Kevin Graehl Posted January 1, 2019 Share Posted January 1, 2019 Ok usc-c prototype is working. Power in is a usb-c from MacBook/ Chromebook. Or from cigarette lighter 12volt car.. output is adjustable to charge anything from 14volts to 90 volts up to 200 watts off car or 90 watts off MacBook usbc (thunderbolt 3)..... To charge your boosted board, onewheel, solowheel, electric bike, or whatever you want. When I'm done and get some smaller boost circuits ordered, it will all fit in your shirt pocket. Just a 4" cord to fit your specific electric last mile device. Great for sleepovers where you forget your huge charger, or borrow someone's charger at Starbucks, or charge at work. USB-c is maxed out at 100 watts. Pretty nifty. Any suggestions? https://youtu.be/th8OX4M7-os Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esaj Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 " Video unavailable This video contains content from [Merlin] PIAS, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds. " Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smoother Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 3 hours ago, esaj said: " Video unavailable This video contains content from [Merlin] PIAS, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds. " I'd buy one, but 4" cord is no good. Impossible to get top of EUC within 4" of anything. 1m would be better Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esaj Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 2 hours ago, Smoother said: I'd buy one, but 4" cord is no good. Impossible to get top of EUC within 4" of anything. 1m would be better I like the idea otherwise, but using a laptop to charge an EUC seems a bit of a no-go in terms of the battery sizes. A quick googling says that Macbooks have <100Wh batteries (if you use the entire laptop battery to charge the wheel, you maybe get something like from a couple of kilometers maybe closer to 10km of range, if you're really lightweight, the boost converter has good efficiency and you're not using a very powerful wheel), Chromebooks probably in the similar range and if you charge from a car, using the cigarette lighter -connector directly with boost converter would seem more useful than using USB-C somewhere in-between? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smoother Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 12 minutes ago, esaj said: I like the idea otherwise, but using a laptop to charge an EUC seems a bit of a no-go in terms of the battery sizes. A quick googling says that Macbooks have <100Wh batteries (if you use the entire laptop battery to charge the wheel, you maybe get something like from a couple of kilometers maybe closer to 10km of range, if you're really lightweight, the boost converter has good efficiency and you're not using a very powerful wheel), Chromebooks probably in the similar range and if you charge from a car, using the cigarette lighter -connector directly with boost converter would seem more useful than using USB-C somewhere in-between? I assumed the laptop would be plugged in to the grid. I was also thinking more along the lines of plugging it into the cigarette lighter in my car. "if you charge from a car, using the cigarette lighter -connector directly with boost converter would seem more useful than using USB-C somewhere in-between?" can you recommend one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chriull Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 10 minutes ago, Smoother said: I assumed the laptop would be plugged in to the grid. I was also thinking more along the lines of plugging it into the cigarette lighter in my car. "if you charge from a car, using the cigarette lighter -connector directly with boost converter would seem more useful than using USB-C somewhere in-between?" can you recommend one? There are quite some DC/DC converters "available" at aliexpress or similar which seem to work nice. One has just to look to get one with current limiting - than one has a "perfect" li ion charger. I don't remember the members name, but here was a report of such a aliexpres current limiting dc/dc converter he used to take his old 36V li ion battery packs to recharge his euc while riding. The should exist for 12V to 76/84V, too... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esaj Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 12 minutes ago, Smoother said: I assumed the laptop would be plugged in to the grid. I was also thinking more along the lines of plugging it into the cigarette lighter in my car. "if you charge from a car, using the cigarette lighter -connector directly with boost converter would seem more useful than using USB-C somewhere in-between?" can you recommend one? Don't know if such are available off-the-shelf with correct connectors, but basically it's nothing more than a DC-to-DC -converter working with car battery voltages (typically something like 11-14V for most cars, depending on the car battery charge state) on the input-side and adjustable to correct voltage (67.2V for 16S or 84V for 20S) on the output side with current limiting. If I needed such, I'd just get an off-the-shelf DC-DC converter, adjust the voltage & current limitation, then add cigarette lighter connector on the input-side and GX16-3 (or whatever your wheel uses) on the output side. A typical car battery is around 70Ah at 12V nominal voltage = 840Wh, so you'd still suck it dry if charging a wheel with big batteries and the car wasn't running. