Why aren't Emtb car chargers a thing?

[Gary]

Is there a reason none of the big manufacturers seems to have a car charger for their emtb batteries?

too much of a car fire risk on the roads around the Surrey hills and BPW?

seriously though.
Why aren't they an easily available product?

 

[TheBikePilot]

I think you need a serious inverter and the current through the cigarette lighter isn’t right.

You can do it but you have to plug into the battery direct and use a thingy to stop it draining your battery too much.

By the time I’m done, it’s home time as the 700wh is good enough for me.

I’ve bought a decent generator for my Caravan tho to charge the bike and leisure battery ??

 

[ChrisB NZ]

Yes all those things. A fast charger will draw way too much current for the standard cigarette lighter ports (or whatever they call them now) which are usually rated for around 10A. And you'd need a good car battery to stand up to the high current drain if you used another connection method to the car battery. But there could be a case for a slower charger to top up the battery or charge it say overnight. You'd still need to be careful not to drain the car battery though.

I've charged my battery using a 12V-230V inverter running off a big 12V caravan battery and the standard 230V charger (admittedly not the most efficient way) but it pushes the limits of the battery.

 

[Pdoz]

You ebike battery has more useable energy than the cars battery, so if you left the bike charging it might be difficult to start the car!

I have a dual battery set up in my 4x4 with a deep cycle second battery, the ( expensive) system is supposed to preferentially charge the starter battery , yet even this doesn't work seamlessly. A few months back I had recharged the ebike directly from the deep cycle, and had several short drives. By the 4 th short drive the starting battery struggled - presumably due to the dump into the flat deep cycle?

 

[HikerDave]

I think you need a serious inverter and the current through the cigarette lighter isn’t right.

You can do it but you have to plug into the battery direct and use a thingy to stop it draining your battery too much.

By the time I’m done, it’s home time as the 700wh is good enough for me.

I’ve bought a decent generator for my Caravan tho to charge the bike and leisure battery ??

When the time comes that I need a remote charge I’ll use the same Honda Generator I use to charge the batteries in my tiny camp trailer when off the grid. You don’t need an expensive generator; the smallest inverted generators at 1000 watts are more than enough.

 

[ChrisB NZ]

Well the deep cycle battery technically has more power available than the Li Ion (12V at say 120Ah = 1440 Wh vs say 500 Wh for the bike battery). But then you run into issues around deep discharge of a lead acid battery which will kill it eventually. So not easy. Maybe there is a case for slow charging the bike battery while you are driving somewhere.

 

[ChrisB NZ]

When the time comes that I need a remote charge I’ll use the same Honda Generator I use to charge the batteries in my tiny camp trailer when off the grid. You don’t need an expensive generator; the smallest inverted generators at 1000 watts are more than enough.

Sounds like a good plan. I have an off-grid caravan with a solar panel and battery setup. The solar panel helps keep the battery charged up and it helps the 12V battery keep up with the bike battery charging on a sunny day. But it's more of a one-off thing.

 

[Mad Mark]

I think you need a serious inverter and the current through the cigarette lighter isn’t right.

You can do it but you have to plug into the battery direct and use a thingy to stop it draining your battery too much.

By the time I’m done, it’s home time as the 700wh is good enough for me.

I’ve bought a decent generator for my Caravan tho to charge the bike and leisure battery ??

I was with you right up until the "thingy" bit then you just got a bit too technical for me BP ?

 

[Telemarker]

I have a ctek dc-dc charger in my Hilux to charge a second 195ah leisure battery to power fridges, lights, chargers when camping and also a 500w pure-sine inverter
I have used the inverter to charge ebike a couple time so for 1/2 an hour at lunch breaks and it has drained a lot of the leisure battery
So the charger must use a lot of power, from a 12v battery via inverter

Starter battery ok because the ctek isolates it when engine off

 

[TheBikePilot]

That’s what I heard it sucks the life out of your car battery or a leisure battery so in terms of a viable charging option it doesn’t really seem one. I don’t know if the alternator could put the charge back in quick enough?

I know the charger draws about 230w so you need a beefy inverter with a decent sin wave and risk draining your battery quite rapidly which isn’t good for a lead acid battery.

We had an old Honda genny but it was a very dirty AC current. The new one I have is amazing, but comes at around an £1100 price tag..!!

