The Best Portable Solar Charger For Electric Bikes 2023
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Bakcou 200 Watt Solar Panel Charger Review For Electric Bikes
PROS
- Compact & Portable
- Great Charge Time
- Compatible
- Durable
CONS
- Price
The Bakcou 200 Watt Solar Panel Charger for Electric Bikes is an amazing charger to have with you on the go. It is the best solar charger for electric bikes on the market.
There are very few solar panel chargers for e-bikes currently on the market, but I’m sure as the e-bike industry grows more people will be interested in solar panel bike chargers. So, more companies will release them.
Out of the companies that currently sell a portable solar panel charger for electric bikes, the Bakcou Solar Panel Charger is the best.
Bakcou Company
The Bakcou E-bike Company was founded by Bryan Child and Dave Andre. They are both outdoorsmen and wanted to create a company that provided them better access to the backcountry without the disturbance of wildlife. They are primarily an e-bike company so, they make e-bike accessories such as this Bakcou Portable Solar Panel Charger.
E-bikes have zero emissions, almost no noise, and overall they limit the damage to wildlife. So, they decided to make the best and most durable e-bikes and e-bike products on the market.
If you choose Bakcou as your e-bike provider for accessories and e-bikes, you definitely won’t be disappointed!
Portability – 10/10
The Bakcou Solar Panel Charger is different than other solar panel chargers because of how portable and compact it is. As you can see above, the Bakcou solar charger folds up into a small square that you can carry with you anywhere. When folded it measures 15″ x 19″ and is 1.5″ thick. When it’s unfolded it’s 98″ long x 20″ wide and 1/4″ thick. Being able to fold it up saves
Many of the competitors use huge sheets of solar panels. So, it’s very difficult for you to take them around with you. You could bend them and almost fold them in half, but that’s it. It would still take up a ton of room.
The folding design of the Bakcou panel is the best I’ve seen so far in terms of solar panel chargers for e-bikes.
Charging Time – 8/10
To figure out the charging time for your battery, you’ll need to do a little bit of math, Since this solar panel charger works on a variety of different e-bikes with different battery sizes, the charge time is different depending on the bike. If you don’t want to do the math to figure out the charging time for your specific bike, feel free to skip this section. You can rest assured knowing that this charger performs very well in comparison to other solar panel chargers for e-bikes.
I will provide the formulas and do a few examples so, you can do the math yourself to estimate the charge time of your e-bike’s battery.
To start, most e-bikes give their battery measurements in Volts and Amp Hours. For the formula to calculate charge time, you need to convert these numbers into Watt-hours.
I’m going to show the formulas first, after that, I will give an example with a specific bike and bike battery.
First, we need to convert the info given to Watt-hours. Here’s the formula to get Watt-hours:
Watt-hours = Amp-hours * Volts
Once you have Watt-hours. There’s a formula that gives you the charge time. It isn’t going to be exact because different chargers have different efficiency levels, but this will give you a ballpark of how long it will take your solar panel to charge your bike.
Here’s the formula for charging time:
Charging Time in hours = (Watt-hours / Watts) * 2
That’s how you calculate the charge time, now we’ll go over an example using the Bakcou Mule Elite Electric Bike.
The Bakcou Mule elite comes with a 48-Volt battery in 3 different battery size options: 14.5Ah, 17.4 Ah, and 21 Ah. The Amp Hours tell you the capacity of the battery, it’s essentially your gas tank size. The larger the amp hours the more power the battery can hold and the longer you can ride on a full charge.
We’ll start with the largest battery option, the 21 Ah battery.
We plug 21 in for the Amp-hours and 48 in for the Volts because it’s a 48 Volt battery.
Watt-hours = 21Ah * 48V = 1,008 Wh
Then we take the 1,008 Watt-hours from the previous formula and the 200 Watts that the solar panel charger gives and plug them into the other formula and that will give us our charging time in hours:
Charging Time in Hours = (1,008 Wh / 200 Watts) * 2 = 10.08 hours
So this battery would take approximately 10.08 hours, or 10 hours and 5 mins, to reach a full charge. This may seem like a long time, but this is an on-the-go charger for emergencies or long trips.
If you’re going on a long trip, you’ll need to plan your trip in a way that you can either get to a power source and use a normal charger for a quicker charge or plan for the need for a long charge. This type of charger is perfect for long wilderness/camping trips or taking your e-bike on hunting trips. When you go on these types of trips, you can set up your solar charger while camping or hunting.
Compatibility – 9/10
The Solar Charger fits 3 different battery types. It will fit most Bakcou e-bikes since the e-bikes are made by the same company, but it should also fit other e-bikes. However, you need to make sure it is compatible with your specific bike before purchasing this portable bike charger. Also, you need to make sure to check the correct connection type when choosing the charger. Below are the compatible connection options that come with the Bakcou Solar Panel Charger.
3 Types of Bike Charger Connections
3 Pin Charger V1
3 Pin Charger V2
Barrel Charger
Conclusion – 9/10
If you’re looking for a way to charge your electric bikes while on the go, the Bakcou 200 Watt Solar Panel Charger is the way to go. It’s convenient, portable, and reliable. As with any portable charger that you buy, it will take longer to charge than your normal wall charger but with this solar panel, you can charge your e-bike in the middle of nowhere. I highly recommend this product for anyone that rides through the mountains, takes their e-bike camping, or likes going on hunting trips. Overall, the Bakcou Solar Panel E-bike Charger is a great product. You won’t be disappointed.
This was very interesting. Good job. Please consider a review of potential power banks to be used with this panel. The theory being you could charge the bank during the day and, when you get back from screwing around during the day, charge the bike at night. Mifgt affect portability and cost but add to convenience. Thanks
Oh, that’s a great idea! I hadn’t thought about using a power bank. I’ll do some research and put that into an article. Thanks for the suggestion.