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chriull Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 On 1/1/2019 at 7:18 AM, Kevin Graehl said: up to 200 watts off car or 90 watts off MacBook usbc (thunderbolt 3)..... To charge your boosted board, onewheel, solowheel, electric bike, or whatever you want. When I'm done and get some smaller boost circuits ordered, it will all fit in your shirt pocket Could get a bit warm in the shirt, depending on efficiency... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chriull Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 @Smoother- the only thing to consider is that an 84V charger with 1A output from on 12V source draws 1A*84V/12V=7A which could be too much for the car lighter... ... and also too much for the input circuitry of the converter... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smoother Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 I'm at 67.2V which puts me at 5.6A less if you consider the alternator on most vehicles is set to put out 14.4 V which would put me at 4.66A with the engine running, which is the only way I'd do it. I'd have to check my owner's manual to see what the max output is. I think there's a 15A fuse on that circuit. Why 1A output? is that a standard output for these dc/dc converters? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chriull Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 16 minutes ago, Smoother said: Why 1A output? is that a standard output for these dc/dc converters? No - that was just for easy calculation. Normal charger output is ?1.4 to 2A?. Looking at the different discussions going up to 3-4A for big enough battery packs should be no problem. The cigarete lighter connector and the car fuse have to survive this charger output current time 67.2V /14.4V. (divided by the efficiency of something between .6 to .9?) The dc/dc converter ("charger") max output current is choosen by you - this determines the load current at the car connector and loading time. Be careful to get, read and understand the full specifications of the dc dc converter - max efficiency is not the important number, as mostly the converter will not run at this maximum efficiency! And max input current is very important. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockyTop Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 I would be interested in a car cigarette lighter version that could change at no less than 0.5 amps at 84v and would not drain the car battery if left pugged in. I could create this myself but would by one if available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Graehl Posted January 8, 2019 Author Share Posted January 8, 2019 Lots of questions. . Just off the car,, its super simple and an amazon purchase away-- 30 bucks for a regulated one.. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GFVI6R6/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 this will regulate the voltage .. You need to put it in a box of some type.. make it out of cardboard and put some vents for the air fan.. I'm going to source some tips and buy some bulk 10amp cigarette lighter tips and make you guys some for the 75 dollar out the door with shipping mark, with a proper enclosure . Below is the 4 amps, 20 volts in for usbc.. 84 volt step up.... and the multimeter is reading .75 amps @84 volts.. Efficiency is 87 watts in, 63 watts out =79% But a DC boost convertor has a bit more work to do if your pulling from a 12 volt source--- 13.8 when charging will be better with car running.. Ill hook it up to my power supply and run some tests.. I sourced a few smaller convertors from aliexpress and amazon.. testing them out right now... The usb-c was just a hard on I had to reduce the amount of brick power supplies I have laying around in the house For anyone who wants a lower voltage-- there are tiny options--- for bosch bikes/ skateboards.. a bunch of boosted board charging tips arrived for me to play with.. I need to go out and buy a boosted board battery to play around with. Kevingraehl@fb.com 415 341 2281 I you have any immediate questions.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chriull Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 3 hours ago, Kevin Graehl said: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GFVI6R6/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 this will regulate the voltage .. ... Below is the 4 amps, 20 volts in for usbc.. 84 volt step up.... and the multimeter is reading .75 amps @84 volts.. It also provides constant choosable max current output additionally to the choosable voltage? The technical description is a bit vague/badly translated on this. Would be very important for li ion charging. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esaj Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 1 hour ago, Chriull said: It also provides constant choosable max current output additionally to the choosable voltage? The technical description is a bit vague/badly translated on this. Would be very important for li ion charging. The description mentions it has "cc" (constant current) mode on couple of occasions: DC 8-60v to 10-120v 900W numerical control cc cv step up module can display output Voltage, current, power and capacity and other parameters; has out, cc, cv indicators But, 900W rating to load at least sounds pretty high for that, considering the size of the heatsink etc., I tried to calculate conservative values for load modules I was designing some while back, and using larger heatsinks than here, the end result was that I should dissipate less than 25W per module... but the use case is different (purposefully dissipating power in the power transistors, where