CHARGING BATTERIES ON THE MOVE

[LOLSROLLS]

New Boy, aged 90 - Birmingham UK - wants to say Hallo! My handle 'LOLSROLLS ' after my scooter - a red ROYALE-4. Clapped out a silver one at 7000 miles (dashboard electronics failure) - all lights permanently on. Accidentally dropped into the 'Wheelchair' whilst trawling the Net and seeing a mention re 'charging batteries on the move'. That must be a subject dear to any heavy users heart? Dear to me; around £200 a year. Tell me all; I am more than ready to learn and the sun has just come out. LOL

[Burgerman]

Whats 200 a year? If you are getting batteries at 200 then they are junk!

[Burgerman]

Whats 200 a year? If you are getting batteries at 200 then they are junk!

If you want them to last you NEED MK Gel and the correct gel freindly charger. Or Odyssey and another freindly charger. Nothing else will work other than to fail prematurely and give crappy performance.

As for charging on the move you cant. At least while moving, without a massive heavy self defeatng generator.

Options are:
-carry a FAST charger. (25 to 40Amp) and a suitably robust charge connector.
-rewire for 12V charging and charge from any cars alternator at about 50 to 100Amp.
-go lithium for a 10 year life, 3x the range and 3x the cost of good lead bricks.

[LOLSROLLS]

Burgerman
Just caught up with your replies. You are a bit sharp with your mouth to some one that just dropped on to the site & asked advice. What's 200 a year? A lot if you have to watch pennies! Having purchased a Royale 4 at £2800 there wasn't a lot left to go out on the town with. It came with batteries & a charger, so I was unaware I had to promptly dump them and buy more. There was nothing in the manual that said these are 'crap'; bin them! On your recommendation I will study the net and see what is on offer.

Rewiring for 12v would be expensive; somewhat doubtful and could wreck the Dashboard LCD panel & programmer. Charging from a car alternator .....Does that mean driving around in a car, or is there some other means of using an alternator?
Being out on the Royale at least four times a day would not leave a lot of time for driving around an the thought of lifting the seat off (30kgs); removing 2 x 23kg batteries, transporting them from home, 100mtrs to the road (I live on a Walk) and reversing the process etc. on my return, more than daunting. Fortunately it is unlikely to occur as I no longer have a vehicle. At 90, with only one small claim since 1946, my insurers priced me off the road.

One bit of good came out of my 'CHARGING BATTERIES ON THE MOVE'. Elsewhere on the Wheelchair Site was a piece on Kipor Generators and the reduced 59 Decibel rate on the 1Kw model; in addition to which I am near deaf. Armed with a VAT Exemption Form, I got £65 off and a pair of 'Jump Leads'. It is now sitting happily in a wire basket behind my seat and Birmingham to Benidorm to see Madge is a possibility. Any queries, on what is only a mild hum to me; I tell them "Its a Harley mobility bike."

[Burgerman]

Burgerman
Just caught up with your replies. You are a bit sharp with your mouth to some one that just dropped on to the site & asked advice. What's 200 a year? A lot if you have to watch pennies!

Sorry, typing from a bed with stupid on screen keyboard so very minimalist reply!

Heres the thing. All lead batteries are frankly rubbish. Only the very best deep cycle and low impedance batteries are even worth bothering with. And in the size your scooter takes these are both more than 200 EACH. These, meaning MK Gel, or Hawker/Enersis Odyssey batteries. There really isnt a shortcut or any cheaper battery available thats any good or worth fitting.

As the saying goes, we cant afford cheap batteries. In fact even "expensive" batteriries at around £230 each are still pretty dismal if you expect real range or performance and want them to last long. The most expensive part of any electric vehicle is or rather needs to be its battery. Thats why you are looking for a way to charge on the move or a heavy generator in the first place. Because your cheap one are useless. Unlike power wheelchairs which generally come with good batteries many scooters do not. Because the makers presume the user will use it intermittently so they can get away with cheaper ones.

Rewiring for 12v would be expensive; somewhat doubtful and could wreck the Dashboard LCD panel & programmer. Charging from a car alternator .....Does that mean driving around in a car, or is there some other means of using an alternator?

You only rewire the charge part, for 12V so that a car you travel in, or a taxi, or freind you call in emergency can charge your scooter very very fast at up to 100A (or 10x faster than your mobility charger). It allows you to whack about 80% of the power back in well under an hour into a qality battery like odyssey. And its actually easy, doesent affect the rest of the scooter one bit! Theres a page there somewhere on the site explaining how.

[Burgerman]

One bit of good came out of my 'CHARGING BATTERIES ON THE MOVE'. Elsewhere on the Wheelchair Site was a piece on Kipor Generators and the reduced 59 Decibel rate on the 1Kw model; in addition to which I am near deaf. Armed with a VAT Exemption Form, I got £65 off and a pair of 'Jump Leads'. It is now sitting happily in a wire basket behind my seat and Birmingham to Benidorm to see Madge is a possibility. Any queries, on what is only a mild hum to me; I tell them "Its a Harley mobility bike."

