EV Digest 4706
Topics covered in this issue include:
1) Well Guys....
by <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2) Re: Electricity stored in batteries. The biggest dissapointment
of the modern world.
by Mark Farver <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3) RE: Plasma Cutter
by Reverend Gadget <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4) Re: Solectria Charger Question
by Victor Tikhonov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5) Re: Solectria Charger Question
by Victor Tikhonov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6) More motors -> More speed?
by Meta Bus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7) Re: IOTA Question
by "Lawrence Rhodes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8) Re: Paralleling and seriesing variac's, controllers and simular devices.
by "Lawrence Rhodes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9) Re: EVILbus
by Victor Tikhonov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10) Re: Solectria Charger Question
by "EVdave" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11) Re: More motors -> More speed?
by Victor Tikhonov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12) Re: Crimping cables!, getting closer!
by Neon John <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13) Re: Paralleling and seriesing variac's, controllers and simular devices.
by Neon John <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14) Re: EVILbus
by Meta Bus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15) Re: EVILbus (was: e-meter type gadget)
by Shawn Rutledge <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16) Re: EVILbus
by Martin Klingensmith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17) Re: Electricity stored in batteries. The biggest dissapointment of the
modern world.
by Neon John <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18) Re: EVILbus
by Shawn Rutledge <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19) Re: Plasma Cutter
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
20) Re: Plasma Cutter
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
21) Fest-ev-a project update
by Stefano Landi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22) Re: More motors -> More speed?
by "Peri Hartman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23) RE: EVILbus (was: e-meter type gadget)
by "Don Cameron" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
--- Begin Message ---
Im well on my way....to update anyone who gives two cents here is what i
have done so far :))
1997 Chevy S10 with the Ice and all components out
Body is of\f as we are building the boxes under it.
We are building the battery boxes next week as i have to wait on a friend
thats a good welder.
Items on the way or here for my 144vlt system
Warp9 Motor
Zilla1k lv controller
Tranmission Kit
Clutch and pressure plate
Zivan Ng3 220vlt charger
Iota 55amp for dc dc
12vlt vacuumm pump for brakes
25ft of red 2/0 cable
25ft of black 2/0 cable
Motor mount for warp9
Albright sw200 contactor
500am maine fuse and block
400am Main breaker
ammeter
voltermeter
Shunt
Misc cable boots, and connectors
Im soooooooooo ready to try and put her all together and cant wait for
everything to arrive. The motor should be here by weeks end and the motor
mount and tranny kit are already here.
One thing i was curious about, the tranny is still in the truck and there
seems to be two prevailing ways to attack putting the motor in.
1. Take the tranny out, assemble everything together and put it all back in
as one unit.
2. Leave the tranny in and asseemble everything to the motor and install
this way as there is plenty of room
As my tranny is still in, i was curious what everyone else thought about the
tranny in or our issue. And my last question is the tranny really doesnt
have anything else holding it much in place other than the Ice engine that
was in it, will the same hold true with the Warp9 or do you guys recommend
another way to safely hold the transmission into place.
Thanks everyone your making my dream come true....
Cwarman
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Meta Bus wrote:
Why aren't we all driving Al-Air electrics?
Zinc Air(like hearing aid batteris) has been seriously considered for
EV's. The "recharge" process could be done by equipment that would fit
in your garage. Energy density is not bad (half of your battery does
not need to be carried with you). The battery and recharge equipment is
not especially expensive. The big issue as I recall was the power
density was lousy... it was difficult to pull in outside air and get it
reacting with the plates fast enough.
Zinc Air is not the only battery tech with good energy density but lousy
power density.... (lots of energy can be sotred but it can only be added
and removed slowly). Supercaps hold promise to fill in the gaps,
storing energy and releasing it in quick burst for peak power needs...
but while much progress has been made in Supercaps they still have not
reached the point where they are suitable.
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
let me give you my take on plasma cutters. I've had
machines that will cut all the way up to 1/2 material.
I don't use them for anything more that 1/8 inch on
steel. for light gauge they are perfect. but I have
found that by the time you take into account the kerf
angles and slag removal, that a cutting torch with a
clean tip is superior.
I don't even use the plasma to cut aluminum. by the
time you figure cutting, then cleaning off the dross,
then sanding, grinding or filing to the line,( as I
have to cut oversize to make up for the kerf angle) a
jigsaw is faster. The trick to cutting with a jigsaw
is blade speed. If the blades moves too fast on
aluminum the material fuses to the teeth and cutting
moves at a crawl. you also have to use larger teeth,
double what yo would use to cut steel.
