Power bank to charge an ebike battery

[CAMRAMan]

I have a very nice Haibike MTB powered by a Yamaha system. The battery is 500W or c.13AH.

On my trips away, I don't have access to mains leccy, so I was wondering if there's anything reasonably inexpensive that I could use to charge the battery while camping. I'd obviously need to plug in my Yamaha charger, so it would need a 3-pin outlet. I'd want a capacity of at least two charges. I'm sure there are products out there, but I wouldn't know how to calculate what capacity I'd need.

[Kim]

I assume by 500W you mean 500Wh.  Which gives you your answer: 1000Wh, plus a bit for inefficiency losses.  That'll be neither lightweight nor cheap.

(Coming at it the other way, 13Ah × an assumed nominal 36V gives you 468Wh, which is in the same ballpark.)


This sort of thing is the gold standard: https://uk.ecoflow.com/products/delta-2-portable-power-station

Cheaper (but not exponentially so) alternatives probably exist.  A bare LiFePo4 battery in that sort of capacity (no charging or inverter electronics) is going to cost hundreds.

[CAMRAMan]

Eek!

(Thanks for the reality check!)

[philip]

Another question is how much power does the Haibike charger draw? If the charger can work with 300W then you could get a smaller battery and a solar panel. Still expensive, but a bit less: https://uk.jackery.com/products/solar-generator-300-plus
You would not get a full change in one go, it would take a day, or two, or three, to get a full charge.

[robgul]

I assume by 500W you mean 500Wh.  Which gives you your answer: 1000Wh, plus a bit for inefficiency losses.  That'll be neither lightweight nor cheap.

(Coming at it the other way, 13Ah × an assumed nominal 36V gives you 468Wh, which is in the same ballpark.)


This sort of thing is the gold standard: https://uk.ecoflow.com/products/delta-2-portable-power-station

Cheaper (but not exponentially so) alternatives probably exist.  A bare LiFePo4 battery in that sort of capacity (no charging or inverter electronics) is going to cost hundreds.

The world and his brother with YouTube "renovation channels" seem to have been gifted various Ecoflow products as part of a global promotion - not cheap but they seem to work.

[lissotriton]

Or an Anker 1000Wh for £500? Though weighs 13kg, wouldn't want to carry it too far.
https://www.anker.com/uk/products/a1760

[yoav]

Surely taking a spare battery with you would be a cheaper and more straightforward  option?

[Paul H]

Camping?  By bike, car, camper, other?  Are you sure you'll have no access to mains? Touring by E-bike is becoming popular, so people must be finding charging opportunities. If you do need extra capacity and it needs to be portable, an additional battery/s is probably the simplest (EDIT - yoav beat me to it).  Extra batteries weigh about 3kg each.  Some tradesmen use little petrol generators to charge power tools, they're bout £400, though there feels something wrong in charging an E-bike by burning petrol...
If you're in a motor vehicle, than a leisure battery and inverter might be worth investigation, though apparently you have to be careful to get the correct type of inverter for charging.  I've only a vague idea how that works, I had such a system in a van, but it was fitted for me (Heavy duty alternator, the leisure battery only charging when the van battery was full, the inverter only drawing from the leisure battery)

[CAMRAMan]

Surely taking a spare battery with you would be a cheaper and more straightforward  option?

https://www.e-bikeshop.co.uk/products/yamaha-intube-600wh-battery

[Diver300]

Surely taking a spare battery with you would be a cheaper and more straightforward  option?

https://www.e-bikeshop.co.uk/products/yamaha-intube-600wh-battery

Most of the cost of a power bank is the battery it contains, and that is why the power bank and the spare battery are similar costs and capacities. A power bank is effectively a spare battery with some electronics to transfer the energy to the thing being charged. There really isn't much point at all in power banks where you can change the battery.

Obviously for iPhone where most of the cost isn't the battery and the battery isn't a DIY replacement power banks are really useful, as well as for things that you want to run places where the power bank is the only option. The big power banks contain inverters so that they can run mains stuff.

[CAMRAMan]

Yebbut, my thoughts were to be able to charge a battery twice, so having three charges for a weekend trip. The Ecoflow product Kim linked to effectively does that, and for not that much more than one Yamaha battery.

If I limited my trips to sites with electric hook up, that would be the cheapest way, but it would limit my options.

[Kim]

The problem with hookups is that it's a lot of bulk to carry on the bike.

Many campsites will allow you to charge e-bike batteries in the site office if you ask nicely (indeed, some will have a standard rate for charging small items).  Obviously that's one of those things where being a cycle-tourist on a mission opens doors that wouldn't be if you turned up with bikes on a motor vehicle.

[quixoticgeek]

Dunno what it's like on the cursed isle.  But I've noticed a lot of Dutch sites have dedicated ebike charging infrastructure. Usually an open fronted shed with a load of power sockets.

