One of my smartest professors once told me that one test is worth a thousand expert opinions. I like your hands on approach and the quality of your videos. Well Done, Sir!
I remember saying to my dad that "a picture is worth a thousand words" and he turned to me as quick as a flash and said "of course it is, it's higher bandwidth" 😂 you just bought that memory back! 😂
No new carb? No new more efficient alternator? No figuring out a custom programmed circuit to increase that 72% capacity to 99% or to use that excess capacity to charge and discharge a capacitor when necessary to prevent that bog down? No custom 3D printed gearbox to run a thingamabopper? No completely redesigned motor to create regenerative braking? No trying to get a golf cart up to highway speeds? I was sure by now you would have inspector gadgetted that thing to beat the Renault in a drag race! 😂 But seriously, love the channel. Thanks for the entertainment and knowledge. Your channel makes me feel like a kid excited to wake for Saturday morning cartoons.
Well he could set up a current sense for the electric motor, and when that drops to a low level, use the excess capability to charge a big honking capacitor (or a battery) out of circuit, up to its limited voltage. And then when the current sense on the motor exceeds a level, switch the big honking capacitor (or battery) into the circuit to provide more kick. Of course, it won't help efficiency any, but maybe it can do burnouts. :P
I actually put a 9” steel pulley as an extra flywheel on the predator 212 on my mini offroad tractor. It greatly smoothed power output and reduced the frequency of stalling when high loads were incurred at low RPM.
That would be my suggestion, some sort of one way like a sprag bearing to drive the flywheel shaft so it can speed faster than 3600 rpm and also coast a variator between the engine and flywheel so when under very little load the rpm can go up.
In the early post-war Soviet Union there was a diesel-electric bus, the ZIS 154, that had a similar configuration as this golfcart. In comparison to regular busses, it had an obnoxiously high fuel consumption of 65L/100km. They also put gasoline engines in some of those busses, as there were problems with getting enough diesel engines from the seperate factory. Because that system turned out to be unreliable (fuel consumption wasn't that big a priority, but may still have played a role), the bus got replaced pretty quickly with the conventionally driven ZIS 155 with a now front placed gasoline engine. The SU was a big advocate for gasoline busses btw.
Jimbo, I wanted to say thank you. I paused your video in the middle to go fire up my 212 minibike with ape hangers and take it for a spin. I've not had it out in probably a year and a half. It makes me want to build some other fun contraptions.
Nice and gentle way of telling everybody that they dont know what they’re talking about without saying it.. lol. Was like explaining to a kid why they cant do something, repetition and examples “with pictures”.. You should try making a 4wd cart out of old starter motors.. independent all wheel drive.. have a regular motor for typical driving and a panel for switching power if stuck..
Dunno about other people but I NEVER suggested a super capacitor for THIS circuit setup. I suggested a "part 2" where you go back to an automatic voltage regulator on the alternator, and use an electrical motor controller for throttle. That way the alternator is always outputting 36v or whatever, and the capacitors charge up when you start the gasoline engine. Then when you floor it using your ELECTRIC motor controller, you have 400+ amps available for a few seconds. You'd have that thing doing wheelies. Then, when you let off the throttle and are only using 2kw, your caps will charge back up. I personally like to see you push your projects to the limit, rather than switching to new ones.
Now all you need is a wind splitter and a diffuser and a four foot tall spoiler for aerodynamics, and an attachment on the front to hook up horses since you're near Amish country
Love your videos Jimbo! The more details the better. I am a truck driver and actually have the big brother version of your battery on my truck right now - Wabtec V12 and alternator out of a GE Evo locomotive. This setup weighs 36 tons however is is also good for 4500hp! Merry Christmas from Karratha Western Australia.
I still don't understand how there are people who deny free and scientifically proven knowledge. They would have a somewhat good argument if it was just you talking to a camera, but you took the time, money and effort to prove it. If they want more, it's an abuse. Thank you very much for everything, Jimbo, you're a great person.
As always, Jimbo, excellent! On diesel electric locomotives , even they are only running 70% +/-. The newer GE/Wabtec locomotives are running a little better than that, I understand. If anyone could have discovered how to squeeze out better efficiency, the railroads would have found that by now. So, your fun and very entertaining project actually reveals the math behind the scenes that engineers have been dealing with for the past 80 or more years! Now, how cool is that? Lol! Just like engineers have to do, sometimes, because as the saying goes, it is what it is, and you just have to work with what you got. The fun part? Thinking outside the box and challenging oneself to come up with solutions for challenges. You do that part very well, my man! Might I add, with the best sense of dry humor this side of the pond . . . Lolololol! Looking forward to the next set of diabolical shenanigans. 😅
Thank you so much! I really appreciate that you understand the efficiency issue. Believe it or not I have to argue with folks when I tell them this system is inefficient.
Even though it’s inefficient, there’s reliability in simplicity. There’s a balance to be had. What good is a 100% efficient device that is not reliable? 50% of the time, it works everytime!
Electrical generation for the grid is a far bit more efficient, but that's using gigantic turbines in very well controlled environments. It's just not practical to reproduce that kind of thing on a smaller scale, even the size of a locomotive. It also requires a lot of maintenance to keep everything within tight tolerances.
There are a lot more efficient generators, what the problem is mostly the price, and probably the power density. Electric cars have about 60% regen efficiency, wich is battery -> inverter -> motor (accel)->motor (generator)->inverter -> battery. My point is that all those steps are all within the 40%, so 80-90% efficient generator/motor is achieved by EV-s. Heck even just adding syncronous rectifiers to this alternator will give it about 2-3% efficiency boost, by eliminating 1-1,2v wasted on the diodes.
@@robotcantina8957 The "rule of thumb" I've considered for years is that energy conversion from any type to another is around 50% efficient. So it's an ignorant public that thinks an EV is efficient. Like it or not, many power plants are still carbon driven so Original energy (say from natural gas) to electricity costs 50%. Then halve that from transmission losses so now at 25%. If it stopped there (and it doesn't, the EV itself has loss converting back to mechanical energy), then still wasted is the difference between running the Natural Gas in an Internal Combustion engine (nominally 35% efficient) and the (less than) 25% you've ended up with for your shiny expensive new EV. That says nothing of the massively increased load on the national electrical grid already barely managing demand OR the horrible waste of natural resources within the batteries and super-overweight components for the EV itself. Put another way, I won't be rushing out to buy an EV anytime soon.
I love Duke's shot of you buzzing along on that thing in front and then dipping down to to speedometer reading north of twenty instead of ten. I feel like there was a concerned eyebrow raise when he saw that.
I’m one of those people that cannot fathom why anyone would expend the energy to criticize what you are doing. Please keep doing! Looking forward to a V2 of the petroleum battery.
