The first smart comment. The way the video describes charging for the last four hours of sunlight you would only get maybe 1/4 battery charge before the Sun was gone. Riding for hours with a spare battery charging makes perfect sense to me. Every time I see, seemingly, smart people talk about solar charging in a few hours or an entire summer day I laugh. Sure, if you only need a partial charge. I would rather wear a backpack with a spare battery and dump the trailer, solar panel and charge controller.

ya sometimes my batter just shorts out, just dead, plug it in again for 1 second and it reads fully charged. not sure if thats normal but good to have spare fully charged.

@@markrothenberg9867 always carry a spare battery...solar or not !!!

Right and maybe just bring a smaller battery so you aren’t carrying weight that will never get charged

Sure Rockefeller, the battery is the price of a new bike :D

Hi, Interesting. Can you give us information of the setup that you have Thank you.

The Genasun controllers look very nice and well built, we plan to use one for the completed trailer setup. Do you find any problems with wind pushing you around when using 300W of panels on the trailer?

@@Optibike The 300 W are mounted on the cargo tricycle , function as roof, Wind is no issue here. Only in Hurricane Season , then it stays stored when heavy storm and rain falls. You wil stick in the mud those days 😎. All parts are welded ,heavy sturdy construction empty weight of the tycycle 89 kilogram. You can load 150 kilogram plus driver. Used in Flowerfarm daily

@@mitelecasa748 Sounds like a fun setup!

@@mitelecasa748 what type of connector are you using to charge the battery from the controller? Do you just go from the accessory port with bare wires to xt90 or something ? Is there a Genasun 52v version. I only see one with 48v boost.

Amazing! How can I learn about this setup for an ebike? Any recommendations?

We thought so too! The panel size works out great with that trailer.

link please

Have you tried it yet .?

There's a waterproof one that's common place - search elejoy step up or step down charge controller 👍

Imagine if it would have a sun tracker

That's our plan for a future build, use the panel as the 'roof' so it can be used while riding, and also keep the rain away from the stuff in the trailer.

A chic did that a few years ago and rode across the country

Can you charge and use a battery at the same time?

@@moles100e You should be able to, yes, by connecting connecting the charge controller to the battery leaving the bike electronics also connected to the battery. Some charge controllers have a 'load' connection in addition to the battery and solar connectors, but you should be able to do without that since the bike electronics should stop draining the battery if its voltage gets too low. I believe that's the point of the 'load' connection, it will stop draining the battery when it gets too low. Short answer - Yes.

Wow, cool stuff. thanks

@@kirkjohnson9353 I love living my life. Still looking for an awesome woman to share it with but the one that struck me is into her craft and another is into shielding her children from a nefarious murderer/biological father and a third...

Most ebikes and scooters don't allow charging and running at the same time unfortunately. The internal safety fuses limit the power handling capability.

The cables can be the confusing part, that's for sure. We made our cable since we already had the connector stocked here for building the bikes, but for other e-bikes you can usually find out what the model number of the connector is and buy one yourself. Alternatively, if you have an old charger that no longer works you could cut that cable off and use it. Matching polarity is the most important thing, and a multimeter is very useful to have on hand for that!

Sales of farm machines

@@williamjoseph6224 Furry watt discharge papers from I lost your hula hoop from ground organ grinder burgers

With that big a panel you could rig your bike with a charge plug for your phone

hope it's coming along .😷👍

Hey Dwayne, it's definitely a tough one if your ebike manufacturer doesn't supply connectors for the battery. One option is using a power bank with a built in inverter, like a Jackery unit, and just using your normal chargers for the bike. Not quite as efficient but no custom cables needed.

I really want to do the Leon to Canton bike ride. Then drop down to Thailand. Some amazing footage and stories on the toob on this.

Yep! It's a boost MPPT controller, they are a bit harder to find than the typical MPPT controller that needs a higher panel voltage compared to battery voltage.

Good questions! For the difference in voltage between the panel and your battery, that's something that the charge controller handles. But you do need the correct type of charge controller. The one we used in the video (the link is in the description if you haven't seen that already), is what's known as a 'Boost mode' MPPT controller. What this means is it boosts the voltage up from the solar panel to the battery. And MPPT means the controller constantly makes small adjustments to get the maximum amount of power possible from your solar panel (MPPT = Maximum power point tracking). The other types are 'Buck mode' MPPT controllers, where the solar panel voltage is higher than the battery voltage. And the cheaper PWM controllers, where the panel voltage needs to closely match the battery voltage. So with the charge controller that we used, you just need to program it for your battery voltage, and it will boost the 20V from the panel up to what's needed to charge the battery. They're quite efficient too, so very little power gets lost. If you have a 48V Li-ion battery pack, the charge voltage is 54.6V for a 100% charge. But you can also use a lower voltage which will extend the lifespan significantly; 53.3V would be a 90% charge, and 52V would be a 80% charge.

