Amps. Circuitry ● System 1, vehicle battery - 30A fuse - 300W inverter, powerful ebike charger, much faster charge, more efficient, run engine! ● System 2, adds LA leisure battery, (140Ah minimum), small battery and small charger, or big battery and powerful charger. ● System 3, adds solar panels, minimum 250W, more the better, electricity downloaded is free and batteries last longer! ● Keep fuses small and cables large, systems 2 and 3 use Schottky diodes, use 1 or 2 x 40V 50A devices; General details. ● Vehicles with ‘smart alternators’ need a battery to battery charging device, most new campervans have basic alternators. ● Buy a small plug in voltmeter or state of battery indicator (lighter socket) to be aware of when you might need to charge up. ● 1000W inverters will charge several ebikes at the same time, small ebike chargers might be only 50% efficient, large, 90% + ! ● Lead acid batteries are heavy and need to be secured and vented. 12V Li-ion leisure types are not cost effective options now. ● Ensure all connections are good, supply cables are protected, battery always secured upright and buffer charged monthly. Technical ● The 230V wired output should comply with current regulations, always use a latching Residual Current Device to BS 7071. ● ‘Sealed batteries’ may need to be vented as they can produce small amounts of hydrogen (explosive gas) and in rare cases a poisonous gas, Hydrogen disulphide (H2S2).
Seriously bad advice, inadequate cable sizes and serous lack of correct size fuses. You cannot use speaker wire to connect those batteries. Take this video down!!
79 strand wire is 2.5mm it should handle 20A so if fitted with 10A fuse its not a problem, thing get bad when you watch this video and rig up your battery with some B&Q flimsy speaker wire and dont fit a fuse. should have advised people to use automotive wire and explained fusing and wire size.
Old geezer is stupid. EBike batteries are not 230v. Mine is 60v. It uses a 230vac charger if you are in olde England. 110vac is the charger voltage in USA. It is NOT the batteries voltage.
Yeah, I think he's just a diy hack, not really an engineer. There are several dubious things he says. Speaker wire? Really? "A bigger charger will be better, how much, we don't know." C'mon, if you were really an engineer you'd know.
Ray reminds me of my Dad (an electrical engineer). I ask my Dad a question about electricity, and when he's finished answering the question, I'm more confused than before I asked it! Good timing on the video. I'm leaving in a few days to my cabin that has no wired electricity. It will be my first time there with my e-bike. Hoping the generator there is sufficient to charge my bikes battery.
I live with MS, mostly in my van, solar panel, mppt charge controller, pure sine wave inverter a Merida e160 and two shimano batteries. Highly, highly recommend 2nd bike battery, allows for epic days or endless boost mode at bike parks. I can only walk for 0.5km or so, but ebike all day!
with the MPT-7210 solar mppt charge controller you can bypass the lead acid battery and the inverter all together, given that your battery accepts a simple +- charging current (no +5V or other encryption signals required by the BMS). all you need is 2 ebike batteries so one can hang on the charge controller while the other one is being used. the MPT-7210 costs around 30£ plus you need an appropriate plug to match your battery charging port. bypassing the lead acid battery and inverter saves you money and increases your charging efficiency dramatically = less solar panel surface required. for a typical 36V battery, the terminal charge voltage needs to be set at 42V. the PV input always needs to be lower than the charging voltage ( in this case
Exactly right. My 60v battery is charged 60v direct using a 400w mono panel connected to a Elejoy 400 boost mppt with output wired to a Cnlink xlr type plug for my battery. The cut off is set for 99% so that I balance the cells only when home using the Sur Ron A.C. charger. This old geezer never once mentioned that if you are using an inverter you should only ever use a Pure Sine one .
I would use proper copper battery cable 35mm2 for the connection between the float batt and leisure batt, that looks like an electrical fault waiting to happen. Use cable size calculation tools to determine cable size. Also nowhere I heard anyone mention that you're only supposed to use no more than 50% capacity of your lead acids otherwise their life cycle is reduced dramatically. Money no object.. Go lithium!
I was thinking the same as I was watching the vid. The alternator produces probrably 80 amps or more and with low voltages as like in a car the thicker the cable the better. it also helps voltage drop in the cable.
@@meuliedoka The alternator doesn't 'produce' current, it's the device that draws current. The Inverter is only drawing about 4Amp from the battery 800w/240v Rays only using a 10Amp fuse so is well within the cables spec. you will only really need 1mm2/core for that so Ray's 79strand cable will be about 2.5mm2/core so is more than enough for this application.
@@CurvedSlightly Hey Chuck, i've been down to see the numbers on these systems and more than happy with them. Obviously love your comments above to hahaha!
@@CurvedSlightly the fact that Ray put a 10 Amp fuse in his setup there is no imediate danger that the wires would melt, so that is a good thing to start with. The inverter may only draw 10 amps or les but I am woried about what hapens when you use the inverter for a couple of hours and the leisure battery gets discharged for let`s say 50%. The moment you start the car then the alternator wil likely try to charge both the car and leisure battery at probrably a much higher current then the 10 amp fuse installed(so then its dependand on what amperage the alternator produces). And what do some people usually do when they have a blown fuse? Right they install a bigger one and then it becomes dangerous.
Hey EMBN! At about 1:30 into the vid ray says "ebike batteries are 230 volts"! This is incorrect as most ebike batteries are 36 volts dc! The ebike battery chargers require 230 volts alternating current for the input power! Ride ride ride!
Thought I would add an option if you have a hybrid you already have a giant battery. I use a 1000w inverter wired to the 12v battery. Keep the car in the on position and you have as much battery as you want if the hybrid runs low from charging the 12v the engine will start and charge it up automatically. The setup cost me 150usd. Go prius 😅 barely uses any fuel to charge an ebike.
10 Amps in front of a alternater that puts out around 100 amps? And speaker wire... stop. the wire need to be at least 16mm2 (5 awg) and if the cable is very long 25mm2 And most newer cars won't charge the battery fully. So you need a dc/DC charger
A question for you next video! After so many people have commented that this video is Poor advice, dangerous and should be taken down. Why have You have not done so? If somebody attempts to copy this set up and has an accident or a fire you’ve got to be held responsible! The video comes across and is in the format of how to! As a very minimum The video should start and end and have reference to a disclaimer to say that this is just personal ideas and based on principle do not copy this! A Channel your size its following the amount of people that will watch this surely you have a responsibility and somewhat a duty of care too ?
Legally speaking, I don't think there's any duty of care, because there's no relationship between the EMBN and the viewer that would create such a duty. But I'm not a lawyer.
