Would you put solar panel on your electric vehicle

Would you put a solar panel on your electric bike

  • Sure

    Votes: 19 51.4%
  • Maybe

    Votes: 5 13.5%
  • No

    Votes: 13 35.1%

  • Total voters
    37
30%+ moduls are ultra expensive to purchase. As a very rough estimate factor 1,000 more expensive compared to 20%+ moduls.

Energy from solar moduls mounted on ebikes is always expensive, because you will only use a small amount of their potential power Generation and lightweight moduls cost 3-5 times more than standard glass moduls.

If you build a solar bike you do that for a special trip where you travel away from outlets to recharge a battery, you usualy do not build a solar ebike for your daily commute or a Standard trip where you ride from hotel room to hotel room.
 
the e wind said:
Two guys on a team had issues with cracked solar cells, and had to abandon the trip 1/2 way through. A corner of one of their solar panels literally broke off. This is after that panel's protective film had started bubbling in the heat of the day, and had been for several days at that point. Several more participants ran into either full panel failure, or reduced power output, but they were able to replace the panels or resort to wall charging at night.

Thanks for your answer.

The IR luminescens Picture you see above was from a NEW highe quality solar modul bought directly from China.

It still was able to produce 50W of power, but the heavily cracked cells already get a bit hotter if viewed under a thermal camera. If you short the modul those celsl already get very hot, hotter than 100°C.

So if you are riding under a very sunny and very hot climate and you have even more demaged cells very high Temperatur spots way above 100°C are perfectly possible. Many people buy cheap moduls with PET cover and this will melt under such conditions.

As I said this is a new module. ALL semiflexible moduls have those micro cracks when bought new, if you bedn them only one time by 30° you will introduce 100ds of new micorcracks.
The modules may still work nice, but ist cells have been weakend and it will be more senisble to vibration, more cracks, hot spots and so on.

I do not understand why those moduls are advirtised that way.

The module shown in Picture one of this thread has been bent and it will vibrate. I bet it will look horrible broken under IR and while it might still work nice it will not live for long.

****

I have another question about the Suntrip vehicles.

Rules are that the Motors of those vehicles may not provide power if running faster than 45km/h.

We have that speed pedelec class in Germany with its 45km/h limit but you need insurance for those vehicles and there are some strict rules and it is very difficult to get them approved. In Germany it is not legal to use a solar trailer with them for example.

Are those 45km/h e-bikes used in the Suntrip street legal? Is there a special insurance for them that is good for all countries travled (I see no insurance plates on them) or do you just ride them "outside the law"? Did you not encounter problems with police at least in European states?
 
Chalo said:
everybody will want something fundamentally different.

Boozie Fridge!
Maragarita Blender!
*In regards to the picture of the 4 wheeled bicycle, and the comment about the beach. Please dont drink n drive nor drink n ride ebike.
 
markz said:
Chalo said:
everybody will want something fundamentally different.

Boozie Fridge!
Maragarita Blender!
*In regards to the picture of the 4 wheeled bicycle, and the comment about the beach. Please dont drink n drive nor drink n ride ebike.

Hehe... And yet we seem immersed in a world where manufacturers rely on high volumes with X quantities of the same/identical unit of "the thing"...

“any color so long as it is black"...:
http://oplaunch.com/blog/2015/04/30/the-truth-about-any-color-so-long-as-it-is-black/

:wink:
 
The power of choice and impulse buying.

Grocery Stores - Give the consumer too many choices and customer will not buy, give the customer a handful of choices you will get sales.

https://youtu.be/VO6XEQIsCoM?t=107

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVplgl3-pRM
 
That luminescent picture is more interesting after you say it's a brand new panel. This is why I think there needs to be a new type of lightweight, yet rigid solar panel to come out, suitable for EV's. ~95% of people out there are not using the bending feature of these panels, because it's been proven through solar car racing that you generally want them flat during the day (unless parked). If we're not bending them, then they don't need to be flexible.

The guy on the Sun Trip who represented his company 'PhotoWatt' I think had the coolest panel because it was A) lightweight, just like your flexible panel, and B) rigid due to it's foam core composite integrated rack. The best of both. Too bad it's not in production.

Cephalotus said:
Are those 45km/h e-bikes used in the Suntrip street legal?

The organizers of the Sun Trip had good enough relations with the French government to allow some degree of unspoken 'don't know, don't care' attitude at the enforcement level. Now I easily could have missed something that was said in French (that happened a lot lol), but my understanding was that we were going to be left alone along our route because we're 'experimenting with clean transportation,' etc. :pancake:

What are the restrictions on bike trailers in Germany? If on a Sun Trip you may be able to talk your way out of it, but if I lived in Germany and had a solar bike, I would probably go get it registered as a speed pedelec. This costs a little money, but seems well worth it in the long run. I met a man in Switzerland over the summer who frequently rode his e-bike through Germany for work; he had gotten the bike registered in Switzerland as a speed pedelec (I think the limit is 500w there instead of ~350w?), which legally allows him to travel 45km/h. But since he happens to own hands-down the secksiest e-bike I've ever seen (anyone ever heard of SpeedPed, a boutique German mid-drive, which uses a right-hand drive motor belted into an Alfine 8 hub?), he was able to manipulate his bike's power output with the Cycle Analyst. He found that it doesn't matter how much power he's using so long as the speed cameras don't catch him going over 45km/h, which apparently did happen to him, especially when riding downhill, etc. He said he would get a ticket from the speed cam from going even just 48 in a 45. In America, our speed camera's don't sense bikes!
 
the e wind said:
I met a man in Switzerland over the summer who frequently rode his e-bike through Germany for work; he had gotten the bike registered in Switzerland as a speed pedelec (I think the limit is 500w there instead of ~350w?), which legally allows him to travel 45km/h.