Thank you for this video! I wish I had a wand to promote this to millions more eyes. Which, I suppose is only 1/2 millions more people...anyway. I've been converting cars/tractors to electric for 10yrs and taking them to shows. I can't tell you how many times I get asked why I don't just, "put a alternater on a wheel so I don't need them bat-rees!" Why not just tow a second battery? When one dies, switch over to the second and charge the first while you drive, etc... My current project is an old VW pickup. The plan is to run a portable generator to power my onboard charger as I drive to extend my range. I don't need my range extended but I do need to find out how many mpg a Harbor Freight generator gets! Your experiment is probably the most inefficient method of cruising a golf cart and I love it! I can't wait to see what results I get. Great job!!
Gas generators like the small ~2-3kW size have terrible efficiency. I did a crappy test with a killawatt meter and calculated less than 30% from fuel to power.
Thanks for loading up the engine until it stalled! I did something like this nearly 20 years ago and was shocked when I stalled the engine. I didn't know the math but I understood WTF happened.
Jimbo! I have a PhD in electronic engineering and work in fancy tech. Yet, doing and watching stuff like this is what what got me into it, and what fascinates me! People doing things to learn and play! Awesome fun! 🙂 And there's nothing like practical experience!
The thing with the supercaps can be done, if you run the alternator field to keep a continuous voltage (as it would normally be in a car) and materialize a 150a PWM controller out of thin air - and hook up the supercaps between the alternator and the PWM driver power input. Such a powerful driver is not that common to find for cheap. But DIY can probably be done for
get a 48v lipo with a bank of capacitors I was thinking like the ones used in big power car amps that help prevent a voltage sag when the amp pulls a lot of power from the speakers hitting deep base
This setup would likely be more efficient, too. The only question would be whether the setup fits with the intention of the project. The batteries would essentially be replaced by a cap. I’d like to see this, though!
I tried for months to make my own PWM motor speed controller using mosfets and an Arduino, but I kept blowing stuff up. I was converting a pedal trike to electric with a 700 watt 36v motor. After the circuit failed and the motor went full power on me unexpectedly, I decided to buy a commercially available controller before I got myself hurt.
@@WarrenGarabrandt Making a motor controller is tricky. Unlike switching an LED, motors have a large inductance and produce a back EMF even when no power is applied. Motor controllers have sophisticated electronics with values that are carefully calculated to ensure it can handle the large peak currents and avoid shoot-through while switching. It's certainly not for the faint of heart, even if you have a background in electrical engineering.
He's calculating 3.9 hp out of the alternator. If the motor is 80% efficient that would be 3.1 hp to the road. Probably closer to 70% efficient so 2.7 hp. As you said, less than half. Diesel electric locomotives use a similar system. Their alternators and motors are more efficient but overall maybe 65% of the horsepower produced by the engine gets to the track.
An alternator is actually a brushless motor out of nature, if it were a DC motor or a "generator" like what cars from the 50s had, the power loss would be alot worse, it was rare to see more than 90 amps from a generator compared to 140 from a alternator
11:20 Maybe not with just a capacitor, but with some power electronics you could make it so the capacitor gets charged when you're off throttle so that it can give you a temporary boost when you floor it. That'd defeat the simplicity though
Of course something like that could be done, but its not simple. we are trying to make this system simple so we don't loose the audience. We will do a more complex system in the future.
@@Rattus-Norvegicus He doesn’t even have seat belts yet🤣. How fast do you want it to go? Though I think at some point there will be a limit to how many amps the DC motor can handle. So let’s think about it. Suppose he put the 720 cc Kubota in there and increase the output by 4 fold. So now imagine he has 4 alternators and each of them is peaking at say 80 Amps. Each Alternator has a lead going to the motor, that’s 320 Amps. That 320 Amps is being delivered to a single contact on the DC motor……… The other thing is the DC motor may have an NGO RPM limit so . . . .. The other problem is weight. The motor sits behind the rear wheels, which is a bad place for a motor. As the weight behind the rear wheel increases understeer on the front wheels increases. When that occurs the weight distribution and road conditions determine how the vehicle steers.
@ Uh😎 where would you put the motor mounts, OUCH? Question, how much rotational torque, say in a crack shaft and flywheel, could you put on the axial center of gravity of a golf cart sufficient to flip it while moving at a moderate speed ?
I've been an electrician for over twenty years now. In my teenage years, I was a small engine mechanic. And now I build grace engines outside of being an electrician. I find this very interesting!
I totally understand the production time for videos. We used to do videos of our bus restoration and gave up since it was taking more time to produce videos than the actual work.
The 30 mpg or more for golf cart is like a car manufacturers estimated MPGs. Is it possible? Yes, if you are rolling down a mountain with your engine off!
You still might be able to use super caps. You could bleed of some current and have them charge off a dc-dc convertor while at idle to say 50v. There are a couple of ways they could be switched into the circuit: 1. A full throttle switch 2. An "anti stall" switch wired to the governor which switches them in to the circuit only in stall conditions. 3. A "turbo" button you could press to unleash them for an extra boost.(this could also be used with another "charge" button that allows direct charging of the caps from the alternator without powering the motor) Edit: The best way to add a "capacitor" to the circuit is to place it as a weight to store the motors angular momentum.
I think you need the original numer of 12v batteries in the original configuration but much smaller batteries, so you have you power source with the engine static as a power bank and the alternator as a charging source whilst underway.
The wacky little projects you come up with never cease to amaze me lol. Who would've thought this would actually function as well as it does. Happy Sunday and enjoy your coffee!
I love your videos and the ingenuity that you put into them. They are both informative and enjoyable. Changing the pully ratio to a smaller pully on the engine would give you more torque on the alternator so that you could come up with more amps to keep it from stalling. You would however not be able to produce as many volts so it wouldn't go as fast. If however, you had a way to change the pully ration you may be able to solve both problems.
Thanks! Maximum watts that can be generated is 2900 if you include the loss in the system. Changing the pulley ratio still means the maximum wattage is 2900. Spinning the alternator fast with the overdrive pulleys we are using also improves efficiency.
@@robotcantina8957 What you are saying is true about Maximum wattage since wattage a product of amps times voltage. However, this also holds true with maximum Horsepower of any engine. But you can change the torque of that engine by changing the gear ratio in the transmission to keep the motor from stalling. As an example, try to take off in a manual transmission in hi gear as opposed to low gear and see what happens. The horsepower (maximum watts) is the same from the engine, but the results are totally different after using gear ratio. Higher amps would give more torque just less voltage. The wattage would be the same, but the lack of amps is what is causing it to stall. Please correct me if I am overlooking something.