I’ve seen it done wiring directly onto the car battery but it looks ghetto and you’d have to sit next to the car whilst it charged for however many hours.

Doing the coast to coast on Sunday and we’ve found a cafe halfway that are happy for us to spray charge our batteries whilst we refuel ourselves

 

[ChrisB NZ]

Yeah it's something you do with care! But I still reckon there's a use for a slower 12V charger which draws less current. I can see this being useful in my solar situation or maybe on the drive to the bike park.

 

[TheBikePilot]

I have tried that but I think the issue, and I may be wrong, is that the power adapter expects a certain input wattage and Ampere and outputs to the Battery at a set rate. Slow charging would require a separate charger which would be manafacturer specific or aftermarket for each battery.

This was of course possible in the RC world with battery conditioners etc but as for eBikes I don't think this has happened yet but I am sure that will come with time as everyone is playing catch up here and there isn't a standard battery or connector meaning every product developed would be highly specialised with a limited market..

I'm sure our friends in China will come up with something thats for sure as a 12V outlet is universal..!

 

[MarkH]

BMW make a car lighter charger for the Levo and Bosch have one as well. However both limit the current to what the lighter socket can provide so take twice as long to charge the bike.
I use the standard Levo charger via a 1000w sine wave inverter linked to my dual batteries but only charge when on the move.

 

[Gary]

Just for ref.
i meant a charger for charging the battery WHILE DRIVING the car.

and like the BMW one that plugs into the cigarette lighter socket.

for long journeys I can't see an issue with it taking longer to charge.
Sat around camping/etc. wouldn't just statring the car for 5-10 minutes every hoiur or so would protect the car battery from deep discharging?

 

[Brendog78]

I have been in to RC for a long time, in our world charging at a rate less than 1c (1hr to fully charge pack) is considered slow charging. Battery tech can allow you to charge at up to 12c on some packs so around 5minutes. There are DC/DC chargers that can put out 2 x 1344w(up to 60v with 24v input) to be able to achieve this. With an adaptor these chargers are more than capable to charge the type of cells in our bikes. The only thing stopping us from charging faster would be the BMS. But I'm sure someone could easily bypass that if need be. Will be interesting to see how emtb progresses, on the upside the painfully slow charge rate emtb currently have ensures maximum life from the cells and doesn't require a huge power supply to run.

 

[Dax]

Using a DC to DC charger rather than an invertor and regular charge would be a lot more efficient. Cigarette lighters are between 120 and 140w depending on wether the vehicle is running, it's going to be slower to charge but not impossibly so, and I'd be perfectly happy with that for road tripping.

Maybe they are trying to protect against the trail center hero's plugging it in while they are having lunch, and then finding their car won't start at the end of the day?

 

[HikerDave]

Just for ref.
i meant a charger for charging the battery WHILE DRIVING the car.

and like the BMW one that plugs into the cigarette lighter socket.

for long journeys I can't see an issue with it taking longer to charge.
Sat around camping/etc. wouldn't just statring the car for 5-10 minutes every hoiur or so would protect the car battery from deep discharging?

No problem while driving if you add an inverter to your car your alternator puts out more than 500 watts but much less while idling. Probably the best setup would be to add a second car battery and an inverter; when I worked on two-way radios back on the late seventies the service vans were set up like that but we still had to start up the van once in a while.

A new single large car battery should be big enough for one charge but car manufacturers are using smaller batteries these days. If your vehicle has a really big battery and you carry jumper cables just an inverter should work.

I might add an inverter to my camper for this purpose; running my 2000 watt generator for three hours just to charge an eBike does seem a bit much.

 

[ChrisB NZ]

BMW make a car lighter charger for the Levo and Bosch have one as well. However both limit the current to what the lighter socket can provide so take twice as long to charge the bike.
I use the standard Levo charger via a 1000w sine wave inverter linked to my dual batteries but only charge when on the move.

The lower power/slower charger would be useful in some situations. So it would be very nice if Shimano and Specialized made something similar.

 

[Troutwrestler]

The BMW one works on Specialized (and I believe, Focus bikes too).

They can be ordered from BMW dealers for £72 Inc VAT. They charge at 2A and draw 10A. My lighter socket is rated at 15A or 180W.

Look in in the Specialized forum for more details including the part number.

