automatic charger?

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monroe Eskew
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automatic charger?

Researching the Vectrix... Does the charger shut off automatically when it's done, or do you need to time it so you don't burn out the battery?

AndY1
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Re: automatic charger?

It's all automatic.

dcs01
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Re: automatic charger?

Vectrix on board charger shuts off automatically when its finished charging the batteries. It also displays time to full charge in hours and minutes on the left display while charging.

mikemitbike
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Re: automatic charger?

It shuts off, but the charger continues to draw about 50 watt in a 240V grid wich causes charger-heating up and wasting energy. It is better to plug it off after the charge. If the battery is very warm i start up the bike to start the cooling fans (they will start to run even with activated sidestand) The Fans continue working even if you pull the ignition-key. This happened on time, when the batteries reached about 40°C during a charge.

Greetings Mike

Mik
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Re: automatic charger?

It shuts off, but the charger continues to draw about 50 watt in a 240V grid wich causes charger-heating up and wasting energy.

It's a current draw of about 0.5A, irrespective of supply voltage. So the charger wastes about 120W on 240V, and 60W on 110V.

That is a very significant amount of energy wastage: say you charge once per day, for 3.5 hours, using 3.5kWh to charge and cool the batteries. (equates to about 25km to 30km range).

That leaves 30min for riding and 20hrs for wasting energy.

On 240V: ...... 120W * 20h = 2.4kWh / day wasted!

Add 28hrs if the Vectrix is not used on the weekend: 48h * 120W = 5.76kWh

Total used for charging per week: 5 * 3.5kWh = 17.5kWh

Total wasted per week: 17.76kWh

Under these circumstances more energy is wasted on heating the charger than for charging the battery!

The charge delay feature will most likely not influence this at all, but I cannot try it out.

The ABCool does it all for me: Cooling after riding, charge delay until the start of charging, charging begins just in time to allow for about one hour cooling after charging has completed, and ready to ride again with a cool battery that had no significant time to self discharge again. It also reduces the energy wastage to a minimum, and logs the current / energy draw during charging.
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It also serves to test unknown power points for correct voltage and correct connection of Active, Neutral and Ground, and incorporates surge protection and a residual current device to shut down the lot if there is a current leak to ground.

This information may be used entirely at your own risk.

There is always a way if there is no other way!

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