Solar Charging whist riding, sunbathing at the beach, and lazing around the campsite

[GaRRy]

Yep finding a quiet enough small motor is the problem. How about a meths steam engine ?

 

[BrianP]

Still have the kids Mamod Steam Engine, would look great on the wooden plinth on the Ute!

Brian

 

[GaRRy]

Still have the kids Mamod Steam Engine, would look great on the wooden plinth on the Ute!

Brian

precisely pretty certain them made a standing engine as well.

 

[the_killjoy]

Must be time to search through the old Model Engineering magazines, this sounds like the sort of thing they will have done.

 

[neptune]

One possibility is the use of peltier modules. A cooking pot is under development in the USA called The Power Pot. Whilst cooking your dinner on a gas burner or campfire , the pot produces electricity. Sadly, at this stage of development, we are talking 15 watts max. There is also an aftermarket exhaust system for lorries, that incorporates peltier modules to produce electricity, replacing the alternator. So less load on the engine and a 10% increase in miles per gallon. So if you happen to see one in the gutter that "fell off the back of a lorry", Light a fire under it and connect it to your battery. The claimed electrical output is one Kilowatt.
Also, note the name "Quentron". A press release is due on June 11th on this device, which allegedly will show results of third part tests. What is claimed is a battery that charges itself from ambient heat. I look forward to seeing that. [OK , yes, I know, laws of the universe, Laws of thermodynamics, etc, etc.]If nothing else it will provide us with some entertainment.


Quote from Homer Simpson. "In this house we OBEY the laws of Physics!"

 

[GaRRy]

Just found this site for small engines and silencers

Just Engines Home Page

Prices don't seem to bad but wit the cost of the generator as well it certainly not going to be a cheap solution

 

[jhruk]

Hi Brian

Have a look at this YouTube video. I think it’s an arrangement similar to that you describe and it does show some detail. Although it was mounted on a trailer something that size should fit on the back of your Ute.

I like the idea of modifying a normal mains charger. Taking his figure of 300mA as an average over a 15 hour sunny day you should get around 4.5Ah in your 24volt battery with two of those 10 watt panels – or 9Ah if you had room for four.

Personally I’d probably just buy another battery and look for somewhere to charge it but it would be an interesting project and improve your Green credentials no-end. No doubt it would attract a lot of attention and you might not manage too many miles a day with having to stop and explain it to people all the time!

 

[Scimitar]

You can do it, but you'll need about three sq metres of panels. I came across a foldable panel last year (or a video thereof) showing exactly your intended use. Ride up to campsite, lay panel on ground or picnic table and while it charges, do something else.
It wasn't cheap, and it was only effective because of its size - you'd be wasting your time on anything smaller.
Iirc, it was shown being used in some wooded area, so not in full sunlight.
In brief, it can work but you'll need to get spendy with it.

 

[daniel.weck]

solar panels perform poorly enough on motorhomes with our UK weather...It may well add some charge but you will need to move to Spain.....

great idea, but wrong country and panels simply not efficent enough yet

I use a small set of solar panels (cheap too, at £20) to trickle-charge my 12V car battery, and the technology works great in low sunlight conditions. There's a massive voltage drop from 36V unloaded to 12V loaded, and amps output increases up to 4W max in direct sunlight. It is very clear that the power output is not high enough for other types of applications, but it is good enough for maintaining an already-healthy battery.

Cheers, Dan

 

[BrianP]

The video is encouraging. Just to clarify - if I ride to the beach in Eco mode, I think it will leave 2 bars still showing - ie half full still. Starting at 8 am, arrive at beach at 10am - means 2 hours solar charging in bike rack - not fully efficient but still helping. Then say 5 hours on the beach with the solar panel set up using tent poles to make maximum advantage of the sun. Then a 2 hour ride home. It's the ride home I am worried about. I think I will need to use medium mode to get back, possibly a bit of high power for the couple of hills. Not sure - I need to do the ride and see. Just worried about getting back. I did ask if the National Trust shop would let me charge the battery but after some interest it went quiet. I thought they would like the concept.

In summary, half battery used getting there. 5 hours to top up battery as much as possible, then ride home. 3 of the 4 bars would probably get me back.

Brian

 

[flecc]

Very much in the balance I think, as you say only trying it will tell if it gives enough. The implication of what you've said is that the solar charging has to work at nearly half the charge rate of your normal charger, and that seems rather unlikely.

 

[GaRRy]

Is it me or isnt the easiest solution just a second battery ? Probably no heavier, more compact and as solar panels in general even make batteries look cheap almost certainly cheaper.

