DIY Hybrid

Why are there so many designs with motors mounted so as to be unsprung? It's not a good idea, if you want a nice ride and good handling. Electric motors of real power are heavy. Putting them in the wheels themselves is even dumber, although it seems to be a popular choice.

Seems to me an HSM type should take on a tractor. Either a garden unit at say 10hp. or a small utility at 25hp. Weight and space aren't serious problems with these. Makes fabrication far easier. Run time isn't that long per charge so the battery pack doesn't need to be huge.

My plates too full already, or I'd be on here finding a power EE type to make it happen. I'm a bit surprised an electric garden tractor isn't being sold. It would satisfy the yuppies need to say they are going green.

Karl

Run your existing diesel tractor on bio or wvo and be "green" with a lot less hassle and without getting stuck mid job in the field with a dead battery.

You could buy and bolt together the parts to make a hydrostatic one.

jsw

My son worked on this one years ago as a summer project at Olin-

It might interest you; it was designed to be an autonomous orchard maintenance machine. Here is the company's web site.

Kevin Gallimore

Been done before GE Elec-trak was one version. Didn't sell very well.

I worked on these:

Having the motor mounted to the axle appears to be a very poor design, to me. There are losses with a drive shaft, but the motor doesn't need to withstand the physical motion of following the axle.

This method of differential drive would be entirely suitable for a small vehicle that always runs on smoooth or gradually changing surfaces, but hardly seems intelligent for a (large) car in everyday driving conditions. A large car wouldn't become a lot lighter by removal of the engine and transmission, since a considerable amount of space would likely be used for batteries.

The extreme forces that the motor would need to withstand in real-world conditions.. potholes, abrupt impacts of road debris etc, would be applied as shock loads to the rotational power from the motor, with only the drive belt to absorb such rotational shocks (by the looks of it).

Shaking and jarring the rotating motor components would likely result in serious inefficiencies in the application of the horizontally-oriented motor shaft power, IMO.

If the axle-mounted motor were allowed to float by a dampening mechanism/swing arm-design the power could possibly be applied more smoothly and likely more efficiently.

Someone in town did their own conversion, they took a small car and removed the motor. Added a 21 horsepower diesel instead, with a 20 horsepower electric assist motor to the end of the diesel.

The diesel was sufficient for cruise, and the electric added the acceleration needed when needed.. Small battery pack in the trunk.

This was a few years ago, they were getting 65+ MPG IIRC.

They had a website, but I see it is gone now.

The choice is a compromise between the simplicity and reliability of wheel motors and the improved handling at higher speeds with less unsprung weight. U joints are still the weakest link in a driveline.

jsw

What I would like to do is base upon the early chevy s-10 and pull 1/2 of the cylinders from an inline 6

Then, instead of a transmission, run a second ( shortened ) differential in place of the driveline--with an electric servo thats coupled to the yoke where the driveline would ordinarily be attached.

Not only does such arrangement allow for regenerative braking, it now allows a smaller more efficient gas engine to be used, which always runs at either max fuel effeciency throttle setting or to be dhut off--depending on load---with the servo acting either as motor or generator as conditions dictate.

From what I've read about biodiesel from used deep-fryer oil from all the fast-food joints, has anybody jumped on that? Buy a truck, go around and haul their used oil away - AFAIK, they currently have to pay to have it hauled away - filter it, maybe crack it a little, and make a fortune selling it at two bucks a gallon!

Anybody got any opinions, or, heaven forbid, actual facts about this one way or the other? ;-)

Thanks! Rich

What's "wvo?"

Thanks, Rich

There's a company in North Philadelphia that's been doing this for four or five years. They collect the slurdge from McDonald's, etc. It was not profitable yet, last time I looked.

I'm worried that McDonald's will like the idea and try it in reverse -- converting diesel to deep-fryer oil.

The little I know is that some mates got in early and got used oil supplies agreed with local users and were making good quality biodiesel for their own consumption for about a 1/4 the UK pump price. The trouble now is that the big boys have ramped up and can offer higher prices for the used oil and my mates are out of cheap used oil supplies and it's not worth their time anymore to make it.

Lots of people have been collecting WVO from small restaurants for diesel engine use for years. The big restaurants do not pay to have their waste oil taken away, they have contracts with companies that pay them to collect the WVO in the large quantities they produce and recycle it for various uses. The big restaurants have big WVO tanks to collect the oil and store it until there is enough for a practical pickup, something the small restaurants don't generally have and why they don't have collection contracts.

Waste Vegetable Oil a.k.a. used fryer oil. Older diesel engines run just fine on it direct without bio-diesel processing.

When? Lithium Polymer batteries are a whole different world than lead acid -- they're still woefully large for the amount of energy they store per volume than a can of gasoline, but they're a whole lot better than lead acid.

They're just spendy -- do you want a $10000 lawn tractor?

I got a donated VW Bug back about 1986, and bought a Kaylor adapter and GE jet engine starter/generator. You mount the original flywheel and clutch on the adapter, and install on the transaxle. I had to make another adapter to hold the bayonet mount of the jet engine starter to the Kaylor adapter. I got 4 90-AH deep-cycle trolling motor batteries. I built a 13 A variable switching regulator to adjust field winding current. The armature was just on-off, with resistive starting. This all worked remarkably well, and I drove it around a little. The VW body was WAYYYY too far gone to pass inspection, so I had no plates on the thing, so I couldn't go very far. The plan was to make it a hybrid, with a Honda 350 engine and a stratofortress 400 A generator. The stratofort generator cranked the Honda engine really well, but I couldn't get it to run worth a darn, probably needed a real rebuild. I also needed to come up with a much more robust coupling between engine and generator. Also, the GE motor, at full field current, was INSANELY noisy, a loud high whine.

I did get some decent data off it. I found I could putter around at 100 A at 48 V, and could easily climb real hills at 30 MPH on 200-250 A. I was actually surprised at the low power consumption. 250 A at 48 V is just 12 KW, or 16 HP. I couldn't go above that to protect the batteries and wiring.

Jon