alternators

[cwerdna]

Energy cannot be created. It can only be transferred between different forms.

For example, in a petrol ICE, chemical fuel energy is converted into heat energy and kinetic energy.

In an electric vehicle, electrical energy is stored in a chemical battery, producing heat; the energy is then converted into heat energy and kinetic energy on demand for the wheels.

In all cases the same energy is output as is input, but some is lost as heat. The total energy output MUST equal the energy input.

Thank you for putting it succinctly.

Short of telling the OP to learn EVERYTHING about physics, he needs to learn the law of conservation of energy.

When you use regenerative braking on any EV or hybrid (like the OP is thinking of via "alternators"), you're going to incur losses in the motor/generator windings, in converting the AC to DC to the proper voltage, resistive losses in the battery and wiring, etc. And when energy comes out of the battery, you have all those losses in the other direction.

Top to it off, even w/o the above, there are mechanical drivetrain losses (e.g. within the gearbox, bearings, etc.) and losses from rolling friction (rolling resistance) and wind resistance. OP can look at Where the Energy Goes: Gasoline Vehicles and Where the Energy Goes: Hybrids for ICEVs.

All-Electric Vehicles has some efficiency numbers and references. Energy Efficiency of Tesla Electric Vehicles | Tesla Motors may help too.

EVs and PHEVs already can recapture some of the kinetic energy in regenerative braking and put it back in the battery. But, there are losses, see above.

If the OP intends to hook up generators/alternators to the wheels or whatever to (re-)capture energy, that slow will down the car and the amount captured will be less than what was used accelerate car up to given speed and maintain its speed. See above as to why.

This is why we keep referring to the lack of a perpetual motion machine.

 

[jossamer]

Thank you for putting it succinctly.

Short of telling the OP to learn EVERYTHING about physics, he needs to learn the law of conservation of energy.

When you use regenerative braking on any EV or hybrid (like the OP is thinking of via "alternators"), you're going to incur losses in the motor/generator windings, in converting the AC to DC to the proper voltage, resistive losses in the battery and wiring, etc. And when energy comes out of the battery, you have all those losses in the other direction.

Top to it off, even w/o the above, there are mechanical drivetrain losses (e.g. within the gearbox, bearings, etc.) and losses from rolling friction (rolling resistance) and wind resistance. OP can look at Where the Energy Goes: Gasoline Vehicles and Where the Energy Goes: Hybrids for ICEVs.

All-Electric Vehicles has some efficiency numbers and references. Energy Efficiency of Tesla Electric Vehicles | Tesla Motors may help too.

EVs and PHEVs already can recapture some of the kinetic energy in regenerative braking and put it back in the battery. But, there are losses, see above.

If the OP intends to hook up generators/alternators to the wheels or whatever to (re-)capture energy, that slow will down the car and the amount captured will be less than what was used accelerate car up to given speed and maintain its speed. See above as to why.

This is why we keep referring to the lack of a perpetual motion machine.

Sorry guys if I have frustrated you with my lack of information about this vehicle. I too am frustrated because I',m not getting the answer that I am looking for. I cannot give info about the vehicle itself until I go to patent. But regardless, think of it this way. you have a battery pack, an ev motor and you want to charge the battery pack using a number of alternators. my way of thinking carries me to say that one alternator charges the led acid battery in a gas car efficiently. So how many alternators would it take to charge the battery pack on an electric car. I'm beginning to think that no one has an answer because it hasn't been tried. let me draw a picture for you. You have a car with 16 alternators attached to the side of the car that are hooked up to the battery pack and on each side of each alternator you have a little old lady running along side the car at 80 mile per hour, each cranking an alternator at 2ooo rmps as they go long, would this be enough to keep that battery pack charged without having to make a stop.

 

[Johan]

What is the output of said alternator? What is the required input of said battery? Divide the second number by the first and there is the answer to "how many"

 

[PaulusdB]

Maybe, just maybe, you're not trying to re-invent the perpetuum mobile.

How is this for an answer to your question?

Imagine a tow truck with a flatbed, carrying a Tesla Model S and towing a contraption on 4 wheels with your 16 alternators attached to the wheels (with a clutch, probably) working as a 12V DC power source for charging the Model S.

The alternators should deliver at least 3 kW for this to make any sense (loading e.g. with the Tesla UMC on 230V, that equals 13A monofase, or 10 miles per hour).

3 kW on 12V is 250A that your generator (combined over all alternators) should deliver to a 12V DC-to-AC 230V converter with sufficient capacity.

This would get more interesting if the power delivery of your generators were to be 22 kW, thus higher Amps and needing heavier DC-to-AC converters.

Add some heavy cooling equipment to your contraption and Bob is your uncle. A mobile charger to be used as an flatbed extension.

Actually the milage of the flatbed will suffer heavily, but hey, we're all inventors here, not environmentalist.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Sorry guys if I have frustrated you with my lack of information about this vehicle. I too am frustrated because I',m not getting the answer that I am looking for. I cannot give info about the vehicle itself until I go to patent. But regardless, think of it this way. you have a battery pack, an ev motor and you want to charge the battery pack using a number of alternators. my way of thinking carries me to say that one alternator charges the led acid battery in a gas car efficiently. So how many alternators would it take to charge the battery pack on an electric car. I'm beginning to think that no one has an answer because it hasn't been tried. let me draw a picture for you. You have a car with 16 alternators attached to the side of the car that are hooked up to the battery pack and on each side of each alternator you have a little old lady running along side the car at 80 mile per hour, each cranking an alternator at 2ooo rmps as they go long, would this be enough to keep that battery pack charged without having to make a stop.

