Popular Post Jason McNeil Posted November 15, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted November 15, 2023 This is pretty cool... For over a year I've been lobbying that Begode sources an inverter that can be used with the charge-port for providing ouput AC power from the Wheel's vast energy reserves. In this early demo, they've got the inverter connected to another charger, for cross-charging one Wheel to another. Some of the details have yet to fleshed out, like the power rating of the inverter, cost, protection features, & shipping dates. 5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomallo Posted November 15, 2023 Share Posted November 15, 2023 Oh, that's super cool, power outages are annoying and that would be helpful for sure Why Begode in particular? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Jason McNeil Posted November 15, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted November 15, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, Tomallo said: Why Begode in particular? The relative simplicity/primitiveness of the chargeport-to-battery interface makes this more practical on the Begodes than on other branded Wheels. They're also open to try new ideas more willingly Edited November 15, 2023 by Jason McNeil 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elliott Reitz Posted November 15, 2023 Share Posted November 15, 2023 9 hours ago, Jason McNeil said: This is pretty cool... For over a year I've been lobbying that Begode sources an inverter that can be used with the charge-port for providing ouput AC power from the Wheel's vast energy reserves. In this early demo, they've got the inverter connected to another charger, for cross-charging one Wheel to another. Some of the details have yet to fleshed out, like the power rating of the inverter, cost, protection features, & shipping dates. If adding an inverter they should also mount the charger on the wheel. I might actually use that. AC cord reels to plug in too. As for the DC-x converter, 12Vdc and 5Vdc/USB would be nice too. eg usage: I have an 8xAA bat-pack for my motorcycle horn on the Master. In this video, my bat-pack is under the headlight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chriull Posted November 15, 2023 Share Posted November 15, 2023 Split the DIY part to 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xiiijojjo Posted November 15, 2023 Share Posted November 15, 2023 (edited) This is great to see! I've been talking about this on the forum for years now. A wheel with a large battery pack and a built-in inverter for 230vac and a mppt solar charger would be amazing for camping or nomadic life. That way you don't have to carry around a power station in your limited backpack space and with CIGS solar panels that are low weight, great endurance and can be rolled up into a tube, you would generate enough power for travel and comforts. Edited November 15, 2023 by xiiijojjo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atdlzpae Posted November 16, 2023 Share Posted November 16, 2023 9 hours ago, xiiijojjo said: A wheel with a large battery pack and a built-in inverter for 230vac and a mppt solar charger would be amazing for camping or nomadic life. It would be quite terrible actually. Flexible solar panels are like 10% efficient. So with 1000W of sun per square meter, you get around 100W. So to charge a 2kWh wheel in like 10 hours (one full day, from dawn till dusk) in summer you'll need 2 sq. meters of solar panels to deploy. So yes, it's viable if you're nocturnal. If you're not, then going from home to home saying "I'd like to charge a wheel, I'll pay you $10" is way more viable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arbolest Posted November 16, 2023 Share Posted November 16, 2023 On 11/15/2023 at 3:59 AM, Jason McNeil said: This is pretty cool... For over a year I've been lobbying that Begode sources an inverter that can be used with the charge-port for providing ouput AC power from the Wheel's vast energy reserves. In this early demo, they've got the inverter connected to another charger, for cross-charging one Wheel to another. Some of the details have yet to fleshed out, like the power rating of the inverter, cost, protection features, & shipping dates. This is awesome! If the inverter ends up having a wide enough input range then it could even be used with people's older generation wheels! I've been holding on to a bunch of my old 84v wheels for nostalgia's sake, and I would love to be able to find a use for them since they never get ridden any more. With one of these I'd be able to use them like emergency generators for vital appliances (refrigerator/freezer, lamps/lighting) in a power outage! The possibilities would be huge for the DIY crowd as well considering how easy it would be to make a a super-low-effort "mobile power station" just by putting all of their old compatible battery packs (same voltage, of course ) in a box or tub and wiring them all up to one or more of the inverters. Toss that bad boy in your vehicle along with your wheel and gear, and the possibilities are endless! Long solo adventures would be WAY more feasible and enjoyable if you could camp for multiple days at a time in the middle of nowhere, charging while you sleep and then riding off in a different direction each day! Heck, if you're crazy/desperate enough, you could even strategically drop one of these things somewhere secluded along the route of a small group ride... That would open up some truly eye-opening routes that otherwise wouldn't be possible due to lack of available charging. Oh man... I want iiiitttttt!!! 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason McNeil Posted November 22, 2023 Author Share Posted November 22, 2023 Along similar lines, Hou has a new 151V/10A charger for the Lynx that also supports DC input. This ought to allow for more efficient ~90% cross-Wheel charging across the 134V BGs inputs to Lynx & potentially other voltage outputs. Here's a video of the charger in action, obviously there will be more finished connectors in the shipped product.... 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason McNeil Posted November 24, 2023 Author Share Posted November 24, 2023 Some more details on this project: using the inverter is going to require a different charge-port. The price is expected to be around $174 for inverter, wire & the charge-port combo. https://www.ewheels.