Mirror designs, if we can't use cameras yet.

[whatmaycome14]

I've moved all of my functional mirrors to the interior of the car while retaining one mirror on the drivers exterior that is usually folded against the body.

The little blindspot mirror on the inside of the window took a little while to get used to, but works great!

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by cowmeat

Thanks for the explanation! I understood about a third of it, but I'm taking your word for it cause nobody goes to those lengths to explain something wrongly!

In light of that, I think what I really need is a camera driven projected holographic mirror to replace my plastic one! Wonder if that would technically be legal since it would be outside of the car?

How about self-powered mirror drones which fly along with the car at a distance where they won't interfere with the airflow?
Gee officer,they're outside!

[Smokeduv]

I was thinking in something like this. I did it at work in 10 minutes, so not a lot of considerations on additional aero variables, but I think that with that arm length, it is a bit outside from the flow (as in the Subaru XT mentioned by aerohead). I'm not a designer nor an aerodynamic expert, I'm just a chemist which is a bit bored at work, so this was the best I could do (I know it looks like an elementary school drawing).

I thought on this design because of the Laws on obligatory side mirrors, so they can be further optimized if it didn't have a mirror, just the camera. I only took into consideration achieving the minimum frontal area possible.

The arm can be changed to a very slim one, but I'm taking all the cabling into account.

[Joris]

I keep thinking motorcycle mirrors, couldnt those be used?

[Grim]

Antiquated laws that haven't been corrected for the times and evolution of technology. Exploit the loop holes.
The laws are pretty vague most say "must have two mirrors, one on left exterior and the other either center or right exterior.
Does it say anything about size? Actual location?
The mirrors on my Previa drove me nuts how much noise they made in a otherwise quiet vehicle on the HWY. Same deal with my cruiser. Those massive mirrors and the noise you generate is the loudest thing at 70mph. I want thm gone for the noise as much if not more then the potential fuel savings.
I occasionally use a Prius company car and I love how quiet that car is with the way they cleaned up the airflow around the mirrors.

My old man liked moving his mirrors onto the front fenders. This is his 57 speedster, picture was taken 1962 in front of my grandmothers. He did the same thing on his 65 356.

Only need one and you could easily make it much more aerodynamic
Noticed Steve McQueen even understood this and on his Ferrari he put mirrors on it like the race cars he drove. The mirror is that pod in front of the door.

So no reason you couldnt put a small pod on the left side with a small mirror and lipstick camera feeding a large display inside.

[Smokeduv]

Originally Posted by Joris

I keep thinking motorcycle mirrors, couldnt those be used?

If the cables can pass through it, then yes. Although they can be even smaller, as you don't actually look at the mirror, but the monitors inside the car. Just smaller enough so the camera fits inside.

I think it could be even safer than those extremely convex and tiny mirrors inside the car when deleting the external ones.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by Smokeduv

I was thinking in something like this. I did it at work in 10 minutes, so not a lot of considerations on additional aero variables, but I think that with that arm length, it is a bit outside from the flow (as in the Subaru XT mentioned by aerohead). I'm not a designer nor an aerodynamic expert, I'm just a chemist which is a bit bored at work, so this was the best I could do (I know it looks like an elementary school drawing).

I thought on this design because of the Laws on obligatory side mirrors, so they can be further optimized if it didn't have a mirror, just the camera. I only took into consideration achieving the minimum frontal area possible.

The arm can be changed to a very slim one, but I'm taking all the cabling into account.

I've been thinking similarly.
The Porsche 911 GT (1996) kinda did this with the body of the mirror,also placing it ahead of the A-pillars,into lower velocity air.
The streamlined mount seems like a natural.
And keeping the width,but shrinking the height gets it more like an airfoil section.
Formula-1 has some cars doing this.And the view through them seems appropriate for street cars.

[Smokeduv]

Originally Posted by aerohead

I've been thinking similarly.
The Porsche 911 GT (1996) kinda did this with the body of the mirror,also placing it ahead of the A-pillars,into lower velocity air.
The streamlined mount seems like a natural.
And keeping the width,but shrinking the height gets it more like an airfoil section.
Formula-1 has some cars doing this.And the view through them seems appropriate for street cars.

The thing is to add the camera. If I'm lucky (not lazy), I'll try to make it with glass fiber, but the mount arm needs to be different as it comes from the door, not on the little triangle ahead of the window

[Shepherd777]

Gentlemen -

Cameras-only, with no mirrors, have been used here in the US. Here are some pics of the VW XL1 driving in NYC traffic.

We are shooting for waivers to get cameras-only on our new truck. If the Feds granted waivers to VW, which is not even an American company, they must grant waivers to an American truck company. Correct? At least, that's the case we'll be making to the Feds.

[aerohead]

*1962,Ford engineer notes that side-view mirror adds 1-pound of drag at 65-mph and increases fuel consumption by 0.05 mpg.On a 1,000-mile trip,the mirror costs and extra 7-cents (@25-cents/gallon).
*March,1983,Ford's development work on the Probe-IV got the side mirror drag down to where it almost compensated for their frontal area addition.
*1986,Subaru's shaping and mounting 80mm clear of the body surface,produced side mirrors which did not deteriorate the cars Cd 0.29.
*1990,BMW Technik Gmbh,discovered noise with flush-mounted side mirrors and mounted them on stalks to get air moving in between,thereby killing the noise.
*In 1998,GM,using the EV1 as an aerodynamic test mule for development of the USCAR,PNGV 'Precept' concept,indicated that side mirrors would add 0.015 to the Precept,raising the Cd from 0.163,to 0.178,a 9.2% drag increase.
*In 2014,at the Darko Technologies wind tunnel,the 'Spirit of Ecomodder.com' demonstrated a drag reduction,from Cd 0.268,to Cd 0.251 by folding in the stock sideview mirrors,a 6.7% drag reduction.
*Aeronautical Engineer,Tyler Story,of Darko,estimated that removal of the 'Spirit's' mirrors would develop on the order of Cd 0.24,an 11.6% drag reduction.
*At 75-mph,the mirrors are contributing 1-hp to the road load.
*The original road load of the 'naked' T-100,was 47-hp at 70-mph.
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It appears that the drag contribution of the side mirror(s) becomes more and more important as the drag coefficient is lowered lower and lower.

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*A solid hemisphere,soft face into the wind is Cd 0.42
*An open (shell) hemisphere,soft face into the wind is Cd 0.34
*A contemporary mirror body might be Cd 0.38 with its box-cavity.
*A cylinder section with prolate elliptical nose of L/D= 1.5 is Cd 0.233
*The 'stalk' can very in drag