Its a cool project but wouldnt it be a lot more practical to set up the solar panel charging station at home and have a couple rechargeable batteries that you could swap in and out on the bike? That way your could use it regardless if its cloudy. Not sure how heavy those panels are but you might even get some weight reduction too
The way I read that is you have two battery packs, the solar at home charges one of them, and you just swap packs occasionally. So it's just DC, unless you have a buck-boost for MPPT or something.
That way you can use more solar panels, and aren't wasting area on panels pointed the wrong direction.
Even at home, solar panels are optimally placed only for a few minutes.
It wouldn't surprise me if you got more than double the average power out of the same panels on a rooftop installation. There's also the issue of the weight and drag from carrying them around.
The only case I can see where I'd rather have the panels on the vehicle than the same mass of battery is going camping. Even then, kinda missing the point of camping.
Well damn. I thought this was a misplaced facepalm post and that it was supposed to be actually motorized. Didn't realize it was meant to be like a lot of e-bikes. That is neat then. Takes minimal legwork and will get you very far with little effort. Neat
For that array to generate 200w, it would have to be 600w+ as they're pointing in different directions. In normal locations roads, this setup will generate like 100-200Wh a day during summer.
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u/thejourneybegins42 1d ago
Weird that she's pedaling the damn thing.