I've got a van and run a TV and stuff off mine. Just got 2 110ah leasure batteries with a split charge relay off the main battery. Used to charge my 504wh battery twice on one charge of the leasure battery system 👌
What a great guy! I loved watching this video. Other suggestions: 1) buy an extra ebike battery. 2) AND - get a solar powerstation and some solar panels - works a treat! Warmest thoughts Jennie
Good grief. This is a prime example of why learning about electric systems on UA-cam from MTB enthusiasts is a terrible idea. So many dangerous faults and omissions in this.
Agreed. Never once mentioned need for pure sine wave inverter and the fact you can eliminate the battery and go PV Direct to bike battery using a Elejoy 400 step up type boost MPPT controller with a bike battery plug wired into the output end. My 400w mono panel goes direct to my 60v sur ron battery through the boost controller set to 66v cut off. This old geezer missed a lot of points. Sounds like he would screw up an expensive battery.
Needs a revisit on this one, we can now charge directly from solar panels using mppt and dc/dc buck converters, so to do away with the inverter and 230v charger bricks etc if not done already
Can recommend an electric van. You have bike storage and simple camping in one car. Benefits with the electric cars is that you can have it switched on without producing noise and exhaust gases while running AC or heating. Also battery capacity in EV´s is measured in kWh and that´s plenty for e-bike charging.
Please talk to a professional shop about setting this stuff up, Ray’s advice is a big worry. Do not connect two batteries together with speaker cable and some diodes ffs. His advice is very concerning and embn should not have put this video up. Ive worked in the RV market and everything said had me gasping wtf.
TO-220 diodes TOO with the centre leg cut off ffs, SPLIT RELAY, PROPER fusing and 318-A, UV stable cable ffs, hole through FLOOR to gas battery ffs, ;-[
If you've got an electric hook up why would you charge a leisure battery to then charge the ebike battery when you can charge the ebike straight from the mains 🤷🏻♂️
Steve. If you are setting up this system in your van then you need to get ray to do it and make a video or two part video in-depth of the two of you fitting it. Great vid. Rays still awesome.
How many Watts is your inverter? I have a 300W inverter. Hoping that is good enough to get the job done. I have to drive 2 hours (each way) to the trails I will be riding so I can get 4 hours of charging done driving to the ride.
I think its 400watts. But a guy that works for specialized said to be sure that I have enough amps cuz the levo draws 3 amps. So,I got a 4 amp one. And I screwed up I plug it into,the 12volt adaptor in,my truck. Not the lighter
Will a bigger charger hurt the battery on the bike? Also I know you need a pure sine wave inverter I did not hear that mentioned? Also now with the cost of LifePo4 batteries that is the way to go. I realize this is an older video
Very useful. As I'm just buying ebike for use from my Campervan. But one thing I'm concerned about. I've been told that you need dc to dc (mppt) in between. Which your guy didn't mention.
James Goodsell has a 2021 Specialized Levo comp and has a UA-cam channel. Only had it a few weeks and had water inside the charging port. After a wet ride . Also the the bike was cycling on and off without touching the button.
Yay Ray is back! the man, the myth, the legend! and hopefully a regular slot as the new EMBN presenter and chief ghetto technician extraordinaire! ok, ok Jones-ie and Mr Smith you're both legends too.
OMG no, no no that’s so dangerous that’s not the way to show amateurs how to set up Electrics particularly on a modern car I hope you’re well insured giving advice I’d like that
Stu Parry it just that if he’s got a car with an intelligent alternator charging system it will destroy the engine management system too totally ridiculous to show something like this in such a popular channel
Yes agreed, as a mechanic it's horrible to see all the bad advice online , all modern cars an Van's have more ecus than u can shake a stick at aswell as smart charging,
Hi there, appreciate the attention to detail! The video is only an overview to show the basics. However recently with smart alternators there is a problem, they do not work the same way as the old alternators. The reason for the change is that they are energy saving and load the battery on braking cycles etc. If you have a smart alternator or possibly a stop-start facility on your vehicle you will need a B-B charging unit. Please see Ray's tips above, where he has attempted to cover the project in more detail. Doubtless to say there will be more questions but please get involved its great to hear from you!
A far easier way would be to use an integrated Power Pack Inverter, it's a battery box with an inverter etc or use a spare old battery in the back with the inverter hanging off that. The problem is the 2 amp chargers some bikes use take too long like 6 hours. If money is no option buy a spare e bike battery to suit your bike.
Guys this is not good advice, no talk about discharging lead acid batteries. Leisure batteries don't like to drop below 20% discharge as it damages the lead cells inside. Very quickly dropping the batteries capacity. A off grid deep cycle would be better, happy to drop to 50%. In the title it says off grid, they pull out an extension lead that is not off grid!! Zero chat about the amps your alternators makes, carful not to over load it. My 6a bosch charger requires a 490watt inverter, video saying 300watt should suit all, not my case. For me that works out at 40amps off the car. The fact the chap talking was not talking numbers is worrying. I would also recommend buying a camper split charger, it's that diode he spoke about as a kit, wiring including. Don't buy speaker cable to drive a inverter. 40amps through speaker cable could end up burning the cable. Poor advice from a good channel.
You just need a additional deep cycle battery Isolator, fuse, invertor. Basic stuff. If your newish car doesn't like it. You didn't hook it up properly or its a pos. And try again.
Speaker wire is not appropriate, especially for the 3000w system he was talking about - you’d need roughly 35mm wire for that! A proper solution would be either a split charger or battery to battery charger for charging from the vehicle battery or an mppt controller for charging from solar panels, these also need appropriate fuses/trip switches and wire to suite the current load which is determined by the maximum power output of the inverter
I am not following how a 110 amp hour battery won’t easily charge a 500 or 700 watt hour e bike battery. For my 700 watt hour Levo battery at 36v is about 20 amp hours (I think this makes sense as the 4 amp charger takes about 5 hours to charge the battery). So I will reduce my 110 amp hour leisure battery at full charge to 80-90 amp hours depending on efficiencies. This is well above the 50% safety limit of draining the battery. Seems the 110 ah battery could fully charge the 700 wh battery twice without issue. Where is my math off where Ray is saying it will only charge a 500 wh battery once.
Lead acid doesn't perform well at anything greater than a 30% state of discharge. Any more and you risk permanently damaging the capacity. Deep discharge variants tolerate a little more, but for a better system life and more cycles before loss of capacity even with ideal discharge practices, look into lithium.
