The Cycle Satiator, universal charger for the enthusiasts

[justin_le]

Some background details here:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=739745#p739745

Long story short, after being repeatedly frustrated as an ebike business dealing with battery chargers that for the most part sucked, we committed ourselves 3 years ago to design and develop an ebike specific charger that kicked-ass instead. These kinds of things don't happen overnight, especially when all the regulatory details and testing have to be met and passed for UL, CSA, and CE approvals, but in the last few weeks ago we got pass on all regulatory certification and delivery of our first pilot production batch as well. It was a bust out the champagne kinda moment for the engineering team:


I've attached the latest product brochure proof which covers the overall specifications and features, as well as a draft of the user manual content, which together should paint a fairly clear picture of the device. 360 watts, programmable output profiles, lead/nickel/lithium support, fan free, power factor corrected 100-240V input, 95% efficiency, graphic display screen etc.
View attachment 1

We have about 6-8 weeks until the actual full-scale production takes place. In that time period are hoping to do a lot of extensive field testing and firmware refinements, and for that we're looking for some "beta tester buddies" who want to be in at the get go with this project. Ideally these would be people who have a multitude of different batteries that they like to charge, people who charge batteries daily or multiple times a day, and a plus if they want to ride and travel with the charger on their ebikes. As well they should be technically savvy enough to understand the nuances of charging algorithms, and comfortable enough with a computer to do updates on the charger firmware (process will be similar to the CA V3).

Normally, that would be a pretty narrow set of criteria but I think on ES it could still be a majority of you . In any case, I have on my floor here 1 dozen units that are eager to get out of their boxes and into someones hands, and we should have another 20 or so pieces coming online in about 2 more weeks.


The price of the satiator is $295 US, which may seem like a total bargain (if you say compare it to a general purpose lab programmable power supply) or a bit outrageous (if you are used to $60 china barebones flyback converter chargers). Suffice it to say this will not be a product for everyone but I'm hoping there are enough people who really want a high-end quality part to make all of this development have been worthwhile. Otherwise I'll have squandered all the proceeds of our Cycle Analyst sales to have made a cool-looking brick.

 

[voicecoils]

Awesome news! Congratulations!!!

Put me down for 1 (36v & 48v LiMn) and 1 for Glow Worm (daily shop use of all sorts of packs)

 

[Gab]

Hi

This is a really good idea. Just two comments

I think backward compatibility of OLD batteries types is not a needed feature, most people who will buy this will want the latest battery chemistry not SLA or NICD which you can't even buy easily. So if anything suitable for the next or newest chemistries is the most important feature. i.e 4.35v cells, NCA, NCM etc. not backwards compatibility.

Also one important change if you could make it suit 72v packs also, I think that's the highest common ebike voltage people use. 60v max basically means 48v packs is the maximum it will suit as some 48v packs charge up to 58.8v such as EM3ev

 

[teslanv]

Great concept Justin. I think this charger will fit well for the majority of ebike owners.
It would certainly suit three of the four ebikes I now have in my garage.
Any chance you will develop one with a higher voltage range? My newest project will require nothing less than 84V charge voltage and perhaps as much as 100.8V so I have to say I am torn between thinking this charger kicks ass, but wishing it could be more. Output of 360W is awesome, by the way.

 

[melodious]

My 36v "run of the mill" BMSbattery charger broke on it's second backpack ride (I normally never carry them with me). It's typically advised not to bring the charger as it's not built for the rigors of being on the road. Well, here's a game changer for sure Wish I could be a participant, but sadly, I don't have enough tech savvy to give a positive feedback from using (and abusing) the Satiator.

That being said, I have 2 ebike batteries, a 36v and 48v. I have a seperate charger for each. The Satiator will charge both of them or do they require 2 different units? Also, how high voltage can they charge up to, for instance 72v?

 

[voicecoils]

Also one important change if you could make it suit 72v packs also

Any chance you will develop one with a higher voltage range?

I'm sure Justin will chime in with more details but getting regulatory approval for higher voltage DC chargers is not trivial!

 

[John in CR]

With the word "Universal" my wishlist would include accepting variable DC input as low as 30-50V with the unit able to effectively handle the variances of solar panel output.

 

[999zip999]

WoW ! Thanks Bro. Going forward. Wow

 

[Ypedal]

Any chance 2 of these chargers could be used in series ?

 

[gogo]

Things are going to be different now.

 

[nicobie]

Any chance 2 of these chargers could be used in series ?

I asked the same thing when talking to Justin at last years Makers Faire and he said that they would indeed work in series.

 

[justin_le]

With the word "Universal" my wishlist would include accepting variable DC input as low as 30-50V with the unit able to effectively handle the variances of solar panel output.

It definitely works OK at 90V DC, so if you can double up a pair of these solar outputs in series it should do. I'll check later today on just how low of a DC voltage the PFC input can properly handle, even if at somewhat derated power outputs, we might be able to go a fair bit lower still as a lot of people have found running laptop adapters etc. off their 72V packs. My own "universal" wishlist also included the ability to work in reverse, taking the battery and stepping that into a 120V / 220V output AC sinewave inverter, either to run equipment or do discharge load tests on a battery by dumping the energy back into the grid. But even though most of the power components are there for that, some of the key control parts don't function bidirectionally.

 

[justin_le]

Any chance 2 of these chargers could be used in series ?

