How dangerous would a high voltage extension cord be?

[enjoythesilenc]

This is sort of an academic question but...

I've seen pictures from the Alta assembly line? where the neonatal bike is plugged into an orange extension cord for testing/shakedown/qc instead of an actual battery.

My present infatuation is to somehow use my spare battery as a range extender similar to the BMW Rex trailer concept. There is a specific place I ride that involves riding on the street about 8 miles to get to the best secret black dirt singletrack area I've found. If I can somehow bring my second battery with me, I can avoid some range anxiety issues.

Trailers

If I had a trailer behind the ALta I could

1. bring the second battery and swap it in trailside or

2. Run extended hv cable and comms cable from my trailer/battery to the bike as I do the street portions of the ride. Un hook the trailer at the "trailhead" and proceed to do the fun stuff with the normal battery configuration. Drain the the normal battery then hook back onto the nurse battery for the street ride back to civilization.

 

[snydes]

It's certainly a interesting idea... my first thought is that I believe there is a length limitation for any of the CAN BUS wiring related to the bit rate that would likely be exceeded to the trailer. I could be wrong but I remember this being an issue when we were talking about diagnostic cable lengths.

 

[Rashid510]

So ya wanna make extension cables eh? I use them occasionally when testing batteries before loading them into the bike.

The fun one is the battery signal cable. @enjoythesilenc since your a A pack, that wonderful milspec connector is a joy to connect outside the bike. Inside the bike...different story. CAN wiring in a lonng amount can potentially lead to signal issues but usual wiring spec for CAN wiring is to create a twisted pair...

When we created that "station" for updating the core components of the bike with the latest firmware packages the wiring runs was about 2ish feet. When we went to the R pack it was about 3ish feet. Never really had any CAN issues.

Just imaging though a bike with extension cables out of the subframe to a pack trailer...cool idea

 

[enjoythesilenc]

What I'm gathering is that we are in the realm of "maybe". I'll take maybe at this point :+)

I have a dummy battery case with the comms connector so I guess I could get the other connector, make an 8 foot extension cable for the comms wires and see if it works when spliced into the circuit?

 

[Philip]

Are you going to hide the trailer in the bushes while riding your secret singe track?

If you do not have experience with making connectors, then making high-voltage and low-mileage extension cables and connectors would be a PITA. But you don't have to make them. You can disconnect the original cables, pull them out, and connect to the second battery without removing the first battery. The second battery just has to be fairly close.

You could fabricate a frame to carry the second battery where a tank bag would normally go. No extension cables and no battery trailer!

 

[snydes]

How about a heavy duty battery backpack? Imagine that visual!

 

[Philip]

How about a heavy duty battery backpack? Imagine that visual!

Imagine how strong you would become if you decide to ride your single track with the second battery on your back!

 

[enjoythesilenc]

Yes I was thinking about a "tank Pannier" type arrangement with a battery on one side and 70 pounds of sandwiches/ gatorade hanging off the other side.

As far as my super secret singletrack goes, you have to ride your plated bike into it. you can't park your truck anywhere. Once there you drop your backpack and start doing laps unmolested. I know it's a pretty esoteric circumstance but I thought the trailer aspect might lend itself to other situations like light camping off the bike with a small generator, or spare pack, etc

All this illustrates how crazy the Alta makes a person. It is so fun to ride that you try to think of anything to overcome the nagging imperfections of the status quo. I have a perfectly adequate plated dirtbike well suited to this place but no, I have to be able to show up on the outlier bike.

 

[Motophyllic]

I like the backpack idea, how about a quick connect to one of these?