How much power for all electrics except driving?

How about we call it SWATCar - Station Wagon Alternator Transit Car, SSW model. Power? Speed!!!

 

I would be curious to know how that would drive, I mean 23 hp is not much.
The solar power idea is from the fact that even with a 80 amp alternator, under normal circumstances it will not give this. I mean lights (8A?), radio (5A?), some other stuff (10A). I just looked up some electric fans and they can draw up to 10A (but that is of course only when fully on).
I don't have a fuel pump with my LPG and a water pump takes about 5 amps. All together it comes to 38A. I have not taken the AC into account, I need to research that a bit more.

The batteries are only needed to store energy (for starting and other peak uses) and while charging when the car is standing still.

38A equals 456w. One panel of 0.8m x 1.2m gives a peak power of 125W. Four panels would be enough. Putting them next to each other would add to 3.2m. I just measured my roof and that is only 2.7m, so I can only have 3 panels. I guess it would be sufficient if you include all the charging when not driving. But that is all theoretical, 3 panels will cost about 2000 euro, not really worth it.

Norman, I know it is not so high tech as some of the links you gave, I just try to think of things I can do myself. Like a sort of McGyver!

I really don't know you guys that much I guess, but are you serious about those fans and electric drive, Norman?

 

Senri, look on top of any restaurant and you'll find what we call an "Air Make-up unit". I bought two when I had my clock factory in 1982, and they cost me $25,000 each. The fans are about 24" diameter and heights are about 10". I looked into doing 4 small wind turbines on my home roof using the roof-venting turbines (pear-shaped whirlygigs). I can either generate electricity or collect the energy as compressed air and run my fridges and freezers from it, with only an 8 KMH (5 MPH breeze.)

These fans are available from restaurant suppliers replacing old equipment or even scrapyards - cheap. Electric motors in the 20 to 30 HP range might cost $50 as scrap and another $600 to rewind (CDN$ is at par with the USD$). Throw on some electronics and safety circuits, and I'll bet you'd have it done for under $4,000.

A Ford Escort can go for as little as $500 to $2,500 with a good body, but that Front-wheel drive engine/tranny is all you'd need (and the electrical from 1981 to 1985 is almost identical to the Fairmont.) Small engine under a Fairmont hood!.

The more I think about it, the more I like it.

Then you could put a 50-inch Plasma TV on one side and not worry about amperage! Well, not above a thirty MPH wind anyway.

 

I don't really know how to break this to you, but the energy those mills will generate is less then the energy needed to move them forward with your car.

I think you messing with me, don't you??

 

No, no! The little four-banger is only for stop and go city driving. At 60 or 70 KMH the wind turbines kick in (allowing for resistance). The Fairmont came stock with an Inline 4-banger (and only a few more HP). So the Front-wheel drive engine would make up the power loss because it's driving the front wheels, not running a drive shaft and a big rearend.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Fairmont

Once you're at a stable highway speed, the wind turbines would run the electric motor powering the rear wheels through the regular rearend.

It might be possible to keep the same drivetrain and just use an electronically controlled clutch in the driveshaft to switch between motive power. Mine has cruise control and it's probably possible to modify it to handle the switching or getting Rostra (they make Cruise Controls) to modify it.

Nope, I'm not joking. I'm tired of seeing my wealth pilfered by stock brokers and oil barons.

 

What the wind mills will do is generate electricity up to 30 HP. Not 60 HP. You don't need that much to run at 65 MPH or even 75 MPH. 12 HP will do it. Adding a bit more to overcome wind resistance and hill climbing. New Mexico, where that 23 HP Fairmont was built is rough Sierra terrain. The guy just posted that same car on EBAY without the electrical system and motor.

http://www.evalbum.com/076.html

I'd just like to reduce the amount of dependency on Batteries, because like you, we have to plug in, every night in -40C. I don't want to swap my transportation expense to my home operating expense. I want it reduced completely, or as much as I can.

 

But as Tbird already mentioned, creating enough energy with motion to keep moving is not possible. The first law in thermodynamics: the conservation law. As some of the generated energy will get lost in friction (drag) there is not enough energy created to maintain you speed. The windmills will create more drag then they generate on energy!

 

To keep it with the figures you mentioned. The car only needs let's say 12 hp to maintain 50 mph. Adding the mills that will generate your 30hp will increase the needed amount of power to maintain a speed of 50 mph from 12 to at least 32 hp. In this example I just guessed you would have a very good system and "only" loose 2 hp from the windmill blades to the wheels of the car, which is in reality a bit optimistic.
In this way, you will just not generate enough energy to keep the car rolling, let alone power plasma tv etc. If your system would be without any loss, so no fricting, warming up of parts, loss of electric fields in the motor and generator and acar without rolling friction etc, so a 100%, you would generate exactly enough energy to keep a constant speed. As this does not excist, you will never mnake it.

