# OK, got one for you!



## elevatorguy (Jul 26, 2007)

Exactly how fast would you have to drive to get a charge on the batteries? 
I called and put down all my savings to get this off the ground


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## TheSGC (Nov 15, 2007)

elevatorguy said:


> Exactly how fast would you have to drive to get a charge on the batteries?
> I called and put down all my savings to get this off the ground


"Make it so, Number 1."


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## KiwiEV (Jul 26, 2007)

Losses, Smosshes. I'm sure it'll work!


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## Guest (Nov 7, 2008)

Gotta work right? A Patent is Pending! : )

Geeeezee!


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## Coley (Jul 26, 2007)

Hey, this guy looks like the one to contact for my wheelbarrow design.

Yesiree Bob, he could make it happen.....


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## DIYguy (Sep 18, 2008)

Conceptually, not a bad idea. The issue will likely be the amount of usable energy. "Drag air" has been used in the past to generate down force on racing cars and ram air on naturally aspirated and "blown" ICE's. Unnlike perpetual motion ideas, at least this fellow is trying to turn lost energy into something positive. Some calculations would be needed to determine the amount of energy recapture after efficiency losses. My senses tell me it may be minimal.

Gary


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## BHall (Aug 1, 2007)

Brilliant! Hummm..... why not put a generator on the other side of a turbo for hybrid ICE/electric applications? Use the ICE exhaust driven turbo to spin the generator at highway speeds to charge the batteries for use a lower speeds.

Or use this type of setup to get rid of the alternator all together on an ICE?

Brian


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## Ioku (Sep 27, 2007)

I really don't see why you couldn't get some usable energy out of this, I know most of you look at this and just go, perpetual motion, cant work bla bla, but I don't see and perpetual motion just added efficiency, it would be more efficient to let the air flow though this system and spin a turbine and flow back out the car then to just have it slam into the front of the car. Sure you wont make a lot of energy but its something.


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## piotrsko (Dec 9, 2007)

kinda of the same thing in aircraft. 

little known factoid: when you interrupt the flow of air with anything, the drag bucket gets really huge. couple of guys put wind driven generators in the cooling air dump stream of their engines and did it ever make a drag difference.

i am guessing that if you were really aerodynamically clean it would make a huge difference, but if the vehicle is very dirty you probably wont notice, and what the heck, it could just clean up the drag bucket some.


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## Guest (Nov 8, 2008)

If it was an efficient system it would already be in use. It seems simple enough but the efficiency is not. Not even for using it like an alternator. Remember it can't really be used as an alternator because as soon as you slow down the power it does produces drops like a rock. An engine driven alternator is always on. Remember your bicycle generator! 





piotrsko said:


> kinda of the same thing in aircraft.
> 
> little known factoid: when you interrupt the flow of air with anything, the drag bucket gets really huge. couple of guys put wind driven generators in the cooling air dump stream of their engines and did it ever make a drag difference.
> 
> i am guessing that if you were really aerodynamically clean it would make a huge difference, but if the vehicle is very dirty you probably wont notice, and what the heck, it could just clean up the drag bucket some.


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## Guest (Nov 8, 2008)

piotrsko said:


> kinda of the same thing in aircraft.


Well not exactly. The aircraft use the ram air for cabin pressure and not power generation. Not the same thing at all. 

It is conventional practice to pressurize an aircraft cabin to maintain a near sea level pressure therein. In a typical cabin pressure control system, such as found in Convair 340, 440 and 580 aircraft, air outside of the aircraft is routed to an air compressor which, in turn, forces it through air conditioning units to air ducts which deliver the pressurized air to the cabin. The air delivered to the cabin is constantly being relieved overboard by operation of a regulator valve. However, the regulator valve restricts the outflow of the cabin air to provide pressurization of the cabin. Control of the regulator valve by a pressure controller of the system establishes the pressure differential that is maintained during flight. Thus, the pressure controller permits selection of the pressure altitude at which the cabin will be maintained during flight. In the Convair aircraft, normal operation of the pressure controller causes the rate of airflow to vary from 73 pounds per minute at sea level to 65 pounds per minute at 20,000 feet, which is sufficient to change the air in the cabin approximately once every two minutes and provide a maximum pressure differential of 4.16 psi.


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## npauli (Nov 5, 2008)

Yeah, this is baloney. Can you generate some power this way? Yes. Will there be any efficiency gain? Not a chance.

