HELP! Plan to buy a 6 volt, 250cc Chinese bike, but need to use 12 volt accessories!
 

Hello,
My friend and I are travelling to Turkey soon and will purchase two Chinese, 250cc motorcycles. Unfortunately, we have just realized that they use 6 volt batteries, and all our accessories (Chatterbox XBI2, camcorder battery charger, cellphone charger, aa/aaa battery charger) are 12 volt systems.
What do we do? The solutions I have thought of so far are:

1. Buy a 6 volt to 12 volt voltage booster ($50-100) for each bike, and connect our 12v accessory outlet to the voltage booster.
The question is: would this supply enough current, etc. to charge our accessories?

2. Connect each of our 6 volt batteries together at night, and somehow create a 12 volt battery, then connect our 12v outlet to it and charge the accessories.
The question is: How do we do this? (we don't know much about electronics)

Are there any other solutions? We cannot convert the bikes' electrical systems, etc.

Please help. We leave in a couple weeks and I need to know what equipment to buy to fix this problem.

Thank you.

Well, the first idea is the best but without changing bikes you will need to know the exact power output that the bike can produce and what is there in excess.

If the bike can only produce enough from the stator to run the bike, then it won't be enough to charge anything else.

I would seriously consider getting 12V bikes imho, even if it s a late change, there would be less hassle overall.

TS

I've got most of that stuff with me, and I just charge it all in my room at night. Netbook, AA and AAA cells, cellphone, alarm, camera.... I use a three-way connector and an adapter, and at 110 to 240 volts (depending), there's always plenty of wee little electrons to go around.

Don't know if this applies at all, but TS is right: you might not have enough stator output. Even if you do, you're talking about a lot of dangling wires turning spaghettilike all over your bike. Does that serve any real purpose?

Just a thought.

Mark

I totally agree with markharf. Forget about charging your 12V accessories with a cobbled up wiring ratsnest on a Chinabike. There are plenty of places to charge up your accessories in guesthouses, hostels, restaurants etc. You are asking for trouble trying to charge that much stuff on 6V minimal thumpers. Think 110/220 inverter that plugs into a Turkish wall socket or a three way plug to allow plugging in all your chargers. That is what I would be looking for.

Best,
John Downs

Charge in your room. If, for any reason, you have to charge in the daytime, you could use a powerchimp, which works with both rechargable and permanent batteries

www.powerchimp.com