Dale, your Levo battery is at 36v. The lead acid is at 12v. So 20amps @ 36v is actually 60 amps @ 12v. So by fully charging your Levo battery your 12v lead acid battery will have dropped from 110ah to 50ah. Then also consider that the inverter is may only be 90% efficient. Another consideration is that once you draw down your 110ah battery to ~60% capacity the voltage will also drop. Then your inverter might cut out because they battery cannot supply enough power at a high enough voltage. This 'voltage drop' is why you really want thick cables and have the inverter as close to the 100ah battery as possible. So it might realistically draw down 66amps. This video is soo bad I'd suggest going to one of the ebike forums and asking there.
OK, now raising the bar a "little" - what if I do not have frikkin' car? But have 4-5 bicycles to charge on a camping on our family bike-pack trip? Even simply hauling 4-5 different chargers is a lot of hassle, considering weight and volume... Perhaps single bigger charging unit construction, but with attachable (different plugs) & configurable (different output wattage) outputs?
Folding solar, a smaller battery, and an inverter still won't get you there. Most riding is in the daytime and you don't have the solar generation capacity to get that many bikes charged up from empty every day. Unless you have the motivation to haul a trailer and a big battery behind one of the bikes, I'm not sure what would work for that.
cool vid.. but i can tell u first hand 300watt inverter in def not enough for todays chargers.. i have shimano ec6000 charger and 500watts was not enough to run mine... just heads up...
If you have a Levo, buy an extra battery to take along. Only £1150. If you have a family, buy everyone a Levo and spare battery so you can ride together all day (perhaps buy another Levo and spare battery for guests).
I really hope that you guys read my post. Here in the US we love camping and so many people use gasoline run generators to power lights and other things. I have a Coleman Powermate 3000 OHV 4-Stroke Gas Generator. It's supposed to produce 120v with 2 sockets. I tried plugging in my charger for my 48V 15ah lithium ion battery but the l green and red lights just blinked. I took it as it's not working. Now here at home both my chargers are dead. I also have a 2000 watt inverter at home. Seeing your video, was there something I missed? I have 3 to power up when we go camping.
Except for Bosch, Yamaha, or Shimano which can be picky, you're better off with a DC-DC converter. Battery to inverter to charger back to ebike battery has multiple points of conversion inefficiency.
Cool, but what if I got a powerful Ebike with 4000Wh battery (72v)? I guess that would be 1/4 reservoir of gasoline? And one more question with quadriple difficulty - You are in a "walking dead" scenario, i.e. limited fuel for your van, main electricity grid is off, the weather is cloudy, rainy and sometimes cold with NO sun (Oct-Nov) and cities are full of zombies. What do you do to charge your eBike?
What will be good is to find plugs to charge my specialized battery from other chargers. I fly rc helicopter and have 30Amp chargers that can charge and balance my lipo 22.2v 5000mAh packs in 20min with 12v supply. I'm pretty sure li-ion can handle faster charging or am i wrong ?
Depends on the BMS (battery management system) in the Specialized pack. Even if the individual cells tolerate higher current. Li-ion has slightly less charge receiving capability than li-po, usually not exceeding 1C. Unless you want to void the warranty and install an additional charging port and balance leads bypassing the BMS, I wouldn't risk higher amperage.
Example 2 you have an outlet to charge your 12v battery??? Why did we do this in the first place.... How about just do this. And have unlimited charges. Beginner: deep cycle battery, victron dc to dc charger, pure sine wave inverter. Intermediate: lithium battery with solar panel and charge controller, and inverter Expert: buy a 12v step up and make a dc to dc charger to charge your bike with max efficiency. And implement to any of the above
Damn, it seems like i jave to be an electrical engineer in order to charge my E-MTB on the go. I dont know anything about amps, watts, votls or current. Im trying to learn, but its all confusing inless you understand the basics. My wife and i both have Specialized Turbo Levos and im looking for a solution to top off our batteries while we are having a lunch break, between rides. If we take a big loop,come back to the car, i want to charge our bikes for an hour or so, just to get 15% to 20% more chatge to take a second ride after lunch. Its not as easy as i thought it would be and im going to have to do a lot of research, and spend a lot of money, to accomplish my goals.
The problem is factory ebike chargers are proprietary and need to do a handshake with the battery before activating. On some models you might get by with just wiring a resistor on the data pins.
@@Hunter_Bidens_Crackpipe_ I wouldn't reccomend doing the latter, but in a few years someone will have it figured it out. It's a shame that batteries like these have DRM's, but it's just the way it works nowadays.
I've been charging my 52V battery with a dc dc convertor for about a year and a half now. The last 6 months I've solar charged direct to dc dc con or into a leisure battery then dc dc to bike. Or if I'm in the car just dc dc from cig socket straight to bike. Haven't used the 240v plug in charger for the 6 months. And the dc dc converter is almost twice as efficient than an inverter.
@@BarryJTaylor its easy to get one for a laptop. Probably not enough demand. I have a 1500 watt inverter but like you were saying dc to dc is more efficient.
Surely be better to pay extra 2 quid a night on campsite for their electric hook up and money saved buy a 2nd battery. Also what guarantee is the bike manufacturer going to give you on the batteries of you bike if your not using the correct voltage through all those crazy ideas
I was looking at this as an option the problem is that the cheap generators burn about a liter of petrol an hour so would cost you about £6 to fully charge your battery diesel ones are more efficient but are heavier.
@@baddmint whats 6 quid if your only gonna do it a few times every once in a while .. i agree not practical if your going to want to do this for weeks on end
I can see there's a lot of comments on here from people that really don't know what the fcuk they're on about. Ray may be a bit ol'skool 'Heath Robinson' but he knows his sh1t. I'm not going to put you all right as I'd be here forever. 1stly. Speaker cable is fine as long as it's fairly thick, his 79 strand is 2.5mm2 that's absolutely fine. In fact speaker cable has less resistance, as that's the whole point of it. If you use poxy speaker cable from your crappy ALBA stereo, it'll melt because it won't take the current. It's exactly the same as automotive power cable, but it has less resistance and more expensive. 2ndly, An alternator won't 'put out' 100amps, it's the device that 'draws' current, so it will only 'draw' what it needs, the alternator can easily 'supply' over 100amps if needs be, that doesn't mean that everything on the vehicle will be at 100amp!