YES. Back in the day and still today if you fool it, a car alternator will stall a car when idling. Today the computer automatically adjusts when a load is applied. Cars with A/C and big accessories had a solenoid to bump the idle up for you. When they were running V belts if it was loose you would get the squealing of it slipping to try and keep up. Cadillac runs a liquid cooled alternator. One more tidbit, the proper name for it is a dynamo. A whole other story. Love the videos.
this is the kind of stuff i went to school for, Applied Engineering and Mechatronics, i love these videos and the silly experiments that actually do provide a lot of useful data, stay safe out there Jimbo
Having owned several gas golf carts, the one i had with worst gas mileage was a lifted yamaha with big tires, it still got 32-35 mpg. If you want a speedometer/odometer on your golf cart, there are many cheap bicycle speedometer on the jungle site that can be programmed down to golf cart sized tires.
Thanks for the Gasoline golf cart info! I have to post an update to the video, Someone spotted a calculation error I made. We actually got closer to 40 MPG with this contraption..... and that was at full throttle.
Thanks as always Jimbo for thinking up these experiments and giving us the technical details of why these contraptions do what they do. I find a perfect balance between fun and technical. Daz from Australia
JIMBO!!! it would be quite entertaining and quite the christmas present if you put a big heavy flywheel on the gas motor to help with your acceleration... maybe. The thought is that it would help sustain acceleration until the torque (current) demand of the drive motor drops to a level the gas battery can keep up with. may not be worth your time but it would be fun!!! You'd need a lot of weight spinning pretty fast to make it work.
Large horizontal flywheel underneath the carriage like where a mower blade would be, bonus of gyroscopic anti-rollover force. Problem being all the mass for the flywheel requires even more acceleration power.
Good stuff Jim! I have my fingers crossed that you'll try installing the little diesel engine to see if it has more low end torque than the gasoline engine. I've been wondering if the 196cc diesel would be the better choice because of the torque curve needed to drive the alternator during the initial acceleration. Although the gasoline engine will provide more overall horsepower, the diesel engine may provide more low end torque than the gas engine, where you need it. (Also maybe anger a few mosquitoes)
The little diesel is a great engine for experiments, however that thing is NOISY and it shake violently. We want a quiet solution. Perhaps a Z482 kubota diese would be a better choice.
What a fun project! I like the off the shelf approach, and Meccano attitude. Echoing comments elsewhere, for the most part once you've reached a steady maximum speed the power load is well within the scope of a small engine- mostly why the large stationary engines of yore had huge flywheels to store the energy needed for the rapid demand of acceleration up to working speed. Not that there's a large amount of room to fit one really, but it's fun food for thought. Thanks for going to the effort!
Really enjoyed this episode, Jimbo! 🏆👍🏼 Hey, three things: • as an under-trained Jack-of-all-Trades-Master-of-None, my “technical” assessment of the WOT Bog would’ve been “Rotational resistance of alternator may occasionally exceed available torque of petroleum battery”, and left it at that. I wouldn’t have given the technical explanation a moment’s consideration. However, I have to confess that, although I already understood what was happening, I really enjoyed your brief Electrical Engineering Explanation [abbreviated to EEE! 😬 in the Robot Cantina Study Guide]. I found the numbers interesting, atypical for a guy like me… I never knew BHP had an electrical analog. 🤔 • As an inmate in the Kommifornistan Prison Kamp, I would love-love-LOVE to see these Petroleum Battery Carts mass-produced and imported here, for no other reason than to stick-it to our slimy Diktovernor. Ol’ Grewsom would have a conniption! 😆 • I do realize that you don’t have much time to devote on Robot Cantina Merch, but I personally would love to purchase one of those metal “phone holders” featured in this week’s episode. Is that custom fabricated, or was it a repurposed item? Thanks for all you do, Sir!
LOL, California needs hybrid's like this. The phone holder thingy is a robot cantina exclusive. I 3D print them for all the "telephones" that we use for filming the video series.
@ Oh, that’s a print?! Great resolution, I mistook it for metal! Wish I could get prints like that out of MY printers. 😏 Well if you ever want to sell the files, I and I’m sure others would be interested.
The traveling music starting at 12:109 reminded me the song Hot Rod Lincoln. To paraphrase a line or two, "Son, you're gonna drive me to drink man' / If you don't quit drivin' that hot rod Cush man." No groans pleeze. 🙂
This is a really fun project! In the spirit of wacky things to try, how about a vehicle with a petroleum battery running a compressor, storing compressed air in a tank and then powering a compressed air motor?
That one might be a bit too risky. You would need a lot of volume and pressure to make that work and if you make one mistake it can be lethally explosive - much worse than a gasoline engine or lead-acid or lithium battery. It's a cool idea, but maybe not one Jimbo could test out.
@reverse_engineered There have been experimental cars run on compressed air before...and really the air tank would be just a buffer to get over the high demand of acceleration. As to efficiency, I am sure it would be pretty low. :)
Thank you for these videos. I have wondered how a generator connected to a motor would do and these videos got straight to the point. You do teach how things work also.
I think the diesel engine would be better use for this This might be a function of torque , on the capacitor part could charge the caps separately then use a relay to make contact when the peddle is 90% and breaks the circuit when the throttle is less then 90% so you only getting the extra kick at 90% throttle
@tk429 a 4 wheel cart with better brakes would be a good idea if he was going to keep going faster. Those 3 wheels are unstable if they hit bumps at a angle. There's gotta be a front brake kit for these things with all the mods people do to them in places like Florida. Maybe front go cart disks
@@KR-hg8be Probably wouldn't be hard to hit up somebody like Go Power Sports and see what they have. I bet you could adapt a go cart disk or the rear disk for a mini bike to it. I 100% agree that a 3 wheeler like that would have to have hella bump steer. I wonder why nobody makes a trike golf cart with one wheel in the back and two up front like a quad. Hmmmm.......
That's right on the slippery slope toward everyone's favorite: the LS engine swap ! There would be nothing quite like a grotesquely overpowered three wheel golf kart !!! (Perhaps for a good reason . . . or three.)
Given your brother's name I really was to say, Looks like them Duke boys are at it again...🤣🤣🤣🤣 How to get a better golf cart, join your local golf club and just "borrow" one of there's. Have Duke waiting with the trailer just off the 10th hole...🤣🤣🤣🤣
Nice work, as always. I LOL’d at “traffic is starting to pick up” as camera turns to show empty road. Textbooks and lectures only go so far, which is why STEM courses include labs. Your content, to me, is a series of cool lab experiments. Keep it up! @angrycorvair
Stay tuned! I made a huge mistake in my fuel economy calculations. We actually got close to 40 MPG. sooooo... perhaps the petroleum batter is a bit more interesting despite it being inefficient.
There's a website where you can search for gas stations with ethanol-free gas. If there's one nearby it would be easy to do a test of winter-blend vs straight-gasoline on the Insight. --- I'd be pretty curious about the results. Knowing that ethanol concentration can have a large effect on small engine wear and gasket lifespan.
Not sure the 0%-Ethanol stuff is immune from the winter oxidizer stuff they add (which is not ethanol) to the winter blends. "Race gas" like the 105 octane whatever would be since that is not for road use.
