I originally charged my cycle with a cheap (made in China) 48V charger, but it never really worked that well (lower amps than advertised!) and it sorta crapped out on me.
Since then, I had been charging the cycle with four 12V battery chargers, which works fine, but it's not real convenient having to clip on 8 power leads every time I want to charge.
For a while, I have had a 48V
UPS which I installed in my garage to experiment with for going off the grid, and battery backups during power outages.
I already had some batteries around from my electric car project and hooked some of them up to the UPS. But one thing I have thought about is how electric vehicles MOSTLY JUST SIT! And they are filled with batteries, just sitting there.
Well, a 48V UPS is two things, a DC to AC power inverter, AND a 48V battery charger! Since the motorcycle is 48V, why not charge it with the UPS?!
This is something I have thought about for a while, and I did a little test or two a while back, and it seems to work fairly well.
All I really needed is some sort of simple way to connect and disconnect the cycle and UPS. So, today, when I was at the Milwaukee Makerspace, I set to work on making a custom cable to go between the two.
On the motherboard of the UPS is a multi-pin plastic quick release connector, which goes to TWO red and two black 12GA power wires. These originally went to sealed PbA batteries mounted inside the rackmount UPS.
I needed to connect this special connector to something, and that something to the cycle. The easy answer is ANDERSON connectors - they are standard, easy to work with, and keyed, so you can't plug them in backwards.
I looked through the Makerspace's big box of cable and found a length of 6AWG power cable. 6 gauge is heavy enough for the power requirements, but the ends of the conductors still fit into the terminals for 50 amp Anderson connects. I gut two lengths of cable, about 10 feet long each, and crimped-on the Anderson connectors. I then did the same on the other end to make an Anderson Extension Cord!
I twisted together each pair of wires from the motherboard connector and crimped them to take an Anderson connector as well.
I now have a 10' long heavy power cord, with quick connects on both ends, and an adapter cable to connect to the UPS.
That gives me enough cable to roll up and hang in the garage so that when I pull up on the cycle, I have plenty to reach and plug into the Anderson connector I built into the tank on the cycle.
Plug it in and turn on the UPS, and it starts charging!
I also made a special cable to back-feed the UPS to the garage circuit breaker box to power the garage from the motorcycle. In event of a blackout, I could even feed it back to the house, and run my house from my electric motorcycle.
Not that we have blackouts a lot, but it sure will be interesting next time we have one!
PS: Yes, I am familiar with the term "anti-islanding". The electric company guys are my friends and I do NOT want to jolt them. The system is currently completely manual, and grid power must be disconnected (flip a breaker) to the garage to enable UPS load-side input. I also have an automatic transfer switch from an RV generator setup that I plan to instal to automate the system, while further increasing safety.