# Hi Trying New things and learning



## sirwattsalot (Aug 27, 2012)

Hi everyone,

I am still a bit new here and I am eager to discuss the converntional aspects of electric cars as well as new ways of doing things. None of the examples that I may provide should be viewed as examples to be followed, but I will share what I have tried. I welcome critical thinking and information. Please share your own experience and I will not get nasty if you post an opinion that is contradictory to mine. I will not get mad if you build a car that goes farther or faster than mine. I want you to do just that, because the world needs it!

I want everyone to succeed. I am starting this post and inviteing all to join in, even if you get a little off topic. Its OK, I understand, I can hardly think straight today now that the world has run completly out of Twinkies.

Now, my thing is that I want it better, more effecient, and safe but outside the box. I started by requesting advice from the people who make the components such as the controller. These people know things like what gauge of wire to use to be safe and they can tell you if your wireing plan is a good idea or not. Opinions fly and everyone has one.

One of the challenges is, how do we fit the batteries in the car and where in the car. The examples that I have seen put batteries both under the hood and in the truck of the car. This requires a long run of wire from front to back. I don't know how else to get enough batteries in and to balence the weight. I like to use 1 AWG wire or heavier. 2 AWG did not work for me, it got hot. No one that I can trust has ever told me that I could use any samller gauge of wire. I put in a fuse rated at the peak current of the controller which was recommended by the manufacturer. I used non-counductive conduit to potect the wire. So up to this point I was not doing anything out of the ordinary.

I have been reminded of the Peukerk Effect about 10,000 times now, but what is it? This effect is a reduction of the total power that you can get from a battery if you draw a large current from it in a very short time. The effect is directly related to the internal resistance of each battery. In a long series string resistance sums as well as the voltage. I will attempt to reduce the resistance of the string and make greater current available to the motor without as much loss. This is simple and cheap but I will not say more until I have proven the concept in my own car. So who am I to do this? Well, I have worked as an electronic Tech, and I know conventional electronics but to create anything new you must break convention. The horse was convention and then someone made people mad by building the first car. The horse experts could not belive it.

I am seeing new things come to light all the time, new batteries mostly. Could anyone have dreamed that new batteries would contain nono carbon tubes? People will line up to tell you- No you can not do that. Who are these people who did it? They must have been special.

Well, let's hear from you. with one last thought, If you power it up and it works- it works. If you calculate that it does not work and it still works, put down the calculator and drive.


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

Dude, use paragraphs, please.


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## Siwastaja (Aug 1, 2012)

sirwattsalot said:


> I like to use 1 AWG wire or heavier. 2 AWG did not work for me, it got hot.


If possible, increase the battery voltage to decrease the battery current while keeping energy and power constant to reduce conduction losses.




> I have been reminded of the Peukerk Effect about 10,000 times now, but what is it?


It's a thing of the past. Peukert effect applies to lead acid batteries. Due to short service life and the huge price increase of raw lead in the last few years, lead acid batteries are now much more expensive than lithium-ion in the long run. Lithium-ion batteries have no Peukert effect or it is minimal.

But yes, for lead-acid, Peukert effect means you get fewer amp-hours out at higher current than with lower current.




> The effect is directly related to the internal resistance of each battery.


No, Peukert has absolutely nothing to do with internal resistance. It's a different mechanism. Peukert reduces energy by reducing Ah rating at higher current. Internal Resistance reduces energy by reducing Voltage at higher current. Lead acid batteries have both effects working at the same time. Lithium-ion has only the latter.

So imagine a lead-acid system at 100V 100Ah -- that equals 10000 Wh; it might drop to 90V 90Ah under load = 8100 Wh. Similarly, a lithium ion system of 100V 100Ah might drop to 90V but still 100 Ah = 9000 Wh.




> I will attempt to reduce the resistance of the string


Yes, this is important. It needs to be done right. But if done right, there is very little room for improvement.

Modern batteries for high range applications (= other than hybrid / racing) do not have considerable problems with losses. Properly done connections do not either. Obviously, if you are having a problem, fix it, but then it's better to direct your time to where the bottlenecks are.

From the engineering point-of-view, currently the bottlenecks are in this order:
(1) the price of the batteries
(2) the weight / energy ratio of the batteries
(3) lack of cheap AC solutions for DIY market

The rest is more like fine-tuning things. Oh, and don't forget the weight and aerodynamics...