the mosfets are the limiting factor) and using free air -values, the module shown here does have a separate cooling fan and (at least supposedly) is designed to minimize the power loss in the switch. Soo... it's not really even comparable And I'm just a hobbyist, it might very well be that the module designer knows better (or not, I don't really know) Then again, a lot of places I read about electronics design do critique a lot of the (usually) Chinese cheap products available online, due to way too high promised specs and sometimes due to safety hazards, sometimes pretty serious ones. Still, if the step-up module here is (supposedly) capable of driving loads with hundreds of watts, it might very well be able to charge packs at <100W power (that means you charge <100Wh per hour of charging). As for actually going up to all the way to 900W, I doubt it. Compare the size of this thing to big name brand computer ATX-power supplies: In about that size, how many big name PSUs will you find by known high quality manufacturers (there will be a number of "unknown/no-name" Chinese brands that will claim >1000W though ) that promise 900W or more of power output? The big names have reputations to uphold and won't skimp on component quality, but you can expect to pay at least a couple hundred of euros/dollars for the high power PSUs.... Still, it's not (again!) really comparable, as those PSUs have to first drop the AC mains voltage (something like 220/240/110/120 volts RMS AC depending where you live) and regulate it to 12V/5V/3.3V (there's also a -12V rail but it's for low currents) within the ATX-spec ripples (10% I think?)... I'm not even sure what I'm rambling about, in conclusion that thing is probably capable of stepping up the voltage of a car battery from around 12V to 84V for charging, plus has at least workable/decent quality current limitations, but stepping up the voltage about 7 times higher from the input is going to already hit the efficiency pretty bad, not to mention the at least dubious 900W rating... yeah, probably you can get up to 100W if not more charging power to your packs from this thing, but it might draw 1.5 to 2-times (150W-200W, numbers I pulled out of my ass, worse if you draw more current) from your car battery at the same time, and if you're charging something like an 840Wh or larger battery pack from pretty much empty, it's going to take basically 8.5 hours or more to charge it fully. Not to mention what I said about the car battery capacity, so you need to run your car at times or your car battery will go empty.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Graehl Posted January 12, 2019 Author Share Posted January 12, 2019 So next stage is making getting some alum boxes with built in heat sinks ordered and thermally conducting the boards to them.. 87 watts in from usb -c 20 volts... 75 watts makes it into battery. Ill lay some of the large caps down and maybe the inductor.. It fits in my pocket.. Thats all I wanted. I can make smaller ones that need less the 84 volts, DC cigarette lighter plug. With our without Volt heads up displays. I'm doing nothing special.. Its just been about ordering the right parts.. From alot of private messages, it seems like alot of you just want a car charger, Super easy . I'm not trying to make money off anything.. just looking to spread my obsession with killing the huge brick power supply from my backpack and have a portable charger i can fit in my pocket that will work anywhere.. I can make something half the size for a 54 volt charging bank such as the boosted board, or give you links to amazon 2 day shipping or aliexpress . Next project is to attempt to fit it all inside the EUC itself.. I'll definitely have to move some components around on the board and make a custom head sink for the high frequency chips that put off 15 watts of heat at full charge Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Graehl Posted February 17, 2019 Author Share Posted February 17, 2019 ok, put a usbc jack on.. hid the boost converter inside.. no bricks to carry around.. plug into any 15 to 20 volt usbc charger known to man.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbgti Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 Very good idea! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ir_fuel Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 On 1/1/2019 at 7:18 AM, Kevin Graehl said: Just a 4" cord to fit your specific electric last mile device And where do you get those? I have all kinds of different wheels here, and they all need their own specific charger. It would be great if I could replace it with 1 charger with multiple connector options. It's like going to the early cell phone days again where every brand had its own charger, completely incompatible with other brands of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Graehl Posted February 20, 2019 Author Share Posted February 20, 2019 also made this to someone who PM'd me this morning.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqlXFIQtSWo 20-90 volt cigarette lighter booster built.. Anyone else need one.. this is for a guy on the EUC forums. you could charge at the top of twin peaks can output 600 watts.. but cigarette lighter car fuse will pop well before then at 300 watts or so.. can put on aligator clips to go straight to battery terminals for more power... or adjust the output under 3 amps @ 84 volts , 6 amps @54 volts.. etc...Maybe your car has a 30 12 volts x 10 amps is 120 watts.. amp fuse 12 volts x 30 amps is 360 watts.. 