Or am i just spoiling the fun

One other thing several of you keep on about direct sunlight. Just not important all need is direct access to sky. As said parents have several panels on narrow boat two of which are angled in a v and if moor with one facing sun and other facing opposite direction the output is near enough identical to not really matter and even heavy cloud makes no real difference.

 

[neptune]

One thing that is encouraging is that the cost of solar has fallen rapidly in the last few years. Back in the seventies we used to dream about solar at £5 a watt, which was said to be the critical figure. It is now down to £1 a watt or lower. I reckon that Flecc`s big trailer would carry 3 square metres no problem!
I was slightly [only slightly] surprised At the lack of comment on the Quentron device. The initial plan is to sell everlasting hearing aid batteries, at $100. The money from this is to be used for Rand D. There is talk of an everlasting cell phone battery within a year. This will consist of a number of cells in series [1.5 volts per cell]. The size of a cell is one millimetre square . Yes you read that right . A bike battery would use bigger cells, one centimetre square . Anyone fancy a 100 amp hour battery the size of a fag packet?
One relevant factor here is the difficulty of bringing ideas to market. The following figures are from a German business magazine.
1176 original ideas, became 376 Board projects [what does that mean.]
Of these, 176 made it to market. The number which proved to be financially successful?
A mere 11.
But surely this idea is too good to fail?

 

[jhruk]

The video is encouraging. Just to clarify - if I ride to the beach in Eco mode, I think it will leave 2 bars still showing - ie half full still. Starting at 8 am, arrive at beach at 10am - means 2 hours solar charging in bike rack - not fully efficient but still helping. Then say 5 hours on the beach with the solar panel set up using tent poles to make maximum advantage of the sun. Then a 2 hour ride home. It's the ride home I am worried about. I think I will need to use medium mode to get back, possibly a bit of high power for the couple of hills. Not sure - I need to do the ride and see. Just worried about getting back. I did ask if the National Trust shop would let me charge the battery but after some interest it went quiet. I thought they would like the concept.

In summary, half battery used getting there. 5 hours to top up battery as much as possible, then ride home. 3 of the 4 bars would probably get me back.

Brian

A couple of these would probably do the job – but look at the cost!

I still think a second battery would be your easiest option. Remember it doesn’t have to be the same as the one you already have. A 10Ah one should give you sufficient extra capacity and could be had for under £200. Kudos have a LiFePO4 one for £165.60 and a charger for £18.58. An even cheaper, though much heavier, option would be a couple of 12Ah SLAs which could be had for around £50.00.

To extend the life of both batteries it would be preferable to wire them in parallel, using suitable diodes. You would need to fit a small box between the battery and controller to house the diodes and plug in the extra battery.

 

[flecc]

I was slightly [only slightly] surprised At the lack of comment on the Quentron device. The initial plan is to sell everlasting hearing aid batteries, at $100. The money from this is to be used for Rand D. There is talk of an everlasting cell phone battery within a year. This will consist of a number of cells in series [1.5 volts per cell]. The size of a cell is one millimetre square . Yes you read that right . A bike battery would use bigger cells, one centimetre square . Anyone fancy a 100 amp hour battery the size of a fag packet?

One relevant factor here is the difficulty of bringing ideas to market. But surely this idea is too good to fail?

If this was any good it would already be on the market. This world is full of unproven hare-brained ideas, and I'm betting this is just another. I don't accept all the conspiracy theories as to why these things don't happen, they don't happen simply because they physically can't happen.

 

[neptune]

Hi Flecc. I don`t quite follow the logic of saying that if this was any good, it would already be on the market.
Everything has to start somewhere, and for everything there has to be a time between its discovery and its being available in the shops.
As I pointed out, for every 1176 hare brained schemes, typically only 11 make it to market, at least in a profitable way. So the odds are very roughly 116 to 1 in favour of you being right, and me being wrong.However, unless the world is to go on in just the same way as it always has, [and we know that is impossible] sooner or later one of these rank outsiders is going to be first past the winning post. After all, as you said, there is no shortage of hair brained schemes. The big question is, which one will it be. As I have no money on it, I am quite content to wait and see. The only alternative as I see it is to accept that any future experimentation is a waste of time and money, as technology is now as advanced as it is going to get. But wouldn`t it be wonderful if we both lived to see the everlasting Ebike battery that has no charge socket because it never needs charging. I will admit I am not holding my breath.

 

[flecc]

The effort long being put into battery research is immense, both in breadth and depth, and small gains are being made. If there was a scrap of truth in this prospect we would already have seen some degree of the progress being realised, at least in the established research and the early market

My criticism concerns these frequent nonsense claims of sudden immense leaps in battery progress. It's not an area of physics where such leaps are possible for well understood reasons.