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## sirwattsalot (Aug 27, 2012)

Thanks. you make many good points. The one point that I may differ on is the one of internal resistance. If you use Wikipedia or scientific journels, they attribute the Peukert Effect directly to internal resistance of the battery and state that all batteries are subject to it to some degree.
http://www.discover-energy.com/what-peukert-effect

In any case, I am using fairly small lead acid batteries for the short term. I have a max range of 12 miles at 55 mph with 9 sealed batteries.

http://www.mpoweruk.com/performance.htm

I agree with you 100% concerning weight and drag and other aspects.


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## Siwastaja (Aug 1, 2012)

You still have it wrong. First check what "capacity" means; this is a tough one, because it has a different meaning than a layman might except. Capacity is not how much energy the battery can store, it's only the half of the equation. _Energy_ is what many people mean with the _capacity of the battery_. Not a real problem in casual discussion, but bear in mind that equations, scientific laws etc. really mean Coulombs = As ~ Ah with the term "capacity".

Capacity = Ah (or As = 1 Coulomb)
Voltage = V
Capacity * Voltage = Ah * V = Wh
Energy = Wh

Wikipedia has it right; nothing about internal resistance. Your another link wrongly states the internal resistance, but otherwise it's correct and the example is good (shows the Ah drop).

But in ADDITION to the Ah drop, there is ALSO a V drop.

Lithium ion has only the V drop as it has Peukert factor of 1.00. You can find Peukert measured experimentally for lithium ion cells if you google around a bit; they always come very near to 1.00.

However, I am aware that there are many sources that state higher Peukert factors for lithium-ion. This comes simply from the misconception of what Peukert factor means; they have measured _energy efficiency_ which includes Ri.

What is important in the end is the total energy efficiency, including Peukert and Ri. However, the 1.00 Peukert of lithium has other advantages too, as the Peukert is _the_ mechanism for series cells to lose balance quickly over time.

It might be easier to explain it by what happens in the battery. A resistance is like any resistance - a current flows through material where part of the energy is released as heat. This happens with every battery. But battery is also a chemical device. _Some_ batteries have additional _unwanted_ chemical reactions that also consume current. Lead acid has such reactions. They consume Ah's during the discharge. Li-ion does not have this kind of secondary, unwanted reaction. This explanation may not be very exact but should give the idea.


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## sirwattsalot (Aug 27, 2012)

The second link is certainy more clear or detailed perhaps. If it is accurate is another matter. Many sources state a direct relationship to internal resistance and the age of the battery and the Peuket effect is told to be worse.
There are thousands of pages to read on the subject, from many sources and I can't say that I have read them all.
Whatever Peukert effect is ( I don't really want to argue it too much), it does not seem to be related to the effects of temperature. We all know that a cold battery looses energy. This seems to be a bigger probem with Lithium Ion and I have read warnings not to charge the battery in very cold conditions. It seems to me that anything that causes a V drop must also limit current to some extent. E=IXR, for any value of E to be lower either current or resistance must be a lower value. If Lithium does not drop current this would mean that the internal resistance drops as current rises, E/R=I.
I do understand what you are telling me. In the end it is enough to know that nothing is 100% effeicent.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

sirwattsalot said:


> Whatever Peukert effect is ( I don't really want to argue it too much), it does not seem to be related to the effects of temperature. We all know that a cold battery looses energy.


They're very much related, as they have the same effect. A cold battery does not lose energy. A cold battery loses the ability to rapidly release energy. The energy is still there, it will just come out slower, or may need external warming to let the reactions flow.


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## sirwattsalot (Aug 27, 2012)

This is important information for me because I live in Michigan. I have yet to discover the effects of temperature. Now that it is getting colder I will find out.
I will watch your link. I am eager to learn from other examples. Thanks for your replies. Here is a link to my video. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=487IXfz2fCU&list=UU_qFDP4DpobQC0zehz4l_6A&index=1&feature=plcp


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## Siwastaja (Aug 1, 2012)

The total capacity and the total available energy and the SoC indeed do not change with the temperature.

But a cold battery also loses _efficiency_ temporarily (by rising Ri), and thus it also loses some energy _if you use it_ _when cold_. The energy is wasted in more heating than normally during use. OTOH, this heat heats up the battery and restores the efficiency back, but some energy is lost in the process.

In case of lithium, only energy, still not capacity. You get out the same Ah than you put in in any and all conditions, but maybe at lower voltage because of higher voltage sag. (The only exception would be overcharging the battery, which does consume Ah without increasing the state of charge anymore over 100%, by doing permanent damage instead.)

These are extremely simple things to grasp in practice by measuring. If you have an Ah counter, or if you just manually read current meter every minute or so and accumulate it on paper, you will notice that you get every Ah you put to the battery back when discharging with lithium. You may need to reduce the cut-off voltage at highest currents to achieve 100%, but it is considered fairly safe to do so. But lead acid is_ completely_ different and you will notice it instantly. You put more Ah in than you get back, especially at higher currents.

