Would you be interested in Energy Harvesting on your E-Bike?

[Gary]

Drag on modern front hub dynamos is pretty small and fairly inconsequential. Especially considering they're mostly fitted to heavier commuter bikes. (not Ebike heavy).
The fact a lot of watt obsessive roadies also use them on their winter training bikes should tell us something.

 

[Gary]

It's not destroyed though BAM. Not even in the slightest. Despite Wildsau's sadness.
As a thesis it's still a fine idea.

 

[Beekeeper]

HYDROGEN
Hydrogen is a clean fuel that, when consumed in a fuel cell, produces only water. Hydrogen can be produced from a variety of domestic resources, such as natural gas, nuclear power, biomass, and renewable power like solar and wind. These qualities make it an attractive fuel option for transportation and electricity generation applications.
Several companies in the past have showcased their plans to use hydrogen fuel cell technology to power a bicycle. Recently, Chinese company Pearl Hydrogen became the latest company to showcase the idea, at a recent technology convention in Shanghaimart. The 20″ wheel prototype weighs 32kg and is powered by a PEM fuel cell and brushless electric motor.
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this is the only problem i can see

hmmm a spare nuke in my back pack for extended range. What could possibly go wrong?

Good job I just bought an EVOC ruck sack with spine protector just in case the sub atomic particles decide to get a bit fruity on me

 

[Zimmerframe]

hmmm a spare nuke in my back pack for extended range. What could possibly go wrong?

You could literally use a small thermoelectric generator stuffed in the beehive you ride around with on your back. You said they maintain a constant temperature of 30 degrees ! Endless power !

For the rest of us though, without bees, you're right. Nuclear based is easy. No need for a Reactor though, a simple RTG will replace your existing battery and give unlimited range ! Expect a small weight penalty and incredibly, they actually cost even more than a Spesh 700wh battery !!

 

[Gary]

......

is Bam a secret agent sat in a park waiting for a guy with a white carnation and the correct password to give his special brief case to?

 

[Beekeeper]

You could literally use a small thermoelectric generator stuffed in the beehive you ride around with on your back. You said they maintain a constant temperature of 30 degrees ! Endless power !

For the rest of us though, without bees, you're right. Nuclear based is easy. No need for a Reactor though, a simple RTG will replace your existing battery and give unlimited range ! Expect a small weight penalty and incredibly, they actually cost even more than a Spesh 700wh battery !!

nice idea Zim but would you really want to be followed by Greta on her Levo and have a stick waved at you on every ride?

 

[Beekeeper]

?
Actually sir,
A nuke is heavily shielded. So much so that you could chill with one all day and the exposure wouldn’t be above legal limits. In fact low sustained doses of ionizing radiation is shown to prolong life.

nice to know but I’m expendable. We are all just sand grains on the seashore of time.

I would however totally flip my lid if the exposure were to damage my drive side bearing.

 

[Gary]

picture in my head was more...

 

[Gary]

or...

 

[Varaxis]

Heard that Tesla regen braking didn't generate much energy at all.

Heard the tech was more about saving brake pads for vehicles like garbage trucks, busses, forklifts, etc.

I'm pessimistic about the usefulness of this on a bike.

 

[R120]

Drag on modern front hub dynamos is pretty small and fairly inconsequential. Especially considering they're mostly fitted to heavier commuter bikes. (not Ebike heavy).
The fact a lot of watt obsessive roadies also use them on their winter training bikes should tell us something.

Agree I have a bike with a Shimano dynamo hub on the front and fooked if I can tell it’s there.

 

[urastus]

Energy harvesting comes in lots of forms such as regenerative braking, but less well known is energy harvested from suspension.
I am wondering if people would be interested in having a system on their E-bike that would potentially charge the battery, or maybe a GPS/phone etc. Please feel free to share your thoughts! Here are a few pros and cons...

Pros: - Free energy! increase your range for longer exploration rides
- Could lead into active suspension rather than a passive system (if researched enough)
- Something no one really has yet
Cons: - Potential decrease in suspension performance (ride may be impaired)
- May add some weight to your rig
- Some added complexity of electronics to the bike, but reliable

there was a dude on youtube who built an electric vehicle. He was an engineer and played with regen braking - the vehicle was too light for it to be an advantage. The guy in the video below might explain it better. Also, another system on our ebikes? I'd like to see the systems we have to have be more robust and reliable before adding in another system. Oh, the extra weight too of course. I'd always opt for more simplification and robustness.

