The last headlight you will ever need

On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 17:47:04 -0000, "Ian Field"
wrote:



"James" wrote in message
...
On 28/03/14 03:00, Phil W Lee wrote:
John B. considered Thu, 27 Mar 2014 18:51:03
+0700 the perfect time to write:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 21:52:24 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 21:47:16 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

600 watts:
http://www.econvergence.net/The-Pedal-A-Watt-Bicycle-Generator-Stand-s/1820.htm
See bottom of page for the "400 watt grid intertie inverter". Sigh.

300 watts:
http://www.pedalpowergenerator.com

But can you do it for 8 hours a day, day in and day out? I really need
to power some tools on the boat I'm working on which is anchored out
in the harbour.

You should be able to power a reasonably respectable car alternator
with even a fairly modest wind turbine, which would seem ideally
suited to use on a boat.
That'll keep a decent 12v battery charged for either direct use, or
through an inverter if you need utility voltage for your tools.
I can't say that I remember using any power tools on boats when I used
to help out down at the yard in Brnham-on-Crouch though.


Car alternators are designed to be turned at relatively high speed
compared with a windmill.

That was true of the old style car dynamos - less so with modern
alternators.

Modern "alternators" are normally driven at 2 - 3 times crankshaft
RPM. Max output usually is in the 5,000 rpm area.
--
Cheers,

John B.

On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 19:10:57 GMT, Ralph Barone
wrote:

John B. wrote:
On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 08:05:20 +1100, James
wrote:

On 28/03/14 03:00, Phil W Lee wrote:
John B. considered Thu, 27 Mar 2014 18:51:03
+0700 the perfect time to write:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 21:52:24 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 21:47:16 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

600 watts:
http://www.econvergence.net/The-Pedal-A-Watt-Bicycle-Generator-Stand-s/1820.htm
See bottom of page for the "400 watt grid intertie inverter". Sigh.

300 watts:
http://www.pedalpowergenerator.com

But can you do it for 8 hours a day, day in and day out? I really need
to power some tools on the boat I'm working on which is anchored out
in the harbour.

You should be able to power a reasonably respectable car alternator
with even a fairly modest wind turbine, which would seem ideally
suited to use on a boat.
That'll keep a decent 12v battery charged for either direct use, or
through an inverter if you need utility voltage for your tools.
I can't say that I remember using any power tools on boats when I used
to help out down at the yard in Brnham-on-Crouch though.


Car alternators are designed to be turned at relatively high speed
compared with a windmill.

The only option is to gear the windmill so that it turns the alternator
at much higher speed - but then efficiency suffers as power lost in the
gears.

There are better solutions.

And, the car alternator needs to be excited by an external power
course to produce electricity - the reason that they aren't used to
build wind generators :-)

There's often enough residual magnetism in the stator for a car alternator
to self-excite.

That is certainly possible but while this might be sufficient for some
output it is not enough for normal operation. for anything like normal
output the alternator does require an excitation current applied to
the rotor. I've read that 70 amp alternator requires about 7 amps of
current to produce normal output.

But! As the usual "one wire" alternator takes the excitation current
from the output of the rectifier circuit then it might be called self
exciting even though current is being siphoned off for the excitation
circuit which, of course, would reduce the alternator output to the
rest of the system.
--
Cheers,

John B.

On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 21:25:02 +0000, Phil W Lee
wrote:

John B. considered Fri, 28 Mar 2014 07:08:03
+0700 the perfect time to write:

On Thu, 27 Mar 2014 15:44:43 +0000, Phil W Lee
wrote:

John B. considered Thu, 27 Mar 2014 18:46:00
+0700 the perfect time to write:

On Thu, 27 Mar 2014 15:31:25 +1100, James
wrote:

On 27/03/14 11:56, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 13:22:45 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 3/26/2014 12:29 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

snip

Hmmm... I haven't seen any bicycle powered can openers, but I suppose
one could be designed. Speed reduction seems to be the major problem,
so I would suggest an outboard worm gear, driving a sprocket, with the
power transmitted to the can opener via a speedometer cable. I'm not
sure there's a market, but if you label it "high efficiency" and
"ecologically correct", it should bring in some sales.

