I have been driving around my new vehicle for a couple weeks now, and got the battery down to around 73%. I was curious how quickly it would charge, and we had a sunny day so it was the perfect time to charge up the vehicle.
Normally I would let them get much lower than this, but the winters provide limited sunlight. So during the summer I expect to let the UTV drop down into the 20s or 10s in battery percentage before recharging. But during the winter I will leave it more charged up. Also better for the batteries to keep it more charged up during use in cold weather.
Letting the battery drop to around 75% I can get an idea of how long it would take to charge when the battery is even more discharged. Should only take an hour or so to get from 75% to full.
I charged up my electric dirtbike the day before on solar as well, though it does not use up much power. I was more curious how my UTV would operate being fully charged on solar.
So I parked my UTV and brought it over to the charging area. I have heaters from my wood furnace that keep my workshop work. I park it by them, so if it was really cold I can help the batteries charge by heating up the UTV a little. Maybe one day I will need that, but for now it stays warm enough in my shop with all the insulation.
I had an electrician wire in 240V which allows fast charging and makes it possible to fully charge within just a couple hours. Otherwise it would take nearly 24 hours to fully charge on 120V.
Switching on the power for the fast charger I plug it in.
Checking the dashboard we can se its charging now. Using 6.1kw of power.
Pretty cool it just plugs into the outlet.
Being a sunny day, I wanted to see if I can charge the UTV fully with just the solar panels and battery.. Using no grid power.
I take a look at my dashboard and sure enough the panels plus battery are fully providing that 6.1kw of power to the UTV to fast charge it.
At 12:30pm we can see a spike in consumption, but the panels and battery are fully supporting that load. No grid used.
While my UTV charges I take my electric dirtbike out and look for some dead trees to cut up for firewood.
Just slowly riding the wood line I look for fungus growing on trees or bark falling off.
Eventually I find a dead pine, its hard to see but theres a dead tree in that patch of live ones.
I keep riding and look for more trees, coming back once its charged.
About an hour later it is fully charged and time to go out and collect firewood.
It starts to get dark so its time to flip on my work light. Glad to have that on the UTV. Since replacing the fuse they all work now.
I cut down the tree I found on my electric dirtbike though I did not get any pictures while doing it. But got many other loads around the property as well that I spotted when riding.
Another dead tree down and cut up. I load it up in the UTV.
No need for headlamps, just back up the UTV to the spot and get loading.
Today was a really successful day, I fully charged my UTV using solar power. And did it during the winter time which is more of a challenge. So I am glad everything worked out, and got some more work done later on.
