Best use for excess electricity on a bike?

[MisterInnovation]

For most people this may be true, but I plan on traveling around the country teaching people about renewable energy and how everyday folk like me and you can implement renewable energy into our lives at a very low cost well under retail. I plan I driving my streamlined bike and camping at night, so the extra power in a separate battery could be used to run things like my computer, a fan, and lights without worrying about draining the battery at night. All I would need was one extra deep cycle battery to accomplish all of this. 18v@36 cells could charge the battery while I am riding to my next destination.

[pete c]

Assuming you can have enough PV capacity to produce a surplus I suppose it could make sense if your extra battery capacity is li-ion. So much for less than retail.

The problem, it seems to me, is that you are more interested in making a mobile PV system than you are a motorcycle. i just don't see how a MC can mount enough cells do do what you want without making aerodynamic compromises.

[MisterInnovation]

I am building a fully enclosed streamlined fairing for the vehicle, I can mount the solar cells on that and maintain a streamlined shape. I am interested in creating a vehicle that can be used to tour the United States (and beyond?) teaching people about how they can implement renewable energies into their lives. I want to teach people about reducing dependance on foreign oil. How increasing the national speed limit on side roads to 55mph would allow the fuel miser to take advantage of the lower speed limit and get better fuel efficiency, giving tax bonuses for buying less fuel as well as producing an alternative fuel to reduce the need for the pump.

The bike is more than a bike. It is a micro caravan of experimentation and learning.

[Ryland]

Hard part is going to be finding a good, low cost lithium battery with a battery management system, if you want to skip the battery management system then you might as well go with lead acid.
As I see it, you don't have the area on a motorcycle to have a surplus, unless you were to go with a 3 wheeled design or build a trailer, even on a car it's hard to build enough non window area that points at the sun to do much good, but if you are planing to teach people about implementing renewable energy in to their life this should already be 100% clear to you.
If you build a trailer, then you have more space for storage batteries as well and if you are going for low cost then maybe lead acid is the way to go, of course in the long run lithium costs less and when on a vehicle lithium for sure costs less.
I'd be temped to run a 24v system with a step down converter to run your lights and to run the electrical system on the motorcycle because that opens up a lot of options for lithium batteries.

[MisterInnovation]

In the end I see a three wheeled electric vehicle, however I want to journey though all of this first to show the world different ways to get off foreign oil. I am not above adding a hack frame to make space for batteries and a motor in line with the chain drive. when I get more funding I can build a passenger compartment with two front tires and the electric/ice engines attached behind it. The entire floor compartment could be used as a battery bay to increase range. I would love lithium batteries but as of now I am on a shoestring budget [I already have several kw worth of solar components so they are essentially zero cost to me]

[gone7]

The excess electricity can be directed to the seat in such a way as to make you pedal faster!?!? Sorry, you know I couldn't resist.

But seriously, how about a second motor. Faster is better and easier is better, so that might work. Or maybe a bigger motor? Although I like the idea of disengaging the motor(s) which don't have enough power flow, so more smaller motors is more economical and efficient.

[Ryland]

So just to cover the motorcycles electrical needs you need 100 watts of panels, right? lets say you some how find enough space to have 200 watts of output that gives you 100 watts of extra power, you could power a radio with that, charge a small battery slowly or power a motor... a 100 watt motor on a bicycle would propel you down the road at about 8 mph, a nice relaxed speed, in other words, you would almost go faster/further/save more gas, if you put a set of pedals on your motorcycle then if you tried to add 100 watts worth of electrical energy in to the drive train, of course taking that load off the alternator is going to help but it would help more if you could remove the alternator and that is not possible on most motorcycles.

[MisterInnovation]

I have all led lights except for the headlamp, I draw maybe 65 watts max without brights on.

[Ryland]

Originally Posted by MisterInnovation

I have all led lights except for the headlamp, I draw maybe 65 watts max without brights on.

So low beam is around 60 watts, half a watt to one watt each for the rest of the lights instead of the standard 5-10 watts each and how much power does the CDI in the Honda Rebel draw? 20 to 30 watts?

[gone7]

I believe I once read about an LED headlight. That would reduce the need for electricity.

BTW, how heavy is the whole thing?