Electric Bikes - E-Bike + XtraCycle + Solar Trickle Charge

Gents,

I had a thought. I'm considering a new bike in order to ditch the car and help do my part towards "saving the earth." As such, i've thought up this contraption an E-bike (no clue yet as I'm totally ignorant on this subject) add the extra cycle. On top of the xtra-cycle goes (The skateboard part) can you add a solar panel or two or three to continually recharge the e-bike while it is in use? Second part of the question is can you use solar to charge the bike while at home as well?

any suggestions on any of this would be helpful.

Cheers

I don't know if your solar panel would be big enough...

What I was thinking was something like this, except that the roof would be solar... then you also get some shade.

And rain protection if you're standing still and it's not too windy.
http://www.velomobiling.net/albums/EIEIO/DSCN2252.jpg

The snap deck on a Xtracycle is about the size of a skateboard, so no you will not have the surface area to power the bike directly from the sun. I doubt you would even notice an increase in your range if you used it to supplement already charged batteries.
Sorry but solar is just not there yet. The solar racers (example (http://www.wsc.org.au/)) are using less power than an hair dryer and still cost seven figures or more to construct. The high efficiency cells they require are still state of the art and very expensive.
You would be able to charge your bike from solar cells, fairly easily actually. However the roof mounted collectors you see on homes are much heavier and larger than what you would be able to carry on your bike.
A collector with the surface area of a Xtracycle's snap deck would be sufficient to charge a cell phone over the course of a day, an E-bike would take a week or better.

I don't think there would be a useful output from a solar panel on an Xtracycle to charge the battery of an electric bicycle while on the road, even if you used two large panel that would fold down as you traveled. Another problem would be vibration and bouncing around of the panel. It may not last long out on the road . Available sunlight can be very variable unless you live in the desert with very little cloud cover.

However, I think setting up a solar panel at home to charge the electric bike sounds like an excellent idea.


Edit: On the other hand... searching the Internet, I found these solar bicycle sites...

http://www.sciencenewsden.com/2006/solarpoweredbicycle.shtml
http://cambodiamorning.blogspot.com/2005/10/sun-harnessed-for-ride.html
http://hometown.aol.com/joelddc/solarbikekit.html
http://www.solarvoltaic.com/newproducts.htm

I don't know if your solar panel would be big enough...

What I was thinking was something like this, except that the roof would be solar... then you also get some shade.

And rain protection if you're standing still and it's not too windy.
http://www.velomobiling.net/albums/EIEIO/DSCN2252.jpg

I have been thinking along these same lines for a long distance summer tourer

Solar trike with a 75w panel.
http://bushnell.homeip.net/~bill/bike/pictures/lcvg.2007.03.24/mediafiles/l24.jpg
Solar bike with I think from memory a 100w setup
http://www.nimbuskayaks.com/velo/lcvg%20sunday%20group%20shot.jpg
The streamliner can run for greatly extended times due to the solar and aero benefits, if you are after a pedal assist setup this would probaly allow all day riding as I use roughly 120w or a bit less to ride 20klm in extreemly hill terrain.
If you ride where its flat the aero on a streamliner will allow a greatly improved range.

Solar trike with a 75w panel.
Solar bike with I think from memory a 100w setup


thanks for posting these... do you have more information on the faired white and blue solar bicycle?

GeeBee,
You've got to fill us in on the velomobiles. I think I recognize a Mango in that mix, what are the others?
Is the homebuilt solar streamliner yours?
Man those are sweet.

--A

The gentleman that owns the solar velo pops up on the various forums occasionally and if you google solar velomobile or similar you should find more info.
It apparently has a loud stereo and a ridiculous range due to the panels.

The velos are the abovesolar job, Versatile, home made pod with a trice trike inside, Aroura new a new one from Canada.

My avatar shows my velomobile, pedal powered only and an utralight shell due to riding in very steep terrain.

I have my first electric bike (an eZee Liv) arriving by freight Tuesday and am looking forward to traveling as "green" as possible from now on. Considering that my sole vehicle at the moment is a Toyota Tundra pickup, anything I can do to cut back on even a few trips with this 13 mpg behemoth will be of great benefit to the environment.

The biggest problem with using any solar panel for battery charging is that it can be a problem using a small panel to recharge lithium-ion or lead-acid batteries. Any lithium-ion battery in particular will be problematic for trickle-charging, since the internal temperature of the lithium battery has to be raised to something like 130 degrees F. before charging can even begin.

However, it just happens that I am also starting an experiment using a "TuneCharger" circuit with solar cells. This is a circuit developed by a French inventor to make it practical to charge a larger range of batteries with solar cells. The quick description of the TuneCharger is that it temporarily stores current from the solar cell and then sends the energy in pulses to the battery. With the TuneCharger, it becomes possible to completely charge a lot of batteries, such as lead-acid, that could previously only be trickle-charged by solar power.

The Liv bike should be here by freight next Tuesday (August 7). Other TuneCharger experimenters have been seeing if they can get any results using it to charge lithium-ion batteries. I'll report back here as soon as I have any updates on their efforts.

If you would like to check out more about the TuneCharger, you can go to www.tunecharger.com (http://www.tunecharger.com) or go to Yahoo Groups and search for "tunecharger." For a while, it was possible to order a TuneCharger board as either a kit or assembled, but I think I purchased a couple of the very last kits the inventor had for sale. I believe it's only possible to buy a fully-assembled board.

Wayne

I recall that some time ago a guy toured around France on a Velectris hubmotor + solarpannel equipped bike. And yes, they have solar pannels that work with Li batteries. But, not sure I'd want the setup in my day to day urban setting though.

Gents,

I had a thought. I'm considering a new bike in order to ditch the car and help do my part towards "saving the earth." As such, i've thought up this contraption an E-bike (no clue yet as I'm totally ignorant on this subject) add the extra cycle. On top of the xtra-cycle goes (The skateboard part) can you add a solar panel or two or three to continually recharge the e-bike while it is in use? Second part of the question is can you use solar to charge the bike while at home as well?

any suggestions on any of this would be helpful.

Cheers It is possible to power your ebike, boat, and home.iI have done all three for 22 years.I would show you a picture of the ebike boat and trailer with the pannels on the boat but the forum disabled my attachment ability.