The drawback to using a cheap plasma cutter is the
consumables. can you get them? I bought a really nice
german machine for about 500 bucks and used it for 6
months then could not get tips. it was then a 500
dollar piece of junk. some of the cheaper machines
burn through a lot of tips as they don't have the
protections built into the machine to save them. at
six to ten dollars a piece that can get really
expensive. I have an ESAB that I won on Monster House,
that eats a lot of tips but my Miller rarely does. I
bought a 10 pack of tips months ago. the ESAB can eat
those in days.
end of rant....
Gadget
visit my website at www.reverendgadget.com
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Oh, yes, I didn't mention this. NLG5 of course also has
general purpose digital I/Os (3 of them) which can be ANDed or ORed
in the software so desired combination of input signals on them
advances cnarging sequence to the next stage (or shuts off the charger
if desired). This is on top of having the power limiter which
is *analog* input allowing to modulate the power gradually 100%->0%.
David Roden wrote:
The NLG4 has 2 general purpose inputs. Your custom profile can read the
voltage on these inputs and switch to another charging stage when it is
above some value you define. So this could also be done on the older
chargers, should one wish to.
--
Victor
'91 ACRX - something different
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
EVdave wrote:
hey you two,..
David, I suppose this was the greeting for us? :-)
--
Victor
'91 ACRX - something different
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Possibly a silly question--
Given the same power (battery pack), would adding another motor make for
higher vehicle speed?
I read here that current gives torque, while voltage gives speed. With
two motors instead of one, I would have the same voltage but half the
current, right? Would than then mean I could reach the same RPM, but
take longer getting there (ie poor acceleration)?
I have two Solectria AC55 motors each driving a fixed ratio gearbox, one
to each rear wheel. With the Deka GelTech battery pack (288v/100ah) I
can only achieve 40 MPH currently. Although I can achieve other
efficiencies and maybe reach my 45 MPH goal, I was wondering what a 2nd
axle with two more AC55 motors would achieve for me. (The AC55 has a
"sweet spot" of 2500 RPM, but can max to 8K. I am sporting 19.5 tires).
It would be nice to be capable of 60 MPH...
TIA for any advice.
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Just leave it on 13v all the time. You battery will act as a buffer. If no
battery the unit will provide up to 55 amps on demand. You don't need the
battery charger unit. LR...........
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cwarman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2005 8:49 AM
Subject: IOTA Question
I won one of these 55am Iota's on ebay and the guy just emailed me before
shipping asking me if i need the following addition. Im unsure if i need it
or not if using as my dc dc converter for my Aux battery...
THANK YOU FOR YOUR PURCHASE
If you are intending for FULL TIME use on a boat or RV or to charge
batteries the IQ-4 multiple 3 stage charging option is NEEDED. It will
Automatically
vary charging voltage to stimulate batteries at a higher voltage for
maximum
amperage absorption then drop back to the lower voltage bulk stage and
maintenience stage to maintain batteries for longer unused periods of time
like weeks or months without the need for monitoring and keep batteries
charged to 100% for immediate use. It will Automatically equalize the
batteries, too. This will give you more reserve power output ( up to 20%
more ) and make the batteries last longer ( up to 20% longer ). The IQ-4
is $ 35.00 additional with no additional shipping. WHERE CAN YOU BUY
A
BATTERY CHARGER OF THIS SIZE FOR THIS PRICE ??? ADD $ 35.00 to
the
amount below if you want this option.
If you are intending to use the Iota for a power supply the IQ-4 is NOT
necessary, but, may be helpful for additional battery charging usage. It
is
a user plug-in option and can be installed or removed in a few seconds.
NOTE !
THESE UNITS ARE DUAL PURPOSE AND CAN BE USED AS A POWER SUPPLY
OR FULLY AUTOMATIC BATTERY CHARGER WITH THE IQ-4 MODULE.
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
So I can parallel the outputs. The two variac's will share the same source
of electricity. 20 amp 220vac. 10 gauge wire. LR........
----- Original Message -----
From: "Philip Marino" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2005 8:58 AM
Subject: RE: Paralleling and seriesing variac's, controllers and simular
devices.
Lawrence,
You can do it either way. The advantage of rectifying each section
separately before combining the outputs is that it avoids the possiblity
of the sections " fighting" each other, even when you are not loading the
output. If you combine the sections before recitification, you may get
substantial current flowing from one section into the other even with no
load attached. That's because the two sections will not be exactly
matched voltage-wise.
In either case, though, they will not likely supply the same current into
the load, so that it will not be abl to supply as much current as a single
220V 16 amp variac section. One section will reach its max current before
the other does.
