h a l f b a k e r yWhat's a nice idea like yours doing in a place like this?
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My spell check is still broken.Here's the situation.
An electric car spends it's energy pushing it thru the air spending most of it's energy overcoming wind resistance.just like anything else.But that's all it does.There's alot more energy to be salvaged from this
situation.The vehicle's body creates high and low pressure around it , but it does not take advantage of the situation that it just created.This is very wasteful.Atmospheric ions are attracted to there most welcome enviroment.My idea is to have an electric car designed to devope specific high / low pressure systems around it to take advantage of the ionic energy in the air.With high pressure at the nose (Negative air ),and low presure around the body (positive air).The car would have shark like fins around the center of the vehicle to pick up the charge difference between it and the nose/tail area.This is my idea.The car is cutting the wind to get thru it anyway , so why not pick up what ever energy you can along the way .The vehicle would also com with a complimentary soundtrack from Jaws , and a Tesla ball mounted on the dash for added driver distraction.The key to the vehicle would be an old fashioned 16th century clock key ( in memory of Ben Franklin).
Ooooo, I want a blue one with black pinstriping.
http://davidszondy....e/space/bussard.htm
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 21 2006]
More about static electricity
http://www.sciencem.../22/science.1201512
Cool thing about science - sometimes you find out you're wrong. Sometimes spectacularly so. The Triboelectric Series I referred to may be all stuffed up. I don't think the new findings rescue the idea, though. [lurch, Jun 29 2011]
[link]
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I can't make any sense out of this. I don't
know what air pressure has to do with
electric charges, but I know there's no
such thing as a free lunch. If you're
somehow taking enery out of the air
resistance, you will only slow down the car
more. |
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It would be bad science if it were science, but not being science fails to make it good non-science. |
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This description reads better if you listen to it as though it's a rapper singing it. |
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Doesn't make a lot more sense, though. |
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Please break up your sentences and paragraphs. That is practically unreadable. |
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[marked-for-deletion] As lurch says, it would be bad science if it were science. I tried reading it as rap lyrics, but even there it needs work. |
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Spell check wouldn't have helped. [-] |
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What [etherman] would have said. |
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What [wagster] and [etherman] would have said. |
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[edit, 25th Sept] no, actually, he's taking a sensible approach. Not sure I believe his numbers yet, but I'm ready to hear him out. |
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[Superhole], the problem I have with
this idea is that I am not sure that
increases or decreases in pressure
create differences in charge as well.
Imagine you are in a car, hanging your
hand out the window. As you go faster
and faster, your hand creates a very
high pressure area in front and low
pressure behind. If pressure separation
= charge separation wouldn't there be
sparks around (or through) your hand?
Wouldn't I have learned to do this hand
spark trick as a kid, because it would
look so cool at night? |
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You'r body in the car is not grounded so no sparks. |
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I understand what you mean with hi low pressure.But I have gotten results with PVC. |
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"i have gotten results with PVC".......... |
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Please explain how the charge differential is generated. I don't mind if you don't have an appropriate degree, or anything, put it in your own words. but be specific. |
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Secondly HOW did you get results with PVC. no really, that was a very abstract, enigmatic comment from you there. explain your experiment, please. |
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Friction with air can cause static charge buildup on the hood of the car. This causes the mild shocks you sometimes feel when touching the hood while leaving the car. If this charge buildup could be used somehow, you would get enough power to charge an AA battery, or power a very tiny light bulb. I think this was what [SuperHole] was talking about, but I can't see where the pressure differential comes into play. |
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SuperHole, to put it in a way easy to understand, you would spend more energy creating the charge in the first place than you could ever utilize from harvesting it. |
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Simply physics and Conservation of Energy. Entropy and all. Y'know. Stuff. |
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If you're going downwind, does the available energy decrease? Does it decrease to the point that the car slows to an eventual stop? At that point does the wind flowing past the car cause the energy flux to reverse direction? |
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Can this car only go upwind? |
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Is this a ridiculous idea? |
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With two fish bones, I feel as tho my degree and I are digging ever so deeper.But this is HalfBakery, and I love you all for your comments and questions.So here goes.