I've also noticed a network of solar powered e bike charging stations.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/7tpfBw6Yk3EoQn8j7

The green thing in the middle. A lot of nice cafes and restaurants in picturesque villages are also starting to offer e bike charging facilities.

I know this doesn't directly answer the original question. But hope it might be of use to someone.

J

[Pickled Onion]

Dunno what it's like on the cursed isle.  But I've noticed a lot of Dutch sites have dedicated ebike charging infrastructure. Usually an open fronted shed with a load of power sockets.

Similar in Italy too, including rural guest houses.

Given the general UK hatred/indifference to any mode of transport with fewer than four wheels, I don't expect the same here any time soon.

[MattH]

Some tradesmen use little petrol generators to charge power tools, they're bout £400, though there feels something wrong in charging an E-bike by burning petrol...

So, if you are pulling a trailer with a generator running to provide power for your 250W ebike motor, does that still fall under ebike rules (assuming no accelerator button, pedalling required and speed limiter active)? Or is it now a hybrid motorcycle?

[Kim]

Dunno what it's like on the cursed isle.  But I've noticed a lot of Dutch sites have dedicated ebike charging infrastructure. Usually an open fronted shed with a load of power sockets.

The Association of Lightweight Campers have been making some noise about this within the Camping and Caravan Club:  Club sites want people to have electric hookups, presumably because they can charge an extra fiver a night for the privilege, but we've been pointing out that backpackers/cycle tourists quite reasonably want to charge their phones/powerbanks/ebike batteries without having to lug a whopping great Ceeform cable around^[1].  I've been suggesting that charging lockers are the way forward, as they're more useful for the non-cyclists.

E-bikes are increasingly popular with Club members.  Typically they're strapped to a motorhome, and charged via its EHU, so little demand for e-bike specific facilities.


More widely, many independent sites have some sort of facility for charging gadgets.  Typically that's "leave it with reception for a nominal fee".  Some will turn a blind eye to a powerbank left in the washblock (others will explicitly ban this).  I've never seen an e-bike specific facility, but see above.  Electric cars are a more pressing issue.


_{[1] Even something like this is fairly bulky^[2], and would leave your electrikery exposed to the elements.  The continentals have the advantage here in using Schuko for caravan hookups.
[2] I've toyed with the idea of potting the guts of a decent USB charger into a Ceeform plug.  But then you've got a charger that won't work in a normal mains socket, so you're carrying two of them...}

[grams]

We visited about 20 different campsites in France and Spain of different shaped and sizes and didn’t see any explicit nods whatsoever to ebike charging, so it’s not just Britain that’s behind. The usual phones and power banks left in the kitchen / toilet areas was as close as it got.

One (La Rochelle Municipal) had free charging lockers in the reception but only accessible during reception hours and far too small for bike batteries.

I have a cursed cable made of a ceeform plug, 10m of 0.75mm2 lamp cord and a trailing 2 pin euro socket that’s just about bike friendly. Never used in anger as the one trip I took it on was to Germany, where they just use 3-ish pin domestic outlets on the hookups :shrug:

[Cudzoziemiec]

Some tradesmen use little petrol generators to charge power tools, they're bout £400, though there feels something wrong in charging an E-bike by burning petrol...

So, if you are pulling a trailer with a generator running to provide power for your 250W ebike motor, does that still fall under ebike rules (assuming no accelerator button, pedalling required and speed limiter active)? Or is it now a hybrid motorcycle?

No, it's an e-snail due to the extra weight and drag of the trailer and generator.

[JonBuoy]

Coed Y Brenin appears to have a decent setup: https://www.beicsbrenin.co.uk/news/ebike-charging/

[yoav]

We spent 6 weeks cycle touring and camping in France this summer and at almost every site, charging an e-bike was possible at most of them, usually by plugging the bikes into motorhome electrical sockets that were by each pitch.
(We didn’t ride e-bikes but met plenty of other people who did and that’s how they were charging their bikes)

[Paul H]

Some tradesmen use little petrol generators to charge power tools, they're bout £400, though there feels something wrong in charging an E-bike by burning petrol...

So, if you are pulling a trailer with a generator running to provide power for your 250W ebike motor, does that still fall under ebike rules (assuming no accelerator button, pedalling required and speed limiter active)? Or is it now a hybrid motorcycle?

I hadn't envisioned charging and riding at the same time, that might be interesting!  It wasn't clear from the OP if they were carrying it by bike, camping with a bike isn't the same as cycle camping... It wasn't an entirely serious suggestion, though having looked at the spec, they're no heavier than the big powerbanks and about a third of the price.

[quixoticgeek]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sZJqynNhOk

There's always the trailer load of solar...

J

(edit to add, looks like a lot of people, many in sunnier climbs... have tried the same idea:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=solar+ebike )