Brilliant informative video I love your channel so much especially as I’m a Newby to electric bikes. (Treck power fly 7 fx.)I’ve got a much better understanding now of how everything works and the sort of kit I need to take out with me. Thanks a million. I’ve got to say though that I think some of Ray‘s advice is a bit dodgy using speaker wire to connect big batteries together. Surely this can’t be right? I’m no electrician but having read the general consensus on this subject from other viewers I’m inclined to agree with them. I still love Ray though. 😁
If you’re gonna use a battery charger to charge the battery, why don’t you just use the outlet that you’re plugging in the battery charger to charge the bicycle battery?
Honestly, if you are adding a car into your e-biking mix, just chuck a second charged bike battery in it and swap it out when you need it. Not only will that likely be the same investment, but you won't have to sit in your car for 3-4 hours waiting for a charge...
Why isn't one 110AmpHrs battery sufficient. Can someone help me do the maths? If I'm charging at 6Amps and charger takes 5 hours to charge. That's 30 Amps. If I lose 50% through an inefficient inverter (are they really that inefficient?) that would eat up 60 Amps for a full charge. Am I missing something Ray?
A 6 amp Bosch charger will fully charge a 500wh battery in 3 hours. But it doesn't use 6 amps the whole time, that's just the max. The way I work it out is a 500wh battery divided by 12v gives approx 42 amp hours (watts= volts x amps). You should never discharge a lead acid battery by more than 50%. So a 110 amp hour battery would give you one full charge assuming a 100% efficient inverter and eBike charger. Whilst they aren't 100% efficient, my Bosch 4A charger isn't as bad as 50% efficient. So I reckon you could get one charge out of a 110 Ah leisure battery. At least I hope so 'cus I've got a spare 100 ah in the shed doing nowt.
Ben Lewis . I’ve no idea of the maths, but you’re not supposed to take even a decent quality leisure down below 50% capacity. The cheaper leisure batteries not below 80% really. I’m sure they’ll do it for a while but over discharging kills them quite quickly. I’m sure the newer gel and AGM would be much better, but no idea how much they cost.
It’s all to do with depth of discharges, temperature deratings, Peukert effect and bike charger efficiency and inverter efficiency, wiring losses. The leisure battery needs to be sized for lifespan, temperature derating of capacity, Peukert effect due to C rate on discharge, all in relation to its DOD vs cycle life.
No no no... why have you not explained that you need heavier gauge cable to start running longer extensions ? Otherwise you’re risking a fire Seriously, just chuck a Dcdc or VRS on and a deep cycle in
*Ray's Top Tips*
Off grid Vehicle power supply kits are not new, I engineered them first in military vehicles fitted with RADAR in the late 1960’s. Prior
to this date, inefficient rotary converters were used to produce a 230 V supply. 24 V solid-state inverters were followed by 12 V units
and are reliable and have efficiencies above 80%. Off-Grid, means having your own independent 230 V AC power supply. You can
use an inverter based kit to power domestic 230V equipment, including ebike chargers and other small electrical appliances.
My tips for getting going with an inverter outfit that will get you ‘Off Grid’.
Inverters
● Choose the right size of the inverter, 300W charges any ebike, 1000W drives most small appliances including fridges.
● It's the total power draw you need to consider, look on the appliance label, fridges run at 45-120W but take 700W+ starting.
● Inverters work from 11.5 to 14.5V DC. Switch on without a load, they take 10W, loaded, a 1000W unit takes around 1200W .
● Inverters are fused inside or out, most use auto blade fuses. Most inverters shut down at around 11.5V to protect the battery.
● Inverters driven directly from the vehicles battery must be limited to 300W they can draw more than 30 Amps.
Circuitry
● System 1, vehicle battery - 30A fuse - 300W inverter, powerful ebike charger, much faster charge, more efficient, run engine!
● System 2, adds LA leisure battery, (140Ah minimum), small battery and small charger, or big battery and powerful charger.
● System 3, adds solar panels, minimum 250W, more the better, electricity downloaded is free and batteries last longer!
● Keep fuses small and cables large, systems 2 and 3 use Schottky diodes, use 1 or 2 x 40V 50A devices;
General details.
● Vehicles with ‘smart alternators’ need a battery to battery charging device, most new campervans have basic alternators.
● Buy a small plug in voltmeter or state of battery indicator (lighter socket) to be aware of when you might need to charge up.
● 1000W inverters will charge several ebikes at the same time, small ebike chargers might be only 50% efficient, large, 90% + !
● Lead acid batteries are heavy and need to be secured and vented. 12V Li-ion leisure types are not cost effective options now.
● Ensure all connections are good, supply cables are protected, battery always secured upright and buffer charged monthly.
Technical
● The 230V wired output should comply with current regulations, always use a latching Residual Current Device to BS 7071.
● ‘Sealed batteries’ may need to be vented as they can produce small amounts of hydrogen (explosive gas) and in rare cases
a poisonous gas, Hydrogen disulphide (H2S2).
Does a bigger charger give you less cycles of your expensive $500 battery
Seriously bad advice, inadequate cable sizes and serous lack of correct size fuses. You cannot use speaker wire to connect those batteries. Take this video down!!
Yeah. This advice is soo bad that I question all of their other advice.
79 strand wire is 2.5mm it should handle 20A so if fitted with 10A fuse its not a problem, thing get bad when you watch this video and rig up your battery with some B&Q flimsy speaker wire and dont fit a fuse.
should have advised people to use automotive wire and explained fusing and wire size.
Old geezer is stupid. EBike batteries are not 230v. Mine is 60v. It uses a 230vac charger if you are in olde England. 110vac is the charger voltage in USA. It is NOT the batteries voltage.
Old geezer never once mention need for a Pure Sine Wave Inverter
I'd say Ray's one of those , DIY guys that's done all his own work in his house...you know, the house that's probably going to set fire .
Speaker cable 🤦♂️. Way to much resistance. Take this video down before somone has a fire
Yeah, I think he's just a diy hack, not really an engineer. There are several dubious things he says. Speaker wire? Really? "A bigger charger will be better, how much, we don't know." C'mon, if you were really an engineer you'd know.
Yeah that's pretty bad advice really. I would like to see the wiring in this guys house lol.
The problem is anyone learning how to do these things from this video alone shouldn’t be.
Ray reminds me of my Dad (an electrical engineer). I ask my Dad a question about electricity, and when he's finished answering the question, I'm more confused than before I asked it! Good timing on the video. I'm leaving in a few days to my cabin that has no wired electricity. It will be my first time there with my e-bike. Hoping the generator there is sufficient to charge my bikes battery.
Premier inn and my Bosch 6amp charger...oh and an all you can eat breakfast 😉👍
All you can eat breakfast...hahaha...love it!