 

Yes, that's true, but the Aircraft industry overcame those issues to fly at over 600 MPH with 500 passengers or Mach 2 for fighter planes. We spin on our planet's axis at 1,000 MPH (approx. 28,000 mile diam/ 24 hours), we spin at even higher speeds to complete one trip around the Sun every year, and how fast does our planetary system spin around in the milkyway?

All we want is to efficiently design the airflow to generate some electrical power. Does that mean modified turbines, ducting, high-efficiency generator/motor bearings, etc.?

They took the engines below the wings and made fore-aft turbines, maybe that's the way. Won't know till we try. So far, I've never seen anyone try? The same could be said about DaVinci's drawing of a winged fellow trying to fly under his own power. Now its a sport!

No pain, no gain. Sometimes sparring partners get the fluff out and enjoy the benefits. Keep sparring please.

 

Neither do the alternatives. Hybrids or Hydrogen cars need refuelling/charging and lots of dollars to acquire, fuel and maintain them. If the wind potential contributes 50% in savings without carrying a tank of explosive Hydrogen or even a Hydrogen on demand system, then my net non-renewable fuel usage is half, right. If we set a benchmark goal to achieve and find we get better results through design then it's far less than dropping $50,000 for proving out an efficient Hydrogen-on-demand system (commonly referred to as Water Power) or paying out a king's ransom for a Hydrogen-fuel-celled Toyota that needs a new tank every 516 miles.

I can install a simple $10 water injector on my six and get a 10% fuel savings next week. I can install the Advance Timing Curve spring kit in the Distributor and save another 10 or 15%. I don't know if they are cumulative savings. I do know they work. Going outside the box is where it gets interesting. I can go use my bandsaw and make a mockup for the Fairmont and add some mini-turbines on the model, then take it to the local wind tunnel to find out what needs to change, maybe what kind of energy potential there is as well.

If I can achieve a total annual fuel cost reduction to under $0.75 per litre, then I'd define that as success. I mean total, including my home hydro bill to charge up any car-related batteries except the starter battery. Is that a fair target? For you that probably means a 50% cut in fuel costs too.

The thing is that it could be proven or disproven without much experimental costs. Yes?

 

Check out this site. Interesting BP statistics.

http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9023773&contentId=7044469

 

Tough stuff for the little guy and all the small businesses along our highways. For example, one of our Airport Holiday Inns got caught cutting housekeeping staff, because fewer folks are flying and evacuated the hotel because many rooms were infested with bed bugs.

Andy and I came off our trip from North Dakota to pick up the new Mabel Fairmont. We stayed one night in clean looking mom and pop motel. I went to his house the next day, and worked under a tree in his yard. Came back with what I thought were wood-ticks. Andy thought they were bed-bugs. Seems he was right. This oil thing is hurting a lot of people and these small businesses.

Any DIY solution is worth the effort. There's no reason to let it go unchallenged. We're up against a wall we knew would come and I'd rather do something whacky trying than see my income go to some guy in Saudi Arabia or Calgary, Alberta or other oil capitals or hydrogen capitals.

 

I give you that to some extent, because it is possible to reduce drag with better Air dams. On Fox-bodied Mustangs they've shown that those with deeper (than stock) Airdams save 6% on fuel MPG. So there's a lot of areas to improve, and in doing that, another may emerge that works better.

Take the new vacuum cleaners using no dustbags. They're applying a different method to collect the dust and peanuts and dog hair without harming the machine and saving energy to boot. They can even suck up water. Some kind of an impeller running off the motor creating a focussed highspeed air turbulence. The old Electrolux isn't taking that too well.

http://www.english.dysoncanada.ca/about/technology/

Worldwide site offers language and pricing by country:
http://www.dyson.com/

 

Here's Dyson's NL website:

You guys get nice videos of the process. not us!

http://www.dyson.nl/

 

Aerodynamics

I like this online magazine because they cover most brands, makes and models. I was going to post an article about Airdams on Mustangs, but I think this search result will give us some common 'sparring' grounds to address the real or potential issues. Lots of great ideas to use in our cars just as inefficient as they are.

http://www.autospeed.com.au/cms/search/index.html?keywords=Aerodynamics&x=26&y=4


I tried LNG and only got two hits:
http://www.autospeed.com.au/cms/search/index.html?keywords=LNG&x=19&y=10

Natural Gas got a lot more hits:
http://www.autospeed.com.au/cms/search/index.html?keywords=Natural+gas&x=14&y=5