Regardless of how you get the air to move over, under, around and through the vehicle, the drag will go up if you throw a turbine-generator into the air stream. This extra drag needs to be counteracted by some extra torque on the wheels. Add in that turning airflow into mechanical motion just can't be very efficient, and you just have a wasteful loop of energy flow:

batteries -> motors -> move vehicle -> pressure drop across turbine -> generator -> batteries.

It would be just as stupid to stick a windmill in the back of my pickup truck - although that would have a little more entertainment value


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## fugdabug (Jul 14, 2008)

I just had to throw this out there for you guys, especially when you see that it is supposedly being fronted by the 'LAWYERS' for this character (if he really exists)... HA!
Break out my violet ray healing machine!!!


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## Guest (Nov 8, 2008)

Put the windmill in the bed of the truck to test the windmill but not for generating power for the truck. It would be a good test for low speed windmill if you had no wind for testing at it's final site or just for testing different generators before deciding on which one is better for use in a home situation. : )


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## Mjolinor (Sep 15, 2008)

Beat use is to paint it pretty colours and put it on the bonnet (hood).


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

This would never work, because it would just add more friction to the car by trying to force more air through the ducting. You are better off closing off the front of the car with a teardrop shape. The ducting would also have to be huge to handle that kind of air flow and would make the car larger for the same amount of interior space.

There is a complete lack of automotive knowlege that is demonstrated in this patent. Still funny as hell though. Maybe use on duct to power the other. Or just turn the whole car into a ramjet LOL.


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## Mjolinor (Sep 15, 2008)

What about if we put another fan behind the first one on the same shaft, inject gas between them and put a spark in there.

Should I patent it?


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## TheSGC (Nov 15, 2007)

Speaking of hilarious things, my dad mentioned the wind mill idea for extra charge when parked in the open parking lot, but then also said why not add F rocket engines for those uphill climbs. 

Just imagine the look on the faces of people behind you when your tail lights pop out and a bunch of model rocket engines come to life for that final climb home. Put four or five in each tail light and you'll have a great light show.


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

TheSGC said:


> Speaking of hilarious things, my dad mentioned the wind mill idea for extra charge when parked in the open parking lot


I have seen that done before actually. No laws of physics to break there, just looks a little funny and the charge time would be very long.

Speaking of turning the tailpipes into jet engines, just set the fuel mixture overly ritch and pull the cat converter. Backfiring? no no, thats the "pulse jet engines" LMAO!


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## brent.massey (Jul 23, 2008)

gottdi said:


> If it was an efficient system it would already be in use.


Gotta disagree with you on that one Gottdi. The whole purpose behind this forum is to convert ICE vehicles to electric. Proven to be more efficient, but not in use en masse. I agree with some of the other posters here that the output of this system might not be worth the hassle, but at least he's thinking out of the box, and trying to turn what most of us see as a hindrance into something useful.


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## BHall (Aug 1, 2007)

I definitely don't think the air ducted power generation this guy is proposing would work efficiently either. I guess I am trying to change the direction of the concept. What I am talking about is using the exhaust of an ICE (supposedly wasted energy anyways) to power a turbo that spins a generator. It may make for some sort of hybrid charging system?

Just brainstorming.

Brian


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

BHall said:


> I definitely don't think the air ducted power generation this guy is proposing would work efficiently either. I guess I am trying to change the direction of the concept. What I am talking about is using the exhaust of an ICE (supposedly wasted energy anyways) to power a turbo that spins a generator. It may make for some sort of hybrid charging system?
> 
> Just brainstorming.
> 
> Brian


What you are describing is a thermal recovery system. Its a real posibility and if you could fit a micro steam generator in the car that runs off the heat from the exhaust with no reat tax on the engine iteslf. Exhaust temperature is usually at least 300F and can be as high as 1200F, thats a lot of wasted energy. With some imagination you might even be able to use the cooling package itself to contribute to the steam generation. Turbochargers do recover some heat, but not much. Wouldn't be easy to implement, but it would make a real difference in net vehicle efficiency if you could recover some of the massive amounts of thermal energy that is normally lost. Gas engines loose 70% efficiency just in heat alone, diesels average 60% loss.

I think BMW is working on a thermal recovery system for one of their cars. Don't remember the details though.


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## Xringer (Oct 12, 2008)

I don't think that big battery array is going to be needed.

Once the gets up to 60 or 70 mph, he might be able to charge
up some AA cells.