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/BG-Inverter-Project-Spec-Sheet.pdf 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WheelGoodTime Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 (edited) Putting this inverter to the test with the master pro! I'll be running it through the gamut very shortly with a variety of appliances and also do some efficiency & longevity testing. Thua far it works without complaint while powering a 1000w space heater, and charging my Extreme with the stock 5a charger. This appears to be a modified sine wave inverter, so it's not advised for fridges/microwaves. As it turns out. It's not usable with my 8a adjustable fast charger either - even while set at 2a, it started giving me alarms on the inverter and the charger had in the region of 10a on the screen. Weird. Anyway, it's pretty awesome and I can see a ton of potential uses for this, especially for EX30's and Master Pro users. Edited January 7 by WheelGoodTime 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RagingGrandpa Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 12 hours ago, WheelGoodTime said: I'll do some efficiency & longevity testing. Nice! Please check how low of a battery voltage it will discharge your EUC to, before shutting itself off. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WheelGoodTime Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 (edited) 5 hours ago, RagingGrandpa said: Nice! Please check how low of a battery voltage it will discharge your EUC to, before shutting itself off. In the spirit of preventing major damage to my batteries (I'm not sure exactly what the total cutoff voltage is and didn't want to deep discharge), I ended the test at 104-106 volts. the inverter was reading 104v left on my Master Pro, and my MP's screen was showing 105.9V on EUC world. As the battery got lower and lower, the output AC voltgae was dropping as well, and got down to about 103V AC before I decided to call it quits. The space heater survived 3 hours and 50 minutes from full Also, around the end of the test, the space heater also was pumping out noticeably less heat as well. Considering how fast a space heater will sap your wheel of power, I don't recommend using it for that purpose since it's not going to last you all day/night. For heating purposes, a heated blanket or a diesel heater would be a much more power-efficient option in combination with this inverter. However, it's perfect for powering a diesel heater for up to a week or so, recharging your laptop dozens of times, your phone hundreds of times, power a heated blanket for multiple nights, charge a onewheel up to 10 times - or a friend's EUC, if they run out of battery. Edited January 7 by WheelGoodTime Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RagingGrandpa Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 Hopefully it turns off completely at 90V... that's 2.8V/cell, still a very normal level for Li-Ion. (But if it keeps going below 80V, that's concerning.) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WheelGoodTime Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 23 minutes ago, RagingGrandpa said: Hopefully it turns off completely at 90V... that's 2.8V/cell, still a very normal level for Li-Ion. (But if it keeps going below 80V, that's concerning.) Even if it was still alive at those battery voltages, the output AC voltage was going down alongside the battery voltage. I presume that's why the space heater was also not generating as much heat as it was when the battery was full-ish. I am not an electrical engineer so take what I say with a grain of salt, but it seems like a bad idea to let the outputted AC power get down to 100v or below when it's rated for 110-120VAC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RagingGrandpa Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 Sure. But the point is: if you accidentally leave this inverter connected, we want to be sure it shuts itself off before the battery gets too low. Let's find out! It's safe if you're monitoring it and stop it manually before 80V. You don't need to use a 1kW load either... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WheelGoodTime Posted January 7 Share Posted January 7 (edited) 9 minutes ago, RagingGrandpa said: Sure. But the point is: if you accidentally leave this inverter connected, we want to be sure it shuts itself off before the battery gets too low. Let's find out! It's safe if you're monitoring it and stop it manually before 80V. You don't need to use a 1kW load either... I'll gladly do it if I have a "wheel (or parts) replacement guarantee" if something went horribly wrong. But until then, I want to stay within the confines of my comfort zone - It's less the DC voltage that I'm worried about at this point, but rather the fact that it's outputting less and less AC power as the battery state also goes down. What started out at 110v AC went down to 102v AC when the battery was low, which is definitely nearing the brownout zone. So really it's less of a matter of safety to my wheel/batteries, and more a matter of "can it provide power adequately to the device I'm plugging in?" Edited January 7 by WheelGoodTime Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xiiijojjo Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 They really need to make an inverter/EUC charger combo, with an mppt solar charger for inputting solar into the EUC. In other words they need to make a powerstation with an mppt solar charger but WITHOUT the battery. Then you simply connect it to the EUC to temporarily turn the EUC into the battery for the powerstation. This way they could also justify never including any USB charge ports on future wheels to save money/simplify. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RagingGrandpa Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 25 minutes ago, xiiijojjo said: mppt solar charger for inputting solar into the EUC Please see https://forum.electricunicycle.org/tags/solar charging/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WheelGoodTime Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 This was fun to make 😊 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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