Charging - 220 vs 110

[DirtSurfer]

I don't (currently) have a 220v "quick" charger set up in my garage.. instead, I've been plugging my PHEV car into a 110v household socket, which of course takes forever, but it works.. (I just leave it plugged in over night).

The Varg EX mentions having a 220v adapter as standard, w/ a 110v adapter "available" (likely for a fee).

Curious what folks experience is w/ all this, contemplating just putting a 220v in the garage to support both use cases..

Thanks for the input!!!

 

[joer]

I find it’s handy to have at times. I generally will charge up to 80%-ish overnight and just top up before I leave for the track.

At 240V, you get about 1% a minute, give or take. (The EX may be slower since the battery is larger.) At that speed, it's reasonable for me to get home from work and finish the charge while I get changed and load up the car.

Also, when I get home from the track, I can throw it on the charger and in fairly short order get the battery back above 20% if I happened to drain it way down that day.

Just speaking from my experience at an MX track: Having 240V track-side charging is a huge plus and makes the bike really easy to live with. I tend to use a bit more than one battery's worth of riding on most days (before my body wears out). If it's quite muddy, the battery drain is noticeably faster. I think it would be less pleasant if I was limited to 120v track side charging.

 

[DirtSurfer]

I find it’s handy to have at times. I generally will charge up to 80%-ish overnight and just top up before I leave for the track.

At 240V, you get about 1% a minute, give or take. (The EX may be slower since the battery is larger.) At that speed, it's reasonable for me to get home from work and finish the charge while I get changed and load up the car.

Also, when I get home from the track, I can throw it on the charger and in fairly short order get the battery back above 20% if I happened to drain it way down that day.

Just speaking from my experience at an MX track: Having 240V track-side charging is a huge plus and makes the bike really easy to live with. I tend to use a bit more than one battery's worth of riding on most days (before my body wears out). If it's quite muddy, the battery drain is noticeably faster. I think it would be less pleasant if I was limited to 120v track side charging.

Do you use a generator for track charging? (If so, what do you use, and does it work well?)

 

[joer]

No generator. I went kind of over-board and did this:

My 240v Battery/Inverter Track Side Charging Setup

For anyone that’s interested, here’s my setup for topping up my Varg at the track. I didn’t really want to deal with the maintenance and fuel on a gas generator. I got the Varg because I was sick of changing oil and cleaning air filters. :) So I went for an external battery instead. I had...

electricdirtriders.com

That said, it's working really well and comes in handy during the off season if there's a power outage. Or at least, that's how I'm justifying it to myself.

The LiFePO4 batteries I recharge with a 120V charger (15 Amp) and they will comfortably charge over-night. I'm not nearly as careful with those.