Wired Review of the ReeCharge

The Dahon Biologic Reecharge is a great product. I have been trying to fix the issue of not having power while riding my bike for 5 years. In the past I carried a phone, gps, and a camera on multi day bike trips. I would make sure I had tons of extra batteries and limit the use of the devices. I tried a solar panel but without a full days sunlight it was hard to keep them powered up beyond 10%.
Now I just carry a HTC EVO but even on a 30 mile day ride it would be depleted to 0. I would run the GPS/Cardio Trainer, 4G antenna, Pandora, and a Bluetooth stereo headset. I looked at several similar products and I chose the Biologic Reecharge.
I purchased a Shimano Alfine DHS 500 and had a new hub built the hub was $120 in 7/2011 but now I see it for $100. You could also get the DHS 501 which has more spokes. I picked this series of hub because they say it rolls with 70% less resistance and the cost over their other hubs was only $20 more. I chose Shimano over SON because it was easy to connect the wires and had advanced technology. Once I had the wheel strung the cost was just over $200. If you turn the wheel by hand there is resistance but once I started riding I really couldn’t tell much difference.
It was quick and easy to attach the wires to the hub. However I initially put them on backwards so the recharge did not receive any power. This happened because there are no clear directions on which position the wires need to be in. Once I swapped the wires at the hub the Reecharge indicated it was receiving power as soon as the wheel moved. I was expecting it to not take a charge until I was going close to 10 miles an hour but it really is receiving a charge instantly. I did find that there is about 6 extra inches of wire going between the hub and the converter. I simply doubled it over and used tape to tame it. In the future I will cut it shorter so it is more streamlined but it is really a non issue as is. I found that the charging cable going into the Reecharge from the hub fit snuggly which gave me a false feel that it was all the way plugged in. Just push it a little farther in if you don’t see it receiving power. From there I simply plugged in the USB cable that was provided with my phone. In this case there is no indication of which way the cable should go in so once I got it right I marked it with a sharpie. Of course the provided cable from my phone was to long so I ordered an 18inch one from monoprice.com for .62 cents. I also ordered a waterproof case from EBAY but it was poor quality so as for mounting my phone I still need to figure out a better solution there. Once everything is hooked up and you have read the directions it is easy to tell when it is receiving a charge, how to turn the charge from the wheel on or off, what the level of charge is and when it is discharging into your device.
I spoke to the techs at Dahon and they stated that I should never expect the system to charge my phone 100% with the recharge being empty and your phone battery being empty. They say that I should only expect it to be supplemental power and that it would not be ideal for touring as I would need to still plug my devices in when not on the bike. Thier recommendation was to make sure you plug the Reecharge into the wall until it was charged to 100% and to have your device charged 100% before you leave on your ride. I hooked it all up on 7/20/11 and until 8/2/11 I have rode 550 miles. The first 2 rides I took were my normal 30 mile ride and I had both devices charged to 100%. I returned with a 100% charge in the phone and the Reecharge was at about 60%. During the next week I rode RAGBRAI. I would charge 2 HTC EVO phones and a IPHONE 4 but because we were roaming all the time I was not able to run all of the normal things I do and the battery depleted faster. Unless I had service I would keep the EVOs turned off 100% not even airplane mode. I was able to keep the EVOs charged to 100% with limited use. The Iphone was a different story. I was able to give it power but it certainly requires the adaptor provided with the Reecharge. Also it seemed like I could never get it to charge 100%. It would charge for awhile but it would stop even if there was still power in the Reecharge. I don’t know if it was operator error or not because sometimes the cables for my brakes would bump the wires into the recharge and work them loose. I would need to try an IPhone again to tell you that this really works as it should. But any other type of phone with a USB connection or used with the provided adaptors is a sure thing.
It would take me about 15-20 miles to charge the Reecharge from 0 to 100% without charging the phone at the same time. Of course the phone would outpace what the Reecharge could provide but in just over 50 miles I could take a totally depleted Reecharge and totally depleted EVO to 100% charge. I was even be able to charge a second phone a little. Keep in mind that this was without the phone on at all. I did not receive the same results with the phone on from a 0 charge. I was able to get it running but it would not charge past the 50% mark on a 50 mile ride. Still pretty good in my opinion. If I was going fully self contained I think I would bring an additional external charger like a Solio solar panel or Energizer battery pack just to have that little extra when you are tired of riding.
I highly recommend this product. If you tour or just ride locally and need to keep your devices charged it is a good investment. Especially since no matter where you are, what time of day it is, or what the weather is doing all you need to do is ride a short distance to get power. While the grand total for the new $200 hub/wheel and the $120 charger equals $320 seems expensive it is worth it. While I would prefer you contact Dahon and or your hub dealer please feel free to contact me with questions at willflyforguinness [at] yahoo [dot] com and put REECHARGE in the subject.

I received this little gadget and found it to be quite interesting. Lots of connectors; seems that every phone etc is covered, including my iphone. I found that mounting it where the connectors face down is a bad idea, gravity and vibration works against you. I mounted it horizontally and found that to be the right orientation. The band that holds it is nice and strong. The lights are visible except on the brightest day and a well placed hand will solve that problem. I found that the battery MUST have some charge in it in order to avoid the incompatible message from the phone. So far I love it; it keeps my phone charged and I no longer worry about running out of power. Got caught in a thunderstorm today too, no problem.

I have tried it several time. this device charge the iPhone in best case for some minutes that iphone declares it as incompatible and charging stops.
looking at the device tells you ..200 ..850mA current.
I would assume that the iphone expects at least 500 mA.
Support from the reseller and manufactor does not exist, so I had to give it back.
look for V-man and kemo M172 ..much cheeper.