 

[andyadam]

I should add .... so as not to lead @MunnsyBiker excitedly down a rabbit hole ..

If you are a student ... you have probably never ridden a bicycle with an old school dynamo powered light ..

Try and find one .. and ride it ..

It's quite impressive how much harder it is to ride to power this tiny tiny little generator which creates about as much light as a wasp lighting it's own fart during a party.

i remember them ! used to pull it out the way if i went on a serious cycle, most was during the day too so even that gadget was pointless for recreation riding, differrent riding to work etc at night id imagine

 

[1oldfart]

If you are smart stop wasting your time. I and lots of others want simple reliable bikes.
Work on that is my suggestion.

 

[urastus]

How about another illogical thread destroyed. How even this guys quick good idea has even gotten this many posts blows my mind. Not to offend the op. I’ve had millions of stupid good ideas but usually delete them when I sober up or tell everyone something like ‘hahaha you didn’t really think I was serious.....right???’

I really liked your idea of mounting a gun to the handle bar; I thought that could be very useful

 

[Gary]

Was thinking about this when out riding today and y'know what I reckon all Emtb's actually do need?
A waterproof USB port on them so those of you who ride with a pack could carry a lightweight 20000mAh (72wh?) powerbank that could be plugged in and strapped to the downtube to give riders just enough extra power to limp home in Eco should they run out of range before the end of their ride.
Seems a lot more useful than regen technology applied all over the bike giving barely any extra power at all anyway.

 

[Shinn]

As we continue to reverse engineer the alien space crafts that have landed on earth I can see this all working out. I'm certain there is a do-dad of some sort that would solve all of the above issues.

 

[Mr mick]

Imagine if Elon had the same negative views on energy harvesting an you people.

 

[CBSTD]

There was another student trying to do regenerative braking several months ago, I was talking to them about ideas behind the scenes but my "separation" kind of got in the way of a lot of things ....

Anyway ..

Yes ! Who wouldn't ...... IF ............ it didn't overly hamper performance, was reliable, weight gains were offset (ie, harvesting could enable smaller battery).

It's just a lot harder to achieve effectively than you first think, especially to harvest a usable amount of energy. You don't have the mass of a car for instance for huge braking regen and this won't work with a mid mount motor unless you set it up without a freewheel.

Feel free to invent some nice brake disks which are coils and just create electricity the more you press the lever.

Suspension sounds great too, rather than wasting energy to heat with damping - maybe a version of Suzuki's old rotary damper off the TL1000S converted to a dynamo.

Did TL1000 no have a habit of trying to kill the rider by snapping the frame ?

 

[Zimmerframe]

Did TL1000 no have a habit of trying to kill the rider by snapping the frame ?

When it first came out it had an awful habit of inducing the most violent tank slappers known to man. After a couple I put an aftermarket steering damper on. Shortly after I think Suzuki introduced a factory damper.

 

[urastus]

Imagine if Elon had the same negative views on energy harvesting an you people.

Are you talking about his flame thrower? Huge energy waster

 

[Olof Bike Adventures]

I tested this bike about a year ago. It had regen brakes. First part of the pull of the rear brake lever was purely motor braking, then the disc brake kicked in. Worked pretty well, but I don't think there was a lot of power going back to the battery.

 

[urastus]

Found this - it's a much heavier e motorbike. It is how to disable regen braking on this motorbike. Reading through the comments, it sounds like something that many owners have wanted to do. It mightn't be the best implementation though; it sounds like it works as soon as you "let go of the throttle" = full regen. People are complaining about the on / off operation of it; speed forward, or hard braking. The only positive on the regen system on this bike seems to be braking, like engine braking on an internal combustion motorcycle or car (manuals). Perhaps level 1 would be better, but no one has mentioned it. No mention of energy generated.

 

[Zimmerframe]

Imagine if Elon had the same negative views on energy harvesting an you people.

I think you're miss interpreting people's comments and views. This has been discussed so many times on here previously. Just search and you'll find dozens.