 

[Muzzabike]

I bought the Shimano EC-E6002 Battery charger to use in my campervan with solar panels, house batteries and sine-wave inverter. Works well with less current draw than charger that came with E8000 system. It does take almost twice the time to charge. Also very small so great to carry if doing an overnight trip.

 

[RickBullotta]

I second the recommendation on the EC-E6002 charger. I needed to recharge my battery after pre-riding a race course, and I was able to use a 150 watt inverter. Worked perfectly. I use one of these:

Power+ Nexus Escape (150W Power Inverter)

...along with a 5.0 amp hour battery.

 

[Gary]

What's the benefit of the EC 6002? over the EC 6000-1
is it just because it's a slower charger?
(seems to be quite a bit slower from shimano's specification details)

 

[Avyoung]

Ec6002 2amps 523grams without cord

Ec6001 4amps 930grams

What's the benefit of the EC 6002? over the EC 6000-1
is it just because it's a slower charger?
(seems to be quite a bit slower from shimano's specification details)

 

[ChrisB NZ]

What's the benefit of the EC 6002? over the EC 6000-1
is it just because it's a slower charger?
(seems to be quite a bit slower from shimano's specification details)

It's just easier a bit easier on the 12V battery when you're using an inverter. The EC6001 will pull a lot more current out of the 12V battery - which means it will flatten faster and maybe won't be able to supply the current needed if it is a bit old.

What we really need is a 12V Shimano charger operating out of a cigarette lighter socket like the Specialized one. Something you can use on the drive to the bike park.

 

[Gary]

10 open thread

20 goto 10

Run

 

[ChrisB NZ]

I think you need a serious inverter and the current through the cigarette lighter isn’t right.

 

[Kingfisher]

You mean like this
Bosch Travel Charger with 12V Cable | ELECTRIC BIKE SPARES | Evans Cycles

Sadly no longer available. Most likely because some guy ran it in his car and then couldn't get the car started.

 

[RickBullotta]

What's the benefit of the EC 6002? over the EC 6000-1
is it just because it's a slower charger?
(seems to be quite a bit slower from shimano's specification details)

Sorry for the delayed response - the difference is that it lets you use most automotive power circuits without risk (less than 15 amps at 12V). Plus my eGo power inverter also happens to max out at 150 watts, so the 6002 was a perfect fit.

 

[flash]

I have a separate battery box in my 4Wd, rather than a 2nd battery. The box can charge from a cigar socket, anderson plug or AC power and has 12v output and a 300 watt inverter. This is more than enough to run my 6001 charger and even a normal deep cycle can give me a full charge without dipping below the recommended 50% use. My box has a 120aH LiFe4PO in it so I can get two full charges. I like that it's a completely separate unit to the vehicle. Mostly it just slow(er) charges off a socket although if I'm in one place for a few days I'll hook it up to some solar.

I also have a 200aH LiFE4Po in my camper which can run a 600 watt inverter. So technically I could get 5 full charges off that one, although I've never tested it with the bike. That one's got 300 watts of solar charging as well as from the vehicle and AC. Getting it below 50% takes some effort.

It would still be nice to have a 12V charger for the Shimano batteries. So much power is lost through the inverters and power supply. And it's be nice to be able to top up a battery without having to carry a 30kg pack in the car.

Gordon

 

[ChrisB NZ]

I have a separate battery box in my 4Wd, rather than a 2nd battery. The box can charge from a cigar socket, anderson plug or AC power and has 12v output and a 300 watt inverter. This is more than enough to run my 6001 charger and even a normal deep cycle can give me a full charge without dipping below the recommended 50% use. My box has a 120aH LiFe4PO in it so I can get two full charges. I like that it's a completely separate unit to the vehicle. Mostly it just slow(er) charges off a socket although if I'm in one place for a few days I'll hook it up to some solar.

I also have a 200aH LiFE4Po in my camper which can run a 600 watt inverter. So technically I could get 5 full charges off that one, although I've never tested it with the bike. That one's got 300 watts of solar charging as well as from the vehicle and AC. Getting it below 50% takes some effort.

It would still be nice to have a 12V charger for the Shimano batteries. So much power is lost through the inverters and power supply. And it's be nice to be able to top up a battery without having to carry a 30kg pack in the car.

Gordon

Nice setup Gordon. Those Lithium deep cycle batteries look really good - but they're expensive! I've got an AGM Lead/Acid battery for my caravan solar set up. That's better than a wet cell but not as good as a Lithium.