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  • #16
    Originally posted by green View Post
    If I could safely mount some light weight film that made gasoline on the roof of my car, even if it only made a gallon a week, i'd definetly do it. And you will tell me "And at a gallon a week that's roughly $4 a week for your $1000 investment."
    [...]

    There are many ways to spend money that save, conserve, invest in a responsible and sensible manner - no reason to chase a 1$ return with a 100$ investment. Solar mounted on cars and talk of solar airplanes are among the worst candidates - unless it might be a solar powered submarine to replace the nuke boats.

    [...]
    Last edited by Jason; 09-10-2012, 08:10 PM. Reason: Inappropriate, rude or insulting.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

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    • #17
      Originally posted by russ View Post
      Now Green - that is being what I call green - ''never mind the cost do it because it sounds neat''.
      Then you are missing my point or I'm not conveying it clearly which is a definite possiblity. If you just boil it down and forget economics and efficency ,logistics and other factors that just slow us down...It just makes sence that if your car runs on electricty and you are able to mount something that produces electricty to it, Why wouldn't do it. It's actually stupid that these cars don't come with PV roofs.

      It's just the consumer's assumption(and you guys are guilty to) that if it has panels on it, they must supply all the power it needs.

      Never mind me just dreamin'
      Green

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      • #18
        A possible useful case to look at is the Prius option to use a solar panel to power a ventilating fan when the car is parked.

        Some of the factors involved:

        1. It sounds really good in advertising.
        2. It is easy to interpret the ads to mean that some form of active cooling is being run from the panel.
        3. It is really just a small fan, and I have not seen any actual numbers on how many degrees it can reduce the interior temp of a closed car parked in the sun.
        4. Parking in the shade (if possible) would certainly do a better job of keeping the car cool.
        5. It is a way of doing a minimum amount of electrical work without the risk of running down the auxiliary battery (a slightly larger than motorcycle-sized AGM battery which runs all of the 12 volt accessories including the A/C!)
        6. If left with the ignition on, in park, the Prius will restart the engine as needed to keep the auxiliary battery charged. Very handy. I took advantage of that to run an inverter off a Prius for a day of power outage while I got my generator working. (Stored too long without proper care.)
        7. (For the aficionados, it is possible to lock the Prius with the ignition on, but it requires using the mechanical key.)

        Going back to your example of the hypothetical gasoline generating skin for a car.
        A. Would you still do it if the cost were so great that it would never pay for itself during the life of the car?
        B. Would you still do it if the manufacture of the skin required more fossil fuel use than it would ever return?
        B. Would you still do it if it extra wind resistance from the skin cost you more gas than it generated?

        If the answer is yes to any of these, there had better be a reasonable expectation that it would be a constructive step along the way to the introduction of something which had none of those negatives.

        Another case in point: Back in the 70's, Werner Erhardt (of EST fame) created The Hunger Project, whose goal was to raise awareness about hunger in the world. This charity raised money for the purpose of "raising awareness" and explicitly (if you read all the way to the bottom) disavowed any goal of actually directly doing anything about it. This awareness raising consisted primarily of getting contributions for the project. Green?
        Last edited by inetdog; 09-04-2012, 01:07 PM. Reason: typo
        SunnyBoy 3000 US, 18 BP Solar 175B panels.

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        • #19
          Green we would like to use free sun to make electricity to run a car but there is simply not enough room on the roof to make it worth while. Just look again at only this figure .With todays cells you would get about 150w x4 hrs (because cells are flat mounted) Total 600whr.. only enough to go about 3 miles.. OK ? And thats for sunny day parked in open.. Half that if cloudy or short winter day..And most cars are not parked where there is no shadow that the roof will be in for part of the day.. Now at what cost??

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          • #20
            Originally posted by Sunny Solar View Post
            Green we would like to use free sun to make electricity to run a car but there is simply not enough room on the roof to make it worth while. Just look again at only this figure .With todays cells you would get about 150w x4 hrs (because cells are flat mounted) Total 600whr.. only enough to go about 3 miles.. OK ? And thats for sunny day parked in open.. Half that if cloudy or short winter day..And most cars are not parked where there is no shadow that the roof will be in for part of the day.. Now at what cost??
            Ok and without any solar cells on it it would produce 0 watts. All it would do is consume energy. You're still missing my point.

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            • #21
              What counts and what is perceived as counting....

              For another point of reference, the little symbol on the energy display of the Prius (2005 anyway) represents 50 watt-hours recovered by regenerative braking. It seems impressive when they pile up on the display. But no corresponding reference to how much total energy has been used from the IC engine. May help a lot for level ground stop and go, but the battery is not big enough and the conversion efficiency is not high enough to make a big difference in hilly country.
              SunnyBoy 3000 US, 18 BP Solar 175B panels.

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              • #22
                Originally posted by inetdog View Post
                Going back to your example of the hypothetical gasoline generating skin for a car.
                A. Would you still do it if the cost were so great that it would never pay for itself during the life of the car?
                B. Would you still do it if the manufacture of the skin required more fossil fuel use than it would ever return?
                B. Would yuo still do it if it extra wind resistance from the skin cost you more gas than it generated?