One way to potentially improve the MPGs would be reducing the rolling resistance, those wide turf tyres are designed to not trash the perfectionist-coiffured lawns of golf courses by spreading the load out over a wider surface as not to dig into the grass, but on roads would create more drag, slimmer tyres akin to the Insight or the R10 though could reduce that, though finding narrower wheels & tyres to fit in place, that's another issue to figure out... :P
Thanks for the great video, Jimbo. Didn't realize how much power was lost through the alternator. Kind of like a transmission power loss at the wheels. Cheers 🍻
Also need to keep in mind the efficiency range of the alternator. I have no idea how fast it's turning now, but it's possible that turning the engine faster would put it out of that range.
It's always weird seeing how flat Kansas is. I live not far from the highest elevation in Ohio state (it's around 400m) and while it's no Switzerland, it sure is compared to your state lol. Some of the hills here are insane. If you are crazy enough to love climbing hills on bikes, I know from experience it's pretty unforgiving here! At least going downhill on a bike is fun... until you have to make the return journey.
he just happens to live in a really flat part of Kansas. We have extremely varied terrain, and we could find him some big hills not far away if needed.
For fun future projects, I’ve always wanted to try doing a hybrid go-kart with an AC generator and AC motor, using a variac as a speed controller. Figured it’d be way more efficient, with fewer losses compared to switching DC to AC. Years ago I picked up a huge 50A 240V variac at the MIT Flea and figured it’d be perfect. Of course, it probably weighs more than the harbor freight engine you’ve got powering this.
I believe you need 2-3 different alternators or 1 much bigger alt with different windings and being able to select which windings to use. The first alt has a few coil wraps with fat wires, perhaps a middle, and finally one with several wraps with 10-100 more wraps than the 1st one. As you gain speed the power demands switch from high current to high voltage. You were running out of power because the voltage wasn't high enough at high speed. An alternative to different alternators might be a VFD or variable frequency drive. Basically you need an electric version of a transmission to get torque and HP. The efficiency problem isn't just in the conversion, it's also what it's being converted to. There are brushed motors that can run on ac and DC. That might help too. Of course you already know this.
Honestly that sounds like over-engineering it quite a bit. Since he's already measuring current and voltage, he could take that into a microcontroller that sends the PWM signal to the alternator, and back off on the duty cycle when the power approaches 2.9kW. I'm not a programmer so for me it would be a challenge, but since Jimbo is into electronics and robotics I'm confident he could implement it. And that would a be a clean, neat and relatively simple solution to the problem.
People just can't seem to get it that he's already hard up against the maximum power that the 212 engine can supply. No amount of "larger" or "more" alternators is going to to cure that.
Start and stop is always the milage killer. Use the momentum and weight to preload a launch mechanism that's triggered during acceleration to provide a mechanical propulsion assist so less current is necessary and the stall is prevented. The same concept will also greatly increase mileage by attacking the area where most energy is wasted...start and stop.
Some folks obviously just don’t understand what it means to do things because they’re FUN. I love this channel.
Exactly! Glad he keeps up the good videos ❤️🥰
You know the experimentation drive is strong when you're out test driving golf carts in December.
Just wait until January!
at least the cart got heated seat
One of my smartest professors once told me that one test is worth a thousand expert opinions. I like your hands on approach and the quality of your videos. Well Done, Sir!
I remember saying to my dad that "a picture is worth a thousand words" and he turned to me as quick as a flash and said "of course it is, it's higher bandwidth" 😂 you just bought that memory back! 😂
No new carb? No new more efficient alternator? No figuring out a custom programmed circuit to increase that 72% capacity to 99% or to use that excess capacity to charge and discharge a capacitor when necessary to prevent that bog down? No custom 3D printed gearbox to run a thingamabopper? No completely redesigned motor to create regenerative braking? No trying to get a golf cart up to highway speeds? I was sure by now you would have inspector gadgetted that thing to beat the Renault in a drag race! 😂 But seriously, love the channel. Thanks for the entertainment and knowledge.
Your channel makes me feel like a kid excited to wake for Saturday morning cartoons.
We will throw technology at this problem, but the first version is being kept super simple.
Well he could set up a current sense for the electric motor, and when that drops to a low level, use the excess capability to charge a big honking capacitor (or a battery) out of circuit, up to its limited voltage. And then when the current sense on the motor exceeds a level, switch the big honking capacitor (or battery) into the circuit to provide more kick. Of course, it won't help efficiency any, but maybe it can do burnouts. :P
Can’t believe I’m saying this 🤦🏼♂️, but, “STICK a TURBSKY on ‘er! Do it fer DALE!”
🇺🇸3️⃣🦅
Would a permanent magnet motor be any more efficient?
The best way to do this is replace the drive motor with a 4phase motor then drive it right from the alternator fields.
You can also put a HUGE flywheel on the petrol engine, to store some power for takeoffs.
I'd put some sort of 2.8Kw limiter into the system to limit maximum takeoff power to just under the engine's max output.
I actually put a 9” steel pulley as an extra flywheel on the predator 212 on my mini offroad tractor. It greatly smoothed power output and reduced the frequency of stalling when high loads were incurred at low RPM.
That would be my suggestion, some sort of one way like a sprag bearing to drive the flywheel shaft so it can speed faster than 3600 rpm and also coast a variator between the engine and flywheel so when under very little load the rpm can go up.
Yes I like this idea of a flywheel to smooth out and give more power!!!
So, a mechanical capacitor.
In the early post-war Soviet Union there was a diesel-electric bus, the ZIS 154, that had a similar configuration as this golfcart.
In comparison to regular busses, it had an obnoxiously high fuel consumption of 65L/100km. They also put gasoline engines in some of those busses, as there were problems with getting enough diesel engines from the seperate factory. Because that system turned out to be unreliable (fuel consumption wasn't that big a priority, but may still have played a role), the bus got replaced pretty quickly with the conventionally driven ZIS 155 with a now front placed gasoline engine. The SU was a big advocate for gasoline busses btw.
You have taught me how to understand mathematical stuff way better then my school ever did thank you
Thanks for the kind words.
Jimbo, I wanted to say thank you. I paused your video in the middle to go fire up my 212 minibike with ape hangers and take it for a spin. I've not had it out in probably a year and a half.
It makes me want to build some other fun contraptions.
Nice and gentle way of telling everybody that they dont know what they’re talking about without saying it.. lol. Was like explaining to a kid why they cant do something, repetition and examples “with pictures”..
You should try making a 4wd cart out of old starter motors.. independent all wheel drive.. have a regular motor for typical driving and a panel for switching power if stuck..
Dunno about other people but I NEVER suggested a super capacitor for THIS circuit setup. I suggested a "part 2" where you go back to an automatic voltage regulator on the alternator, and use an electrical motor controller for throttle.