You need to work on a bicycle driven coffee grinder. For bicycle
tourists without access to electric power the present options suck
because the manual grinders are extremely slow. Contrary to what was
shown in the movie City Slickers, there are no battery powered coffee
grinders. The closest I've come is this:
http://nordicgroup.us/bikecoff/bcimages/batterygrinder.JPG but this
12VDC grinder has been discontinued.


My goodness but you Americans seem so inapt. One can easily pound
coffee beans into a powder with a mortar and pestle. Just like the old
folks used to. But of course, you probably can't figure out how to
operate one of those.


I do use a hand powered can opener though, and have never owned an
electric can opener.


Years ago, being the dotting husband that I am :-) I bought my wife an
electric can opener. She tried it a few times and put it away and went
back to the manual can opener. I can only assume that the manual
opener worked better for some reason.

They generally do, until you get arthritis in your wrists or hands.
I regard the electric ones as a disability aid, much like "golf"
buggies or lifts/elevators/escalators in buildings with less than 10
storeys - fine for those who actually NEED them, but most people need
the exercise far more.

Of course the reason for the lack of interest in can openers is the
fact that we so seldom eat anything that is not fresh :-) A survey of
the kitchen turns up only some canned fruit that was apparently bought
because it is currently "out of season" and is not, at the moment,
available in the market.

But canned food is good to keep in stock in case of some kind of
emergency (like maybe injuring oneself or being ill so that shopping
trips are not possible).

My God! Can't you send one of the servants out to do the shopping?

And a few things are simply better canned (I wouldn't dream of eating
baked beans from any other source, as they are more efficiently
produced in factory quantities, and suffer far less from being canned
than they would from my cooking g).


Actually home baked beans are, really, truly, better than Heinz ever
dreamed of. My grandmother used to bake a pot of beans every week - I
think it was a tradition to eat beans on Saturday, but it's been a
long time - and they were certainly much better than canned :-)

As my mother and both grandmothers all used to say - it's always worth
having a few tins to fall back on. I always reckon a mattress is
better for that :-)

Joking aside, if some kind of emergency does arise, you can live on
beans on toast for quite a while without ill-effects (it's got most of
what you need in it) but having some other stuff to vary the menu is
no bad thing.

What kind of emergency? During the Bangkok Floods, a year or so ago,
food was no problem :-)

Besides, you can live on boiled rice and fish sauce for a long time
:-)


And despite the modern mania for date-stamping everything, tinned food
really does last almost indefinitely.
Some mid 19th century canned food was tasted and found to be palatable
nearly a century later.

When I bought my last sailboat it still had a lot of the supplies that
the guy had originally stocked before he left the States several years
earlier. Part of the deal was that a third party who had watched over
the boat for a year or so was to get the canned goods. That guy told
me later that out of the two or three wheelbarrow loads of cans that
one or two "had swelled" and were thrown away.
--
Cheers,

John B.

On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 23:32:45 +0000, Phil W Lee
wrote:

John B. considered Fri, 28 Mar 2014 07:21:50
+0700 the perfect time to write:

On Thu, 27 Mar 2014 16:00:27 +0000, Phil W Lee
wrote:

John B. considered Thu, 27 Mar 2014 18:51:03
+0700 the perfect time to write:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 21:52:24 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 21:47:16 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

600 watts:
http://www.econvergence.net/The-Pedal-A-Watt-Bicycle-Generator-Stand-s/1820.htm
See bottom of page for the "400 watt grid intertie inverter". Sigh.

300 watts:
http://www.pedalpowergenerator.com

But can you do it for 8 hours a day, day in and day out? I really need
to power some tools on the boat I'm working on which is anchored out
in the harbour.

You should be able to power a reasonably respectable car alternator
with even a fairly modest wind turbine, which would seem ideally
suited to use on a boat.
That'll keep a decent 12v battery charged for either direct use, or
through an inverter if you need utility voltage for your tools.
I can't say that I remember using any power tools on boats when I used
to help out down at the yard in Brnham-on-Crouch though.

Like all the other "green" devices to keep a battery bank charged they
work, sort of. If you have the wind charger, and the solar panels, and
the engine driven generator, the system becomes much more reliable.