Phil
From: "Lawrence Rhodes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: "Electric Vehicle Discussion List" <[email protected]>
Subject: Paralleling and seriesing variac's, controllers and simular
devices.
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 07:49:09 -0700
I have a dual variac.(two variacs on a metal rod in a case) 220vac. each
unit is 8amps. I'd like to use both outputs together somehow for more
amperage. Is it possible to combine the outputs either at the AC output
point so I wouldn't have to use two bridges or after it has been converted
to DC after the bridge on the DC side?
Lawrence Rhodes
Bassoon/Contrabassoon
Reedmaker
Book 4/5 doubler
Electric Vehicle & Solar Power Advocate
415-821-3519
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
_________________________________________________________________
Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Any suggestions from a software guy what do I use to
monitor 96 LiIon cells then?
Meta Bus wrote:
Hi Lee,
As a software guy, I think 32 nodes is plenty, and I would love to
utilize a simpler bus than CAN and its many variations.
--
Victor
'91 ACRX - something different
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
That was for David and Victor.... yes, thank you very much for the input to my
question.....
in an effort to show my gratitude, ill rephrase....
Most Honorable David and Victor:
(rest of the text to fall in here)
:) better?
dave banas / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Victor Tikhonov" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2005 1:58 PM
Subject: Re: Solectria Charger Question
> EVdave wrote:
>
>> hey you two,..
>
> David, I suppose this was the greeting for us? :-)
>
> --
> Victor
> '91 ACRX - something different
>
>
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Meta Bus wrote:
Possibly a silly question--
Given the same power (battery pack), would adding another motor make for
higher vehicle speed?
It is sort of like asking if you put two people on the bicycle instrad
of one but each is suppose to pedal with only one leg - is it going to
be any faster that way?
I read here that current gives torque, while voltage gives speed. With
two motors instead of one, I would have the same voltage but half the
current, right? Would than then mean I could reach the same RPM, but
take longer getting there (ie poor acceleration)?
Assuming the same, say 80% overall efficiency (I know, just for the sake
of discussion), 10kW from the battery will get you 8kW on the
motor shaft which moves you. 8kW on the shaft or 4 kW on two shafts,
it is still 8 kW total which moves you.
Look at it this way - two half shafts off the differential can
represent two shafts of separate motors half-power each.
--
Victor
'91 ACRX - something different
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 06:33:13 -0600, "Roland Wiench" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>You can get this heavy duty heat shrink with the sealant from electrical
>supply houses and some times from Home Depot.
http://www.waytekwire.com.
They have it in thinner wall thicknesses that doesn't snot up so when
shrunk.
>These heat shrinks normally come in 3 foot lengths are original design for
>covering inline splices and then can be direct bury for under ground work. I
>used them when I made up my cables.
>
>The only thing is, that these heat shrinks get up to 1/4 inch wall thickness
>after you FLAME them. We do not used the normal heat gun on these. When you
>purchase this type of heat shrink with sealant, pick up a curve attachment or
>the one tip that spreads the flame that goes on a standard head of a hand held
>propane torch.
A commercial grade heat gun will do the job. The $50 one Home Depot
sells in the paint department that looks like a large red hair dryer
will work. There are higher power ones available from places like
Graingers in the $150 range.
I personally try to avoid flaming heatshrink because of the difficulty
in keeping the heat off the wire itself. Charred wire doesn't look
good :-)
John
---
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.johngsbbq.com
Cleveland, Occupied TN
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 07:49:09 -0700, "Lawrence Rhodes"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I have a dual variac.(two variacs on a metal rod in a case) 220vac. each
>unit is 8amps. I'd like to use both outputs together somehow for more
>amperage. Is it possible to combine the outputs either at the AC output
>point so I wouldn't have to use two bridges or after it has been converted
>to DC after the bridge on the DC side?
Sure, just tie the outputs together. Before you do that, however,
make sure the variacs are synched and match.
To do that, hook an AC DVM between the outputs (wipers). Any mismatch
is indicated by a voltage difference. That voltage difference will
cause circulating currents, limited only by the circuit impedance. Not
desirable.
Static mismatch can be easily corrected by rotating one rotor relative
to the other on the shaft. Variable mismatch, mismatch that occurs at
a variable rate depending on the shaft position, is more problematic
adn will generally stop the parallel effort. Fortunately two variacs
of exactly the same brand and model are usually quite accurately made,
so this shouldn't be a problem.