Please keep in mind, that if the future of vehicles is going to be electric, my idea is only to suppliment that power with the already charged atmosphere air that the vehicle is cutting thru, while seperating the air around it into hi- low pressure (+/-).Think lighting.The ralationship between hi-low pressure , and it's static charge is just that.The vehicle creates a difference in static charge.
[Custard] For my results which resulted in 1/16 hp(50 watts), the experiment was this.3 foot of PVC tubing (highly attractive to static) mounted on the nose of my car.I put another 3 foot on the roof.Driving at sea level I got readings of High voltage but low amps, yet constant power.This ain't no free energy,but it's there so why not grab it.A streamlined lightweight vehicle only requires about 500 watts to keep that speed , and a 10 % energy savings if you decide you like shark fins.
[Veho] Thanks for yor input,your the first one to even remotely understand.
[DesertFox] Thank You for your comment.I understand no free lunch.I stated in the original idea, your cutting the wind anyway, so take advantage of the situation the vehicle is in(the electric atmosphere around it ). |
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I thought the static charge that builds up
on a car is mostly due to the rubber tires
on the pavement. As Veho said, I think
there might be a small charge, but you
would still need some pretty complex
circuits to charge anything with it, since
static electricity has very high voltage but
low amperage. |
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[Rasberry],Thank You, I can go with that, High voltage is no problem if we stick the car with an alternative hybrid electrostatic high RPM motor that excepts high voltage.Again, I thank you all for bakin this idea. |
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[Elhigh] Uphill or downhill , doesn't matter. It's the speed you'r traveling at. The faster you go, the more static air that you interupt , is that is available. When the vehicle is stopped it is possible to pick up energy from winds passing by. There is no flux reverse of direction. The flux management system, which I refer to as "magnets in the motor", is independant of the ion pick-up box. The box is painted black. It is located between the two pieces of PVC. It manages static pick up, and distributes it accordingly. I thank you for your interest, I do not think this is a ridiculous idea, I accept your bone with confidence.Good Day Sir |
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Hmm. I'm actually not sure what to think about this... Given that you've provided some numbers, I'm a lot less skeptical (assuming, of course, that the numbers are correct, which I will do out of courtesy). 50w recovered is a useful amount. I'd question whether you'd get 50W from a similar system on an ultralight vehicle though... |
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How did you measure the power? Forgive me if this is an insulting question, but did you measure the voltage and the current at the same time? I ask because as I expect you are aware, if that was an open-circuit voltage (infinite load) then the static charge could build up to huge levels. Then, when you repeat the experiment with an ammeter in series (no load) you would measure a small current, but the voltage would be near zero. |
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Forgive me if I sound patronising; I've never met you, don't know who you are, and it seems prudent to ask the questions rather than make assumptions. Give us the details of your methodology so that we can see that it is watertight. |
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I am utterly unimpressed about the numbers thrown up here. They are unsupported spouting - as you noticed, no information at all was given on how those numbers were obtained save it were from a box which //is painted black.// |
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There is, [SuperHole], a particular well known phenomenon called the Triboelectric Series.