The common misbelief is that lithium is complex and difficult, but it just comes from the fact that it is new and it is the best so it _has_ to be hi-tech complex. But in reality, lead acid is much more complex in usage.


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## sirwattsalot (Aug 27, 2012)

Just a strange thought. When I first told my family that I was buying an old car to convert to electric, they looked at me in disbelief and shook thier heads from side to side. Let's face it, turning your car into an EV is not something that the average person will do. If I were normal, I would buy a bigger car or perhaps a Hummer. Just the fact that I have come this far has proven to most people that I am completly detached from reallity. Many people here have followed the same path and here we all are. What is it about us? Where are we going? No regrets, just asking if anyone has had the same thought and experience.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

There are at least a dozen different reasons to convert a car, and for most of mine they are not detached from reality, but well aware of it. Electric cars will someday be the reality for everyone, it's just a matter of how qiuckly realize that/are able to switch.

Most of the US at least are FaceTwits who are disconnected from reality entirely. Your average person would struggle to consider an alternative form of transportation even if gas cost $10/gallon and you had to wait in line 2 hours with a voucher to get it.


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## sirwattsalot (Aug 27, 2012)

Yes! I like your answer. I think what makes us different is that we are awake. But, even here I am different, strange, feared and here is why.
I have been working out several issues. Aside from the motor and controller, Little that I put in the car was commercially made.


I wanted the origional fuel gauge to work so I have made up a circuit to translate the battery voltage to a resistance for the computer to make the gauge show full, empty and all points inbetween. It is really simple.

I wanted heat so I made my own electric heater core to replace the old core and it was really simple. Preheating the car in the garage is working really well. I only have 600 watts of electric heat while driveing.

I want to operate the heater without decreasing the range of the car so I am creating a pathway through the motor that will contribute the energy that operates the heater to running the motor as well. A heater passes most of the energy straight though it without much conversion of energy, even as resistance increases with heat. I view the heating element almost as a short circuit or a conductive pathway. Running everything on a separate parallel circuit whithout creating stores of energy will run the batteries down quick. This concept is still an experiment. It is possible when using isolated stores of energy
and paying strict attention to electrical potentials.

I have built several small models with AA batteries, motors, and other components to simulate possible configurations in the car. I have run DC brushed motors and have pulled AC off of the motor while it was running and I used the energy to power led lights. I have captured energy in capacitors and used that waste energy for useful things. The model became too large to fit in the car when the scale was increased. It became complex. I have video of it on Youtube under the title "Paradox Motor Project."


I have meet with other people around a table and discussed the most interesting experimental configurations, many of which they had applied to thier own projects. I was amazed that there were other people who were thinking outside the box. A few actually knew who Nickola Tessla was and that he did more than just make huge coils. Some think that he plays rock music.


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## evmetro (Apr 9, 2012)

Thanks for starting this tbread, it is a fun read and your optimistic attitude is much needed around here.


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## Siwastaja (Aug 1, 2012)

If you want to harvest the waste heat of the motor, the only way to do it is to insulate the motor and push air through it to the cabin.

Connecting a heater in series with the motor just limits the motor from working at all; or if you use a low enough resistance heater, the motor will work, but the energy still comes from the batteries. Parallel connection just allows free control of both the heater and motor.


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## sirwattsalot (Aug 27, 2012)

Yes, simply operating the heater in series with the motor would limit the motor too much. I am creating another pathway through the motor that is diode isolated from the main string of batteries that power it. A few heavy diodes to isolate the motor power and separate heater battery which will discharge through both the heater and the motor in series. Chassis ground is common. The energy loss of the heater is passed on as useful energy. The voltage drop of the motor must be added to the voltage requirement of the heater to determine supply voltage. Each branch of the supply must be fused. I built this on the kitchen table with a flashlight bulb as the heater, a toy motor, several AA batteries and a diode.


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## sirwattsalot (Aug 27, 2012)

Thanks for reading and please checkout my video links. I am always trying something new and different.


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## PStechPaul (May 1, 2012)

I found your Paradox Motor video:





 
However I did not fully understand what you are trying to do, and apparently you will only supply schematics by email. I welcome you to send them to me. You can use the PM feature here or send it to paul at any of my domains, such as enginuitysystems.com. 

It is possible to use capacitors close to a motor to reduce its power factor, which will result in less current draw for the same power, but this applies only to AC motors. I think the Manta motor you show is a brush DC type, which you said ran 22 hours on a car battery and then 52 hours after your modification. It MAY be possible to store some of the energy produced by sparking commutator brushes, and also compensate for the resistance of the supply connection, because the current draw of a brush DC motor is not pure DC. I see that your test setup used battery clips to connect the motor and they can present a significant resistance and result in reduced efficiency.

