Latest journey 36 MPG roughly (diesel)....

What's the MPG like? Can I use chip fat and veggie oil? What about LPG?

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Re: Latest journey 36 MPG roughly (diesel)....

Post by mikeonb4c » Wed Aug 10, 2016 4:06 pm

What is KERS? Or is that kinetic energy regeneration system (at a guess - i had an idea for something like that circa 1972 and a Bongo could make a good candidate)
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Re: Latest journey 36 MPG roughly (diesel)....

Post by phedders » Wed Aug 10, 2016 4:29 pm

Yes. I'd love to kit out a Bongo with 4 inhub motors. Throw away all the heavy drive train. Load of Ultra-Caps and ESC's for drive and recovery, then LIFE4's for main supply all backed up by occasional turbine generator runs using LPG as required.

Trouble is you have no waste heat to use for cabin comfort, so you start thinking about a diesel or gas heater, electric aircon etc etc.
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Re: Latest journey 36 MPG roughly (diesel)....

Post by mikeonb4c » Wed Aug 10, 2016 5:26 pm

phedders wrote:Yes. I'd love to kit out a Bongo with 4 inhub motors. Throw away all the heavy drive train. Load of Ultra-Caps and ESC's for drive and recovery, then LIFE4's for main supply all backed up by occasional turbine generator runs using LPG as required.

Trouble is you have no waste heat to use for cabin comfort, so you start thinking about a diesel or gas heater, electric aircon etc etc.
But if there was a way of recovering energy wasted during braking etc.. :roll:

Could an air compressing system do this i wonder. I'm not aware of any standard retrofit kit though.
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Re: Latest journey 36 MPG roughly (diesel)....

Post by phedders » Wed Aug 10, 2016 6:04 pm

There was a French company that said they would have compressed air cars on the market within a couple of years - they were doing a deal with Tata. Its easier to do in India where its warmer - in the UK the engine would tend would freeze :|

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_car

Not sure what range you could get on a Bongo installation, but I guess you could recharge an air tank quite quickly.
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Re: Latest journey 36 MPG roughly (diesel)....

Post by mikeonb4c » Wed Aug 10, 2016 6:10 pm

phedders wrote:There was a French company that said they would have compressed air cars on the market within a couple of years - they were doing a deal with Tata. Its easier to do in India where its warmer - in the UK the engine would tend would freeze :|

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_car

Not sure what range you could get on a Bongo installation, but I guess you could recharge an air tank quite quickly.
Yes heard of them. I was thinking though more in terms of a regenerative braking system for retrofitting to a standard Bongo. A two way pump and low pressure tank with connection to the propshaft maybe. Probably a completely baked idea but......
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Re: Latest journey 36 MPG roughly (diesel)....

Post by phedders » Wed Aug 10, 2016 8:59 pm

Oh I get you know - sounds fun! Let me know how you get on =D>
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Re: Latest journey 36 MPG roughly (diesel)....

Post by Bob » Wed Aug 10, 2016 9:31 pm

I'm sure there was a bus developed with a huge flywheel which was spun up by braking then used to start the vehicle rolling.

Trouble is I think, "Bloomin' great wheel" then "Driven by steam".

OK, My coat's by the door. :oops:
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Re: Latest journey 36 MPG roughly (diesel)....

Post by phedders » Wed Aug 10, 2016 9:35 pm

If it had a massive big spinning flywheel - how well did it go round corners?
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Re: Latest journey 36 MPG roughly (diesel)....

Post by phedders » Wed Aug 10, 2016 9:37 pm

Dear me - was it the one quoted here? https://www.damninteresting.com/the-mechanical-battery/ (see Gyrobus) or here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrobus

" Instead of a conventional engine, the bus carried a three-ton rotating steel wheel attached to an unusual electric motor."

So one big **heavy** spinny thing. Ever tried holding a bicicle wheel, spinning it and then trying to turn it? How did these buses not flip on their backs when they went round a corner? Now if they had two big spinny things in the same plane but spinning in counter directions that might cancel out the broncho motions...
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Re: Latest journey 36 MPG roughly (diesel)....

Post by mikeonb4c » Thu Aug 11, 2016 12:01 am

phedders wrote:Oh I get you know - sounds fun! Let me know how you get on =D>
It seems tbe idea might not be completely baked:

http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newen ... n-savings/

and...

https://youtu.be/T5fEB-pHFz8

https://youtu.be/N3XZkINRSvM

Just imagine if you could retrofit something to a Bongo, with the system instructed to take compressor power from the propshaft on the over-run or (better) when braking, returning compressed air power via the propshaft when the accelerator is pressed. I'd love for an inventive engineer to try it.
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Re: Latest journey 36 MPG roughly (diesel)....

