Electric bicycles costing tens of thousands are in vogue. They carry a large battery that first needs to be recharged from a socket and then you can set off on a route of just a few dozen kilometres. Then you have to find a socket again and recharge it with electricity produced from non-organic sources. INBROLLY goes the other way. For enthusiasts who set out on their own for long periods in the countryside, on expedition trips, on bikepacking, with little or no contact from civilization. You certainly won't get an e-bike here, but navigation and a cell phone are now an important part of the kit. The last contact with civilization. And there is nowhere to charge these devices. And it is for this purpose that we present the world's first powerbank that can be recharged from a bicycle dynamo - DYNABANK.
This powerbank has already undergone many tests in really tough conditions, including bikepacking races such as 1000 miles adventure, Touring Šumava, 400 Ultra and others. The author himself has participated in these tests, which is a guarantee that the powerbank can handle such tough conditions. In addition, the electronics are designed for maximum efficiency. It contains a rectifier bridge with MOSFET transistors (not just diodes, as is common) and a DC/DC converter for recharging, so the efficiency of converting energy from the dynamo to the battery reaches up to 90%. The power bank can also be recharged from a conventional mobile phone charger with Fast Charge support and up to 3 A of charging current.
The principle of the powerbank is that the internal 10,000 mAh battery can be recharged with the available power according to the travel speed. With direct charging of a modern mobile phone, it is necessary to travel at a certain speed to start charging and, conversely, at higher speeds the full potential of the dynamo is not used. How much is recharged depends not on time but on the distance travelled. And the more distance you travel, the more the power bank will recharge.
It is therefore a good idea to carry DYNABANK and a mobile phone for navigation. The mobile navigation lasts for one day of riding. Tested with an outdoor phone with 5000 mA battery capacity and OsmAnd navigation, with automatic switching off and on the display lasts about 20 hours of driving. In the meantime the power bank is recharged. In the evening, crawl into your sleeping bag, connect your mobile phone to the power bank and recharge it for the next day's ride. When the charging is finished, the DYNABANK switches off, and in the morning everything is ready for the next journey. It's a good idea to carry two of these powerbanks with you, one as a backup and if one is fully charged, you can recharge the other one.
The DYNABANK includes a recharge count function. So you can calculate at the end of the trip how much energy you got from the dynamo and how much from the mains. Approximately 35 Ah was obtained on the 1000 miles adventure race, which is approximately 1600 km long. That's a total of 7 full recharges of a mobile phone with a 5000 mAh battery. Therefore, there was almost no need to deal with recharging from a power outlet.
However, recharging from the socket still occurred because the lights (a model that allows recharging via USB) were also recharged from the powerbank. Then it is preferable to charge from the powerbank rather than the light because it is faster. That's why it's convenient to have two powerbanks with you.
Yes an electric bike is a good means of transport for getting around town or the surrounding area. But for true adventurers it is definitely a bike powered by its own power and preferably in conjunction with a dynamo and a powerbank. This will give you the greatest degree of freedom on a bike that you can have.