Hello everyone,
I've been reading the Vectrix section of this forum for a while with lots of interest, it has been a fascinating read. I'd love to to buy a VX-1 but currently where I live there is no easy way of running a power supply to the garage where I'd like to keep it.
I was toying with the idea of using a combination of PV cells/wind turbines to charge a bank of batteries that would then be used to charge the bike as when it needed it.
Would anyone be able to shed some light on how much electricity a full charge cycle actually uses? This would help me do some maths as to how large a bank of batteries I would need, and furthermore what I'd need to charge them! I do love the idea of charging the vectric from a solar powered set of batteries but i should imagine the initial cost would be pretty high. :-s
Thanks in advance!
Hi! Welcome to the forum!
Aprox. 5kWh.
Hello,
Andy is correct, recharged my Vectrix last night from 0 bars, took 5.3 KWH. Was right around 5 after charge, but the charger "wastes" 50 watts if left plugged after it is done charging.
Excellent!
Hello to you both and thank you for your reply, I can now backwards work the sums and see if this is feasable.
Don't forget that the capacity of lead acid battery drastically decreases with the drain current. If you just use a "nominal" 5 kwH storage capacity you will see that your batteries go down very quickly: in fact I have also PV and wind mill and a 5 kwh storage capacity for the house; for small current it's ok (my laptop is currently recharging using this source). But the batteries will go down in 6 to 10 mn when plugging in the Vectrix (30 mn if you are in the 3A charging step of the vectrix and you can fully complete the charge if you are at the EC step). Hence you will have to have a very large battery storage if you want to fully charge the vectrix starting from 10 or lower bars. But I plug the vectrix for 2-5 mn every working day, more on week-end and this helps..Combining that completing the charge at work (which is encouraged, we have even special power output for this usage in our car parks) I just never charge at home :-)
BTW no need to use a pure sine converter for the vectrix (which are expensive if you require a 1.6 kw power as for the vectrix), mine is a low cost converter that works fine: you just need a low voltage automatic shutdown to avoid damaging the batteries.
Good luck
Sums alone might not be sufficient!
These graphs show the requirements in more detail:
Typical pattern with warm battery:
And here is an unusual one, just to show that it can be variable and your setup needs to be able to support it:
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
May be I am missing something here. I too have a 16kwh battery system in my house. 16 trojan 125 golf car batteries wiresd as 4 banks of 24V. I can easly draw 12-14 kw from these at a continuous draw of 2kwh. hence it fully charges the Vectrix and keeps other appliances on as well. May be a better grade inverter like the Xantrex XW4024, a true sinewave inverter I am using makes better use of the batteries.
I was told that a true sine wave generator is needed.
Provided that advice was correct, does that mean that a true sine wave inverter would be needed?
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
With you 16 Trojan 125 which are apparently rated at 200Ah you have something closer to 19 kwh. For the
1600W you need to charge the vectrix you drain about 16.6 A per battery. Hence this is approximatively
1/20 of the battery charge for which the 200Ah are established. Hence no problem for charging the Vectrix and even have other appliances on as well (a battery calculator available on the web shows that your charging time at this rate is about 10h 48mn, plenty sufficient for charging the vectrix).
Now if you have only 4 Trojan (4.8kwH) you will drain 66.66A per battery, 1/3 of the charge. At this rate the real capacity of the batteries are estimated at only 20% of the capacity obtained with 1/20. The same battery calculator shows 2h42mn of charging time which is not enough for a full charge of the Vectrix...
Now all this calculation are established for stationnary battery (like the Trojan). If you use car batteries you will get only 30 mn of charging time in the later case...