John
---
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.johngsbbq.com
Cleveland, Occupied TN
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
I would respectfully suggest that adding a self-reporting intelligence
to individual cells would be overkill.
A sampler, multiplexed amongst the cells-- only one intelligent agent is
needed here, and making, accumulating and reporting those n*96
measurements is its job-- it only needs to be one node, reporting and/or
digesting related info. A modular measurement board might be designed,
to allow for a multitude of configurations, but there should probably
still only be one "clearinghouse" to take the 8*12 or 16*6 or 32*3
analog/digital captures.
How many times per second do you need your measurements?
AFAIK, the EVolbus (sic- sorry Lee) is just a communication bus.
Noise-immune (or resistant), power-conservative, allowing devices to be
designed for easy and transparent integration. A lazy PC programmer
(don't look at me like that) can just display the ASCII messages, or
parse & store & analyze them. But the bus is inherently limited.
With 96 individual cells, you are not really making 96 different
measurements, you're making the same measurement, 96 times. And, you
want to make these 96 measurements several times per second.
That amount of data might overwhelm the bus' 9600 baud rate with
reports, but the intelligent agent should be designed to help out here.
A GPS might be a good example. Most will report, by default, once per
second. Commands can be sent to change the default behavior. Alarm
conditions would always deserve a report.
Now, if your goal is _research_, then you probably want to make and
_store_ a very large amount of measurements (for later analysis). Then,
I think you want to skip the normal-operation simple-comm bus entirely,
and wire your slew of ADC's directly to a PC.
Regards,
Jim Davis
In my EV, I'll want
Victor Tikhonov wrote:
Any suggestions from a software guy what do I use to
monitor 96 LiIon cells then?
Meta Bus wrote:
Hi Lee,
As a software guy, I think 32 nodes is plenty, and I would love to
utilize a simpler bus than CAN and its many variations.
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
On 9/13/05, Lee Hart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> My thought is to use ASCII, not binary for EVILbus. The messages would
> be in plain text, so you can figure out what they mean. For example, an
> E-meter might send:
>
> V=123.4v I=50.1a A=-100.8ah T=22.5c
Well if you assume you can always get by with single characters,
pretty soon it will start to get illogical when you start running out
of them. There are a lot of voltages present in an EV, that you might
want to measure, but you've only got one letter V.
<source seq="346" ID="emeter" version="1.23" sn="321461">
<batt ID="0">
<read type="inst" unit="V">123.4</read>
<read type="inst" unit="A">50.1</read>
<read type="integ" unit="Ah">-100.8</read>
<cell ID="5">
<read type="inst" unit="deg C">22.5</read>
</cell>
</batt>
</source>
Like I said XML is verbose. But there is much more information in
that example and you don't have to assume as much:
- what kind of emeter, what version of its firmware, its serial number
- which battery pack you are reading (what if you have two or more?
At least there is the main pack and the accessory battery right? And
in Victor's cars there would be ultracaps.)
- which cell has the temperature sensor
- some readings are instantaneous, some are integrated
- the whole thing is quite human-readable
Now, if I were to rephrase this in the same structure using the idea I
presented a couple days ago, it would be a bit less verbose:
(source (seq . 346) (ID . 'emeter) (version . 1.23) (sn . 321461)
(batt (ID . 0)
(read (type . 'inst) (unit . 'V) 123.4)
(read (type . 'inst) (unit . 'A) 50.1)
(read (type . 'integ) (unit . 'Ah) -100.8)
(cell (ID . '5)
(read (type . 'inst) (unit . degC) 22.5) )))
You lose the double quotes, the closing tags, and when you parse it
you will end up with a linked-list structure in memory, much faster
than you will end up with a DOM tree when using XML. It could be done
quite efficiently on an embedded system that has RAM (not so good if
you only have a few registers though).
Another optimization which I would try is to quit trying to say
everything every time, and do a query/response handler on the emeter
where if you really want to know what kind of emeter you have, and
which readings correspond to which parts of the system, you can ask,
but the rest of the time the broadcast messages are much more compact;
they just give a unique identifier for the whole message, and for each
reading. But the query/response system should be standardized in a
way which is extensible and future-proof and can be documented at the
high level on one page.
For example a broadcast might be as short as
(read (node . 2) (ID . 4) 123.4)
and then you ask "who is node 2?" and get a response; and you can ask
"node 2, what is the meaning of reading ID 4?" and get another
response. But if the device which wants to know was already listening
for a while, he might already know these things, based on hearing the
response to somebody else's query, or a broadcast that was sent out at
startup. But nobody should _depend_ on passively learning - there
should be a query for every kind of info that can be obtained, just in
case something was missed or there was a race condition that prevented
the delivery or understanding of one of the broadcasts. And with this
approach some human-readability is lost; you can see the readings but
you have to match them up with what they mean. Repeating at least the
units every time would help to alleviate that.
