[manic_monkey]

Originally Posted by skullbearer

The reason gens are so bad emission wise is they are nearly all 2-stroke. He'd need to look into 4 stroke.

modern 2 strokes use direct injection and are very good on emmisions. also, 2 stroke engines are very light and simple. companies which make things like lawm mower engines and generators just use the oldest cheapest technology they can, which doesnt help the reputation of the 2 stroke.

[skullbearer]

The reason I bring it up at all was that I know that they have also been used in the 80's in some experimental racing motors that were later restricted to the equivalency of banning as well... at least, this is according to the same Motorcyclist article, in the TDC section. Love that guy.

[Ioku]

Well I'm not really worried about emissions I don’t even have to test for it here and I don’t plan on registering the car as having any sort of gas engine in it I’ll just drop the gen set in afterwards, I want it to be something that could be removed easily anyways. And from reading about those Kubota diesels they seem to be quite clean and if I can make my own bio diesel then it would be cleaner than most cars.

But I’m still not sure what size generator head I would need to go with the engine from what I understand generator heads are rated by the hour so a 10 kw generator will produce 10 kw in one hour, is this correct. So if I was using 250 watts to travel one mile at 60 mph what size generator would I need to break even.

[skullbearer]

Originally Posted by manic_monkey

modern 2 strokes use direct injection and are very good on emmisions. also, 2 stroke engines are very light and simple. companies which make things like lawm mower engines and generators just use the oldest cheapest technology they can, which doesnt help the reputation of the 2 stroke.

Apparently I missed that post, my previous one was about 5/6-stroke engines.

I'd forgotten about the modern DI 2-stroke, and in CA you can actual find those on any lawn mower made after a certain date... I'm pretty sure it was 2000 but I know they made some weird loophole provisions for overstock and such, but anyone MANUFACTURED after 2000 should have it. So you could use an engine from one of those CA models.


EDIT:

Speaking more directly on parallel hybrids... I need to squeeze extra mileage out of my '87 Honda CH250 Elite (a maxiscooter). Currently she runs like a winner with only 4800 miles on it and 1500 the last two months from me, and I'll be putting another... about 3500-5000 on it by the end of the year. Anyway, my point is mechanical problems are not an issue, but I can only squeeze about 60mpg at 65mph which is my preferred commute speed, and I actually was able to do some way-to-much-free-time testing in parking lots and found out that I'm using significant amounts of gas in stop-n-go traffic (which is half my 70mile round trip commute).

By driving at a lower speed in town and preventing stops or at least reducing the amount of full or nearly full stops I needed brought me up to 64mpg, and reducing my cruising on the back roads from 65mph to 55mph brought me additionally to 74ish mpg (which is more than people claim for it, so I assume since its not a wheelie popper people are heavy with the throttle, I know I was).


I know that under cruising conditions the ICE is about as good as I'm going to get with this (can't afford batts for a conversion), but I'm wondering if I can't turn the bike into either a:

- psuedo-hybrid with a paralleled electric assist for stop an go using only capacitors that would be charging under the idle at a light...

-or-

- series hybrid where I toss the cvt tran (which is tiny and on the outside), slap a gen on the ICE make it a rear wheel-motor drive or use a small pancake motor on the side (so I can still make left turns) and then mount the caps on both sides of the bike on the outer panelling (I'll just paint them to match).


I'm wondering if you guys think it would even be worth it? I'd be using capacitance only and later possibly add some batteries to it. There isn't room for batts right now except on the outer side panels and those won't take too much weight, I don't want to overly modify the bike itself just swap some parts here, just in case I can't find a fair price buyer for the converted version... though I could swap the passenger foot rests for pegs and put batteries in the front gap and use it more like a motorcycle (that or just straddle the batteries I guess, lots of good bolts I can expose without modification and use to hold a mounting system).


Anyhoo, I'd obviously need 55mph cruising speed, this would initially be provided with energy by the ICE exclusively, buffered and stored in some good capacitors.


List of Needs
----------------

8" or smaller pancake motor producing enough constant power for 55mph cruising -or- 10" rim wheel motor that is capable of those speeds and power outputs (this is a 250cc single scooter)

1 or more capacitors no bigger than about 6 cans of lighter fluid that hold enough power to get it nearly or all the way to cruising speed, or at minimum to 40mph for the stop-n-go

controller that's small, doesn't have regen braking, DC system obviously, has throttle control programming for acceleration and can handle the power.