If you never used power tools in the boat yard than I'm surprised. I
can't imagine, say sanding the topsides of a 40 - 50 ft. boat prior to
painting, by hand. Or doing a really mirror like paint job without a
spray gun :-)

We were mostly scraping and varnishing. Why hide the beauty of the
wood?

You have, obviously, never lived on a boat in a climate where the sun
shines more then one day a year :-)

Electricity was mainly for lighting in the yard, although at sea an
echo sounder was in almost constant use (the Essex coast has lots of
shoals, sandbanks, mudflats, and other things that can ruin your whole
day).

I sailed, on the coast of Maine, where there are not a lot of sand
bars and mud flats rather they have is granite ledges and rocks.
This was back in the 60's and I'm not sure that there WERE depth
sounders or at least the fishing boats didn't have them. There were a
lot of places that you just didn't go, at least not until you had
rowed in with the dinghy to have a look first :-)

This was in the days before GPS, and navigation was mainly by buoys
and triangulation from whatever limited landmarks were visible - but
mud and sandbanks shift, so charts can be pretty unreliable, even if
kept up to date. The current nautical almanac was essential.

My wife and I cruised the Maine coast with a magnetic compass, a Mobil
road map and a lead line for a year or so. It was just weekend hopping
from bay to bay but it seemed like fun then. Funny, but if you don't
know you need it you don't miss it :-)

Come to think of it, I reckon my near obsession with accurate time
keeping dates from that period, although I never really mastered
navigation with sextant and chronograph, and what little I learned,
I've mostly forgotten (I've since learned to do it differently, for
flying an aircraft - no buoys up there, but landmarks are more
visible, and radio beacons can be followed more easily at altitude).

My father belonged to a flying club that owned one 40 H.P. Piper Cub
and "cross country" was following the railroad tracks :-)

Now I just run a public stratum 2 NTP server, as part of the UK pool.
If I ever manage to get my pain med's down to a level that lets me
concentrate for long enough, I plan to compile PPS sync support into
the operating system kernel, and hang a timing grade GPS off it, to
raise it to stratum 1.
With the hardware I have available, I should be able to keep it
accurate to within a few uS at most, and maybe a couple of hundred nS.
Even with my current (in)accuracy of +/- 1.5mS, I seem to have several
European ISPs handing out my IP for time sync on their DHCP, looking
at the distribution of IPs synchronising on me.
It's just as well I can restrict the network traffic on port number
:-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

On 29/03/14 12:20, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 07:36:33 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 3/27/2014 7:28 PM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 08:05:20 +1100, James
wrote:

On 28/03/14 03:00, Phil W Lee wrote:
John B. considered Thu, 27 Mar 2014 18:51:03
+0700 the perfect time to write:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 21:52:24 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 21:47:16 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

600 watts:
http://www.econvergence.net/The-Pedal-A-Watt-Bicycle-Generator-Stand-s/1820.htm
See bottom of page for the "400 watt grid intertie inverter". Sigh.

300 watts:
http://www.pedalpowergenerator.com

But can you do it for 8 hours a day, day in and day out? I really need
to power some tools on the boat I'm working on which is anchored out
in the harbour.

You should be able to power a reasonably respectable car alternator
with even a fairly modest wind turbine, which would seem ideally
suited to use on a boat.
That'll keep a decent 12v battery charged for either direct use, or
through an inverter if you need utility voltage for your tools.
I can't say that I remember using any power tools on boats when I used
to help out down at the yard in Brnham-on-Crouch though.


Car alternators are designed to be turned at relatively high speed
compared with a windmill.

The only option is to gear the windmill so that it turns the alternator
at much higher speed - but then efficiency suffers as power lost in the
gears.

There are better solutions.

And, the car alternator needs to be excited by an external power
course to produce electricity - the reason that they aren't used to
build wind generators :-)


For charging batteries a DC generator would be another path.
They are heavier than alternators but that's not a big
factor in every application.

Yup, self exciting. But why bother? Permanent magnets work better and
cheaper and by taking the power from the field coils instead of the
commutator you eliminate a lot of maintenance.

The guys that build their own yacht wind generator usually use DC
motors as a basis.


Silly! DC motors have brushes and a commutator.

Much better to use a permanent magnet alternator, and simply rectify the
AC later.