Ray is definitely 'off the grid' alright. Chocolate blocks and speaker wire everywhere....
Ray is THE MAN ...more videos with Ray 👍
I can tell Steve knows exactly what Ray's on about...
I live with MS, mostly in my van, solar panel, mppt charge controller, pure sine wave inverter a Merida e160 and two shimano batteries. Highly, highly recommend 2nd bike battery, allows for epic days or endless boost mode at bike parks. I can only walk for 0.5km or so, but ebike all day!
Very good advice Justin. I am thinking of getting extra batteries so I can charge them while I'm out riding.
Fair play to you keep shreddin xxx
Ray is a legend! Lets keep his workshop a regular thing 👍
David Wilmshurst it might be a nice guy but showing people are very dangerous set up
with the MPT-7210 solar mppt charge controller you can bypass the lead acid battery and the inverter all together, given that your battery accepts a simple +- charging current (no +5V or other encryption signals required by the BMS). all you need is 2 ebike batteries so one can hang on the charge controller while the other one is being used. the MPT-7210 costs around 30£ plus you need an appropriate plug to match your battery charging port. bypassing the lead acid battery and inverter saves you money and increases your charging efficiency dramatically = less solar panel surface required.
for a typical 36V battery, the terminal charge voltage needs to be set at 42V. the PV input always needs to be lower than the charging voltage ( in this case
Exactly right. My 60v battery is charged 60v direct using a 400w mono panel connected to a Elejoy 400 boost mppt with output wired to a Cnlink xlr type plug for my battery. The cut off is set for 99% so that I balance the cells only when home using the Sur Ron A.C. charger. This old geezer never once mentioned that if you are using an inverter you should only ever use a Pure Sine one .
Steve: "Ray, can I ask a question?"
Ray: "Sure..."
Steve: "What the f**ks a volt?"
I would use proper copper battery cable 35mm2 for the connection between the float batt and leisure batt, that looks like an electrical fault waiting to happen. Use cable size calculation tools to determine cable size. Also nowhere I heard anyone mention that you're only supposed to use no more than 50% capacity of your lead acids otherwise their life cycle is reduced dramatically.
Money no object.. Go lithium!
I was thinking the same as I was watching the vid. The alternator produces probrably 80 amps or more and with low voltages as like in a car the thicker the cable the better. it also helps voltage drop in the cable.
@@meuliedoka The alternator doesn't 'produce' current, it's the device that draws current. The Inverter is only drawing about 4Amp from the battery 800w/240v Rays only using a 10Amp fuse so is well within the cables spec. you will only really need 1mm2/core for that so Ray's 79strand cable will be about 2.5mm2/core so is more than enough for this application.
@@CurvedSlightly Hey Chuck, i've been down to see the numbers on these systems and more than happy with them. Obviously love your comments above to hahaha!
Chuck Norris that 300w inverter could draw 25amps though. 300w/12v (it’s 12v the inverter draws after all, not 240v) = 25amps.
@@CurvedSlightly the fact that Ray put a 10 Amp fuse in his setup there is no imediate danger that the wires would melt, so that is a good thing to start with.
The inverter may only draw 10 amps or les but I am woried about what hapens when you use the inverter for a couple of hours and the leisure battery gets discharged for let`s say 50%.
The moment you start the car then the alternator wil likely try to charge both the car and leisure battery at probrably a much higher current then the 10 amp fuse installed(so then its dependand on what amperage the alternator produces).
And what do some people usually do when they have a blown fuse? Right they install a bigger one and then it becomes dangerous.
Hey EMBN! At about 1:30 into the vid ray says "ebike batteries are 230 volts"! This is incorrect as most ebike batteries are 36 volts dc! The ebike battery chargers require 230 volts alternating current for the input power! Ride ride ride!
Obviously that's what he meant
I'm sure Ray meant the charger, smarty pants.
you're a mong
Thought I would add an option if you have a hybrid you already have a giant battery. I use a 1000w inverter wired to the 12v battery. Keep the car in the on position and you have as much battery as you want if the hybrid runs low from charging the 12v the engine will start and charge it up automatically. The setup cost me 150usd. Go prius 😅 barely uses any fuel to charge an ebike.
wow, you're a legend.. what a good idea !! :)
10 Amps in front of a alternater that puts out around 100 amps? And speaker wire... stop. the wire need to be at least 16mm2 (5 awg) and if the cable is very long 25mm2
And most newer cars won't charge the battery fully. So you need a dc/DC charger
SPLIT RELAY, PROPER fusing and 318-A, UV stable cable ffs, hole through FLOOR to gas battery ffs, ;-[
A question for you next video! After so many people have commented that this video is Poor advice, dangerous and should be taken down. Why have You have not done so? If somebody attempts to copy this set up and has an accident or a fire you’ve got to be held responsible!
The video comes across and is in the format of how to!
As a very minimum The video should start and end and have reference to a disclaimer to say that this is just personal ideas and based on principle do not copy this!
A Channel your size its following the amount of people that will watch this surely you have a responsibility and somewhat a duty of care too ?
Legally speaking, I don't think there's any duty of care, because there's no relationship between the EMBN and the viewer that would create such a duty. But I'm not a lawyer.
Awesome, love this!!!Great idea for the video. Get Ray smashing some ebike laps at a trail centre. :)
I've got a van and run a TV and stuff off mine. Just got 2 110ah leasure batteries with a split charge relay off the main battery. Used to charge my 504wh battery twice on one charge of the leasure battery system 👌
What a great guy! I loved watching this video.
Other suggestions:
1) buy an extra ebike battery.
2) AND - get a solar powerstation and some solar panels - works a treat!
Warmest thoughts
Jennie
Good grief. This is a prime example of why learning about electric systems on UA-cam from MTB enthusiasts is a terrible idea. So many dangerous faults and omissions in this.
agreed.. Speaker cable to handle power... A repairman is going to get a shock.
Agreed. Never once mentioned need for pure sine wave inverter and the fact you can eliminate the battery and go PV Direct to bike battery using a Elejoy 400 step up type boost MPPT controller with a bike battery plug wired into the output end. My 400w mono panel goes direct to my 60v sur ron battery through the boost controller set to 66v cut off. This old geezer missed a lot of points. Sounds like he would screw up an expensive battery.
Needs a revisit on this one, we can now charge directly from solar panels using mppt and dc/dc buck converters, so to do away with the inverter and 230v charger bricks etc if not done already
Speaker cable!! For goodness sake don’t listen to this guy! Disaster waiting to happen!
