DIY Volt Hybrid - Open ReVolt style

[todayican]

Like others, I believe in your work Ben, best of luck to you (also I made my office staff all vote too) lol

[MetroMPG]

We should get Craftsman sponsoring an EM contest.

I wonder how much busier Instructables is than EM...

[MetroMPG]

Wow ... answered my own question: WAY busier than EM!

Instructables.com Site Info

[bennelson]

Of all the crazy, dangerous things I do, ( and I didn't even blow myself up with my homebuilt Propane/Electric Hybrid)

And I go and do this.

Bad kitchen knife, bad!



Looks like I won't be doing any more work on they hybrid for a few days...

On the up-side, I think it also gets me out of diaper-duty.

[MPaulHolmes]

No chance. That big finger pad thing is the ideal baby wipe. haha

[bennelson]

Ack! I haven't been doing much work on this project since trying to chop my finger off. (Totally unrelated, I assure you....)

Also, I have had some trouble with the charger. No, it's not because of running it from a generator.

I was having some trouble with the charger this summer. The charger would come on and start charging, but quickly taper down it's power. I figured that wouldn't be a problem for the hybrid setup because the issue appeared to be a mis-recognition of the "fullness" of the battery pack. With the batteries under load, the voltage drops, and the charger kicks in to full.

I tried replacing a bad resistor on the charger's circuit board. After that, it didn't work at all! Well, the charger still came on, the green light glows, and the fan blows, but no amperage out!

The manufacturer is no longer in business, so no tech support there. I did e-mail somebody that I know of who has one of the same chargers. He checked the color code on his resistor and let me know (I didn't know the exact value of resistor - ash is not a color) and found out that the one I had put in was wrong.

I replaced it with the correct resistor value. Still not working! Grr.

I think the best way to do a serial hybrid would be with a built, dedicated, charger designed to run specifically near the max continuous output of the generator. Maybe I could take my charger apart and use it as parts to build such a thing?

On the up side, the project has just become a finalist in the Craftsman Tools Contest.
To be fair though, they do 30 finalists, but only one project will earn $5000 in tools.

That, and my project is up against a trebuchet, a made-from-scratch old-timey bicycle, and a TARDIS!

[todayican]

A Tardis??? Sorry Brian, but you gotta admit, a Tardis?? :-)

[bennelson]

Thankfully, the TARDIS is only a bookcase. (Well, I suppose that BOOKS are bigger on the inside than the outside.)

I really like the old-timey bicycle too.

[jackbauer]

I've only breifly looked at this project but is that a permanent magnet generator? If so you could just rectify the output and reduce the engine speed to regulate charge.

[bennelson]

Jack, you make it all sound so simple!

Yes, it's an outrunner permanent magnet generator.

If you can give me details of how to control amperage and voltage, I would love to hear them. I have never built any kind of a battery charger before, but I think I am slowing working up the courage to do it.

I would prefer not to modify the generator itself. I finally got the thing running right. It's a nice little generator that could power my home in case of a blackout. Also, since this is all sort of experimental, I don't know that I won't go with a different/bigger generator in the future.

If I can route the AC 110V output of the generator to an external box that would have the rectifier and associated gear in it, that would be great. I have no idea how to control the speed on the thing without really messing with it.

Ideally, I would also like to have a system that would be easy to modify between 72V and 108V. I am still tempted to try to cram 3 more batteries under the hood. I think it's possible, but it will be really tight, and I have to move everything else around under there. Higher voltage on EVs has SO many advantages. However, I would need a higher voltage charger.