                A. Well we pay $300 for options like floor mats when we buy a car new. Just one reason I always buy cars used. So if it were an just another expensive option that I was financing, yes I would do it. If I had to pay too much for it in a after market situation like crazy "GREEN" pricing, no I wouldn't do it. So short answer, yes I would. LOL

                B. LOL. The manufaturing of anything requires crazy amounts of inefficently spent energy. So yes.

                B. That is rather silly. Of course not. But Solar panels are probably just as areodynamic as a metal roof.

                Just Dreaming,
                Green

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                • #23
                  Originally posted by Sunny Solar View Post
                  With todays cells you would get about 150w x4 hrs (because cells are flat mounted) Total 600whr.. only enough to go about 3 miles.. OK ?
                  John I think you are stretching things a bit in favor of Green but that is OK as it still paints a gloomy picture. The Pirus and other EV's only get about 400 wh/mile efficiency or in your example of 1.5 miles.
                  MSEE, PE

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                  • #24
                    Originally posted by green View Post
                    Ok and without any solar cells on it it would produce 0 watts. All it would do is consume energy. You're still missing my point.
                    If you want to install solar to charge an EV it makes far, far more sense to install it on your house where there is room for it, there is no weight/drag penalty and the panel itself is much cheaper.

                    If I could safely mount some light weight film that made gasoline on the roof of my car, even if it only made a gallon a week, i'd definetly do it.
                    OK. Now suppose it weighed 50 lbs, decreased your mileage from 40mpg to 30mpg and it cost $2000 - would you still do it?

                    Now consider case #2. You can get the same sort of gasoline maker in your garage where it will make 5 gallons a week, cost the same and not reduce your mileage. Which do you go with?

                    Now with that in mind let's look at what you'd get with your solar panel. You could probably get ~300 watts in ideal conditions if you covered every roof and hood surface with solar. You'd pay at a minimum $3000 for it (custom panel with curvature.) With that in a good location you'd get 1.5kwhr a day. That's about 10kwhr a week - which is the energy equivalent of 40 ounces of gasoline a week.

                    All that being said if you can do it cheaply (and not affect the overall longevity, drag or weight of the car) then there's no reason _not_ to do it. But those four factors - cheap, rugged, clean, light - do not generally go together.

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                    • #25
                      LoL

                      Boy... I'm glad I didn't bring up the laptop with a built in solar panel. Lol guys, it'll do you some good.

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                      • #26
                        Green the figures I gave were theory maximums that could never be achieved. Some of the reasons.. I never took into account the loss from the panels to charge the battery/ies The loss from batteries into the motor.And there is going to be other losses with the drag of however the cells are mounted in or on the roof ,the extra weight of the cells on the roof.The cells are going to be covered with tempered glass??? if thin film they wont last past the second year with more than 50$ output and be dead in another 2 yrs.
                        And it seems my figure of 200wh per mile is low it should be about 400wh per mile..

                        So it seems you be lucky if you got one mile from your solar charged vehicle each day...

                        For me I would not ever be slightly interested in a vehicle that cost even a little more for that small an improvement in driving economy..AND I think that goes for 99.99% of car buyers.
                        Its hard to make a big advertising deal out of a one mile extra by paying extra to "GO SOLAR"

                        The ultimate "green machine" is a bicycle. I estimate it will take about another 100 yrs to make a vehicle more economical in every way to get you from A to B.

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                        • #27
                          Originally posted by green View Post
                          Boy... I'm glad I didn't bring up the laptop with a built in solar panel. Lol guys, it'll do you some good.
                          Absolutely! And the solar powered laptop has already been discussed in agonizing detail on this and other forums. So you probably would only have gotten a thread reference.
                          SunnyBoy 3000 US, 18 BP Solar 175B panels.

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                          • #28
                            Being a naysayer is easy, being an innovater is difficult. I look for solutions while others only see problems.

                            Sorry, just how I am.
                            Green

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                            • #29
                              Originally posted by green View Post
                              Being a naysayer is easy, being an innovater is difficult. I look for solutions while others only see problems.

                              Sorry, just how I am.
                              Green
                              Being a crackpot can be either difficult or easy depending on your environment and how you interact with it. Sometimes the line between innovator and crackpot is hard to see except in hindsight, but sometimes (greater than unity power generation for example) it is pretty easy.

                              "And I never apologize! Sorry, it's just how I am."
                              H. Simpson
                              SunnyBoy 3000 US, 18 BP Solar 175B panels.

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                              • #30
                                [QUOTE=

                                The ultimate "green machine" is a bicycle. I estimate it will take about another 100 yrs to make a vehicle more economical in every way to get you from A to B.[/QUOTE]

                                Actually it has been invented millenia ago
                                They come in pairs generally and are called legs.
                                NABCEP certified Technical Sales Professional

                                [URL="http://www.solarpaneltalk.com/showthread.php?5334-Solar-Off-Grid-Battery-Design"]http://www.solarpaneltalk.com/showth...Battery-Design[/URL]

                                [URL]http://www.calculator.net/voltage-drop-calculator.html[/URL] (Voltage drop Calculator among others)

                                [URL="http://www.gaisma.com"]www.gaisma.com[/URL]

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