So Ray tell me about this set up.....whilst I try keep a sensible distance because you keep moving towards me......🤣
Can recommend an electric van. You have bike storage and simple camping in one car. Benefits with the electric cars is that you can have it switched on without producing noise and exhaust gases while running AC or heating. Also battery capacity in EV´s is measured in kWh and that´s plenty for e-bike charging.
Please talk to a professional shop about setting this stuff up, Ray’s advice is a big worry. Do not connect two batteries together with speaker cable and some diodes ffs. His advice is very concerning and embn should not have put this video up. Ive worked in the RV market and everything said had me gasping wtf.
That setup is dangerous. The cables are going to melt and blow up the amg battery. Didn't see him put fuses on the secondary battery
Half way through the video I went to the comments to find a comment like this lol
@@Shacko117 hahaha same
I agree, this is shocking advice. Also no talk about amps etc.
TO-220 diodes TOO with the centre leg cut off ffs, SPLIT RELAY, PROPER fusing and 318-A, UV stable cable ffs, hole through FLOOR to gas battery ffs, ;-[
If you've got an electric hook up why would you charge a leisure battery to then charge the ebike battery when you can charge the ebike straight from the mains 🤷🏻♂️
Yeah, very poor advice all round.
It is awful advice but I suspect this is for a second go around while you’re still at the trail car park away from the hookup.
I have no ideal what this guy is saying, but I love him. 😉😂
Steve. If you are setting up this system in your van then you need to get ray to do it and make a video or two part video in-depth of the two of you fitting it. Great vid. Rays still awesome.
Then maybe another video of the van on fire!
Have a fire extinguisher nearby 😯
Great advice for 1991. Really just by a goal zero or similar battery and charge with vehicle power port, mains, or solar panel.
Steve looks mighty nervous around electrical equipment. 😂
4 Buy a second battery
Pleaseeeeee do a review of the new Whyte EMTB’s. I would really appreciate it.
I have a invertor in my truck that plugs into cigarette lighter and works good!
How many Watts is your inverter? I have a 300W inverter. Hoping that is good enough to get the job done. I have to drive 2 hours (each way) to the trails I will be riding so I can get 4 hours of charging done driving to the ride.
I think its 400watts. But a guy that works for specialized said to be sure that I have enough amps cuz the levo draws 3 amps. So,I got a 4 amp one. And I screwed up I plug it into,the 12volt adaptor in,my truck. Not the lighter
Will a bigger charger hurt the battery on the bike? Also I know you need a pure sine wave inverter I did not hear that mentioned? Also now with the cost of LifePo4 batteries that is the way to go. I realize this is an older video
Very useful. As I'm just buying ebike for use from my Campervan. But one thing I'm concerned about. I've been told that you need dc to dc (mppt) in between. Which your guy didn't mention.
Have you guys every looked at forms to move transport your bike to the trails? I can't find a roof bar for my ebike any recommendations?
I'm an auto electrician. This video has some extremely poor advice. You should consider taking this video down.
I'm an Electrical Engineer and have to correct 'Auto Electricians' all... day... long...
James Goodsell has a 2021 Specialized Levo comp and has a UA-cam channel.
Only had it a few weeks and had water inside the charging port. After a wet ride . Also the the bike was cycling on and off without touching the button.
Yay Ray is back! the man, the myth, the legend! and hopefully a regular slot as the new EMBN presenter and chief ghetto technician extraordinaire! ok, ok Jones-ie and Mr Smith you're both legends too.
OMG no, no no that’s so dangerous that’s not the way to show amateurs how to set up Electrics particularly on a modern car I hope you’re well insured giving advice I’d like that
Agreed soo dangerous , cable sizing too small
Stu Parry it just that if he’s got a car with an intelligent alternator charging system it will destroy the engine management system too totally ridiculous to show something like this in such a popular channel
Yes agreed, as a mechanic it's horrible to see all the bad advice online , all modern cars an Van's have more ecus than u can shake a stick at aswell as smart charging,
Stu Parry Yep I’m an electronics engineer I can see them getting some legal challenges on this when things start to go wrong
Hi there, appreciate the attention to detail! The video is only an overview to show the basics. However recently with smart alternators there is a problem, they do not work the same way as the old alternators. The reason for the change is that they are energy saving and load the battery on braking cycles etc. If you have a smart alternator or possibly a stop-start facility on your vehicle you will need a B-B charging unit.
Please see Ray's tips above, where he has attempted to cover the project in more detail. Doubtless to say there will be more questions but please get involved its great to hear from you!
A far easier way would be to use an integrated Power Pack Inverter, it's a battery box with an inverter etc or use a spare old battery in the back with the inverter hanging off that. The problem is the 2 amp chargers some bikes use take too long like 6 hours. If money is no option buy a spare e bike battery to suit your bike.
I'd use my Jackery 1000W , job done
Wow he's a really good presenter.
this guy is awesome, if had 3 of him for my staff, i could retire in 2 years :)
Guys this is not good advice, no talk about discharging lead acid batteries. Leisure batteries don't like to drop below 20% discharge as it damages the lead cells inside. Very quickly dropping the batteries capacity. A off grid deep cycle would be better, happy to drop to 50%. In the title it says off grid, they pull out an extension lead that is not off grid!! Zero chat about the amps your alternators makes, carful not to over load it. My 6a bosch charger requires a 490watt inverter, video saying 300watt should suit all, not my case. For me that works out at 40amps off the car. The fact the chap talking was not talking numbers is worrying. I would also recommend buying a camper split charger, it's that diode he spoke about as a kit, wiring including. Don't buy speaker cable to drive a inverter. 40amps through speaker cable could end up burning the cable. Poor advice from a good channel.
You just need a additional deep cycle battery
Isolator, fuse, invertor. Basic stuff. If your newish car doesn't like it. You didn't hook it up properly or its a pos. And try again.
Yeah it's basic. But this dude doesn't get it. He probably uses speaker wire for 230v in his house to xD
Shocking advice...no pun intended
1kw inverter Generator sorted. No wiring needed.
Exaclty mate job done
And you can easily run 100amps on some speaker wire.. just make sure to have a 10 amp fuse in front xD
Better get a pure sine wave, those commercial ebike chargers are expensive (and proprietary connectors are getting popular these days)
I have a converter that plugs into the cigarette lighter that even new cars still have. I wouldn’t be running leads from a battery .
Speaker wire is not appropriate, especially for the 3000w system he was talking about - you’d need roughly 35mm wire for that!
