Chaplain said:
Dui said:
Just came across this thing, and I thought about this thread since we were discussing about a possible side car featuring a generator:
It claims to be a 48v, 60v, or 72v battery charger. As far as I can tell it doesn't have an output panel. It wires directly to the battery. I don't think I would hook it directly to the battery. I would want some kind of charge controller at the very least.
Very cool find! Thanx!
Not sure about what you're calling an "output panel", but it does seem to have some kind of voltage regulator/converter/charge controller (there are two aluminum boxes under the gas tanks, I believe it's the big one. The small one might be the engine controller, it should control the engine throttle with some kind of servo in order to get a stable output no matter the load).
But yeah, no clear picture on that device's specs.
That being said, it seems to work well if you trust the customer's review (which, usually, are pretty trustworthy on this site), my only concern would be that, by experience, I know that probably 99% of those customers have lead acid batteries, so I'm not sure how suitable this would be for lithium. But I guess as long as you limit the voltage correctly and you have a good BMS it should be no problem.
It's likely that the manufacturer will be able to custom it for you if you give him your battery specs.
They can also have automatic start and stop, so the battery could charge only within the limits you defined, like for instance when your battery is close to be empty... It's pretty nice actually.
I really didn't think it was a good idea at first, but the more I think about it the more I find it suitable for your project. It can limit the total cost greatly, it's easy enough to do, it will give a more comfortable ride to your wife if she wants to be in the side car (just put the little generator at the back of the side car), and that leaves you with more space in the motorbike frame to do whatever you want... I quite like this idea now.