84 volts x 4 amps = 336 watts.. that would be pushing it.. i wouldn't charge your EUC more then 3 amps.. 54 volts you could get some high amp rates. , not sure you would want to give a full 600 watts.. 600/54 volts .. thats charging at 11 amps.. THis thing will get hot.. It has a fan.. but can you cells even deal with that.. I can make one wayyyyy smaller if you want under 60 volts DC max.. The 80 plus DC volt range is a pain and requires larger components. under 60 volts will be almost a 1/4 of this size.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Graehl Posted February 20, 2019 Author Share Posted February 20, 2019 16 hours ago, ir_fuel said: And where do you get those? I have all kinds of different wheels here, and they all need their own specific charger. It would be great if I could replace it with 1 charger with multiple connector options. It's like going to the early cell phone days again where every brand had its own charger, completely incompatible with other brands of course. they are sourced.. you need to solder them.. some manufactures use aviation connectors, XLR's 5.5mm plugs, deans, model airplane hobby connectors, sermos-, xt-60 , xt-30, .. Automotoive ,, JST, you name it. there is no standard, some are pitched differently on pin width.. 415 341 2281.. text me a pic of what you have and ill tell you where you can buy.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ir_fuel Posted February 20, 2019 Share Posted February 20, 2019 The weirdest for me is the Z10 connector. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Graehl Posted February 20, 2019 Author Share Posted February 20, 2019 Ok.. its not small.. but works.. Got a fan built in. DC 12 volts to 84 for EUC Mailing out to RockyTop here on the forums.. I'm still working (perhaps with a parther) on getting a full blown board built that has both USB-C 15/20 volt 100 watt input, and a car charger. Eventually with a bluetooth Module Add on This is all off the shelf components.. i just extended the display.. and put in a 10 dollar Plastic enclosure and put a Car cigarette lighter plug.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockyTop Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 9 hours ago, Kevin Graehl said: Mailing out to RockyTop here on the forums.. This is looking pretty handy. As some know I practicality live out of my van. I normally have to carry my wheel up two flights of stairs twice a week to charge it. I live on the side of a hill. (it would Qualify as a mountain in some states) It will be nice to be able to leave it in the van and charge it. I know that I could have used my factory charger plugged into an inverter, plugged into a cigarette lighter but that just seems wrong! ( DC-AC-DC ) And it would not be all that cool. I think this charger will give me options and versatility. For example, If I had just bought a new Z10 and it came with a bad charger and it would take weeks to get a new one and I just desperately wanted to ride my new wheel .... I could have just cut the cord off the bad charger and adapted it to this charger, set the voltage and amperage and I am changing. ( But I guess that would never happen........ again.) Options might be a key sale point on this charger. Have a common plug then buy separate ends dedicated for the different wheels. ( GW 67v, GW 84v, KS 67v, KS18XL, etc.... ) I had a list once. I remember two wheels used the same plug with different pin out. Was it the Rock wheel GT16 and KS16? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockyTop Posted February 24, 2019 Share Posted February 24, 2019 I got the charger and I love it! This will come in very handy. This is my scope of use. I use my wheel at work and keep it in the van. I kinda use it as last mile transportation. Picture a giant fair ground. I need to get to the middle of the event to deliver a small package without special parking privilege. I park where I can, late to the party and ride in on my wheel deliver the package and return to my vehicle. 4 to 12 Locations each day. (This is a simple analogy.) With this charger I can place the wheel back in it's stand, plug it in and hit OK. The wheel will charge back to my set 80% while in transit to the next job. I have it plugged into an ignition outlet so that when I turn the vehicle off it stops charging. The charger that I got is a 600 watt max output with a 10 amp max input. What does this mean? I am using it in my car threw the cigarette lighter. the car is 12 volts. When running the car is 13.75 volts. 10 amps at 13.75 volts is 137.5 watts. At 84 volts this would be 1.63 amps. subtract loss and we are looking at about 1.4 amp of charging at 84 volts. If the car put out higher volts you could charge at higher amps. If the car voltage was 60 volts at 10 amps then we would get 600 watts. ( 6 .4 amps at 84 volts) Function: When you plug the charger in it defaults to 20 volts 1.2 amps. You first adjust the volts hit ok then adjust the amps. then hit ok. At that point it starts to charge. If the power goes out or the device is unplugged it stops and resets. You then have to set the volts and amps again and hit ok. You can save your settings so that you do not have to do the above every time. after saving your settings you can plug the device in. It will show you your preset voltage. hit OK. It will show you the preset amps. hit OK and you are charging. You have up to 10 charging presets that you set yourself. You can set this charger to a voltage less than your wheel voltage for 80% charging to save your battery life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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