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## Guest (Nov 9, 2008)

I know what he's trying to do. The idea is not new and the design is not efficient. Even using ram air on the old muscle cars was not efficient and required the vehicle to be moving at least 120 mph to make any usable HP gains. With an EV you'd be lucky to get 65 or so MPH and then you would not be driving that speed for any length of time for most of the converted EV's. A generator placed in the air stream no matter how efficient the tube is will create an air damn and will slow the vehicle down to negate the miniscule effects of the tiny amount of power you'd get out of the design. It just plain puts to much drag and the EV can't afford that loss. You loose. No matter what. The idea and thinking is fine but do some more investigating and you will not post such things. It will be a real hindrance to add this to your EV. So for my EV if I were to build an air tube and install a generator I would just not be able to go very fast. It takes a bit already to get this vehicle to 65 mph let alone 120 where it may just provide some usable energy but not enough to make any difference above the already extra power it would need to power it's self then add enough for adding to the battery pack. Remember any device would need to over come its own needs before being able to provide any usable power. So if you can get it to provide enough to over come the extra power required to operate the device and then give some and I mean some extra for putting into the pack then I will have another look. Until then it is a waste of time and energy to install these kind of devices. 

Go check the next response to the steam device I will be posting.

Pete : )

Remember your bicycle generator. 



brent.massey said:


> Gotta disagree with you on that one Gottdi. The whole purpose behind this forum is to convert ICE vehicles to electric. Proven to be more efficient, but not in use en masse. I agree with some of the other posters here that the output of this system might not be worth the hassle, but at least he's thinking out of the box, and trying to turn what most of us see as a hindrance into something useful.


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## Guest (Nov 9, 2008)

The thermal recovery system you describe is pretty good thinking but you must remember that it will take quite a bit of water on board to provide steam for any length of time. That extra weight will no doubt negate the small benefit you'd gain from generating power from steam. It would not work for an all electric car. For a gas powered car you may get some usable power and more than likely get more usable power than the air ram generation. Just limited on time because it may require quite a bit of water. 

Better thinking and better efficiency. But still not very practical. Water injection helps if it's an ICE because it acts like octane and you can increase your compression and timing so you gain more usable power that way. Water injection does not require gobs of water on board either. No air drag to contend with either. Better use of your power generation. 


Pete







david85 said:


> What you are describing is a thermal recovery system. Its a real posibility and if you could fit a micro steam generator in the car that runs off the heat from the exhaust with no reat tax on the engine iteslf. Exhaust temperature is usually at least 300F and can be as high as 1200F, thats a lot of wasted energy. With some imagination you might even be able to use the cooling package itself to contribute to the steam generation. Turbochargers do recover some heat, but not much. Wouldn't be easy to implement, but it would make a real difference in net vehicle efficiency if you could recover some of the massive amounts of thermal energy that is normally lost. Gas engines loose 70% efficiency just in heat alone, diesels average 60% loss.
> 
> I think BMW is working on a thermal recovery system for one of their cars. Don't remember the details though.


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## Guest (Nov 9, 2008)

Well you'd need to be able to charge more than a few AA's. Not enough to warrant removing some of the big batteries you'd need to just over come the drag produced. A few AA's charged is not to likely. Your design needs to provide enough power back into the system then some before you can charge those few AA's. Not to likely you are going to do that. So for the loss of 5 miles lets say you get to charge two AA's. What kind of positive power gain is that? 




Xringer said:


> I don't think that big battery array is going to be needed.
> 
> Once the gets up to 60 or 70 mph, he might be able to charge
> up some AA cells.


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

Well I was thinking closed circuit steam, but it would still be hard to make practical thats for sure. I remember reading an article that described how natural gas turbine fired power plants used thermal recovery to reach net efficiencies well above 80%. Maybe it could be scaled down for a car, but it wouldn't be easy.


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## Guest (Nov 9, 2008)

Mmmmm, closed system. Mmmmmmm. Might work and it could be kinda small since steam has quite a bit of oooooph behind it. No air drag. Waste heat from exhaust being recycled? Mmmmmm. May not provide gobs of power but maybe some to power your nice amp for your stereo and keep that stereo battery charged for sure. Mmmmmmm. Closed system! Mmmmmmmm. Just thinking out loud. Mmmmmmmmmmm. Any electrical recovery from a small steam system that is powered by waste heat can only be a good thing. Even if its not on a grand scale any recycled energy is excellent since it does not take away from the initial system to begin with. Waste heat recovery sounds good to me. Only that you must do it down stream far enough so the catalytic converter still works properly. Then recover the heat for a small steam generator closed system. : )