That way the alternator is always outputting 36v or whatever, and the capacitors charge up when you start the gasoline engine. Then when you floor it using your ELECTRIC motor controller, you have 400+ amps available for a few seconds. You'd have that thing doing wheelies.
Then, when you let off the throttle and are only using 2kw, your caps will charge back up.
I personally like to see you push your projects to the limit, rather than switching to new ones.
Now all you need is a wind splitter and a diffuser and a four foot tall spoiler for aerodynamics, and an attachment on the front to hook up horses since you're near Amish country
Ignore the trolls. These videos are some of the most useful on the internet.
Love your videos Jimbo! The more details the better.
I am a truck driver and actually have the big brother version of your battery on my truck right now - Wabtec V12 and alternator out of a GE Evo locomotive. This setup weighs 36 tons however is is also good for 4500hp!
Merry Christmas from Karratha Western Australia.
I still don't understand how there are people who deny free and scientifically proven knowledge. They would have a somewhat good argument if it was just you talking to a camera, but you took the time, money and effort to prove it. If they want more, it's an abuse. Thank you very much for everything, Jimbo, you're a great person.
As always, Jimbo, excellent! On diesel electric locomotives , even they are only running 70% +/-. The newer GE/Wabtec locomotives are running a little better than that, I understand. If anyone could have discovered how to squeeze out better efficiency, the railroads would have found that by now. So, your fun and very entertaining project actually reveals the math behind the scenes that engineers have been dealing with for the past 80 or more years! Now, how cool is that? Lol! Just like engineers have to do, sometimes, because as the saying goes, it is what it is, and you just have to work with what you got. The fun part? Thinking outside the box and challenging oneself to come up with solutions for challenges. You do that part very well, my man! Might I add, with the best sense of dry humor this side of the pond . . . Lolololol! Looking forward to the next set of diabolical shenanigans. 😅
Thank you so much! I really appreciate that you understand the efficiency issue. Believe it or not I have to argue with folks when I tell them this system is inefficient.
Even though it’s inefficient, there’s reliability in simplicity. There’s a balance to be had. What good is a 100% efficient device that is not reliable? 50% of the time, it works everytime!
Electrical generation for the grid is a far bit more efficient, but that's using gigantic turbines in very well controlled environments. It's just not practical to reproduce that kind of thing on a smaller scale, even the size of a locomotive. It also requires a lot of maintenance to keep everything within tight tolerances.
There are a lot more efficient generators, what the problem is mostly the price, and probably the power density.
Electric cars have about 60% regen efficiency, wich is battery -> inverter -> motor (accel)->motor (generator)->inverter -> battery. My point is that all those steps are all within the 40%, so 80-90% efficient generator/motor is achieved by EV-s. Heck even just adding syncronous rectifiers to this alternator will give it about 2-3% efficiency boost, by eliminating 1-1,2v wasted on the diodes.
@@robotcantina8957 The "rule of thumb" I've considered for years is that energy conversion from any type to another is around 50% efficient. So it's an ignorant public that thinks an EV is efficient. Like it or not, many power plants are still carbon driven so Original energy (say from natural gas) to electricity costs 50%. Then halve that from transmission losses so now at 25%. If it stopped there (and it doesn't, the EV itself has loss converting back to mechanical energy), then still wasted is the difference between running the Natural Gas in an Internal Combustion engine (nominally 35% efficient) and the (less than) 25% you've ended up with for your shiny expensive new EV. That says nothing of the massively increased load on the national electrical grid already barely managing demand OR the horrible waste of natural resources within the batteries and super-overweight components for the EV itself. Put another way, I won't be rushing out to buy an EV anytime soon.
Man, I love this channel. Making a homemade generator soon!
The engine falling on its face reminds me of a stick shift car.
same scenario, only with an electrical load.
Yes!
Old american cars really did that??? 😂😂..................I guess no light when iddle 😆
trying to extract much current from the alternator and it becomes harder to turn, a flywheel may hold enough energy to prevfnt this
I love Duke's shot of you buzzing along on that thing in front and then dipping down to to speedometer reading north of twenty instead of ten. I feel like there was a concerned eyebrow raise when he saw that.
LOL, it was a WTF moment for Duke.
I’m one of those people that cannot fathom why anyone would expend the energy to criticize what you are doing. Please keep doing! Looking forward to a V2 of the petroleum battery.
Thank you for this video! I wish I had a wand to promote this to millions more eyes. Which, I suppose is only 1/2 millions more people...anyway.
I've been converting cars/tractors to electric for 10yrs and taking them to shows. I can't tell you how many times I get asked why I don't just, "put a alternater on a wheel so I don't need them bat-rees!" Why not just tow a second battery? When one dies, switch over to the second and charge the first while you drive, etc...
My current project is an old VW pickup. The plan is to run a portable generator to power my onboard charger as I drive to extend my range. I don't need my range extended but I do need to find out how many mpg a Harbor Freight generator gets!
Your experiment is probably the most inefficient method of cruising a golf cart and I love it! I can't wait to see what results I get.
Great job!!
Gas generators like the small ~2-3kW size have terrible efficiency. I did a crappy test with a killawatt meter and calculated less than 30% from fuel to power.
It all in the math, unfortunately they also have to know theory in order to understand how it all works.
Thanks for loading up the engine until it stalled! I did something like this nearly 20 years ago and was shocked when I stalled the engine. I didn't know the math but I understood WTF happened.
Jimbo! I have a PhD in electronic engineering and work in fancy tech. Yet, doing and watching stuff like this is what what got me into it, and what fascinates me! People doing things to learn and play! Awesome fun! 🙂 And there's nothing like practical experience!
I enjoy this channel. I'll never create anything like this but it's the first video I click on when they come out. Thanks Jim and chase driver Duke.
Thanks!
The thing with the supercaps can be done, if you run the alternator field to keep a continuous voltage (as it would normally be in a car) and materialize a 150a PWM controller out of thin air - and hook up the supercaps between the alternator and the PWM driver power input.
Such a powerful driver is not that common to find for cheap. But DIY can probably be done for
get a 48v lipo with a bank of capacitors I was thinking like the ones used in big power car amps that help prevent a voltage sag when the amp pulls a lot of power from the speakers hitting deep base
This setup would likely be more efficient, too. The only question would be whether the setup fits with the intention of the project. The batteries would essentially be replaced by a cap. I’d like to see this, though!
Yes indeed that would work, but in our system we are dual purposing the alternator as a motor controller and a power source.
I tried for months to make my own PWM motor speed controller using mosfets and an Arduino, but I kept blowing stuff up. I was converting a pedal trike to electric with a 700 watt 36v motor. After the circuit failed and the motor went full power on me unexpectedly, I decided to buy a commercially available controller before I got myself hurt.
