Charge Levo with 600w sine wave inverter?

[Tori]

Hey guys - I'm heading to a few bike park areas over the next few months and might be camping. I have a quality 600 watt sine wave inverter in my vehicle, and am assuming it would be fine for charging up my Levo.

Has anyone here charged their bikes with an inverter, and am wondering if you have any thoughts?

 

[levity]

Does your van battery have enough capacity, or will you run it down?

Does your inverter put out a pure sine wave? If not, the Specialized charger may only work intermittently.

The small inverter in our camper van does not put out a pure sign wave. For this reason we use a Goal Zero Yeti 1500 W power supply to charge our bikes. It stores enough juice to fully recharge three Levo batteries and will charge two at a time (requires ~4h for full recharge). We recharge the Yeti from the small van inverter. The van has a 1900W Li battery and itself gets recharged by two 190W solar panels.

Here's a pic from a recent camping trip:

 

[Tori]

Yep, it's a 500W Pure Sine Wave. Not sure on the capacity of the battery in my 4x4 . . . perhaps going to a dual-battery system would be the way forward. The Yeti you have looks great!

 

[cheekynuke]

Does your van battery have enough capacity, or will you run it down?

Does your inverter put out a pure sine wave? If not, the Specialized charger may only work intermittently.

The small inverter in our camper van does not put out a pure sign wave. For this reason we use a Goal Zero Yeti 1500 W power supply to charge our bikes. It stores enough juice to fully recharge three Levo batteries and will charge two at a time (requires ~4h for full recharge). We recharge the Yeti from the small van inverter. The van has a 1900W Li battery and itself gets recharged by two 190W solar panels.

Here's a pic from a recent camping trip:

View attachment 919

What a great idea. I'm thinking of getting the Levo and wondered how i could charge the batteries if out camping. this could well provide the solution i was looking for.

Although having just Googled the price of it here in the UK perhaps not lol. It would be cheaper to buy a few spare batteries or almost a second bike.

 

[Doomanic]

£2.5k...

 

[junglie69]

Hi for all who need to charge batteries whilst away from base my bike came with this additional item. Mine is the BMW version of the levo however I’m not sure if the charger couldn’t be purchased separately. I guess it would be from BMW and probably not cheap but not 2.5k ! I presume that’s a serial number in the second photo, hope this helps someone.

 

[levity]

£2.5k...

YIKES! Guess heavy those Li ion batteries are costly to ship across the pond.

Goal Zero had the Yeti on sale this winter, so we picked on up at REI for US$1200. Less than the cost of two spare batteries.
It's proved very handy since much of our riding involves traveling and camping off-grid.

See for example: E-biking off-grid in the SoCal desert- Mtbr.com

 

[Kernow]

Would a small generator charge batteries ? Iam looking for a solution for camping holidays , charging from the van battery via an inverter seems ok provided I run the van daily enough to charge the battery , or fit a leisure battery , no idea what inverter I need to buy , but I wonder if a generator would be simpler and cheaper

 

[Gary]

Running a geni for 5 hours just to charge a bicycle battery sounds a bit OTT to me. I'd probably just ask in the nearest pub and leave with a nicely charged battery 5 hours later... hic

 

[Tori]

Hi for all who need to charge batteries whilst away from base my bike came with this additional item. Mine is the BMW version of the levo however I’m not sure if the charger couldn’t be purchased separately. I guess it would be from BMW and probably not cheap but not 2.5k ! I presume that’s a serial number in the second photo, hope this helps someone.

View attachment 924 View attachment 925

Fantastic information, thanks heaps. This looks like the best way; as I won't have to convert from DC to AC and then to DC, it'll be much more efficient to charge from this kind of 12v cigarette lighter adapter. Now, to see if I can source one of these.

 

[Tori]

I searched the part number on the back of the charger image and came up with this : Modiary 12V Kfz Ladegerät für TranzX, Winora 36V Li-Ion Akkus 2A Ausgang 4250615508217 | eBay

This looks like it supplies the correct current : 42V / 2A etc for a 36V Li-Ion pack (which is what the Levo uses).

My only thought is - will the plug fit? Looks like a 5-pin charge socket. I don't have my Levo until next week - what do you guys think?

 

[junglie69]

Hi Tori, yes it’s designed as a Levo charger. Sorry my photos don’t show it very well but there is a Rosenberger RoPD plug at one end of the separate lead the other end of which plugs into the charger itself.

 

[junglie69]

Hi Tori I’ve just seen the link in your post and that looks like a different plug you need a Rosenberger RoPD plug on one end.

 

[Taffyteg]

I have charged my Levo whilst driving inbetween trail centers using a handy mains - 12V to 240V adaptor. Alternatively if out camping with no hook up, a leisure battery coupled to a solar panel seems like a good idea.

 

[Tucker]

I have charged my Levo whilst driving inbetween trail centers using a handy mains - 12V to 240V adaptor. Alternatively if out camping with no hook up, a leisure battery coupled to a solar panel seems like a good idea.

hey dude, i am keen on this idea, do you think could i take the bike back to the car smash in some dinner for an hour or so and plug bike in and just leave the car running? or do i need to drive the car so it doesn't tax the car battery too much?

 

[m1bjr]

Did you guys get anywhere with the BMW charger?
The charger is available online in Germany from ENERprof.de for about £40 shipped.
But it has some connector options but none is a Rosenberger RoPD (magnetic). The BIG question is the data connections and aux power poles (two pairs) and what are they doing? Are they required, etc. Perhaps the output of this charger is capable of more.... but impossible to see if it is using the CANbus connections to the Spesh battery or not and it's not a cheap experiment!
Anyone?

 

[Highflyer]

Hey guys - I'm heading to a few bike park areas over the next few months and might be camping. I have a quality 600 watt sine wave inverter in my vehicle, and am assuming it would be fine for charging up my Levo.

Has anyone here charged their bikes with an inverter, and am wondering if you have any thoughts?

I charge all my 500wh and 700wh batteries in my camper van with a 3000w inverter connected to the Specialized charger with a 140aAh leisure battery as the source. It charges either via solar or whilst the van engine is running. Never an issue and mine is modified sine wave.

 

[Barryjm]

Just a thought and I have not researched this yet... but what you are doing is taking a dc car battery using an inverter to convert to ac, then plugging in the Specialized ac plug and power adaptor that converts back to dc for the bike battery. What we need is a straight through dc to dc charger to remove the inverter inefficiencies. Basically as you do when you charge a phone through the cigarette lighter socket. Probably doesn’t exist or there is some technical reason it can’t be done.

 

[njn]

The BMW charger is DC to DC. Looks like the best option.

One should have an accurate voltage meter for the car as idling might be required to prevent draining the car battery completely.

 

[m1bjr]

Just a thought and I have not researched this yet... but what you are doing is taking a dc car battery using an inverter to convert to ac, then plugging in the Specialized ac plug and power adaptor that converts back to dc for the bike battery. What we need is a straight through dc to dc charger to remove the inverter inefficiencies. Basically as you do when you charge a phone through the cigarette lighter socket. Probably doesn’t exist or there is some technical reason it can’t be done.

Read my post #16 above
And yes you are correct. A DC/DC converter is perhaps ~85% efficient.
But there doesn't seem to be any commercially packaged with a 4A output at the required voltage. Plenty of ebike/golf cart/disability device chargers out there, but all 2A.
Makes for a slow charge but perfectly okay for a top-up whilst travelling or an overnight.
A regular car battery in a diesel van should manage one full cycle with ease, probably more.