With a little dedication and a keen eye on the weather forecast, it is possible to directly charge your battery with a simple, easy-to-use, inexpensive, portable solar charging system at home. It is possible to never have to plug into the mains again to get power to your motor.
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With a solar set up, you can charge your e-bike battery on (pictured), or off the bike.
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Solar Power
This section is for the curious, the adventurous, the imaginative and those who truly want to power their e-bike using the power of the sun.
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Every e-bike needs a battery to power it. Every battery needs electricity to charge it. Pretty much everyone plugs their battery into the mains using a supplied battery charger and simply waits a few hours while the electricity meter ticks over until the battery is full. 99.9% of all e-bike owners charge their batteries like this.
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But there is another way. Solar charging. At home or on the go. On or off the bike. All you need is daylight and preferably, as much sun as possible.
How does it work?
Unlike a domestic solar system on your house for example, a solar set up to charge your e-bike batteries is very simple; all you need is a solar panel and something called an MPPT solar boost charger along with a few wires and connectors to link the panel to the charger to the battery.
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Also unlike a domestic set up, this method of charging is DC to DC and does not require an inverter (a device used to convert DC power to AC power). Solar charging your e-bike battery simply takes the lower output voltage of the solar panel to the charger which does what it says and BOOSTS the voltage to the higher amount needed to charge your higher voltage battery be it 36 volts, 48 volts or more.
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Both charger and battery work together to manage the fluctuating current due to the vagaries of constantly changing light levels, to deliver electricity to the battery cells until they are full.
The Essentials
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Solar-powered day tripper
Off-grid, inexpensive charging on the go. An inexpensive way to extend your range. Yup, it looks odd...but it works.
Don't forget to bring some beer and a collapsible chair to better appreciate the view. Sit back and relax while you top up your battery for free.
Long distance off-grid touring
For the truly adventurous soul a long-distance bike tour is the stuff that dreams are made of. Right now, there are many intrepid individuals all over the globe, living their dreams. However, most are not on e-bikes for the simple reason that charging the battery is the perennial problem.
Owning an e-bike doesn't mean you are tied to a mains electricity outlet although the perceived 100% dependence on AC power means that many owners are. Not only can you use a simple solar set up to charge at home, but you can also take it with you. If you have it in you to take your e-bike on a tour, be it here in the UK, over to Europe or across the planet, with solar power, there is no limit to how far you can get on your own. You don't need to find a friendly cafe, a hotel or obliging individual to charge your batteries. This worry about how far you will get, whether you will get there on time and before your battery runs out is virtually eliminated if you set up your touring rig for solar battery charging.
No more range anxiety. A lot more range.
How much does a solar charging set up cost?
Well, in short, a little more than it used to thanks to the near collapse of the pound but still pretty reasonable.
At this point, it should be noted that if you already have a shop bought e-bike with a Bosch, Yamaha or Shimano motor (the three big brands most widely found on the more expensive branded e-bikes), then solar charging your battery is not (at the time of writing this) possible. Why? They often use their own proprietary batteries and chargers and the battery management systems (BMS) of these simply won't accept a charge from a, let's call it "third party source". There is no reason at all why these big companies can't allow it except it is in their interests to protect the huge prices charged for their batteries and chargers.
However, if you convert your bike with one of our motors and one or two of our batteries, then you can use solar power for battery charging.
Simply plug in the connectors from panel to charger and from charger to battery and turn your panel to face the sun. Your battery will begin accepting the charge.
Each MPPT solar boost charger will accept up to 300W of input power and can easily be configured to charge 36v, 48v, 60v, or 72v batteries as well as set to charge to a voltage of your choice. Panels can be used on their own or can be connected together for faster charging.
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Prices: solar charging kits - assembled*