@@WarrenGarabrandt Making a motor controller is tricky. Unlike switching an LED, motors have a large inductance and produce a back EMF even when no power is applied. Motor controllers have sophisticated electronics with values that are carefully calculated to ensure it can handle the large peak currents and avoid shoot-through while switching. It's certainly not for the faint of heart, even if you have a background in electrical engineering.
That was a great explanation of the problem Jimbo. This has been a fascinating project and I'm glad you decided to build it.
I was waiting for a good bump to knock your phone off the cart. But then I spotted the strip of velcro during your math lesson. Whew! 😅
Yes, it was a blast
The traffic start picking up 😂 tell this to Los Angeles ! Love this guy
LOL, I lived in the Los Angeles are for a few years, Yeah that's traffic.
Your videos are epic, Vice Grip is mostly entertainment but your channel is mostly science and both make me grin in equal measure
Well done Jimbo!
19mpg. Not too shabby.
Keep up the good work 😎
Thanks! It turns out I made a mistake in my calculations and we actually got close to 40 mpg. I'll release an update soon.
@robotcantina8957
Even better! 😎
Ohm's law is firmly in place, in this video. Thanks for this interesting content.
My favorite channel to watch while making breakfast on Sunday mornings!!
Don’t forget that brushed motors aren’t very efficient either. Your wheel horsepower is probably under half the engine horsepower
He's calculating 3.9 hp out of the alternator. If the motor is 80% efficient that would be 3.1 hp to the road. Probably closer to 70% efficient so 2.7 hp. As you said, less than half.
Diesel electric locomotives use a similar system. Their alternators and motors are more efficient but overall maybe 65% of the horsepower produced by the engine gets to the track.
An alternator is actually a brushless motor out of nature, if it were a DC motor or a "generator" like what cars from the 50s had, the power loss would be alot worse, it was rare to see more than 90 amps from a generator compared to 140 from a alternator
11:20 Maybe not with just a capacitor, but with some power electronics you could make it so the capacitor gets charged when you're off throttle so that it can give you a temporary boost when you floor it. That'd defeat the simplicity though
GOOD IDEA!!! JIMBO PLEASE!
Of course something like that could be done, but its not simple. we are trying to make this system simple so we don't loose the audience. We will do a more complex system in the future.
Instead of a capacitor, 3 cheap 12v batteries in series charged by the alternator could also work.
Sooo... no planned "big block" upgrades to the petroleum battery? Bummer.
I wouldn't mind seeing a diesel version.
@@Rattus-Norvegicus He doesn’t even have seat belts yet🤣. How fast do you want it to go?
Though I think at some point there will be a limit to how many amps the DC motor can handle.
So let’s think about it. Suppose he put the 720 cc Kubota in there and increase the output by 4 fold. So now imagine he has 4 alternators and each of them is peaking at say 80 Amps. Each Alternator has a lead going to the motor, that’s 320 Amps. That 320 Amps is being delivered to a single contact on the DC motor………
The other thing is the DC motor may have an NGO RPM limit so . . . ..
The other problem is weight. The motor sits behind the rear wheels, which is a bad place for a motor. As the weight behind the rear wheel increases understeer on the front wheels increases. When that occurs the weight distribution and road conditions determine how the vehicle steers.
BIG BLOCK is of course always the answer, but for now give me time to sort out this contraption.
@ Uh😎 where would you put the motor mounts, OUCH?
Question, how much rotational torque, say in a crack shaft and flywheel, could you put on the axial center of gravity of a golf cart sufficient to flip it while moving at a moderate speed ?
@@robotcantina8957I would love to see a jungle site diesel BIG BLOCK upgrade to this lol
I've been an electrician for over twenty years now. In my teenage years, I was a small engine mechanic. And now I build grace engines outside of being an electrician. I find this very interesting!
I'm glad you are finding this interesting. its really a lot of fun.
I totally understand the production time for videos. We used to do videos of our bus restoration and gave up since it was taking more time to produce videos than the actual work.
Yes indeed, it take a massive amount of time to do anything when its being videoed.
The 30 mpg or more for golf cart is like a car manufacturers estimated MPGs. Is it possible?
Yes, if you are rolling down a mountain with your engine off!
You still might be able to use super caps. You could bleed of some current and have them charge off a dc-dc convertor while at idle to say 50v. There are a couple of ways they could be switched into the circuit: 1. A full throttle switch 2. An "anti stall" switch wired to the governor which switches them in to the circuit only in stall conditions. 3. A "turbo" button you could press to unleash them for an extra boost.(this could also be used with another "charge" button that allows direct charging of the caps from the alternator without powering the motor) Edit: The best way to add a "capacitor" to the circuit is to place it as a weight to store the motors angular momentum.
I think you need the original numer of 12v batteries in the original configuration but much smaller batteries, so you have you power source with the engine static as a power bank and the alternator as a charging source whilst underway.
Yes, a 48v surge capacity of 5-10 seconds would probably do it? Either lead acid or Lithium or maybe supercapacitors.
Appreciate the videos. Just the right amount of entertainment and science. Thanks Jim.
Nice this is my Sunday morning routine
Coffee and Cantina. :D
The wacky little projects you come up with never cease to amaze me lol. Who would've thought this would actually function as well as it does. Happy Sunday and enjoy your coffee!
Yes, it works really well.
I love your videos and the ingenuity that you put into them. They are both informative and enjoyable. Changing the pully ratio to a smaller pully on the engine would give you more torque on the alternator so that you could come up with more amps to keep it from stalling. You would however not be able to produce as many volts so it wouldn't go as fast. If however, you had a way to change the pully ration you may be able to solve both problems.
Thanks! Maximum watts that can be generated is 2900 if you include the loss in the system. Changing the pulley ratio still means the maximum wattage is 2900. Spinning the alternator fast with the overdrive pulleys we are using also improves efficiency.
@@robotcantina8957 What you are saying is true about Maximum wattage since wattage a product of amps times voltage. However, this also holds true with maximum Horsepower of any engine. But you can change the torque of that engine by changing the gear ratio in the transmission to keep the motor from stalling. As an example, try to take off in a manual transmission in hi gear as opposed to low gear and see what happens. The horsepower (maximum watts) is the same from the engine, but the results are totally different after using gear ratio. Higher amps would give more torque just less voltage. The wattage would be the same, but the lack of amps is what is causing it to stall. Please correct me if I am overlooking something.
YES. Back in the day and still today if you fool it, a car alternator will stall a car when idling. Today the computer automatically adjusts when a load is applied. Cars with A/C and big accessories had a solenoid to bump the idle up for you. When they were running V belts if it was loose you would get the squealing of it slipping to try and keep up. Cadillac runs a liquid cooled alternator. One more tidbit, the proper name for it is a dynamo. A whole other story. Love the videos.