Post by phedders » Thu Aug 11, 2016 9:42 am

Helen?
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Re: Latest journey 36 MPG roughly (diesel)....

Post by helen&tony » Fri Aug 12, 2016 12:22 pm

Hi
MMmmmm...what do I think????....
Without trying to sound condescending, coz that's not what I do... :lol: I think the designers are all wrapped up in what's in front of themselves....
How to "break the mould"...First, look at the energy produced in a car, and HOW it's produced...itemise it
1/. Heat produced from burning / exploding (Petrol burns, diesel explodes)
2/. Electricity produced from a generator
3/. Heat from frictional sources by brakes , belt driven ancillaries, and gear driven components
4/.Heat from superchargers, turbochargers etc.
5/. Heat from friction from the passage of the vehicle through air
Well, just look t the whole deal, and there's plenty more to add to the list...
What do we do?....
We try to cool the whole damn' lot down?????? Have you ever heard such a lot of nonsense in your life???
We try to cool the very contraption that feeds on fuel....WHAT?????.....you feed the damn' thing with fossil fuel and try to stop it heating.....WHY?????
You add components to pump coolant, drive it with belts????...
You try to generate electricity via a magnet and a bundle of wire, and drive that ridiculous contraction with another flipping belt????
You try to cool the insides down with another pump...YES....ANOTHER pump, driven by more belts....
You try to brake momentum with a scrubby bit of fibre rubbing on discs?????
I'm currently laughing my socks off, wondering why the so-called "modern" designers have yet given up hitching a dead donkey to a cart, thrashing it with a whip while crying out "come on Neddy, B***** you!!!!
Getting the picture????
Look at the wasted energy in dissipating all that heat with pumps driven by elastic bands, and dissipating braking heat into the air, and, for that matter, driving gearboxes and axles, and trying to cool the lot down....
For a start, the bearings in everything are made with the wrong components, the engine is an antiquated design that just gets patched and re-patched.....IF.....IF IF IF you must stick to the same engine design....let the beggar go wild...nobody has yet made anything that's got to the same heat as the sun, so there's a limit....Use the heat produced, and convert it...Energy can't be created or destroyed, BUT we convert it all the time....THINK outside the box.....With better manufacturing tolerances, you don't need such power loss in an engine, requiring immense oil pressure...a GOOD engine runs lower pressures...Re-arrange the engine to cut out the propshaft, and drive direct to the wheels with a fluid transmission, with the motor placed between the rear wheels....no gearbox....with the motor actually running in two halves with the crankshaft split so that one half drives one wheel and the other half drives the other side....Use ceramic bearings internally, as they are better than steel, chromium bores in the engine to produce more resistance to wear....and why use outdated lubricants?....hell, the list goes on, but with higher heats and less friction, you get more efficiency, and, hells teeth, without messing around cooling water, you can run air-cooled with the heat harnessed directly to produce energy required to generate electricity....
Hell, I'm bored already....LOL
Go on , have a go....we can all do it!
Cheers
Helen
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Re: Latest journey 36 MPG roughly (diesel)....

Post by phedders » Fri Aug 12, 2016 1:30 pm

Yep couldnt agree more. It works, but its brutal... and sooo suboptimal.

So why aren't we all working for a car manufacturer then? :mrgreen:
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Re: Latest journey 36 MPG roughly (diesel)....

Post by mikeonb4c » Fri Aug 12, 2016 2:06 pm

Dealing with legacy problems is what interests me, since we can't completely re-engineer our old Bongos, sadly.
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Re: Latest journey 36 MPG roughly (diesel)....

Post by scanner » Sat Aug 13, 2016 7:57 pm

Why aren't we just going over to one step past the hybrid to the true diesel/electric concept as used in railway locomotives for decades.

But going one step beyond that to a small very efficient gas turbine running constantly at it's most economic RPM driving a generator feeding 4 electric motors through a battery pack.

That gas turbine could be fuelled by hydrogen produced by electrolysis from surplus wind and solar energy when it is going spare and from diesel (or almost any flammable fuel) the rest of the time.

The battery pack would allow for clean running at slow speeds in towns and traffic and the gas turbine would provide about 80% of peak power with the rest (when needed) coming from the battery pack ala F1 and there would be regenerative braking to recharge the battery and save turning energy into hot air.


Easy.
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