> You could just plug an RS-232 to EVILbus adapter onto your PC, use any
> terminal program to look at the data, and immediately figure out what it
> means.
Well with some guesswork. Which voltage is that and which device
measured it? Well by the magnitude you can guess...assuming there is
only one voltage that big...
> Yes, I know. Every standard begins with one installed device, and grows
> from there. It started because it was simpler, cheaper, and worked
> better in the application than the other standards before it. But over
> time, the standard grows in power and sophistication until it becomes so
> bloated and byzantine that no new users can figure it out. (And it gets
> replaced with the next new standard, and the cycle repeats :-)
And then there are standards that seem to live on for pretty long
times. The X-window protocol, TIFF, JPEG, HTTP, MIDI, TCP/IP, CGM,
DWG, DXF, HPGL, Gerber, Spice, ASN.1, XML, the Java bytecode standard,
McCarthy's basic concept of Lisp, etc. Some of those were initially
insufficient and now have some ugly warts growing on them though. A
couple others were designed in a future-proof manner and survive
mostly intact to this day. (Or at least the warts can be ignored
because they're completely optional.) The most future-proof of them
are loose frameworks which permit an incredible number of mutations
that are still compliant, and because they follow the rules, those
mutations are much more useful than they would have been if they were
ad-hoc, designed without a framework at all.
> My hope is that an EVer who doesn't know either CAN or EVILbus will find
> that he can learn and implement EVILbus a lot quicker and more cheaply
> than CANbus. It might be an Otmar Ebenhoech building a controller, or
> Rich Rudman building a charger. They use it, because they don't have the
> time or money to implement CAN. Others buy their controller or charger,
> and EVILbus spreads.
Well in the form you demonstrated it can accommodate no more than 26
measurements (or double that if you use lowercase characters for
some), only a few of which have letters that make sense. But for an
increase in verbosity you can get a lot more extensibility.
I will definitely write something like this, because there are a lot
of situations in which it could be applied.
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
I would think you could monitor several cells on the same ground level
with one cheap MCU and some comparators or opamps. There are many opamps
that have 40v (or +-20v) inputs.
96 nodes would be hideously expensive, but if you have ~4v per cell you
could fit 8 or 9 into the common-mode input range of an opamp which
could then go into an inexpensive multi-channel 8 bit A/D. Just another
idea..
--
Martin Klingensmith
Victor Tikhonov wrote:
Any suggestions from a software guy what do I use to
monitor 96 LiIon cells then?
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 11:46:55 -0400, Meta Bus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>I don't understand why aluminum-air mechanically-recharged battery
>systems have yet to be introduced for an EV application. It would seem
>feasible to me, to stop at a eletrolytic station on my way to Grandma's
>house, to add some base or acid. To get my 3000-mile aluminum change,
>and pay my recycling fee for the oxides that are flushed...
>
>Why aren't we all driving Al-Air electrics?
Cost
Availability in suitable sizes
Distribution infrastructure
Manufacturing infrastructure
Common knowledge base
These are characteristics that all so-called "alternative energy
sources" share in common. It is very much a Catch-22, chicken-and-egg
problem.
Any new technology must be deployable in an evolutionary manner using
existing infrastructure. Examples are everywhere:
CDs - existing record distribution
Internet - via existing analog dialup phones
Cable TV - gradually took over from existing broadcast systems.
Once the technology catches on and hits a critical mass, then
technology-specific infrastructure is developed. DSL, fiber to the
house, etc.
Any new energy source MUST follow that route. The existing
distribution infrastructure includes:
Oil pipelines
natural gas pipelines
distillate pipelines
The natural gas pipelines
The electrical grid.
and on a more-or-less local level, petroleum tankers.
Whatever comes after petroleum energy simply must flow through one of
those mechanisms, at least in the beginning. That means that the new
energy source must be liquid or gas, be compatible with existing
mostly carbon steel pipelines and be compatible with the existing
cargo.
This is the main reason hydrogen fuel cell technology is getting so
much attention and funding from the organizations that will actually
make it happen - car mfrs, oil companies, the government. People
whose foresight extends much farther out than that of the critics of
fuel cells realize that the fuel, most likely a simple hydrocarbon
gas, can be distributed through the existing natural gas pipeline
system. The gas is reformed to hydrogen at the person's house or at a
filling station.