You know....shits and giggles is a valid reason for doing everything
Indeed, just having some fun.
this is the kind of stuff i went to school for, Applied Engineering and Mechatronics, i love these videos and the silly experiments that actually do provide a lot of useful data, stay safe out there Jimbo
Having owned several gas golf carts, the one i had with worst gas mileage was a lifted yamaha with big tires, it still got 32-35 mpg. If you want a speedometer/odometer on your golf cart, there are many cheap bicycle speedometer on the jungle site that can be programmed down to golf cart sized tires.
Thanks for the Gasoline golf cart info! I have to post an update to the video, Someone spotted a calculation error I made. We actually got closer to 40 MPG with this contraption..... and that was at full throttle.
@@robotcantina8957 that's impressive, for a motor that never shuts off.
This knowledge is helping me wrap my head around some of the wiring issues I am experiencing with my car
Right on time Jimbo
Thanks as always Jimbo for thinking up these experiments and giving us the technical details of why these contraptions do what they do. I find a perfect balance between fun and technical.
Daz from Australia
JIMBO!!! it would be quite entertaining and quite the christmas present if you put a big heavy flywheel on the gas motor to help with your acceleration... maybe. The thought is that it would help sustain acceleration until the torque (current) demand of the drive motor drops to a level the gas battery can keep up with. may not be worth your time but it would be fun!!! You'd need a lot of weight spinning pretty fast to make it work.
Put the flywheel on the alternator which is spinning much faster.
Large horizontal flywheel underneath the carriage like where a mower blade would be, bonus of gyroscopic anti-rollover force.
Problem being all the mass for the flywheel requires even more acceleration power.
@@Spudz76 Please show us your frictionless drive for your idea.
Another wonderful video as always Jimbo. Great to see that this Frankenstein's monster contraption is holding up so well.
Very succesful project!
Watching your videos every Sunday morning is a must for me… thanks Jimbo
Good stuff Jim! I have my fingers crossed that you'll try installing the little diesel engine to see if it has more low end torque than the gasoline engine. I've been wondering if the 196cc diesel would be the better choice because of the torque curve needed to drive the alternator during the initial acceleration. Although the gasoline engine will provide more overall horsepower, the diesel engine may provide more low end torque than the gas engine, where you need it. (Also maybe anger a few mosquitoes)
The little diesel is a great engine for experiments, however that thing is NOISY and it shake violently. We want a quiet solution. Perhaps a Z482 kubota diese would be a better choice.
I have watched all videos of this golf cart! It’s been a great journey!! Keep the great videos! AAA+
If you added a little bit of flywheel weight you might be able to get through the acceleration demand. An inertial capacitor so to speak
Need a lot of weight spinning very fast.
What a fun project! I like the off the shelf approach, and Meccano attitude. Echoing comments elsewhere, for the most part once you've reached a steady maximum speed the power load is well within the scope of a small engine- mostly why the large stationary engines of yore had huge flywheels to store the energy needed for the rapid demand of acceleration up to working speed. Not that there's a large amount of room to fit one really, but it's fun food for thought.
Thanks for going to the effort!
Really enjoyed this episode, Jimbo!
🏆👍🏼
Hey, three things:
• as an under-trained Jack-of-all-Trades-Master-of-None, my “technical” assessment of the WOT Bog would’ve been “Rotational resistance of alternator may occasionally exceed available torque of petroleum battery”, and left it at that. I wouldn’t have given the technical explanation a moment’s consideration. However, I have to confess that, although I already understood what was happening, I really enjoyed your brief Electrical Engineering Explanation [abbreviated to EEE! 😬 in the Robot Cantina Study Guide]. I found the numbers interesting, atypical for a guy like me… I never knew BHP had an electrical analog. 🤔
• As an inmate in the Kommifornistan Prison Kamp, I would love-love-LOVE to see these Petroleum Battery Carts mass-produced and imported here, for no other reason than to stick-it to our slimy Diktovernor. Ol’ Grewsom would have a conniption! 😆
• I do realize that you don’t have much time to devote on Robot Cantina Merch, but I personally would love to purchase one of those metal “phone holders” featured in this week’s episode. Is that custom fabricated, or was it a repurposed item?
Thanks for all you do, Sir!
LOL, California needs hybrid's like this. The phone holder thingy is a robot cantina exclusive. I 3D print them for all the "telephones" that we use for filming the video series.
@ Oh, that’s a print?! Great resolution, I mistook it for metal! Wish I could get prints like that out of MY printers. 😏
Well if you ever want to sell the files, I and I’m sure others would be interested.
The traveling music starting at 12:109 reminded me the song Hot Rod Lincoln. To paraphrase a line or two, "Son, you're gonna drive me to drink man' / If you don't quit drivin' that hot rod Cush man." No groans pleeze. 🙂
Working in the cold is a BIG advantage
Yes, We will have to do some warm weather testing at some point.
I love this channel! It's as fun as it is educational.
Always a great way to start the day, coffee and Robot Cantina.
Dear Jimbo. Love your channel. A very knowledgeable guy doing experiments. Whats not to love!!?
This is a really fun project! In the spirit of wacky things to try, how about a vehicle with a petroleum battery running a compressor, storing compressed air in a tank and then powering a compressed air motor?
Even more inefficient, but I love it!
That one might be a bit too risky. You would need a lot of volume and pressure to make that work and if you make one mistake it can be lethally explosive - much worse than a gasoline engine or lead-acid or lithium battery. It's a cool idea, but maybe not one Jimbo could test out.
You win for the most inefficient design of 2024 ! love it!
@reverse_engineered There have been experimental cars run on compressed air before...and really the air tank would be just a buffer to get over the high demand of acceleration. As to efficiency, I am sure it would be pretty low. :)
Thank you for these videos. I have wondered how a generator connected to a motor would do and these videos got straight to the point. You do teach how things work also.
how much would your mileage suffer if you wired in a heated vest circuit to keep jimbo warm...? worth it? i recon so...
Great video as always, makes Sundays always better. Keep it up!
I feel like this inevitably becomes a hybrid with a more 'standard' battery and controller. Which is also awesome.
Thanks for your time creating/posting. I always enjoy these vids!
I think the diesel engine would be better use for this This might be a function of torque , on the capacitor part could charge the caps separately then use a relay to make contact when the peddle is 90% and breaks the circuit when the throttle is less then 90% so you only getting the extra kick at 90% throttle
A small bank of 48v Lead acid batteries and a motor controller would work better. Capacitors don't hold much energy.
"IN THIS GARAGE WE OBEY THE LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS!" 😄😄
Needs a V twin predator swap!
Even a 420 would be nice. Maybe version 2.0 with a better cart.
@tk429 a 4 wheel cart with better brakes would be a good idea if he was going to keep going faster. Those 3 wheels are unstable if they hit bumps at a angle. There's gotta be a front brake kit for these things with all the mods people do to them in places like Florida. Maybe front go cart disks
@@KR-hg8be Probably wouldn't be hard to hit up somebody like Go Power Sports and see what they have. I bet you could adapt a go cart disk or the rear disk for a mini bike to it.
