rbrides

Anyone using a dyno hub to charge batteries while bikepacking? It would seem a great thing to have a dyno hub to recharge a lightweight battery pack so I could then recharge my (too many) electronic gadgets like Wahoo, digital camera and lights on multiday bikepacking trips. Or maybe charge the gadgets directly, one at a time, and not bring a battery pack.

But do the dyno hubs produce enough power to charge these things. Inquiring minds want to know.

If you have actual experience using dyno hubs in the past few years I would like to hear your input.

Thanks Bike Forum Friends!

2_i 

You can only get slow USB charging with dynohub.

unterhausen

If you are on hilly terrain, you probably won't have a lot of success charging from a dyno. I just carry a battery usb phone charger, or more than one.
If you do decide to try dyno charging, the intermediate battery is a good idea. I have a dyno light with a charger and the internal cache battery discharges quickly while charging. Garmins hate intermittent external power, and are very annoying.
The battery is also good insurance.

Tourist in MSN

Yes. I was self reliant for power on my last two bike tours. That said, during one of those tours I found that a high resistance cable got into my bag of cables, thus was only self-reliant for the last three weeks of one of those tours. The first part of one tour, a lot of my power was not getting into the power bank due to a bad cable.

But it depends on how much power you need. In the past I have used a Sinewave Revolution and a SP PV8 on bike tours. In flat terrain, I think I average roughly 2 watts out of my Sinewave on fairly flat terrain, cut that in half or maybe less in hilly terrain. A pass through cache battery is also useful to have, but not mandatory. I use a Voltaic powerbank that has pass through capability.

Phone was off or in airplane mode almost all the time. No dynohub powered lighting. On a cold morning I would warm up my phone before I used it for weather forecast, cold phone batteries go down fast. Etc. I had my GPS on at all times when riding, probably a third to half of my power was used for the GPS. Some for camera batteries (I take lots of photos). And charging up taillight batteries (always have a flasher on when rolling). And of course a headlamp in the campsite.

If you have to have your phone on all the time while riding, stop reading here, it probably will not be enough power.

I recently bought a Cycle2Charge V3 (version 3) to try since the price looked pretty good, and am very happy with it. I think it puts out maybe 50 percent more power than the Sinewave. But the Cycle2Charge will not charge up anything if you have dyno powered lights turned on, it is lights or charging but not both. I found the Cycle2Charge to only start charging at 6.5 mph, but it was providing a good amount of power above 9 mph. Alternatively, the Sinewave would put out a small amount of power if you also had lights on and would charge at a very tiny rate at lower speeds. On an exercise ride with my dyno powered lights on, my Sinewave put out maybe 25 percent as much power as with the lights off.

I plan to use the Cycle2Charge on my future bike tours instead of the Sinewave. That said, the Sinewave Revolution has exceptional water resistance, but I am so new to the Cycle2Charge that I can't really say how it would hold up under touring in the rain.

That said, there are many other options to choose from, I only cited two here. I think the Forumslader (spell?) has the highest output.

I do not notice any extra drag from charging batteries, but the drag is definitely there. While the electronics are quite efficient, the hubs are less so, as a rule of thumb I assume that drag at the hub is about double the output at the USB charger. Thus, if I am getting 4 watts out of the Cycle2Charge, my extra hub drag is probably 8 watts. On a bike tour, that does not matter to most people, but some of the people on this board would find that terrible.

I got my Cycle2Charge at Amazon.de (Amazon in Germany) about a month ago. They listed it as the V3+ but I appear to have gotten the older V3, that is ok with me. I am in USA, paying in US Dollars, the Cycle2Charge was paid for in Euros. For about the past three or four months, the US Dollar has been VERY strong against the Euro, which made it a lot cheaper than it would have been a year ago.

You specifically said bikepacking, not touring. I do touring, may be for weeks at a time. If you are out in the wild during your entire trip, with no racks or panniers, then your trip is likely only days long instead of weeks because you are limited in how much food you can carry. Carrying a half week to a week of powerbanks might be better for you, depending on how long your trips are. And bikepacking might mean much slower travel if you are on difficult singletrack, and slower speed means much less electric output.

More info on chargers here.
https://www.cyclingabout.com/best-dy...g-bikepacking/

And here (this one is in German but it should translate).
https://fahrradzukunft-de.translate....charge-v3-plus

A lot of the bikes listed at these two links listed dynohubs and chargers that some of them used, but they traveled faster than I do.
https://bikepacking.com/bikes/2022-t...e-rigs-part-1/
https://bikepacking.com/bikes/2022-t...e-rigs-part-2/

rbrides

[QUOTE=Tourist in MSN;22622112]Y.
You specifically said bikepacking, not touring. I do touring, may be for weeks at a time. If you are out in the wild during your entire trip, with no racks or panniers, then your trip is likely only days long instead of weeks because you are limited in how much food you can carry. Carrying a half week to a week of powerbanks might be better for you, depending on how long your trips are. And bikepacking might mean much slower travel if you are on difficult singletrack, and slower speed means much less electric output.

Thanks. MY BP trips are 4-5 days and some include small town store stops and/or eateries that enable battery pack recharging.

rbrides

Thanks everyone. From all your input, I assess the big picture to be that dynohubs are not effective for recharging battery packs.

znomit

The Klite charger gives around 3W at 20kph. That'll happily charge a GPS or small light, and slowly charge a phone. Good for off grid with low power requirements.

https://www.klite.com.au/product-pag...-usbv2-charger

adamrice 

I've got the kLite light+charger combo. The light is very bright, and when it's not on, it can easily keep electronics charged. Depending on how fast you're going and the exact kLite model, it can charge electronics while the light is on too. I've got a multi-tip USB cable that can (for example) charge my phone and a taillight, and that has been no problem. You can have a power bank inline as a backup.

Relying on a dyno hub to charge your electronics assumes a certain amount of saddle time, obviously. Cycling About has done the math on this.

This is not a cheap setup, and if you know you can get through your longest trip with, say, a 20,000 mAh battery, that's a perfectly reasonable option.