Solar cars and "isolated sci-fi elements"

Aluminumfoil · 2018-02-06T06:50:08.660Z

If I was trying to build one of these off the top of my head, my doomed first try would be something like this:

Pier or felled tree out into a fast stream, with the back half of a bicycle lashed or clamped to it. The pedals unscrewed and a small sheet metal and pipe paddlewheel bolted on where they go, and the back wheel stripped to the hub to run a belt to a car alternator. Run wires to the shore. Check with voltmeter, and load with a car battery if we get 13-15 V.

darktoes · 2018-02-06T06:54:38.040Z

That’s not a bad idea at all, I quite like it. Personally I’d probably go for a more traditional bigger wooden wheel, preferably attached to a fairly large (probably homemade) generator. That’s assuming I had something to take the voltage a bigger generator would provide. And a decent sized river to turn the thing. Ideally probably a waterfall with a small paddlewheel going, possibly geared up and hooked to a larger generator so as not to have to deal with cooling/friction as much.

Aluminumfoil · 2018-02-06T07:00:13.032Z

Backload might kill this idea, but you might be able to just stack ten-ish alternators in series, add an inverter, and run your TV on 120V AC.

darktoes · 2018-02-06T07:02:29.891Z

Multiple alternators is a good idea, but I was thinking just run everything into a big battery, let that act as a buffer before going into whatever you’re powering.

Aluminumfoil · 2018-02-06T07:03:07.944Z

Car battery will boil if you go past 15V, iirc.

darktoes · 2018-02-06T07:04:18.442Z

Sounds about right. Car batteries are usually shallow cycle anyway, you’d want something bigger, like people use for their home solar panels.

Aluminumfoil · 2018-02-06T07:07:22.897Z

I guess you could load your alternators in parallel at 14V with a car battery stack and then use the stack and a transformer for your emf before passing it through the inverter.

What about batteries for hybrid automobiles? All [correction, 3/4] the buses in my city are hybrids, I bet their batteries are huge, and a lot easier to find than household solar.

darktoes · 2018-02-06T07:08:44.530Z

Dang, hybrid busses? That’s pretty cool…

I live in a rural area, and half the houses around have solar. That’s a lot of bigass batteries.

Aluminumfoil · 2018-02-06T07:20:17.080Z

Can DDA check to see what kind of overmap square you’re in before it lets you construct something? If you had to build on a River overmap, I think that would take care of hydroelectric ponds and marshes.

Aluminumfoil · 2018-02-06T07:26:29.264Z

http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~nathan/nepal/ghatta/alternator.html

Interesting article about exactly this idea that includes some factors that I overlooked.

darktoes · 2018-02-06T07:33:49.480Z

Huh. That’s interesting.

kevin.granade · 2018-02-06T07:40:58.830Z

If it comes down to it, we can have mapgen start placing “flowing water” vs “still water” squares since it knows what’s a river vs lake vs swamp, so yea water wheels are doable.

darktoes · 2018-02-06T07:47:19.938Z

So again, I have to ask whether this would be a vehicle based thing or construction. If construction, how would we actually go about transferring power to a vehicle where we can use it?

psyxypher · 2018-02-06T20:32:58.707Z

darktoes:

What I don’t understand is why the 7.5kw generator is so damn rare.

I’m not even sure how to get that thing to work, to be honest…

Human_Shield · 2018-02-06T20:36:25.665Z

How isolated are the 2-3 cars in each city that are running with minireactors fueled by plutonium?

proxiehunter · 2018-02-06T20:58:21.489Z

Most of the time I don’t find any at all, when I do they all seem clustered in one city. Maybe the area was where they were testing them.

redxlaser15 · 2018-02-06T21:40:49.637Z

–It makes sense to me people would use solar powered cars. The environment matters! However, is it thematic that there would be many people who care massively about keeping nature alive?

Aluminumfoil · 2018-02-06T23:16:43.775Z

I’ve never found one. Occasionally I’ve found an atomic tank with the Extra Vehicles mod, but mods aren’t main content so I don’t think that matters…

darktoes · 2018-02-07T00:14:21.481Z

psyxypher:

I’m not even sure how to get that thing to work, to be honest…

It counts as an alternator. Just attach it to an engine and it will eat engine power and give you electricity.

Human_Shield:

How isolated are the 2-3 cars in each city that are running with minireactors fueled by plutonium?

I’ve seen a couple of those, but I think they’re fairly balanced by the difficulty of finding plutonium cells early game when it would be useful, as opposed to late game where you have a dozen upgraded solar panels and electricity is your bitch.

psyxypher · 2018-02-07T00:17:02.698Z

darktoes:

It counts as an alternator. Just attach it to an engine and it will eat engine power and give you electricity.

Does the engine need to be on? I’m trying to make a portable generator to plug myself into.