A proper solution would be either a split charger or battery to battery charger for charging from the vehicle battery or an mppt controller for charging from solar panels, these also need appropriate fuses/trip switches and wire to suite the current load which is determined by the maximum power output of the inverter
Why not use a split charge relay instead of the diode wotsit ?
danimayb they’re very inexpensive AND they come with appropriate cabling!!
Is there a danger in trying to charge the battery too quickly? Could that generate too much heat and cause a burn out?
Potentially, but the charger would cut off much before that was to happen.
Brilliant. Ray the master back on with some great info. He need's to be a regular...as it's always great info and ideas
I am not following how a 110 amp hour battery won’t easily charge a 500 or 700 watt hour e bike battery. For my 700 watt hour Levo battery at 36v is about 20 amp hours (I think this makes sense as the 4 amp charger takes about 5 hours to charge the battery). So I will reduce my 110 amp hour leisure battery at full charge to 80-90 amp hours depending on efficiencies. This is well above the 50% safety limit of draining the battery. Seems the 110 ah battery could fully charge the 700 wh battery twice without issue. Where is my math off where Ray is saying it will only charge a 500 wh battery once.
Lead acid doesn't perform well at anything greater than a 30% state of discharge. Any more and you risk permanently damaging the capacity. Deep discharge variants tolerate a little more, but for a better system life and more cycles before loss of capacity even with ideal discharge practices, look into lithium.
Dale, your Levo battery is at 36v. The lead acid is at 12v. So 20amps @ 36v is actually 60 amps @ 12v. So by fully charging your Levo battery your 12v lead acid battery will have dropped from 110ah to 50ah. Then also consider that the inverter is may only be 90% efficient. Another consideration is that once you draw down your 110ah battery to ~60% capacity the voltage will also drop. Then your inverter might cut out because they battery cannot supply enough power at a high enough voltage. This 'voltage drop' is why you really want thick cables and have the inverter as close to the 100ah battery as possible. So it might realistically draw down 66amps. This video is soo bad I'd suggest going to one of the ebike forums and asking there.
Have a question I have a 5000w watt e scooter what size of a petrol generator would I need to recharge please answer thank
Not a solar panel but a marine battery hooked up to charge when car is on and an inverter is all you need.
Can the bike battery be charged by a solar charger/battery (Jackery) while riding to extend the range?
OK, now raising the bar a "little" - what if I do not have frikkin' car? But have 4-5 bicycles to charge on a camping on our family bike-pack trip?
Even simply hauling 4-5 different chargers is a lot of hassle, considering weight and volume...
Perhaps single bigger charging unit construction, but with attachable (different plugs) & configurable (different output wattage) outputs?
Folding solar, a smaller battery, and an inverter still won't get you there. Most riding is in the daytime and you don't have the solar generation capacity to get that many bikes charged up from empty every day.
Unless you have the motivation to haul a trailer and a big battery behind one of the bikes, I'm not sure what would work for that.
cool vid.. but i can tell u first hand 300watt inverter in def not enough for todays chargers.. i have shimano ec6000 charger and 500watts was not enough to run mine... just heads up...
If you have a Levo, buy an extra battery to take along. Only £1150. If you have a family, buy everyone a Levo and spare battery so you can ride together all day (perhaps buy another Levo and spare battery for guests).
I really hope that you guys read my post. Here in the US we love camping and so many people use gasoline run generators to power lights and other things. I have a Coleman Powermate 3000 OHV 4-Stroke Gas Generator. It's supposed to produce 120v with 2 sockets. I tried plugging in my charger for my 48V 15ah lithium ion battery but the l green and red lights just blinked. I took it as it's not working. Now here at home both my chargers are dead. I also have a 2000 watt inverter at home. Seeing your video, was there something I missed? I have 3 to power up when we go camping.
The extremely mad scientist.
Can't you just use a generator?
Yes. Yes you can.
IMPAX IM800I 700W INVERTER GENERATOR 230V (15760)
Yeah, or just run your car!
Why not use inverter from 12v to 36(42)V instead of doing 12-220-36(42)?
Speaker wire is for speakers! Should be way heavier and possibly double insulated. Agree with every one else should be taken down
Just got a chargery 1-24s 1500w charger my stock 500w charger just died 5years old rip.
Good idea to get an electro-smog (EMF) detector for inside the van. I just did my van and am now freaked out!
one day we will have a "solar panel helmet" to have the bike charging constantly from the sun while using it.
Except for Bosch, Yamaha, or Shimano which can be picky, you're better off with a DC-DC converter. Battery to inverter to charger back to ebike battery has multiple points of conversion inefficiency.
It's takes me about 100 miles to drain a 625w battery on eco
Cool, but what if I got a powerful Ebike with 4000Wh battery (72v)? I guess that would be 1/4 reservoir of gasoline?
And one more question with quadriple difficulty - You are in a "walking dead" scenario, i.e. limited fuel for your van, main electricity grid is off, the weather is cloudy, rainy and sometimes cold with NO sun (Oct-Nov) and cities are full of zombies. What do you do to charge your eBike?
What will be good is to find plugs to charge my specialized battery from other chargers. I fly rc helicopter and have 30Amp chargers that can charge and balance my lipo 22.2v 5000mAh packs in 20min with 12v supply. I'm pretty sure li-ion can handle faster charging or am i wrong ?
Depends on the BMS (battery management system) in the Specialized pack. Even if the individual cells tolerate higher current.
Li-ion has slightly less charge receiving capability than li-po, usually not exceeding 1C.
Unless you want to void the warranty and install an additional charging port and balance leads bypassing the BMS, I wouldn't risk higher amperage.
1000w or so, ultra quiet gas generator are forbidden in UK? Also there are a plenty of Portable LiIon Power Station 230v ready. What is this mess?
Color: Black-350W/36V/21S
Back in time for tee time? Where to put the clubs? 😂
Example 2 you have an outlet to charge your 12v battery??? Why did we do this in the first place....
How about just do this. And have unlimited charges.
Beginner: deep cycle battery, victron dc to dc charger, pure sine wave inverter.
Intermediate: lithium battery with solar panel and charge controller, and inverter
Expert: buy a 12v step up and make a dc to dc charger to charge your bike with max efficiency. And implement to any of the above
Damn, it seems like i jave to be an electrical engineer in order to charge my E-MTB on the go.
I dont know anything about amps, watts, votls or current. Im trying to learn, but its all confusing inless you understand the basics.
