Wanting info on Hydrogen engine conversion

[fivebob]

For people who need more than 300kms (which is possible to have right now with current battery tech.)

How many KW can you get with that 300km range?

there is an option of either battery swap station

Is that really practical with current battery technology???

It's not like there is just one battery and they are not exactelt easy to get at is most vehicles due to the face they take up almost all of the available space.

or back up generator trailer and yes, it will have to run on something, but think about it it has to be about 20kW tops, and can run say on McDonald's oil or methanol/LPG whatever more efficiently then normal ICE as it runs only in narrow rpm range where it is most efficient, it can even be a small gas turbine (40-50% efficiency vs 20% for piston tech.) or a methanol/methane/hydrogen fuel cell,

Why put it on a trailer???

Surely what you describe is a hybrid car without the benefits.

or another option "15 min" recharge station just like current petrol station with beefy 100A charger.

15min recharge!!! What battery technology are you planning on using, certainly not any of the current commercially avaiable Lithium cells, their minimum recharge time is 1 hour, and even then they need time to cool down before and after charging, so their turn around time is around 2 hours. Lead acid wouldn't take that charge rate either, so you're left with NiCd or NiMH.

Even at 100amps you're limited to a very low Kw motor assuming 300km takes 3.5 hours, with a 90% efficient motor you'd need to be running 350v @400amp.hrs to run a 40kw motor for that long. So even if you used 10a/h NiMHs you'd need 12,000 of them. They'd have a total combined weight of over 2 tonnes and take up 2.5m3 of space. Even ignoring the retail cost of $300,000, is that't really a practical long distance car?

Honestly I don't think current commercially available battery technology will work when it come to fast recharging. There were some experimental Lithium batteries that promised a 1 min charge time, but the cost was astronomical and the life was very limited. Even if you could find a battery with a short enough charge time the voltage and current requirements make it a very dangerous propsition.

[sergei]

I would say with 40kW(nominal) motor it is possible to get 300kms, don't forget that it is not a constant 40kW drain, although usually 40kW motors will handle 60-80kW peak but obviously if you are using constantly 40kW you are going quiet fast. normal driving averages a lot less power.
Anyway I took 300kms from Tesla Roadster example.
as for 15min recharge I was thinking of NiMH (if it wasn't for Exxon Mobil).
Trailer is good idea because you don't have to carry ICE/Generator/Fuel around if you don't need to (most of commute driving).

Here is good read/watch http://www.metricmind.com/ac_honda/main2.htm and http://www.metricmind.com/audi/main.htm .
Very interesting projects (and very expensive).

EDIT: Apparently the dude behind these projects is Russian

[fivebob]

Ok halve it to 20kw, still need 1 tonne of batteries @350v and a 35kva recharge source.

[neon_spork]

The kilowatt hours of your battery will determin the range, not KW of the motor or battery. (we are talking energy vs power) KW of the motor will determin how fast you get there.

If you have say a 3.7V, 3.5Ah Lipo cell you get 12.95 watt hours. To get a reasonable 25KWh's you would need about 1930 cells. At USD$5.50 a cell thats ~ USD$11K.

Cant remember the mass of a cell but they are quite light.

I figured that you would need about 50KWh to get around a 300km range, I think that was based on the tesla car.

[sergei]

The kilowatt hours of your battery will determin the range, not KW of the motor or battery. (we are talking energy vs power) KW of the motor will determin how fast you get there.

If you have say a 3.7V, 3.5Ah Lipo cell you get 12.95 watt hours. To get a reasonable 25KWh's you would need about 1930 cells. At USD$5.50 a cell thats ~ USD$11K.

Cant remember the mass of a cell but they are quite light.

I figured that you would need about 50KWh to get around a 300km range, I think that was based on the tesla car.

Yeah that is quiet right and similar to my calculations that I did on other thread that I started.

[pc]

Shouldn't the weight of the batteries be factored into the calculation? As the weight of the batteries goes up, the power you need to push the car around with the target acceleration rate (whatever that might be) goes up.
I'm guessing here, but 40KW of motor per 1000Kg of car?
Is it linear like that?

[molex]

Part of driving an energy efficient vehicle is driving efficiently, you don't need a 40kw motor to maintain a cruise. More like 10kw or less for 60km/h

I agree that current energy storage methods don't cover all bases but they do cover the daily commute for the vast majority of the population. Those of us stuck in the stop and go crawl to and from the office daily never get above 50 km/h anyway. Electric motors are *excellent* for stop and go traffic. They don't idle, they don't stall, there doesn't need to be a clutch/complex automatic transmission, they have virtually max torque from zero rpm and can regenerate limited quantities of energy over and above their already high efficiency. If as much effort was expended on electric as it is every year on ICE cars we would have something very workable by now.