--
JS

On Sat, 29 Mar 2014 19:40:15 +1100, James
wrote:

On 29/03/14 12:20, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 07:36:33 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 3/27/2014 7:28 PM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 08:05:20 +1100, James
wrote:

On 28/03/14 03:00, Phil W Lee wrote:
John B. considered Thu, 27 Mar 2014 18:51:03
+0700 the perfect time to write:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 21:52:24 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 21:47:16 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

600 watts:
http://www.econvergence.net/The-Pedal-A-Watt-Bicycle-Generator-Stand-s/1820.htm
See bottom of page for the "400 watt grid intertie inverter". Sigh.

300 watts:
http://www.pedalpowergenerator.com

But can you do it for 8 hours a day, day in and day out? I really need
to power some tools on the boat I'm working on which is anchored out
in the harbour.

You should be able to power a reasonably respectable car alternator
with even a fairly modest wind turbine, which would seem ideally
suited to use on a boat.
That'll keep a decent 12v battery charged for either direct use, or
through an inverter if you need utility voltage for your tools.
I can't say that I remember using any power tools on boats when I used
to help out down at the yard in Brnham-on-Crouch though.


Car alternators are designed to be turned at relatively high speed
compared with a windmill.

The only option is to gear the windmill so that it turns the alternator
at much higher speed - but then efficiency suffers as power lost in the
gears.

There are better solutions.

And, the car alternator needs to be excited by an external power
course to produce electricity - the reason that they aren't used to
build wind generators :-)


For charging batteries a DC generator would be another path.
They are heavier than alternators but that's not a big
factor in every application.

Yup, self exciting. But why bother? Permanent magnets work better and
cheaper and by taking the power from the field coils instead of the
commutator you eliminate a lot of maintenance.

The guys that build their own yacht wind generator usually use DC
motors as a basis.


Silly! DC motors have brushes and a commutator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushle...electric_motor



Much better to use a permanent magnet alternator, and simply rectify the
AC later.


--
Cheers,

John B.

On 3/29/2014 1:40 AM, James wrote:

Silly! DC motors have brushes and a commutator.

Much better to use a permanent magnet alternator, and simply rectify the
AC later.

I just use a Hendershot Generator.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNIiJ7rm0g8

"John B." wrote in message
...
On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 07:36:33 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 3/27/2014 7:28 PM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 08:05:20 +1100, James
wrote:

On 28/03/14 03:00, Phil W Lee wrote:
John B. considered Thu, 27 Mar 2014 18:51:03
+0700 the perfect time to write:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 21:52:24 -0700, Jeff Liebermann

wrote:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 21:47:16 -0700, Jeff Liebermann

wrote:

600 watts:
http://www.econvergence.net/The-Pedal-A-Watt-Bicycle-Generator-Stand-s/1820.htm
See bottom of page for the "400 watt grid intertie inverter".
Sigh.

300 watts:
http://www.pedalpowergenerator.com

But can you do it for 8 hours a day, day in and day out? I really
need
to power some tools on the boat I'm working on which is anchored out
in the harbour.

You should be able to power a reasonably respectable car alternator
with even a fairly modest wind turbine, which would seem ideally
suited to use on a boat.
That'll keep a decent 12v battery charged for either direct use, or
through an inverter if you need utility voltage for your tools.
I can't say that I remember using any power tools on boats when I used
to help out down at the yard in Brnham-on-Crouch though.


Car alternators are designed to be turned at relatively high speed
compared with a windmill.

The only option is to gear the windmill so that it turns the alternator
at much higher speed - but then efficiency suffers as power lost in the
gears.

There are better solutions.

And, the car alternator needs to be excited by an external power
course to produce electricity - the reason that they aren't used to
build wind generators :-)


For charging batteries a DC generator would be another path.
They are heavier than alternators but that's not a big
factor in every application.

Yup, self exciting. But why bother? Permanent magnets work better and
cheaper and by taking the power from the field coils instead of the
commutator you eliminate a lot of maintenance.

Modern alternators don't have a commutator, the early designs had a rotating
field coil enclosed by an interleaved pole cage - these had slip rings and
brushes. The modern ones have both windings fixed to the frame, the
interleaved pole cage is magnetically coupled to the field winding by
co-axial pole pieces.