I know it won't matter, but the point you continually seem to be missing is this: WHAT POWERS THE ALTERNATORS? If it is wind power, that adds A LOT drag to the car which uses more energy out of the battery than the alternators produce to put into it. If the alternators are using additional wheels on the ground to turn them, that too uses more power out of the battery than the alternators can produce. You can't create more energy out of nothing. The force the drives the car forward (the battery and the motor) have to work harder in whatever fashion to drive the alternators (regardless of how many you have or what their power output is). It's impossible for the alternators to produce more energy than they consume.

An alternator in a regular car is also powered by the motor, which uses up fuel to produce electricity. If you're using the car's own movement to power them (via wind, wheels, or some other method), that power has to come from the car itself, and even if you had 100 alternators, it still won't be enough to self-power the car.

Like I said, probably useless to try to explain.

 

[efusco]

OP, you express frustration and talk of "going to patent", but you have clearly not done even a tiny bit of research on this project.
Assuming you have figured out a way to power these "alternators" (which I'm not sure why you're using alternators instead of generators, but I'll assume you have done enough research to determine one would be better than the other) that somehow defies the laws of physics and can create power from the ether...I'll grand you that possiblity.

1)Why not get online and see how much energy you can get from various alternators. Assuming one type produces 1 unit and another produces 5 units and a third produces 10 units, then all you need to know is how much energy you need to charge the Tesla battery.
2)If the Tesla battery uses 30 units of energy, then you can surmise that you need either 30- 1 unit alternators, 6- 5 unit alternators, or 3- 10 unit alternators.

The amount of energy used by the Tesla in normal driving is readily available in the Lifetime use thread. The amount of energy produced should be available from the alternator manufacturers.

Now, go do some homework and figure this out. Once you've submitted your patent, do, please, share this ingenious idea with us all...I'm sure the engineers at Tesla will jump at the chance to buy the idea that they haven't been able to figure out.

 

[ElSupreme]

You don't need an alternator. Just lift off the accelerator and you have a massive 60kW generator to charge the battery.

You slow down quite a bit though!

 

[wycolo]

> The GIF is a proposed perpetual motions machine attempt [Johan]

Looks like a working PM machine to me!! GIF takes a while to load; if you have processes going in the background it will suck the life out of this TMC page. And, being unstoppable, is a 'perpetual GIF'!!


Re: the ubiquitous '160 Amp alternator'. These devices are in fact multi-phase AC generators/motors if you bypass the built-in diodes. So if 2 alternators are fed directly into a 240 volt EVSE input they might be able to charge an MS. IF the MS finds the AC waveform to be acceptable, that is. ISTR that if loaded @120v the alternator insulation will survive (insulate the frames from each other!).
--

 

[PaulusdB]

You don't need an alternator. Just lift off the accelerator and you have a massive 60kW generator to charge the battery.

You slow down quite a bit though!

This has been done irl in The Netherlands.

Charging a Nissan Leaf by towing it.

 

[djp]

I know it won't matter, but the point you continually seem to be missing is this: WHAT POWERS THE ALTERNATORS?

The OP already answered this question:

..on each side of each alternator you have a little old lady running along side the car at 80 mile per hour, each cranking an alternator at 2ooo rmps

The physics works just fine once you include the little old ladies.

 

[HankLloydRight]

The OP already answered this question:

..on each side of each alternator you have a little old lady running along side the car at 80 mile per hour, each cranking an alternator at 2ooo rmps

The physics works just fine once you include the little old ladies.

Right. But how are you going to power the little old ladies both running along side AND turning the cranks?

That's A LOT of Ensure.

 

[rlang59]

The OP already answered this question:



The physics works just fine once you include the little old ladies.

As long as the little old ladies and alternators have no mass to them. :smile:

 

[qwk]

Screw alternators or even cars. Why not just go with the magic carpet?

 

[djp]

Right. But how are you going to power the little old ladies both running along side AND turning the cranks?

That's A LOT of Ensure.

A Model S at 80mph consumes 400 Wh/mile.

Model S Efficiency and Range | Blog | Tesla Motors

400 Wh = 344,168 calories.

One bottle of Ensure Plus has 350 calories.

Ensure Product - Ensure Plus

So the ladies need to drink 983 bottles of Ensure per mile. Problem solved.

 

[bonnie]

There is also shoe wear and tear.

 

[brianman]

There is also shoe wear and tear.

I there's the toe-in problem I keep hearing our TMC folk talk about. I'm sure that makes the shoes wear out faster.

 

[mnx]

A Model S at 80mph consumes 400 Wh/mile.

Model S Efficiency and Range | Blog | Tesla Motors

400 Wh = 344,168 calories.

Now I see why it's more efficient (and earth friendly) to ride a bike!

 

[Johan]

A Model S at 80mph consumes 400 Wh/mile.

Model S Efficiency and Range | Blog | Tesla Motors

400 Wh = 344,168 calories.

One bottle of Ensure Plus has 350 calories.

Ensure Product - Ensure Plus

So the ladies need to drink 983 bottles of Ensure per mile. Problem solved.

I think she needs 9,83 bottles. There are 350 kcal in a bottle, not 350 calories. kilo-calories (kcal) and calories are often confused.

None the less there will be frequent bathroom brakes

 

[PaulusdB]

or they take a break to go to the bathroom

 

[Johan]

or they take a break to go to the bathroom

Good catch. At a first glance one might think I mistook "brake" with "break". However, in line with the original premise of this thread, I'm talking about the mythical bathroom brakes by which the old ladies are able to create regenerative braking energy to power the alternators without slowing themselves or the car down, thereby creating energy from thin air. I can't tell you more since I'm thinking of patenting the concept.