*subscribed*
As french living in Switzerland, I can confirm there is an ebike market range for 500W limited to 45km/h registered as moped here.
For some reason, they remain quite rare even if some supermarkets have tried to sell some...
I am very interested with the sun trip, at the times I looked at it, I think the solar panel area was limited to 2m2 ? or was it 4 ?
...makes me think of a "coffin like" camping trailer the size of a comfy mattress 1m x 2m :mrgreen:

https://www.thesuntrip.com/les-velos-solaires-du-sun-trip-2018/
 
Cephalotus said:
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The IR luminescens Picture you see above was from a NEW highe quality solar modul bought directly from China.

It still was able to produce 50W of power, but the heavily cracked cells already get a bit hotter if viewed under a thermal camera. If you short the modul those celsl already get very hot, hotter than 100°C.

Hey Cephalotus, that IR picture showing the microcracks is super interesting. Can you elaborate on how exactly the image was taken, were you basically looking at the panel with an IR camera from behind with the sun shining trhough on the other side to provide the IR luminence or some other technique?

We've been having a definite issue with one of our panels having a noticeably worse performance than the other, even on the first day of testing them, and I'd like to see if there is something similarly revealing inside.
 
Thank you kindly for the experience earned input the e wind.

The foam backed panel would be awesome for durability and low mass, but also might mean higher cell temps and reduced output as a result of the higher junction temp. Maybe it doesn't matter in practice, I've never experimented.

I'm considering ebiking to the south pole (and hopefully back too). Through the summer the sun won't set, but it will be low on the horizion all day.

I've done enough electric motorcycle distance trips to know the maximum distance you can travel in a day is pretty directly tied to charge rate. With respect to minimizing the food carrying needs by requiring less days of traveling, do you think carrying a large amount of panels in a trailer or whatever, riding till the pack is empty and then parking to setup the large array of panels may offer more miles per day?
 
Dam Luke, E-bike riding to the south pole is sure one hell of an adventure! I certainly don't think you will have to worry about high cell temps on that trip!

I would be more worried about the crazy strong winds ripping panels off my bike/trailer, or the wind picking the whole thing up. You'll wanna make sure it's all held together mighty strong!

Cheers
 
justin_le said:
Hey Cephalotus, that IR picture showing the microcracks is super interesting. Can you elaborate on how exactly the image was taken, were you basically looking at the panel with an IR camera from behind with the sun shining through on the other side to provide the IR luminence or some other technique?

Hi,

I used my old Sony F717. (should also work with Sony F828 and maybe Sony V3)

There is a magnet trick that lets you easily remove the "anti IR" filter in front of the sensor, see here:

http://www.schweinert.com/blog/files/960c1167c6adc1dea4862db551e51f7b-54.html


You just need to put a small magnet with the right polarity at the right position. You will hear a click and see the effect on the monitor.

After that you have a camera that is very sensitive in IR.

You than have two options, either us a ca. 800nm IR front filter with a diamanetr of 58mm (which filters everything but IR) in front of the camera and use it in daylight OR you take your pictures in a very dark room.

You have to put a voltage a bit higher than U(0) in reverse on your panel (if necessary remove diodes) and you should use a current limit somewhere around I MPP.

You have to experiment with the photo parameters, I used something around ISO 400, F2.0 and 2s (afair) but this depends on current and the cell type. You obviously need a tripod.

An old Sony F717 costs around 50 USD/€ on ebay and is a good model because it offers a bright lens and a good sensor (for its technological age)
You should get one with a power adapter included (8,4V, special connector), the Li-Ion battery on my F717 is 15 now years old and not as good as new (but still usable).

Would be interesting to see your results. I assume that almost all of those semi flexible modules have problems with micro cracks. The modul you see above still has good electrical performance.
 
liveforphysics said:
Thank you kindly

Papa said:
It's safe to assume that the vast majority of die-hard EV bikers/owners don't ride distances which requires off-grid charging - I certainly don't...


Well I appreciate the sentiment seeing as the solar bike conversation reminds me a little of e-bike naysayers in general; basically, if you haven't ridden one, then shut the F up and get back into your Ford Raptor. Those of use who have experienced a solar bike have come to appreciate what they offer. It is not speed, but autonomy; you know, the type of freedom needed when touring places such as the south pole. What you speak of reminds me of another autonomous tour I read about: https://electricbikereport.com/tour-de-mongolia-solar-electric-bike-tour/

Anyways, yes, folding panels out when stopped does help a lot when you don't have much surface area. But from studying Bernard Cauquil, the guy who won the Sun Trip in 2015, as well as using my own solar bike, one thing is clear (to me at least): staying on the bike and continuing to ride will offer better range than relying on charging stops. Bernard earned a reputation within the group that he 1) ironically only stopped at gas stations, since it was the only place he could fit his LWB solar recumbent 2) he only bought food he could eat while riding, and 3) he apparently rode from the crack of dawn until sunset. Apparently he AVERAGED 174 miles a day. Staying on your bike for, say, 12 hours and using a more conservative power setting (lower wh/mi) is, I think, a better strategy than relying on the extra charging power afforded by a break, and then making it up by riding 8-10 hours at a higher power draw. But this is still a theory, and I look forward to further testing......

The number one thing I've come to so far is that you want to start out with a vehicle that can support a good amount of solar all the time so you don't have to stop. Tadpole trikes are a really great, almost ideal base vehicle, but both Bakfiets as well as longtail cargo bikes and others can be adapted very nicely as well. I am currently working on a longtail solar e-bike that should be able to support 240w without a trailer.
 
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