Portable Solar charging

[tkscott77]

I am more interested in a portable solar charger and can take to, or leave at, work, and recharge the batteries while at work. I don't need it permanently mounted on the vehicle. Is a portable set-up worth it? How much extra mileage could I get from six to eight hours? A little bit would actually go a long way in my case. At 80% charge, I can drive to work and back two days in a row - I think (have not tried it yet). A few extra miles put back on at work might be worth it. And save a little bit of cash ( I live in Hawaii - current rates are ridiculous - 35 cents a KWH, although if you take advantage of special EV charging rates, it drops to 19 cents - 11 off peak hours).

 

[GRA]

I am more interested in a portable solar charger and can take to, or leave at, work, and recharge the batteries while at work. I don't need it permanently mounted on the vehicle. Is a portable set-up worth it? How much extra mileage could I get from six to eight hours? A little bit would actually go a long way in my case. At 80% charge, I can drive to work and back two days in a row - I think (have not tried it yet). A few extra miles put back on at work might be worth it. And save a little bit of cash ( I live in Hawaii - current rates are ridiculous - 35 cents a KWH, although if you take advantage of special EV charging rates, it drops to 19 cents - 11 off peak hours).

What's the security like where you work? Because if it's portable for you, it's portable for someone else to walk off with. More importantly, it just doesn't make any sense for reasons that have been discussed earlier in the thread.

Guy

 

[Caracalover]

Ok, so if portabe solar is really not an option, what about using good old muscle grease to create power? I realize that it would take a lot of muscle, but with Americans needing more exercise, I would use a device that adds charge to my car. It might get me off the couch a bit more, which would be a positive.

Any one know what that might take? Say a stair stepper, rowing machine, or bicycle that would give some power? It would be nice to know I could charge the car on my power, in a tight pinch and given enough time. I do realize it would take a lot of energy to create even 1kw, but I am serious about this, I just have no clue as to what it would in fact take.

 

[ENIAC]

Ok, so if portabe solar is really not an option, what about using good old muscle grease to create power? I realize that it would take a lot of muscle, but with Americans needing more exercise, I would use a device that adds charge to my car. It might get me off the couch a bit more, which would be a positive.

Any one know what that might take? Say a stair stepper, rowing machine, or bicycle that would give some power? It would be nice to know I could charge the car on my power, in a tight pinch and given enough time. I do realize it would take a lot of energy to create even 1kw, but I am serious about this, I just have no clue as to what it would in fact take.

The average 1/2 hour bicycle or stair stepper workout would generate 200 to 300 watts.

 

[planet4ever]

Ok, so if portabe solar is really not an option, what about using good old muscle grease to create power? I realize that it would take a lot of muscle, but with Americans needing more exercise, I would use a device that adds charge to my car. It might get me off the couch a bit more, which would be a positive.

Any one know what that might take? Say a stair stepper, rowing machine, or bicycle that would give some power? It would be nice to know I could charge the car on my power, in a tight pinch and given enough time. I do realize it would take a lot of energy to create even 1kw, but I am serious about this, I just have no clue as to what it would in fact take.

The average 1/2 hour bicycle or stair stepper workout would generate 200 to 300 watts.

You guys are confusing me with your use of watts or kW rather than watt-hours or kWh. ENIAC, are you perhaps really saying that the workout could generate 200-300 watts as long as you could keep it up? If so, a half our workout would generate 0.1 to 0.15 kWh. One would think that might be enough to take you half a mile or so, but I don't believe it works that way. Based on the observed inefficiency of 120v vs. 240v charging, there is apparently a fixed overhead for the charger cooling system, perhaps something in the neighborhood of 200 watts. So if you are pumping out only 200 watts you might not be charging the battery at all, just feeding the cooling system! If you can push yourself to 300 watts, your half hour workout might yield something under 50 watt-hours (once you allow for charger loss). At 4 miles/kWh that would get you about 1000 feet down the road.

Of course this is all hypothetical. I doubt if the charger would even accept something as low as 2 amps at 120 volts.

Ray

 

[keydiver]

kWh is simply the watts/1000 X time, so if you pedal a 200 watt generator for 1 hour you have generated .2 kWh, or 200 watt hours. As you said, barely enough to even move the car down the road. But, the main problem with any of these cheap solutions is that the charger is going to require a continual 12 amps at 120 VAC, which is 1440 watts! You would need a whole team of guys pedaling to generate that much constant wattage, or at least 2 kW of solar panels.

 

[Caracalover]

kWh is simply the watts/1000 X time, so if you pedal a 200 watt generator for 1 hour you have generated .2 kWh, or 200 watt hours. As you said, barely enough to even move the car down the road. But, the main problem with any of these cheap solutions is that the charger is going to require a continual 12 amps at 120 VAC, which is 1440 watts! You would need a whole team of guys pedaling to generate that much constant wattage, or at least 2 kW of solar panels.

Thank you all for the explanation. So if we made a row of hamster wheel type generators and used prison labor to work them, it still wouldn't produce enough energy to pay for the wheels.

 

[Caracalover]

Ok, so if portabe solar is really not an option, what about using good old muscle grease to create power? I realize that it would take a lot of muscle, but with Americans needing more exercise, I would use a device that adds charge to my car. It might get me off the couch a bit more, which would be a positive.

Any one know what that might take? Say a stair stepper, rowing machine, or bicycle that would give some power? It would be nice to know I could charge the car on my power, in a tight pinch and given enough time. I do realize it would take a lot of energy to create even 1kw, but I am serious about this, I just have no clue as to what it would in fact take.

The average 1/2 hour bicycle or stair stepper workout would generate 200 to 300 watts.

You guys are confusing me with your use of watts or kW rather than watt-hours or kWh. ENIAC, are you perhaps really saying that the workout could generate 200-300 watts as long as you could keep it up? If so, a half our workout would generate 0.1 to 0.15 kWh. One would think that might be enough to take you half a mile or so, but I don't believe it works that way. Based on the observed inefficiency of 120v vs. 240v charging, there is apparently a fixed overhead for the charger cooling system, perhaps something in the neighborhood of 200 watts. So if you are pumping out only 200 watts you might not be charging the battery at all, just feeding the cooling system! If you can push yourself to 300 watts, your half hour workout might yield something under 50 watt-hours (once you allow for charger loss). At 4 miles/kWh that would get you about 1000 feet down the road.

Of course this is all hypothetical. I doubt if the charger would even accept something as low as 2 amps at 120 volts.

Ray

You are not alone at being confused, perhaps a thread with an explanation of basic terms and a "how it works" might be useful. Nissan does have some of that but I often find a Q and A forum useful to learn.

 

[BrianSanDiego]

I am more interested in a portable solar charger and can take to, or leave at, work, and recharge the batteries while at work. I don't need it permanently mounted on the vehicle. Is a portable set-up worth it? How much extra mileage could I get from six to eight hours? A little bit would actually go a long way in my case. At 80% charge, I can drive to work and back two days in a row - I think (have not tried it yet). A few extra miles put back on at work might be worth it. And save a little bit of cash ( I live in Hawaii - current rates are ridiculous - 35 cents a KWH, although if you take advantage of special EV charging rates, it drops to 19 cents - 11 off peak hours).

Sounds like you need one of these:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/72097419@N02/6511898863/

Control Panel: http://www.flickr.com/photos/72097419@N02/6511898945/

http://greentow.com/

 

[essaunders]

How about a box truck with solar panels? maybe batteries, but might complicate the problem. Getting the LEAF charger to be a maximum power point tracker using only J1772 dumb signaling might be tricky though