I 100% agree that a 3 wheeler like that would have to have hella bump steer. I wonder why nobody makes a trike golf cart with one wheel in the back and two up front like a quad. Hmmmm.......
That's right on the slippery slope toward everyone's favorite: the LS engine swap ! There would be nothing quite like a grotesquely overpowered three wheel golf kart !!! (Perhaps for a good reason . . . or three.)
I enjoy your content. always thought provoking. Keep up the good work.
Given your brother's name I really was to say, Looks like them Duke boys are at it again...🤣🤣🤣🤣
How to get a better golf cart, join your local golf club and just "borrow" one of there's. Have Duke waiting with the trailer just off the 10th hole...🤣🤣🤣🤣
LOL, Indeed. I can see it now, a golf cart jumping the water hazard with the Dixie horn playing.
@@robotcantina8957 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Excellent balance of detail and brevity!
Nice work, as always. I LOL’d at “traffic is starting to pick up” as camera turns to show empty road. Textbooks and lectures only go so far, which is why STEM courses include labs. Your content, to me, is a series of cool lab experiments. Keep it up! @angrycorvair
This was very informative, precise the test i was hoping for, just not the result, but never mind, now we know,
Thank you very much
Stay tuned! I made a huge mistake in my fuel economy calculations. We actually got close to 40 MPG. sooooo... perhaps the petroleum batter is a bit more interesting despite it being inefficient.
There's a website where you can search for gas stations with ethanol-free gas. If there's one nearby it would be easy to do a test of winter-blend vs straight-gasoline on the Insight. --- I'd be pretty curious about the results. Knowing that ethanol concentration can have a large effect on small engine wear and gasket lifespan.
Not sure the 0%-Ethanol stuff is immune from the winter oxidizer stuff they add (which is not ethanol) to the winter blends. "Race gas" like the 105 octane whatever would be since that is not for road use.
we actually have non ethanol gas at a good portion of stations here in kansas.
But like spudz said, i think they may still get an additive package
the most interesting 'stacked electric' experiment i've ever seen.... thank you!
One way to potentially improve the MPGs would be reducing the rolling resistance, those wide turf tyres are designed to not trash the perfectionist-coiffured lawns of golf courses by spreading the load out over a wider surface as not to dig into the grass, but on roads would create more drag, slimmer tyres akin to the Insight or the R10 though could reduce that, though finding narrower wheels & tyres to fit in place, that's another issue to figure out... :P
LOL next step: Amish Wagon Wheels !!!
Larger tires on the rear could also give it a higher top speed if he can get the low speed bog figured out.
Thanks for the great video, Jimbo. Didn't realize how much power was lost through the alternator. Kind of like a transmission power loss at the wheels. Cheers 🍻
More RPMs. Get rid of the limiter. These engines will spin much faster and produce more HP
yes. but it will require a new pulley to take advantage of that RPM and turn it into more torque. Because otherwise the motor will still bog down
Some will break faster too. Like the briggs 5hp.
And burn even more fuel
Also need to keep in mind the efficiency range of the alternator. I have no idea how fast it's turning now, but it's possible that turning the engine faster would put it out of that range.
The 212 burns a good deal more fuel over 3600rpm. They are designed to be most efficient at 3600.
Great stuff! Your projects certainly fill my imagination with possibilities
Yet another well illustrated video. You just prove that math’n is hard, and es-plaining is even harder to make it easy to understand. Well done!
I congratulate you for your efforts to educate ,as for myself it brings memories of my youth
Right hand turns... This sure isn't NASCAR.
LOL, we are going to need a bigger engine to compete in NASCAR... hmmmm
Always a good way to spend a Sunday morning.
"Duke has some better things to do"
I doubt it.
I wouldn’t change anything. I personally enjoy your scientific process! Letting data direct the diagnosis, is a skill many more people need to master!
It's always weird seeing how flat Kansas is. I live not far from the highest elevation in Ohio state (it's around 400m) and while it's no Switzerland, it sure is compared to your state lol. Some of the hills here are insane. If you are crazy enough to love climbing hills on bikes, I know from experience it's pretty unforgiving here! At least going downhill on a bike is fun... until you have to make the return journey.
I really wish we had a hill or two around here for testing purposes.
he just happens to live in a really flat part of Kansas. We have extremely varied terrain, and we could find him some big hills not far away if needed.
Keep on mathin' Jimbo! Some of us love the nerdy aspect of the experiments.
Good morning!!
Good morning!
For fun future projects, I’ve always wanted to try doing a hybrid go-kart with an AC generator and AC motor, using a variac as a speed controller. Figured it’d be way more efficient, with fewer losses compared to switching DC to AC. Years ago I picked up a huge 50A 240V variac at the MIT Flea and figured it’d be perfect.
Of course, it probably weighs more than the harbor freight engine you’ve got powering this.
I believe you need 2-3 different alternators or 1 much bigger alt with different windings and being able to select which windings to use. The first alt has a few coil wraps with fat wires, perhaps a middle, and finally one with several wraps with 10-100 more wraps than the 1st one. As you gain speed the power demands switch from high current to high voltage. You were running out of power because the voltage wasn't high enough at high speed. An alternative to different alternators might be a VFD or variable frequency drive. Basically you need an electric version of a transmission to get torque and HP. The efficiency problem isn't just in the conversion, it's also what it's being converted to. There are brushed motors that can run on ac and DC. That might help too. Of course you already know this.
Honestly that sounds like over-engineering it quite a bit. Since he's already measuring current and voltage, he could take that into a microcontroller that sends the PWM signal to the alternator, and back off on the duty cycle when the power approaches 2.9kW. I'm not a programmer so for me it would be a challenge, but since Jimbo is into electronics and robotics I'm confident he could implement it. And that would a be a clean, neat and relatively simple solution to the problem.
People just can't seem to get it that he's already hard up against the maximum power that the 212 engine can supply. No amount of "larger" or "more" alternators is going to to cure that.
THANK YOU! ...yes the 212 is maxed out. for more power we would need a 420 engine.
Watts are watts. Voltage irrelevant other than to keep the current from going to a billion.
@@Spudz76 if that were true they would put stock LS4's in Kenworth's and Peterbilt's..
Start and stop is always the milage killer. Use the momentum and weight to preload a launch mechanism that's triggered during acceleration to provide a mechanical propulsion assist so less current is necessary and the stall is prevented. The same concept will also greatly increase mileage by attacking the area where most energy is wasted...start and stop.
Add a physcal battery like a weighted flywheel for more rotational inertia to help keep everything spinning a little longer before it boggs down.
Maybe put the weighted flywheel on a clutch system of some sort
I learn so much by watching your videos
Looks like it is time to stupid charge the battery.
Nice to see you 😊.