Natural gas will be the fuel for the next couple hundred years in
America. After that, who knows? Nuclear energy used to synthesize
natural gas from coal or other simple feedstock is certainly doable
and practical now. Maybe if someone figures out how to transport a
feedstock cheaply enough out into the desert, then maybe solar heat
could be used. Perhaps the carbon remaining after the reformation of
methane could somehow be transported back to the generation source for
recycling.
Hydrogen itself won't be transported via long distances because of
some pesky chemical and physical properties. A tiny molecule, it
leaks profusely through any imperfection. It causes hydrogen
embitterment in the types of steels in use in pipelines. Liquefaction
requires too much energy and the cryogenic liquid also has too many
pesky properties. Combine it with carbon to make methane and all
those problems go away.
Another possible fuel is ammonia. NH3. IT is easy to make, energy
dense, liquefies at a reasonable pressure and can be kept liquid at
room temperature under pressure. It is compatible with existing
carbon steel pipelines. The feedstock is hydrogen and air (nitrogen).
The byproduct of reformation is air (nitrogen). It has the
unfortunate property of stinking and of being toxic in high
concentrations. Neither are insurmountable problems.
Most important, there is an existing infrastructure for distribution -
liquid ammonia is probably the most used fertilizer. It is
transported in the same type tankers used to transport LP. In fact,
LP tankers used to be used in the summer for LNH3 transport until
cross-contamination caused widespread damage to heating appliances
back in the 80s. With modern, cheap and reliable analytical
instruments now available, that problem could be easily solved.
For transportation purposes, ammonia could be carried in liquid form
in the vehicle and reformed as needed. A simple catalytic process,
generating only hydrogen, nitrogen and heat. The uninformed will wag
their arms in fear at ammonia's toxicity but an objective look at the
hazardous properties of NH3 vs gasoline will show NH3 to be much
safer. Ammonia has the added advantage of being sniffable in
concentrations many orders of magnitude below the dangerous
concentration.
I've had a lot of experience with ammonia, having operated a creaky
old ammonia based ice plant in my early years. This plant made flake
ice by the ton to be added to concrete to keep the concrete at the
proper curing temperature in summer. This old plant had a slow speed
open shaft piston compressor that leaked over 250 gallons of NH3 a
month.
While I went about my workday in a supplied air mask, the odor outside
the plant was faint and certainly not hazardous. I got a hands-on
feel for how NH3 behaves, leaks, drifts, settles and makes a pain of
itself. Not very badly, actually. That thousands of farmers handle
the stuff every day shows that it can be handled safely by technically
unsophisticated people.
What I am positive of is that the solution(s) to future transportation
needs will not involve large quantities of batteries nor a wall plug.
Remotely maybe in the interim but certainly not in the long term.
John
---
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.johngsbbq.com
Cleveland, Occupied TN
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
On 9/13/05, Meta Bus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> A sampler, multiplexed amongst the cells-- only one intelligent agent is
> needed here, and making, accumulating and reporting those n*96
> measurements is its job-- it only needs to be one node, reporting and/or
Yep.
> That amount of data might overwhelm the bus' 9600 baud rate with
> reports, but the intelligent agent should be designed to help out here.
Yep again. More intelligence and more programmability will help a
lot. And you can't anticipate every way that users will want to
filter the data, so it's better to have each node be programmable with
a common language, in the field, right over the bus. Without
sacrificing default functionality of course, knowing that most users
will never do any programming.
More speed on the bus would really help too though.
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
In a message dated 9/13/05 10:17:09 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< I have an ESAB that I won on Monster House,
that eats a lot of tips but my Miller rarely does. I
bought a 10 pack of tips months ago. the ESAB can eat
those in days.
end of rant....
Gadget
>>
I repair welders and plasmas every day,if you are using lots of tips ect.you
may not have a good air drier.Dry air is a must for consumables to last.Damp
air can run a plasma tip in 5 minutes or dry air can make the same parts last
an 8hour shift. Dennis Berube
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
In a message dated 9/12/05 8:51:38 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< Subj: Plasma Cutter
Date: 9/12/05 8:51:38 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Dymaxion)
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-to: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
For some tools, getting the better tool saves time and frustration.
I'm planning to get a plasma cutter for my next EV conversion tool.
Is there really much difference between the $500 Harbor Freight one
and a $1500 Miller or Lincoln? I need to cut 1/4 inch steel, but
don't foresee a need to cut thicker than that.