It shows the relationship between different materials as relating to their tendency to, under friction, either pick up electric charges (become negatively charged) or give away electrons (become positively charged). If you rub together two things, one triboelectrically more negative than the other, electrons will be passed to it from the other object. |
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Extending this a bit further, if I put the two objects in frictious contact with a common media (such as moving air, or the belt in a Van de Graff generator) there will be two individual interactions - media to object one, media to object two - whose net effect is the same as if the two objects were contacting each other. |
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The upshot of all this is that the air/PVC interaction at the grill will cause electrons to gather on the pipe. The air/PVC interaction at the car roof will also cause electrons to gather on the pipe. If you connnect them, it would be analogous to connecting the negative terminals of two batteries - absolutely nothing happens. |
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If air/PVC could produce a different effect from air/PVC, then a single long piece of PVC in cold dry air would produce an electrical current along its length (?) (you have noticed, I hope, that PVC is not a conductor) and would build up heat, which would have been noticed by now. I guarantee it. |
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Drivel. Sorry. I do appreciate your cheerfulness in the matter, as opposed to some who come in with a hideous attitude to go with their crazy ideas, but I must state that the idea you've proposed will not produce the effect you claim to have gotten. |
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I give bread, because I like that the [Hole] is mounting PVC on his car, narwhallike, and driving around. I hope it is still there. If so, may I suggest you attach mylar ribbons. That way you will get some use out of any charge you accrue, because the ribbons will stand straight out when you park. |
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Also, as regards your hand and the sparks, it would not matter if you were grounded: the charge would equalize through your hand. Think cloud to cloud lightning and your hand in between, all full of salty conductivity after you ate all those Fritos. |
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First thing. I know everbody likes paragraphs. As odd as this sounds, paragraphs aren't really that important to me. I like numbers, it seems to me everybody else likes them too. To be honest with everyone, I never thought anyone would take this idea as serious as I take it.I need 3 day's time for hard numbers.I will state equipment used under conditions.
[lurch] I thank you ALL for your comments. With utmost respect for your attitude towards my researched idea, I'm gonna change your mind. Thank You |
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Re: Research. I used to ride the train to work. Sitting at the train station, I was faced with the storage yard of a place that sells pipe. Galvanized, black iron, clay, ABS, PVC, concrete, all of it. Ofttimes in winter, the wind would be blowing snow all over everything. So, there's a rack sitting right in front of me, with maybe 40 thirty-foot-long chunks of three-quarter on the top of the rack (which, by the way, is made of black iron pipe - they built it themselves out of what they had to hand for cheap) and the next section down has the one inch, below which is the inch and a quarter and inch & a half. If the effect you describe were actually to occur in reality, there would have been at least 50 watts of power simply shorted through the frame of the pipe rack. For all of us arse-froze-off wannabe train-riders, the sight of snow-covered ABS, snow-covered galvanized, snow-covered clay, snow-covered black iron, and gently steaming PVC would have been notable. |
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[lurch], the rate of accumulation of charge will depend on the friction that the pipe is seeing. If the airflow over one is faster than the other, charge will build up on it more rapidly and a current would be possible. As voltage rises, so should the rate of leakage of current, so the charge does have somewhere to go. Consequently I believe that a continuous flow of current is possible, but if leakage of charge to atmosphere is all that is possible by way of sinking the current, we're not going to get more than milliamps.
Once again, [SuperHole], could you go into detail on the method? Did you measure current and voltage simultaneously across some sort of load? |
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I've had 4 day's of rain, so I do not have the data. To keep skeptics at bay, research rockets and aircraft about there antistatic "high voltage" systems. This phenomenom is real, for rockets and aircraft its a problem, yet for electric ground vehicles, it's a fuel savings.I will bring this concept back again (weeks time) , with proper documentation and links .Thanks again everyone! |
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You stated in your anno that you observed high voltage but low amps. I think you should amend that to read "fractional amps" or even "negligible amps," it's a truism that while the potential of static can be remarkably high, the actual power is usually pretty low, unless you're talking about more impressive static charges like lightning. Also, please reread my comment. I was questioning the effectiveness of your device when going downWIND, not downhill. |
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I think it's a safe bet that this contraption can only generate enough power to (very!) slightly offset the parasitic drag of its own profile. For the rest of it, it might look pretty cool to be tooling down the road in a car whose entire surface was a forest of shark fins, but that's not dissimilar to riding around in a vehicle whose entire surface is bristling with gigantic butcher knives. Sorry, the fishbone has to stay. |
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Anything to report, [SuperHole]? |
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I will bring this back, I promise you. |
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Wouldn't sculpting the body to create high-and low-
pressure pockets increase drag, thus making any energy
recovered from this device rather moot? |
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