How do you plan to charge 24v with it?
Doesent it have a low Amp 12V output?

One battery at a time? Will end up unbalanced and damage the batteries if you then add a mobility charger to charge at 24V later on. Or by charging with the stock 8A mobility charger? Because to put say 80% back will take approx 6 or 7 hours.

Or do you mean to do this as you drive with the generator running, with a mobility charger? That ay work if you drive and stop drive and stop mostly. Or at least extend the range A LOT if you keep on going. But then you are petrol powered and a little heavy a lighter petrol scooter or teist and go quad bke from ebay much cheaper!

Incidentally, birmingham to where? Benidorm? At 8mph...
According to google is approx 1400 miles without loo breaks or ebuilding the generator.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/Birmi ... 410566!3e0

And you are 90 now you say?
Lets see how long it will take. Not bad. If you dont sleep, or eat, keep driving 24 hours a day and the ferry takes 2 hours, thats 177 hours. Or just 7.29 days.

[LOLSROLLS]

Birmingham to Benidorm was a 'pun'; but I'm sure Madge would give me a cuddle!. What a holiday; toddling through France & Spain at 8 mph? Plenty of 'walkers' do it at half that speed! The St Bernard's in Switzerland may be a bit of a push but a day should do it. Not like in a car; you would have time to study the scenery.

Currently, it's just B'ham 37 to the Bull Ring. Stop the Geni to go round the Indoor Market & any other enclosed premises. Arrive home, still charged.

The Inverter, produces a smoothed pure AC & 12v DC as a Charger. Loads of caravans use them, either direct or through batteries. Running Computers, Fridges, TV & charging Mobiles etc.

On the Scooter, 24v as you say; one lead on +ve of Battery 1; the other on -ve of Battery 2 and it works. 12v going into 24v will put in 50%, topping up or maintaining what is being used? I have a 5m x 2.5m workshop with a large caravan awning on one side of it. 6 (knackered?) 12v batteries, wired in parallel & stacked in a corner. Thanks to LED's, a 6v 2 amp charger (remnant of motor cycle days) has kept me supplied with lighting for a number of years.

I am not an authority on it, but if it works, I'm happy. A 100 LED 12v Spot Light was lit with a tiny Hearing Aid battery; just to see if it worked. It did.

[LOLSROLLS]

Birmingham to Benidorm was a 'pun'; but I'm sure Madge would give me a cuddle!. What a holiday; toddling through France & Spain at 8 mph? Plenty of 'walkers' do it at half that speed! The St Bernard's in Switzerland may be a bit of a push but a day should do it. Not like in a car; you would have time to study the scenery.

Currently, it's just B'ham 37 to the Bull Ring. Stop the Geni to go round the Indoor Market & any other enclosed premises. Arrive home, still charged.

The Inverter, produces a smoothed pure AC & 12v DC as a Charger. Loads of caravans use them, either direct or through batteries. Running Computers, Fridges, TV & charging Mobiles etc.

On the Scooter, 24v as you say; one lead on +ve of Battery 1; the other on -ve of Battery 2 and it works. 12v going into 24v will put in 50%, topping up or maintaining what is being used? I have a 5m x 2.5m workshop with a large caravan awning on one side of it. 6 (knackered?) 12v batteries, wired in parallel & stacked in a corner. Thanks to LED's, a 6v 2 amp charger (remnant of motor cycle days) has kept me supplied with lighting for a number of years.

I am not an authority on it, but if it works, I'm happy. A 100 LED 12v Spot Light was lit with a tiny Hearing Aid battery; just to see if it worked. It did.

[Burgerman]

On the Scooter, 24v as you say; one lead on +ve of Battery 1; the other on -ve of Battery 2 and it works. 12v going into 24v will put in 50%, topping up or maintaining what is being used?

No that definitely cannot work. To begin with the output is a regulated 13.8v DC 5A on all of those small generators. That means it will just charge 1 battery with 6 cells only, and not fully, unless you were to wait about 16 hours after stopping moving. So you would only be able to connect across one of your two batteries. It would then keep one charged almost, as long as you keep stopping while its allowed to catch up. While the other will discharge normally. When you subsequently recharge from the wall both batteries will be damaged. With one overcharged and the other undercharged.

If you connect it across 2 batteries in series as you claim above, it will not charge either battery at all in any way. Because the regulated 13,8V is already lower than the approx 25.8V you have on the scooter. So it may make a noise but its doing nothing useful whatsoever. Returning no power. You are wasting petrol.

To make it work like that you will require a separate generator on each battery. What will work albeit extremely slowly, and certainly will not keep up with your usage, is your normal scooter charger plugged into the generator. But you will be taking out power much faster than you are replacing it. At a rough guess you will need to be stationary approx the same time or a bit more, as you are actually moving. You will be taking out about 20A and returning 8.

At the moment madge is completely safe!