Ok, I know there's more to it due to voltage and such which might require a large bunch of small caps, but I'm wondering if this would give me any appreciable bonus or minus to my economy?

[evcars]

My question is how do you guys plan on converting the generator's AC power to DC? An inverter?
Would this power produced by the generator be running directly to the controller or is it going to the batteries first and then the controller?

[skullbearer]

Originally Posted by xtreme cartz

My question is how do you guys plan on converting the generator's AC power to DC? An inverter?
Would this power produced by the generator be running directly to the controller or is it going to the batteries first and then the controller?

Usually it goes through the battery charging system I believe, though the controller itself will have some capacitance type stuff built into it in order to smooth out power inconsistencies.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Electric_Rav]

If the generator feeds the charger and the charger feeds the batteries and controller then I can't imagine the generator contributing effectively. Using this method looks good in theory but in my case where I'm estimating a 40 mile range with batteries alone a generator through an on-board charger will only give me about another 6 to 10 miles. Then at the end of that 50 mile drive I would either have to plug in and charge for 4 to 6 hours or run the generator for 4 to 6 hours so I could go another 40 miles. If my thinking is correct, I don't think this is a good way of propelling a vehicle with the goal of having an unlimited range. Depends on your goal I guess. If you only need a 10 mile bump then go for it I suppose. That is all I wanted initially but my perameters have changed.

My conversion (if I can ever get the money to get started) will have a small engine of some kind and its output will contribute to the drive train directly. My requirements would be an engine that could meet or exceed emission laws and propel the vehicle at least 50mph with gas only. Anything less than 40 miles would be electric only. (which would be 50% of the time for me)

[skullbearer]

Just because something provides power to the battery pack doesn't mean it has to first charge the battery and then discharge it.


For example, the battery pack in EV's and the starter battery in ICE cars are all part of a energized circuit, powered by an alternator and regulated by the charge/discharge features of the battery.

Extra power will go into the battery at a rate dependent on the amps and volts, in a 12v system its 13.5-14V and say, I take a car with a 100amp alternator. The electrical energy goes where it can most easily, which is going to be non-battery equipment, then anything extra left over has nowhere to go but into the battery.


The same way in an EV, if your generator is producing less power than you need to drive the vehicle, it won't charge the batteries at all, because all that power will be used in drive, and the battpack will supplement. If it produces just the right amount, the battery will do nothing, and if it produces more, the battery will charge.

[Gavin1977]

Originally Posted by Ioku

Well I'm not really worried about emissions I don’t even have to test for it here and I don’t plan on registering the car as having any sort of gas engine in it I’ll just drop the gen set in afterwards, I want it to be something that could be removed easily anyways. And from reading about those Kubota diesels they seem to be quite clean and if I can make my own bio diesel then it would be cleaner than most cars.

But I’m still not sure what size generator head I would need to go with the engine from what I understand generator heads are rated by the hour so a 10 kw generator will produce 10 kw in one hour, is this correct. So if I was using 250 watts to travel one mile at 60 mph what size generator would I need to break even.

Ioku, I have no experience (yet) of EV's, but I can crunch the numbers for you.

You need to get the units converted correctly to make a proper comparison.

If you have a 10kw generator, this is a measure of instantaneous power, and it has no time element, to convert to energy in Kwh, you multiply by the time in hours. So for example if you ran your 10Kw genny for 5 hours, then in energy terms, it would have produced 50KwH.

Your EV does not consume 250Watts but 250 WATT HOURS to travel one mile at 60mph. To convert to power, use Power (Kw) = Energy (KwH) / time (in hours)

At 60mph, your EV will use 0.25KwH in 1 minute, or in 1/60th of an hour. Plug those numbers in to the above and you get Power = 0.25 / (1/60) = 15Kw.

In order to run your hybrid ev at 60mph without draining the batteries, you would need a generator of at least 15kw (and bigger once inefficiencies are taken into account and you probably want to charge the batteries as well. If you allow 20% (finger in the air) for inefficiencies and for a slow charge into the batteries as well, that gives a size of 18kW)

[skullbearer]

Right, you're using 250Wh x 60miles = 15kWh/hour

Which means that you need 15kW of constant power (actually used).

I agree with the 18kW total. I think I did the math incorrectly before (because I always forget about the time conversion)