>>
Do not buy the harbor freight model,parts will be difficult to obtain.As I
repair all brands of plasmas my favorite brands are as follows;1Thermal
dynamics,2Hypertherm,3Esab,4Miller,and thenLincoln. Dennis Berube
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Hello everyone,
So what do you get when you decide to tackle an electric conversion of a
Ford Festiva on a shoestring budget with a garage full of household grade
tools? Well tired for one thing, a little frustrated and satisfaction that
I'm slowly accomplishing something special. I really am impressed by many of
the people on this list that have access to machine shops and have the
monetary wherewithall to carry out some of the more expensive conversions.
I'd love to be able to have that kind of money, but in my case when I set
about doing this conversion, the household CEO, aka the wife, raised an
eyebrow and asked me how much this would all cost. I had to come up with an
answer pretty quick and told her a figure of about $4,500 CDN. So the
challenge is on, to convert a Ford Festiva to an electric vehicle capable of
getting me to work and back (18 miles) every day convincing both my wife and
my non-believing friends that it can be done. As you will see on my site,
this conversion is fraught with all sorts of problems and as it progresses
it's almost turning into a frame-off restore. Believe me I'm loving every
minute of it. Just thought you would all like to see the progress.
regards,
Stefano
http://fest-ev-a.slandi.net
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
With Victor's answer, I think he's assuming you wire the motors in series.
However, if you put them in parallel, you would ideally get twice the power.
The main constraint is that the batteries have internal resistance and the
more current you draw from them, the less voltage is available to the
motors.
In a bit more detail: first, you get twice the power because you now have
two motors running ideally at the same voltage as each would have originally
and each ideally draws up to the same amount of current it would have by
itself. Thus, twice the power. The internal resistance loss causes a
voltage drop, or "sag", on the batteries from terminal to terminal. This
can be quite a significant drop. The result is less voltage to power the
motors which means less than double the power available to the motors.
Just how much voltage drop depends on a number of factors such as the type
of battery and how linear the drop is relative to current. Others can, and
have, talked a lot about this.
Finally, even though you get more power, you may not get more speed. If you
can already reach the max rated speed with a single motor, adding a second
wont make you go faster. However, you will accelerate faster and climb
hills faster.
Peri Hartman
----- Original Message -----
From: "Victor Tikhonov" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, 13 September, 2005 11:19
Subject: Re: More motors -> More speed?
Meta Bus wrote:
Possibly a silly question--
Given the same power (battery pack), would adding another motor make for
higher vehicle speed?
It is sort of like asking if you put two people on the bicycle instrad of
one but each is suppose to pedal with only one leg - is it going to
be any faster that way?
I read here that current gives torque, while voltage gives speed. With
two motors instead of one, I would have the same voltage but half the
current, right? Would than then mean I could reach the same RPM, but take
longer getting there (ie poor acceleration)?
Assuming the same, say 80% overall efficiency (I know, just for the sake
of discussion), 10kW from the battery will get you 8kW on the
motor shaft which moves you. 8kW on the shaft or 4 kW on two shafts,
it is still 8 kW total which moves you.
Look at it this way - two half shafts off the differential can
represent two shafts of separate motors half-power each.
--
Victor
'91 ACRX - something different
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Why re-invent the wheel just because you want to use linked-lists? XML is
firmly established and widely used. If you write a new encoding scheme,
your users will then have to have your specialized parsers, or custom write
their own. Why? SAX and DOM parsers abound. Your scheme provides no
tangible benefits that outweigh the use of the standard. Remember that XML
is not simply and encoding scheme, it also is self describing, by using
schemas. Flying in the face of a well established standard is **very**
frustrating for the users.
If a lightweight protocol is required, Lee's suggestion of using ASCII,
space delimited, name-value pair is quite reasonable. NVP has been around
for a very long time and is readable without interpretation. Names do not
need to be limited to a single character, Lee is simply using the standard
scientific notation in his examples.
At 9600 baud if you have a number of devices on the bus, you would be hard
pressed to transmit verbose messages at 1 per second.
Don
Victoria, BC, Canada
See the New Beetle EV Conversion Web Site at
www.cameronsoftware.com/ev/
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Shawn Rutledge
Sent: September 13, 2005 12:09 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: EVILbus (was: e-meter type gadget)
On 9/13/05, Lee Hart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> My thought is to use ASCII, not binary for EVILbus. The messages would
> be in plain text, so you can figure out what they mean. For example,
> an E-meter might send:
>
> V=123.4v I=50.1a A=-100.8ah T=22.5c
Well if you assume you can always get by with single characters, pretty soon
it will start to get illogical when you start running out of them. There
are a lot of voltages present in an EV, that you might want to measure, but
you've only got one letter V.