@@Optibike Thank you for this information which is more important than the whole video.

I agree good idea

wear it over your head..... nice shade...

Most solar panels do not put out any power if they are partially shaded.

Sure you do mr furries. More fantasy.

@@kishascapewhy the doubt?

It can be tough to figure out what connector some ebikes use, best bet is to search on google and see if anyone else has identified it. The other option is to modify an existing charger with another connector in-line, so you can re-use the connector on that with your own setup.

A wind turbine would definitely work! The downside is around us the wind is quite unreliable compared to the sun.

@@Optibike interesting

Hi! The kind of setup we have in the video should work well for any typical E-Bike battery, you just need to find the appropriate connector to be able to plug the charge controller into your battery. Since the charge controller in the video (there's a link in the description to it as well) is programmable you can adjust it to suit most batteries easily.

I hear you the same from bangor lol

As far as i have seen it doesn't work , He said as much during the video. I live in the sunshine state and it doesn't work here either.

There are folding solar panels. I think they may be heavier and more expensive but they are definitely available.

Hi, for our ebikes we can make you any custom cable you need. For other brands, usually you can buy the connector somewhere online and make your own cable, or someone may make a connector + cable as a package in some cases.

That's a good question! There are solar panels that are made in multiple sections, and fold up flat into something like a briefcase size, so it's definitely possible to do that!

Hey Rob, it's a pretty impressive amount of power from the size! we got around 150W in real use, at the time of filming it was late fall as well. Voc on this one is 23.9V and Isc is 9.5A, and Vmp is 19.5V with an Imp of 9A. They claim a 21% efficiency. Compared to the sunpower panels I imagine this flexible panel is just larger, as it's not at the same efficiency rating as sunpowers newer tech. The panel in the video is 59" x 27" size and around 6 lbs. We've been looking at the Genasun MPPT controllers, they look really well made! Sounds like you have a solid setup going with everything you need on the way!

Yes! You always need a charge controller as it prevents overcharging.

13W would be a good size for charging your phone or other small devices, but you'll want a much larger panel to charge an ebike! The average ebike has between 500-1000Wh of energy in the battery, so a 100W panel would take 5-10 hours as a rough estimate. But it does depend on how quickly you want it to charge, if you're OK waiting 2-4 days then a smaller 50W panel or something like that would work fine too.

It could be done, however it wouldn't provide any benefit as you're effectively just using the energy from the battery and pedaling to spin the alternator, and it would reduce your range and speed, as well as increase the weight of the bike.

Perpetual motion, man!

Awesome, thank you!

We have a 52V battery in this bike, finding the right connectors for your specific ebike can take some research, as most brands will use a unique connector type. For the wiring at this power 14AWG size is totally fine.

It depends on the design of the battery in the bike, but most ebikes including ours should have no trouble with charging and riding at the same time!

Yes that could certainly work.

@@Optibike if you're charging with a generator while you're riding the bike would you need any special equipment other than the battery charger appreciate your input I'm thinking about doing a rig to take me across country

Yes it does! you can adjust it to any voltage you like within the range it supports.

Probably not. I tried 2 of them, it was barely ok with my 36volt battery but to make it work I had to put 300watts of solar panels. It wasnt good at all with my 48volts battery, guess it will only get worse for a 52volts battery.

My first generation that I still keep in the original box, still works after 35 years.

@@stephenverchinski409 Pretty good testimony. Thanks

they suck and fail often, several youtube videos on failed flex panels.

@@rollandelliott Supposedly the new generation. Is better Anything from 35 years ago would be a totally different thing. There are also the type that you fold to open. Not sure what the biggest size is for that tech.

@@rollandelliott like anything, always check the manufacturer, product design and warranty.

Good question! Batteries are DC, and normally you have a charger you plug into the wall that converts AC to DC. But in this case since the MPPT output is DC it can be directly connected to the battery. Our batteries are designed by us so we can easily make a connector for this setup. If you have another battery like a bosch then it will have different connectors to use for charging.

Hi Doug, what would you like to know? We plan on making a more detailed setup video at some point, but I'm happy to answer any questions about setup!

@@Optibike with the same charge controller, could you charge the battery while you're riding it if you had the solar panel mounted?

Yes! You could absolutely use it that way as well