It’s again! The electrical mini-truck that retains on giving has one other enjoyable trick up its sleeve. With a little bit of DIY magic, I used to be in a position to outfit my Chinese language mini-truck with a photo voltaic panel that may trickle cost it from the solar.

In case you’re aren’t acquainted with this unassuming little mini-truck, then right here’s the background: I discovered it on Alibaba again in 2021 and paid the Chinese language vendor it got here from $2,000 to make it mine.

It went by way of an extended saga of being shipped to the US, which price barely greater than the truck itself. However it will definitely arrived in Florida the place it’s been dwelling out a tough working but rewarding life on my guardian’s ranch. There it primarily serves as a piece truck on the property, although generally it heads out simply to thrill the neighbors. Everybody loves this quirky little factor.

The electrical drive signifies that it’s quiet, largely maintenance-free, and doesn’t require any journeys to the gasoline station to refill.

That final one is necessary because it isn’t even avenue authorized, and therefore why it lives its life off-road as a piece truck.

The pretty massive (for a mini-truck) 6,000 Wh battery usually offered round per week or two of use earlier than needing to be recharged from a typical 120V wall outlet.

That was positive, although it was a bit annoying to attend all day for it to cost.

So I made a decision to attempt to benefit from the plentiful solar that bakes its roof rack every day whereas it sits exterior. To take action, I acquired a small photo voltaic panel to mount onto the roof rack.

I figured if I might simply let it trickle cost whereas it’s sitting out within the solar, then I wouldn’t really must plug it in for a giant cost of the LiFePO4 battery practically as typically.

You’ll be able to comply with together with the method of putting in the photo voltaic panel on the truck in a video I filmed of the venture, or simply preserve studying for the small print.

The most important panel I might discover that didn’t lengthen previous the present roof rack was a 50W Renogy photo voltaic panel. Not precisely big, however it could be simply positive for trickle charging. Assuming round 35W of photo voltaic vitality (they don’t name Florida the Sunshine State for nothin’!) for 8 hours a day, I figured I’d get practically 300 Wh of trickle charging per day.

Contemplating the truck solely drives a couple of miles per day whereas it stays inside a ten acre ranch, that will most likely account for round half of its day by day use. It wouldn’t take it fully off-grid, but it surely ought to stretch out the time between expenses by round double. And the panel can be sufficiently small that it wouldn’t influence anything on the truck or lengthen previous the confines of the present roof rack.

I used to be in a position to mount the photo voltaic panel by utilizing PVC pipe to create struts throughout the roof rack. After portray them black, they mainly seemed like the present metal tubes and make the set up seem extra like a manufacturing facility job.

The pipes additionally allowed me to angle the panel barely, that means I can park the truck going through north after I’m not utilizing it and get a pleasant southernly angle for larger photo voltaic effectivity.

To extend the roughly 18VDC popping out of the photo voltaic panel to match the cost voltage wanted by my 60V battery within the mini-truck, I used a photo voltaic cost controller. It’s the identical one I utilized in a earlier photo voltaic electrical bike venture, and it’s far more highly effective than I want. However the further energy signifies that if I ever need to create a carport or different set up with a couple of bigger photo voltaic panels on it, I might plug them in on to the truck and get a better charging price when parked close to the photo voltaic array.

The precise strategy of connecting all the pieces is fairly darn easy. The photo voltaic panels plug into the cost controller, which itself plugs into the battery’s charging port. I used to be in a position to entry the charging port by utilizing a spare plug below the mini-truck’s charging cap (I nonetheless don’t know why the mini-truck got here with two completely different charging ports wired to the identical circuit, however I used to be completely satisfied it did). Probably the most troublesome half was simply peeling again the inside lining of the truck’s cab to cover the wiring that ran as much as the photo voltaic panel.

With the set up full, testing confirmed that in most circumstances I might get between 30-35W of energy. At one level I reached 45W when the solar was its highest level within the sky, although 35W was a extra life like determine on common.

Because the photo voltaic panel set up, I’ve discovered that the charging interval has mainly doubled.

If my household charged the truck round as soon as each 10 days or so prior to now, now we will get away with doing it as soon as each three weeks or so.

A panel that was massive sufficient to fully cost the truck can be good, however I didn’t need one so large that it might get in the best way of the mattress since we use the truck practically day by day for hauling issues across the property.

The mattress additionally has a hydraulic ram that lifts it up about 45-degrees in dump truck kind, and so I couldn’t have a panel lengthen too far again.

I’d say that the venture was fairly profitable, and it demonstrates that photo voltaic charging on automobiles will be efficient if the automobile is low sufficient energy (my truck is round 5 hp).

Standard photo voltaic electrical vehicles can’t actually examine, since a day of solar simply isn’t sufficient to fill an affordable portion of their large batteries. However if you happen to’ve acquired a small EV like a mini-truck or an e-bike, particularly one which doesn’t must go too far every day and usually stays in a single space like this, you possibly can really make an influence even with a comparatively small photo voltaic panel.

For anybody who ever needed to attempt a DIY photo voltaic charging venture like this, I’d positively suggest giving it a shot. It’s surprisingly easy and straightforward to do. It’s additionally exhausting to explain the rewarding feeling of stepping again to admire your work afterwards, watching your machine “magically” charging with out being plugged in. Or a minimum of, with out being plugged in to the wall.