<source seq="346" ID="emeter" version="1.23" sn="321461">
<batt ID="0">
<read type="inst" unit="V">123.4</read>
<read type="inst" unit="A">50.1</read>
<read type="integ" unit="Ah">-100.8</read>
<cell ID="5">
<read type="inst" unit="deg C">22.5</read>
</cell>
</batt>
</source>
Like I said XML is verbose. But there is much more information in that
example and you don't have to assume as much:
- what kind of emeter, what version of its firmware, its serial number
- which battery pack you are reading (what if you have two or more?
At least there is the main pack and the accessory battery right? And in
Victor's cars there would be ultracaps.)
- which cell has the temperature sensor
- some readings are instantaneous, some are integrated
- the whole thing is quite human-readable
Now, if I were to rephrase this in the same structure using the idea I
presented a couple days ago, it would be a bit less verbose:
(source (seq . 346) (ID . 'emeter) (version . 1.23) (sn . 321461)
(batt (ID . 0)
(read (type . 'inst) (unit . 'V) 123.4)
(read (type . 'inst) (unit . 'A) 50.1)
(read (type . 'integ) (unit . 'Ah) -100.8)
(cell (ID . '5)
(read (type . 'inst) (unit . degC) 22.5) )))
You lose the double quotes, the closing tags, and when you parse it you will
end up with a linked-list structure in memory, much faster than you will end
up with a DOM tree when using XML. It could be done quite efficiently on an
embedded system that has RAM (not so good if you only have a few registers
though).
Another optimization which I would try is to quit trying to say everything
every time, and do a query/response handler on the emeter where if you
really want to know what kind of emeter you have, and which readings
correspond to which parts of the system, you can ask, but the rest of the
time the broadcast messages are much more compact; they just give a unique
identifier for the whole message, and for each reading. But the
query/response system should be standardized in a way which is extensible
and future-proof and can be documented at the high level on one page.
For example a broadcast might be as short as
(read (node . 2) (ID . 4) 123.4)
and then you ask "who is node 2?" and get a response; and you can ask "node
2, what is the meaning of reading ID 4?" and get another response. But if
the device which wants to know was already listening for a while, he might
already know these things, based on hearing the response to somebody else's
query, or a broadcast that was sent out at startup. But nobody should
_depend_ on passively learning - there should be a query for every kind of
info that can be obtained, just in case something was missed or there was a
race condition that prevented the delivery or understanding of one of the
broadcasts. And with this approach some human-readability is lost; you can
see the readings but you have to match them up with what they mean.
Repeating at least the units every time would help to alleviate that.
> You could just plug an RS-232 to EVILbus adapter onto your PC, use any
> terminal program to look at the data, and immediately figure out what
> it means.
Well with some guesswork. Which voltage is that and which device measured
it? Well by the magnitude you can guess...assuming there is only one
voltage that big...
> Yes, I know. Every standard begins with one installed device, and
> grows from there. It started because it was simpler, cheaper, and
> worked better in the application than the other standards before it.
> But over time, the standard grows in power and sophistication until it
> becomes so bloated and byzantine that no new users can figure it out.
> (And it gets replaced with the next new standard, and the cycle
> repeats :-)
And then there are standards that seem to live on for pretty long times.
The X-window protocol, TIFF, JPEG, HTTP, MIDI, TCP/IP, CGM, DWG, DXF, HPGL,
Gerber, Spice, ASN.1, XML, the Java bytecode standard, McCarthy's basic
concept of Lisp, etc. Some of those were initially insufficient and now
have some ugly warts growing on them though. A couple others were designed
in a future-proof manner and survive mostly intact to this day. (Or at
least the warts can be ignored because they're completely optional.) The
most future-proof of them are loose frameworks which permit an incredible
number of mutations that are still compliant, and because they follow the
rules, those mutations are much more useful than they would have been if
they were ad-hoc, designed without a framework at all.
> My hope is that an EVer who doesn't know either CAN or EVILbus will
> find that he can learn and implement EVILbus a lot quicker and more
> cheaply than CANbus. It might be an Otmar Ebenhoech building a
> controller, or Rich Rudman building a charger. They use it, because
> they don't have the time or money to implement CAN. Others buy their
> controller or charger, and EVILbus spreads.
Well in the form you demonstrated it can accommodate no more than 26
measurements (or double that if you use lowercase characters for some), only
a few of which have letters that make sense. But for an increase in
verbosity you can get a lot more extensibility.
I will definitely write something like this, because there are a lot of
situations in which it could be applied.
--- End Message ---
