Charging on-the-go

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Use at your own risk. I am not responsible if you break your Onewheel, injure yourself, someone else, or burn your house down.


Overview of options

You have to choose what’s most important to you. Every option has tradeoffs on price, weight, capacity, and safety.

Option Pros Cons
Car inverter
  1. Lots of options on the market
  2. Don’t have to carry anything while riding
  3. Safe
  1. Must be at your car to charge
  2. Need to make sure it can handle 300W load
AC battery pack (e.g. Chafon)
  1. Most common solution
  2. Safe
  3. Includes multiple USB ports and outlets
  1. Heavy (7lbs w/ battery and charger)
  2. You must carry charger too
  3. AC->DC is inefficient from energy perspective
  4. Expensive ($300+)
  5. Battery capacity readings are wildly inaccurate
DC battery pack (e.g. solar charger)
  1. Lightest solution
  2. Most energy efficient (DC->DC)
  3. Lots of battery choices
  1. Most technical. Requires soldering.
  2. Safety is dependent on batteries used

Onewheel specs

  • Charger output: 58V 3.5A
  • Charger capacity: 130Wh
  • Wattage required to charge: 250-300W


AC battery pack

The idea is to use an AC battery pack with the standard Onewheel charger.

Ac inverter.png

Option Pros Cons

Carvepower
$245 for 2 charges (288Wh)

  1. Pure sine wave
  2. Lower price for Onewheel community
  1. Heavy - 7lbs
Chafon CF-UPS008

$290 for 2 charges (288Wh)

  1. Most common option in community
  1. Modified sine wave
  2. Heavy - 7lbs

igoeshopping
$311 for 2 charges (288Wh)

  1. Pure sine wave
  1. Heavy - 7lbs

AMSU
$300 for 2.5 charges (330Wh)

  1. Pure sine wave
  1. Heavy - 7lbs

DC battery pack

The idea is to use a solar charge controller to upconvert a portable battery’s voltage to the 58V that the Onewheel expects. The solar charge controller is typically used to charge a battery via a solar panel. However in this case, your portable battery takes place of the solar panel and your Onewheel is the battery you’re charging.

See photo from @timvp below: Charger setup.png

Make sure you protect your battery with something soft in case you wipeout while riding. I suggest packing foam.


Step 1: choose a battery and charger

Battery options Specs Pros Cons
36V 12.5Ah Lithium Scooter battery $209 for 3.5 charges (450Wh) @ 5lbs
  1. Most bang for buck in terms of cost and capacity
  2. AC charger included
  3. Safe since it's LiOn
  1. No BMS
36V 4.4ah Lithium batteries from eBay $60 for ~1 charge (158Wh)
  1. Cheap ($60)
  2. A couple folks in the community have had luck with this
  1. Lots of fakes
LiFePO4 $35 for ½ charge (42Wh?) @ 1lb
  1. Safe. This is the same kind of battery that the Onewheel uses.
  1. Less than one charge
52V Mighty Mini $230 for 2.5 charges (300Wh) @ 3.3lb
  1. Safe
  2. It should be possible to charge it with stock OW charger (to be confirmed)
  1. Unsure how to upconvert 52V to 58V as the solar charger doesn’t support 52V as input
Lithium battery from Jet.com $129 for ~1 charge (158Wh) @ 2.6lbs
  1. Safe (UL certified supposedly)
  2. Can be charged with LunaCycle charger
  1. No BMS
36V LiGo $150 for <1 charge (98Wh) @ 1.3lbs
  1. Safe w/ BMS
  2. Lightweight
  3. Can be charged with LunaCycle charger
  4. Designed to be rugged
  1. Less than one charge

You also need a way to charge your portable battery.

Charger options Pros Cons
LunaCycle charger
  1. Cheap ($60)
  2. Safe because it auto-shuts off
  3. XT60 connector
AC → DC charger
  1. Uses off the shelf power supply
  1. Requires DC Barrel to XT60 connector
LiFePO4 charger
  1. Cheap ($30)

To be safe, buy a battery pouch and only charge when you’re near the charger and awake.


Step 2: buy the other parts

  1. Solar charge controller - $40

Charge controller.png

  1. 2x XT60 pigtails - $3 each

Xt60 pigtails.png

  1. XLR plug - $3

Xlr plug.png


Step 3: configure the solar charge controller

The output of the solar charge controller must match the output of the Onewheel charger. Your settings should look something like the photo below.

Controller config.png

The critical settings are the 58V and 3.5A. Set the first line (where it says 32.5V) to the minimum voltage of your battery. 32V is generally a safe setting for a 36V-rated battery.

Remember! The battery pack should be on the solar panel label and OW on the battery label on the solar charge controller.

The manual can be found here.

Step 4: solder the wires to the XLR plug

The Onewheel’s XLR plug requires a different wiring than the off-the-shelf XLR plugs. Unfortunately, that means you have to do some soldering.

Below is the correct configuration. Notice the positive wire is connected to *both* pins 2 and 3 of the XLR plug. If you want to verify this yourself, you can easily open the Onewheel charger’s XLR plug.

Xlr solder.png


Step 5: hook it all up!

Portable battery → male XT60 pigtail → solar charge converter → female XT60 pigtail → male XT60 pigtail → soldered XLR plug → (wait until voltage reaches 58V before plugging in!) Onewheel

Sometimes the OW does not go into its charge mode automatically. Simply press the power button in this case.

When you’re done charging, I suggest turning off the solar charge converter first before unplugging anything. Then disconnect the battery. Then unplug from Onewheel.

Charging Onewheel to 100% is safe. You’ll see the amps ramp down on the solar charge converter display as you enter “trickle charge” mode. But you’ll want to disconnect soon or it’ll just slowly drain your battery.

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