You mention that the motor is normally about 90% efficient but can sometimes be as low as 10% efficient. To measure efficiency, you must carefully measure the input power and output power, or you could operate the motor in a sealed enclosure and measure temperature rise. The motor as shown in your video is probably running at a very low efficiency because it is not producing any substantial power, and it is obviously using power because the battery runs it for a limited time.

A car battery is about 50 Ah and 12 V, or 600 Wh. The motor may consume 20 watts unloaded, which would provide about 30 hours on a full charge. If you got a 2.5 times improvement with your circuit, you should be able to measure the change of current from the battery. And you should be able to switch your circuit on and off and see the results immediately.

A motor such as this (which may be the same as that which overheated and burned up on your first attempt), will run at different efficiencies depending on the torque and speed, which are reflected as current and voltage, and the lost power will be evidenced as heat. The temperature increases the resistance of the windings and also perhaps affects the permanent magnets, which can lead to a destructive runaway condition if you demand a constant torque.

I hope you are onto something that may improve efficiency for EVs, especially for brush DC motors, but I think the gains will be too small to be significant in comparison to batteries, wiring, controller, and the motor itself. And also the obvious physical considerations of weight, aerodynamic drag, friction, and road conditions. It would be very helpful if you could compute your Wh/mile, based on the actual energy you use to charge the batteries over a dozen or more charge/discharge cycles.


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## sirwattsalot (Aug 27, 2012)

PStechPaul said:


> I found your Paradox Motor video:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks for the reply, I enjoy reading your responses. I agree that mainly the wiring, motor, and batteries are the key. 

I think that more important than this circuit is the basic concept. It started with the Tessla Switch as demonstrated by Nickola Tessla. Two batteries in serries will charge a third discharged battery while running a motor. Batteries A, B and C. A and B charge C. When C is full the batteries are switched so that A and C charge B. Then C and B charge A. The same concept has been applied in this example but air core transformers were used to return energy to capacitors at a higher voltage than the supply. The motor ran in a regenerative feedback loop.

As for the motor itself, if you chart the ineffeciency, you should start at 100%. When the motor is passing current and dischargeing the battery without turning, it is 100% ineffecient.

As the motor starts to turn the ineffeciency drops to 99% and then 80% and then 50% and then 10%. At 90% effeciency the motor passes some energy through it without conversion to kenetic energy, heat, sound, magnetic radiation, etc. It is like putting a piece of wire accross the battery. The total waste is 10% at best speed and load. If I can capture some of the waste energy as was done in the Tessla switch, I can make the motor run for a longer time.
The other effect in the circuit was that it was really a voltage converter which sucked every last watt of energy out of the batteries, there was nothing left. As the motor ran down to a stop the feedback loop would really work to try to keep the motor running. It would slow down and speed up again to full speed three times before it quit. There were serious mistakes made in the circuit which I later changed. The FET's produced too much heat which is a waste of energy. It is still an experiment and no promises can be made.


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## PStechPaul (May 1, 2012)

I have seen references to the Tesla Switch from time to time in the sci.electronics.design and sci.electronics.basics forums. I've never seen a verifiable demonstation or explanation. Here is one website that shows some of the supposed principles, including some mysterious "scalar waves":
http://www.icehouse.net/john1/tesla.html

Here is a more detailed "explanation", and it is definitely in the tinfoil hat region:
http://www.freeenergynews.com/Directory/Electromagnetic/TeslaSwitch/Tesla_Battery_Switch_PGFED.pdf

As I think you were trying to explain, it is possible to make a circuit which extracts "every last drop" of energy from a battery. It is popularly known as a "Joule Thief", and I even made one that will drive one or two white LEDs (3V each) from a battery all the way down to a little over 1/2 volt.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-Joule-Thief/

I think some of the false hope and paradoxical claims are based on an incomplete understanding of voltage, current, power, energy, and phase angle. You mention energy that is "wasted" which could be recycled back into the system to increase efficiency, but the fact is that "wasted" energy is almost always in the form of heat. In some systems, there may be some energy stored in capacitance or inductance, and there are ways to either reduce this process (generally by power factor correction), or recycle it back into the storage element (battery and/or capacitors).

I like to keep an open mind, but I cannot but shake my head in disbelief when kooky statements are made, as in the "FreeEnergy" article like this:



> *Energy can be returned to a battery power source by its own load*
> 
> *The useful "work" of creating light by having the current flow through*
> *the bulb, does not "use up" any current, and more importantly, it does not "use up" any energy.*




It's rather hard to keep reading beyond that...