[barryogen]

it can even be a small gas turbine

With the most awesome side effect of a wicked sound where ever you go

[sergei]

it can even be a small gas turbine

With the most awesome side effect of a wicked sound where ever you go

I have plenty of those (ideas) just no $$$ money to implement so I "bin" them

[barryogen]

heh... you could always just buy one of these hydrogyn kits from ebay?

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/TOYOTA-HYDROGEN-KIT-SUIT-4-OR-6CLY-25-50-%20SAVINGS_W0QQitemZ190224837744QQihZ009QQcategoryZ33612QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcm%3Cbr%20/%3EdZViewItem

[sergei]

It is not the "Hydrogen" kit, it is one of those bull shit hydrolysers.

[Voodoo]

With fuel prices going up, and me becoming (for some inexplicable reason) more environmentally concious, I've been wondering if perhaps hydrogen is the solution to our problems.

However, I only have limited knowledge on the stuff.
I'm interested in what it would take to convert to a hydrogen system for an internal combustion engine, what possible problems could be etc. I read something about it causing backfire on piston based engines, but it didn't go into detail.

I know there are some smart cookies here on TS (Yes, hard to believe, I know ) and was wondering if anyone could point to some reliable information that isn't overly difficult to understand for the average Joe Bloggs like me.

Not really after information on Fuel Cell's, just internal combustion stuff.

Thanks guys

Just saw a tv article on the news here in aussie , about two guys running a Hydrogen setup on a old falcon , its getting mixed in with the normal fuel at the intake , but is saving around 20% in fuel cost

[matt dunn]

Just saw a tv article on the news here in aussie , about two guys running a Hydrogen setup on a old falcon , its getting mixed in with the normal fuel at the intake , but is saving around 20% in fuel cost

A guy an my father in-laws work is doing that on a diesil Toyota ute,

current draw of about 3A and creating the hydrogen which goes directly into the intake.

not enough to run the vehicle, but is hoping to just help with economy a bit.

He's going to run it for a while and see if there is a noticeable difference.

[pureadrenalin]

...battery swap station....

Exactly.
Why can't there be a swap-a-battery just like there is for BBQ bottles at the gas station, or beer crates at the bottle store

And it can even start with dumb old lead acid racks of battery's if you want.
Just as long as later "models" (Ni/MH, etc) fill the same space. All that will happen is your range will increase as the battery's get better!

[sergei]

To continue the idea of battery swap station, why not have a lease plan on the battery when you buy car, instead of owning it.
This way car will become a lot cheaper to start with.

[MAGN1T]

Just saw a tv article on the news here in aussie , about two guys running a Hydrogen setup on a old falcon , its getting mixed in with the normal fuel at the intake , but is saving around 20% in fuel cost

A guy an my father in-laws work is doing that on a diesil Toyota ute,

current draw of about 3A and creating the hydrogen which goes directly into the intake.

not enough to run the vehicle, but is hoping to just help with economy a bit.

He's going to run it for a while and see if there is a noticeable difference.

I doubt it will make any difference on a Diesel, it will with petrol though.

The problem with petrol engines is that they're extremely inefficient at part throttle, all you need to do is to increase the thermodynamic efficiency at part throttle and you get big fuel savings. It won't increase power output at full throttle though.

[barryogen]

in the latest top gear NZ mag they have an article on a new Morgan that is only has only 22kw, weighs ~650kg, does 0-100 in under 7 seconds and has a range of ~400km, top speed of 135km/h. 2 seater, very retro hotrod/saltflat racer looking.

No mention of when or cost though.

linkage...
http://www.morgan-motor.co.uk/lifecar/lifecar.html

[ChaosAD]

Wont the greenies get all upset about using all those batterys? How are you going to dispose of them when there life starts getting short?

What ever happened to lpg/cng? everyone used to be converting there cars but you dont hear much of it now. Why not just use the methane instead of converting it?

[Dell'Orto]

Plenty of LPG still around, I have acouple of customers who do conversions and they're flat out.

[Trls250s]

A guy an my father in-laws work is doing that on a diesil Toyota ute,

current draw of about 3A and creating the hydrogen which goes directly into the intake.

not enough to run the vehicle, but is hoping to just help with economy a bit.

He's going to run it for a while and see if there is a noticeable difference.

I just finished building the hydrogen convertor part of one of these, mine draws a healthy 12Amps, but it cranks out the hydrogen. Will let you guys to know how it turns out.