Here's a 2019 one :

Regenerative braking on e-bikes

I was wondering when the manufacturers are going to start fitting regenerative brakes on e-bikes to extend the range. On long down hill sections Im sure you would get a good amount of electric back !

www.emtbforums.com

It's not that everyone here is carefree about it, it's just that on a 25kg mtb on loose terrain it doesn't work the same as a nice 2000kg+ car on the road. There are intrinsic inefficiencies in the system which don't offset themselves on such a small/light setup. You can make it work on a bike, but by the time you've finished you're lucky if you get 1% back. Compared to say 50% on a car in a city being driven unsmoothly.

If you add an energy reclamation device to something which sucks up more energy to drive it/carry it than it gives out, it's not really viable !

Whilst I have endless respect for Elon, remember that they're normally just re-hashing old ideas. Regen braking wasn't first done with a Tesla, it was actually a mere 135 years ago in 1886 on a train - where mass makes it viable :

Regenerative brake - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

.

 

[Olof Bike Adventures]

I am thinking where the most gain in terms of cost/return is when it comes to better efficiency or range. Is it regen brakes, higher voltage systems or is it better motor or battery technology?

I think the rate of which batteries are improving, far outperforms any other initiatives. If you can get 5-10% better range from a more modern battery, the benefit of a regen system with all its added costs, weight and potentional problems doesn't seem very appealing.

 

[Gary]

Do tell us more about these 510hp carbon free cars BAM.
?

 

[captainhightop]

Energy harvesting comes in lots of forms such as regenerative braking, but less well known is energy harvested from suspension.
I am wondering if people would be interested in having a system on their E-bike that would potentially charge the battery, or maybe a GPS/phone etc. Please feel free to share your thoughts! Here are a few pros and cons...

Pros: - Free energy! increase your range for longer exploration rides
- Could lead into active suspension rather than a passive system (if researched enough)
- Something no one really has yet
Cons: - Potential decrease in suspension performance (ride may be impaired)
- May add some weight to your rig
- Some added complexity of electronics to the bike, but reliable

No such thing as a free lunch, lots of energy lost by friction, heat, noise etc, major losses in terms of efficiency ( it's not really worth the complexity on a lightweight vehicle - Regenerative braking: how it works and is it worth it in small EVs? - Electrek )

Lighter higher capacity battery is where we need to put the research £££, maybe more efficient motors

Best way to get more range is to dial down the assist and reduce the weight on the bike which is mainly (in my case) my belly!

 

[Shinn]

Imagine if Elon had the same negative views on energy harvesting an you people.

I'm all for lowering our foot print and taking better care of mother earth. I just don't think any of it will work on a bike until the parts get smaller, lighter and more efficient. Maybe your too young to remember what the first cell phones looked like - nothing like the communicators we use today. Computers used to take up an entire room, the first moon lander had RAM that was measured in KB's. Not GB's like the cell phones of today.

I was being serious. We need another big leap forward in technology. You and others who are smarter than I need to continue on the path your on.

Don't take the smart ass comments to be anything more than just smart ass comments.

 

[HikerDave]

Energy harvesting comes in lots of forms such as regenerative braking, but less well known is energy harvested from suspension.
I am wondering if people would be interested in having a system on their E-bike that would potentially charge the battery, or maybe a GPS/phone etc. Please feel free to share your thoughts! Here are a few pros and cons...

Pros: - Free energy! increase your range for longer exploration rides
- Could lead into active suspension rather than a passive system (if researched enough)
- Something no one really has yet
Cons: - Potential decrease in suspension performance (ride may be impaired)
- May add some weight to your rig
- Some added complexity of electronics to the bike, but reliable

No way. I spent four hundred dollars to upgrade to a custom-tuned damper on my 2016 Fox 36 fork and another two hundred on the shock. Suspension performance is very important to me and bicycle suspension is by nature already a bundle of compromises without adding the extra complication of energy recovery.

 

[Mistakencatlawyer]

I have 2 ebikes that have regen when going downhill or if you pedal faster than 12mph. it can be turned on and off. the bikes are supposed to have a 100 mile range, we have had them a little over 70 miles on one charge with 23% battery left. The bikes are heavier than our emtb's and are hub drive though. the regen works well.