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## sirwattsalot (Aug 27, 2012)

OK, but can we agree that a motor that does not turn will draw a lot of current? In this state, the motor is as usefull as a piece of wire. Heat will be produced but no useful work will result. The same is essentially true of a over loaded motor that turns very slowly and draws too much current. Now, wire three things in series, a battery, a light bulb, and the motor. Stop the motor from turning and the light will brighten which is proof that the energy did not completly disappear in the form of heat, but was passed through to the bulb. Let the motor run and the light will dim showing that the motor is now working effeciently and reactance is building up in the motor as is turns faster and less current will flow.

No motor has ever been made that is 100% effecient at any speed or load. Every motor passes current that is not consumed or converted to heat or any other form of energy just as any reasonable length of wire will not entirely consume the energy before it reaches the load.

If there were such a motor, electrons would loose energy, drop to a lower orbit, and emit photons before reaching the other side of the battery. The conversion of electricity would be total and complete.

What will discharge any battery faster is many stops and starts in an electric car. If the effeciency were always 90% at any speed and load, there would be little problem.


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## PStechPaul (May 1, 2012)

Current is fully conserved along and through all elements of a series circuit. And the sum of all voltages in any loop will be zero. There is internal resistance, capacitance, and inductance in any real-world component, including wires, and also external effects such as leakage. There are also mechanisms for adding power or energy as well as dissipating it, usually in the form of heat or electromagnetic radiation of other frequencies from subsonic to microwave.

Some of the effects proposed by the Tesla Switch enthusiasts, such as the "electron accumulation" upon the operation of a switch, may be modeled by inductance, which will indeed cause a rapid rise of voltage and arcing, but this is due to well-understood principles of electromagnetism, and not anything like zero point energy or mysterious effects of "the ether". 

It is possible to have current flow maintained in a conductor indefinitely when the material is in a superconductive state, but no power can be obtained without affecting it. And since there is no perfect thermal insulator, there must be power applied to the system to maintain the low temperature needed. So, TANSTAAFL.

I understand your point about the stalled motor having zero efficiency, although it can provide a useful purpose, such as holding a car motionless on a grade. Even though the car is standing still, it is actually accelerating due to the "force" of gravity, which is actually caused by the effect of mass on time. Your example of putting a light bulb in series with the stalled motor merely adds resistance to the circuit and reduces the current while it converts the power to radiant energy as light and heat, while the motor sees the reduced current and a much lower voltage and thus very little "wasted" power. 

In the examples of reversing a battery so it can be charged by two other identical batteries, energy is merely transferred from the charged batteries to the discharged battery. Because of the chemistry involved, the dead battery's voltage may very well rise quickly to its nominal 12V and even perhaps much higher, but its SOC will reflect only the actual Ah that have flowed into it. The only way such a system can maintain or increase its total energy is by having it induced into the circuitry, which is certainly possible, but it requires an external source, and any such EM field can be detected with the right instruments. There is not enough background radiation to be harvested unless you have a large antenna and a strong source that is either nearby or focused on the detector. Power lines and WiFi generally are in the order of microwatts. 

I don't intend to dampen your enthusiasm and good intentions, but perhaps your efforts can be better spent by investigating other motor technologies, particularly the SRM.


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## sirwattsalot (Aug 27, 2012)

A better motor would be a more direct solution and more likely solution if it existed. SRM? sounds like perpetual motion, but I will look at it. It would have to violate the law of thermodynamics to work better than the motors that we already have. There is no longer any room for improvement because the laws have been followed?


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## PStechPaul (May 1, 2012)

SRM has been a well-proven motor design ever since it was invented over 100 years ago. It basically uses the principle of electromagnetic attraction through steel which is easily demonstrated, but until recently the control electronics were expensive, difficult, and impractical. Because the industry has grown up with three phase induction motors, they have become ubiquitous and the controllers are a mature industry. So you can get motors and controllers, new and used, very cheaply, and efficiencies can easily exceed 90%. 

The SRM has several advantages, particularly for EV use. For the same size and weight, it may be possible to achieve more power and torque, as well as higher RPM, at somewhat better efficiency over a wider range. The materials are less expensive and do not need permanent magnets which use rare earth materials and are more fragile and temperature limited. But they require a specially designed controller and software, so the only systems available are custom designs and a few commercial products specifically made for proprietary EVs and other applications. There may be a huge opportunity for someone to perfect a system suitable for DIY EVs, but it will probably still be much more cost effective to use commercially available ACIMs and VFDs.


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