My wife and i both have Specialized Turbo Levos and im looking for a solution to top off our batteries while we are having a lunch break, between rides. If we take a big loop,come back to the car, i want to charge our bikes for an hour or so, just to get 15% to 20% more chatge to take a second ride after lunch.
Its not as easy as i thought it would be and im going to have to do a lot of research, and spend a lot of money, to accomplish my goals.
Dose anyone make a DC to DC charger for Ebikes?
The problem is factory ebike chargers are proprietary and need to do a handshake with the battery before activating. On some models you might get by with just wiring a resistor on the data pins.
@@Hunter_Bidens_Crackpipe_ I wouldn't reccomend doing the latter, but in a few years someone will have it figured it out. It's a shame that batteries like these have DRM's, but it's just the way it works nowadays.
I've been charging my 52V battery with a dc dc convertor for about a year and a half now. The last 6 months I've solar charged direct to dc dc con or into a leisure battery then dc dc to bike. Or if I'm in the car just dc dc from cig socket straight to bike. Haven't used the 240v plug in charger for the 6 months. And the dc dc converter is almost twice as efficient than an inverter.
Bmw did one for the levo but it is like finding rocking horse poo
@@BarryJTaylor its easy to get one for a laptop. Probably not enough demand. I have a 1500 watt inverter but like you were saying dc to dc is more efficient.
Surely be better to pay extra 2 quid a night on campsite for their electric hook up and money saved buy a 2nd battery.
Also what guarantee is the bike manufacturer going to give you on the batteries of you bike if your not using the correct voltage through all those crazy ideas
Just buy a 12v to 36v e-Bike charger for under £30 - they are commonly called boost chargers - I have one and it can be set for 24v, 36v, or 48v
I have a 300 watt inverter it wont touch my bike battery just not up to it.
Just get 800 w inverter generator 125 quid , job done
Impax generator from screwfix
.. run time 4 hrs battery charged anywhere
I was looking at this as an option the problem is that the cheap generators burn about a liter of petrol an hour so would cost you about £6 to fully charge your battery diesel ones are more efficient but are heavier.
@@baddmint whats 6 quid if your only gonna do it a few times every once in a while .. i agree not practical if your going to want to do this for weeks on end
@@bangtarights2226 yeah that's true.
I can see there's a lot of comments on here from people that really don't know what the fcuk they're on about. Ray may be a bit ol'skool 'Heath Robinson' but he knows his sh1t. I'm not going to put you all right as I'd be here forever.
1stly. Speaker cable is fine as long as it's fairly thick, his 79 strand is 2.5mm2 that's absolutely fine. In fact speaker cable has less resistance, as that's the whole point of it. If you use poxy speaker cable from your crappy ALBA stereo, it'll melt because it won't take the current. It's exactly the same as automotive power cable, but it has less resistance and more expensive.
2ndly, An alternator won't 'put out' 100amps, it's the device that 'draws' current, so it will only 'draw' what it needs, the alternator can easily 'supply' over 100amps if needs be, that doesn't mean that everything on the vehicle will be at 100amp!
Brilliant informative video I love your channel so much especially as I’m a Newby to electric bikes. (Treck power fly 7 fx.)I’ve got a much better understanding now of how everything works and the sort of kit I need to take out with me. Thanks a million. I’ve got to say though that I think some of Ray‘s advice is a bit dodgy using speaker wire to connect big batteries together. Surely this can’t be right? I’m no electrician but having read the general consensus on this subject from other viewers I’m inclined to agree with them. I still love Ray though. 😁
always protect the circuit with a fuse rated below wires rating- simples!
How about for those person that their rv is the bike it self
I was told a stronger charger will generate a lot of heat and could make the batteries burst into flames.
1:26 so eBike batteries are all 230v?? Funny geezer...mine is 60v.
If you’re gonna use a battery charger to charge the battery, why don’t you just use the outlet that you’re plugging in the battery charger to charge the bicycle battery?
2 lightweight 60watt foldable solar panels in series and a good inverter, and you can forget the car too.
Honestly, if you are adding a car into your e-biking mix, just chuck a second charged bike battery in it and swap it out when you need it. Not only will that likely be the same investment, but you won't have to sit in your car for 3-4 hours waiting for a charge...
Why not using lifepo4 cells ? Half the weight … 8000 charge cycles ?
If someone knows a decent price on a an 18a charger let me know cuz from what I see they are expensive.
Buy a second bike battery battery, charge at your house and job done. No explosions, fires or electrocution!
Where is the dcdc charger? To put in 14v? Have you heard of lithium?
You would be better off getting 2 -6 volt batteries at 235 amp hours at 20 hour rate and tie them together to have one big 12 volt.
Why isn't one 110AmpHrs battery sufficient. Can someone help me do the maths?
If I'm charging at 6Amps and charger takes 5 hours to charge. That's 30 Amps. If I lose 50% through an inefficient inverter (are they really that inefficient?) that would eat up 60 Amps for a full charge.
Am I missing something Ray?
A 6 amp Bosch charger will fully charge a 500wh battery in 3 hours. But it doesn't use 6 amps the whole time, that's just the max. The way I work it out is a 500wh battery divided by 12v gives approx 42 amp hours (watts= volts x amps). You should never discharge a lead acid battery by more than 50%. So a 110 amp hour battery would give you one full charge assuming a 100% efficient inverter and eBike charger. Whilst they aren't 100% efficient, my Bosch 4A charger isn't as bad as 50% efficient. So I reckon you could get one charge out of a 110 Ah leisure battery. At least I hope so 'cus I've got a spare 100 ah in the shed doing nowt.
Ben Lewis . I’ve no idea of the maths, but you’re not supposed to take even a decent quality leisure down below 50% capacity. The cheaper leisure batteries not below 80% really. I’m sure they’ll do it for a while but over discharging kills them quite quickly. I’m sure the newer gel and AGM would be much better, but no idea how much they cost.
It’s all to do with depth of discharges, temperature deratings, Peukert effect and bike charger efficiency and inverter efficiency, wiring losses. The leisure battery needs to be sized for lifespan, temperature derating of capacity, Peukert effect due to C rate on discharge, all in relation to its DOD vs cycle life.
@@JohnRushworth cheers, that's my homework set for tonight then
300w inverter for £30 on Amazon that plugs into 12v socket
If you have no idea what a cat flap is, look for a split charge relay which is it's correct name!
No no no... why have you not explained that you need heavier gauge cable to start running longer extensions ?
Otherwise you’re risking a fire
Seriously, just chuck a Dcdc or VRS on and a deep cycle in