Remember you don't want to use a boiler but small diameter pipe. Safer and more efficient use of the recovered energy. Remember the little putt putt boats with a candle and copper pipe. One side pulls water the other outputs steam and steam is created at the candle end in the small pipe. Pushed that little boat around pretty good for such a simple power device. No moving parts either : ) Nothing to wear out. : )

Putt Putt boat $4
Box of candles $2
Look on childs face watching it go! Priceless!




david85 said:


> Well I was thinking closed circuit steam, but it would still be hard to make practical thats for sure. I remember reading an article that described how natural gas turbine fired power plants used thermal recovery to reach net efficiencies well above 80%. Maybe it could be scaled down for a car, but it wouldn't be easy.


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

LOL, got you thinking now....

Closed circuit would also be more efficient because you are not having to heat up as much water so the startup time is less. There needs to be a way to condense the steam back into water, and then a high pressure, low volume fluid pump to push that water back into the "boiler". There are many advantages to a closed circuit system. More compact, more efficient, you can have lubricants/corrosion inhibitors/antifreeze in the water, lower maintenance.....

Sterling engines also have the ability convert heat (instead of raw explosions) into usable work, but steam tends to have better power to wieght ratio and there's more flexibility in how the heat is drawn into the system.

Too bad compact 10-30Hp sterling and steam engines are no longer made.

In reality, steam engines continued to improve right up to the point that diesels and gassers replaced them. Efficiency could be as high as 25% with the triple expansion design. Modern thermal insulation could have improved the efficiency even more. Steam engines are not blind heat wasters like ICEs are. The more insulation you pile on, the better. With ICEs, the internals would burn up so you HAVE to waste heat just to keep them alive (then theres pumping losses and all sorts of other crap that goes on).

Did you see the mythbuster's steam cannon? It wouldn't build enough pressure until they wrapped it in insulation, then pressure shot up. Now think of how much hot exposed surface was on the average steam locomotive back in the day....(no catalytic converter either!) Its no wonder why they were so inefficient!


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

Here we go:









Long live wikipedia!

The term is called "combined cycle".


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## Ioku (Sep 27, 2007)

david85 said:


> Closed circuit would also be more efficient because you are not having to heat up as much water so the startup time is less. There needs to be a way to condense the steam back into water, and then a high pressure, low volume fluid pump to push that water back into the "boiler". There are many advantages to a closed circuit system. More compact, more efficient, you can have lubricants/corrosion inhibitors/antifreeze in the water, lower maintenance.....


Looks like a good way to reuse an AC system just replace the compressor with a boiler and the restriction valve with a turbine and your good to go.


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## fugdabug (Jul 14, 2008)

I have a friend who lives up this way, his wife and my wife work together doing web projects for a local hospital, and he and I scheme... He builds scrubbers and coal fired 'clean furnaces' and turbine equipment. He was trained as a nuclear mechanics and electronics engineer (just like my son)... however his major industry is now bio-mass fuel plants, and butynol exchangers for production of plant based fuels. In our discussions we have many time questioned the use of heat/cooling exchange in the production of motion to create motive force, in a practical way. Bringing things down to the scale of a personal vehicle becomes problematic in anything other than a electromotive system using some sort of energy storage for electric energy or gas exchange to electric energy (on a molecular scale). Turbines loose their application at a certain level when it comes to burning fuels to produce motive force, there you run into calculations that get into some very picky matters of weight materials and aerodynamics, not to mention storage of fuels necessary to produce the power! The so-called 'ram induction' principle that the original post tries to foist off as 'do-able' is of course pure BULLCOOKIES... . Unless you can come up with the original papers for the Ovonic Battery... or can afford to buy the lithium packs necessary to make a practical all-weather, go a long ways, and keep you warm or cool vehicle ... we are gonna be at the same stage many early pioneers of aviation were at just around the turn of the century... we gotta be the Wilbur and Orville Wright's of the 21st Century..
Suggestion: No matter how old you are or how young, GO BACK TO SCHOOL! Study math (first) then higher maths, electricity and electrical applications, PHYSICS both classical and technical... and Chemistry... lots of chemistry!.. This is the only thing I can see as making any of us ready to step ahead and DO the future tech we need... without waiting for someone else to do it for us. Let's go for it gang! I am 56 and still going at it... and I intend to reenter collage this Spring at a local campus that offers off-campus study by cable TV ... Only way this mind is gonna stay focused is to make it focus...


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