I asked the same thing when talking to Justin at last years Makers Faire and he said that they would indeed work in series.

Yup, but series connection would still generally require a mid-point tap on the pack. So if your 72V or 96V or whatever setup is made of two 36V or 48V packs in series, then each pack just has its own charging port and it will work fine. But if you have a single monolithic battery at this voltage without access to a mid-point reference tap, and then wanted series connect the satiator outputs into a single + - connector that is 72V, that gets quite a bit more complicated and wouldn't be recommended.

 

[amberwolf]

That's great that it's finally "out"! Been wondering how long the red tape would take to cut thru.


If I had the money to put into one, it'd be great to test on the new bike once it's built, with it built-in to the bike itself--it'd probably take the abuse and the heat of AZ better than anything else I can think of that would fit on a bike. For now I'll stick to the cheapie types I already have, and the big nonportable Sorenson if I have to charge really fast. :lol:


For those that intend to try this: When they're run on DC, are they running thru a bridge that's capable of handling the full input current demand for full wattage, on the half of the bridge that's being used when on DC?

 

[Ypedal]

When flashing profiles via USB, would be cool to label the profiles.. ex: Chaos .. or Fatbike.. or KMX etc.. easier to spot than knowing your profiles by heart. ( for those of us who have more than a few bikes with high power lipo that can take the full 8 amps )

 

[cwah]

Finally a portable power supply!!

Too bad it doesn't work for higher voltage

 

[PaulD]

Awesome work, Justin. It's really impressive to get something like this in production with all of the approvals with a small team. Bravo!
I have a few low voltage bikes, so this will be perfect for my needs.

 

[ohzee]

Very nice. I look forward to buying one.

I like Justin's robe Had to look close , but at first I thought it was one.

Just read the attachments. This thing is bad ass.

 

[justin_le]

It definitely works OK at 90V DC,

I need to take that back. It works fine at 90V AC, but from a straight DC bus you need to get up to 120-130V in order to initially turn on the PFC stage, since it has a higher turn-on threshold than operating threshold. So yeah running off solar would require a relatively high voltage solar array.

 

[justin_le]

Also one important change if you could make it suit 72v packs also

Any chance you will develop one with a higher voltage range?

I'm sure Justin will chime in with more details but getting regulatory approval for higher voltage DC chargers is not trivial!

That's basically right. In principle it would be fairly straightforward to change some of the winding ratios and a few capacitors to make a higher voltage lower current unit (still 360 watts). But any devices that output over 60V have a different regime for regulatory and safety testing. Just the full lab certification alone was about $30K, so for now we needed to focus on a model with the highest chance of having widespread OEM users, since that's what it will take to recoup all the development costs.

You can look at our approach this way, the goal is to make a part that can have mainstream market appeal to hit the volumes required with turn-key ebike vendors, and then sneak in as many hacker/enthusiast features as possible. A 72V model off the bat wouldn't offer much advantage for turn-key ebike systems since they're all 48V or less, and the number of people interested in it here to charge up their massive 72V hobby LiPo clusters isn't likely to hit the quantities to make it worthwhile on a first run.

But I can promise you all this, if in the first year we do super well with the 48V 8A Satiator, then next on the roadmap for sure will be a 72V 5A variant and we'll jump through whatever hoops are needed to make that happen. Even though none of the cheap china chargers have any UL / CSA listings and people here seem fine with that, as a north american company with liability insurance coverage and all that we've got to do everything by the book.

 

[Willow]

Awesome work lads... leading by example, and I love it.

...and I too look forward to a higher voltage model.

S.

 

[liveforphysics]

Does the output have galvanic isolation from input?

If so, and you also have the capability to drive current at low voltages, your device could be programmed to know the voltage of CV supply/s and do higher voltage packs just fine. It could work for the 84S pack in the Palatov. If you want a tester for its use in a medium HV (345vdc max) pack, I volunteer and have a suitable CV block already.

 

[dogman dan]

Awesome sounding product, and well worth the price for some. I just wish I was in the smart set of ES dudes that could do the beta testing.

But I'll save for one I can use. Just plug in and grin is more my speed.

It would be cool on a long tour to have one truly bombproof charger, that will charge the pack even if you had to modify it to another voltage along the way.

Or you might have half your battery lifepo4, the other half limn, or whatever.

 

[cal3thousand]

Oh man, I've been waiting for this ever since your trip to Maker Faire.

Going to hit up my couch for loose change, brb :wink:

 

[justin_le]

Awesome work, Justin. It's really impressive to get something like this in production with all of the approvals with a small team. Bravo!
I have a few low voltage bikes, so this will be perfect for my needs.

Hey Paul, be happy if this can serve your awesome creations well. If you or others on this list are committed to be in on the pilot/beta run, then either post your usage details here with a brief description of the setups you plan to run with it, or send an email to info@ebikes.ca. The process will be to create a login account on our website so we can add the beta satiator directly to your cart, and then the remaining checkout process from there should all be easily automated. Our goal is still to get the first shipments heading out on Friday of this week. We'll be including the USB adapter cables required for reflashing the fimware and all that. The 3rd pin in the XLR plug of the charger cable can serve as a signal line for LIN bus communications, and we have a simple adapter cable to connect a female 3-pin XLR into a TRS plug for the usb->ttl cable.