PM alternators used to be the most common type on motorcycles, they're
usually on the end of the crankshaft and immersed in the sump oil - so
commutator and brushes wouldn't work very well. The alternator is basically
a current limited voltage source, so to keep the regulator simple, they just
use a bank of thyristors to short the AC side of the rectifier. It would be
risky for the regulator circuit to disconnect the alternator when the
battery is full - the alternator off load voltage can rise to very
surprising levels.

"John B." wrote in message
...
On Sat, 29 Mar 2014 19:40:15 +1100, James
wrote:

On 29/03/14 12:20, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 07:36:33 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 3/27/2014 7:28 PM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 08:05:20 +1100, James
wrote:

On 28/03/14 03:00, Phil W Lee wrote:
John B. considered Thu, 27 Mar 2014 18:51:03
+0700 the perfect time to write:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 21:52:24 -0700, Jeff Liebermann

wrote:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 21:47:16 -0700, Jeff Liebermann

wrote:

600 watts:
http://www.econvergence.net/The-Pedal-A-Watt-Bicycle-Generator-Stand-s/1820.htm
See bottom of page for the "400 watt grid intertie inverter".
Sigh.

300 watts:
http://www.pedalpowergenerator.com

But can you do it for 8 hours a day, day in and day out? I really
need
to power some tools on the boat I'm working on which is anchored
out
in the harbour.

You should be able to power a reasonably respectable car alternator
with even a fairly modest wind turbine, which would seem ideally
suited to use on a boat.
That'll keep a decent 12v battery charged for either direct use, or
through an inverter if you need utility voltage for your tools.
I can't say that I remember using any power tools on boats when I
used
to help out down at the yard in Brnham-on-Crouch though.


Car alternators are designed to be turned at relatively high speed
compared with a windmill.

The only option is to gear the windmill so that it turns the
alternator
at much higher speed - but then efficiency suffers as power lost in
the
gears.

There are better solutions.

And, the car alternator needs to be excited by an external power
course to produce electricity - the reason that they aren't used to
build wind generators :-)


For charging batteries a DC generator would be another path.
They are heavier than alternators but that's not a big
factor in every application.

Yup, self exciting. But why bother? Permanent magnets work better and
cheaper and by taking the power from the field coils instead of the
commutator you eliminate a lot of maintenance.

The guys that build their own yacht wind generator usually use DC
motors as a basis.


Silly! DC motors have brushes and a commutator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushle...electric_motor

They don't work too well as alternators though - some PC servicing guides
warn against blowing the dust out of BDC motor fans with compressed air, the
windings produce enough current to damage the electronic commutating
circuitry.

"John B." wrote in message
...
On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 17:47:04 -0000, "Ian Field"
wrote:



"James" wrote in message
...
On 28/03/14 03:00, Phil W Lee wrote:
John B. considered Thu, 27 Mar 2014 18:51:03
+0700 the perfect time to write:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 21:52:24 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 21:47:16 -0700, Jeff Liebermann

wrote:

600 watts:
http://www.econvergence.net/The-Pedal-A-Watt-Bicycle-Generator-Stand-s/1820.htm
See bottom of page for the "400 watt grid intertie inverter". Sigh.

300 watts:
http://www.pedalpowergenerator.com

But can you do it for 8 hours a day, day in and day out? I really need
to power some tools on the boat I'm working on which is anchored out
in the harbour.

You should be able to power a reasonably respectable car alternator
with even a fairly modest wind turbine, which would seem ideally
suited to use on a boat.
That'll keep a decent 12v battery charged for either direct use, or
through an inverter if you need utility voltage for your tools.
I can't say that I remember using any power tools on boats when I used
to help out down at the yard in Brnham-on-Crouch though.


Car alternators are designed to be turned at relatively high speed
compared with a windmill.

That was true of the old style car dynamos - less so with modern
alternators.

Modern "alternators" are normally driven at 2 - 3 times crankshaft
RPM. Max output usually is in the 5,000 rpm area.

Motorcycle alternators are usually mounted on the end of the crankshaft, so
run at same RPM as the engine - most Hondas state max output at 5000.