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warm blooded motors
design cars with a system of thread veins and pump warm liquid around them to keep them cosy | |
This vein and artery system is designed for night time parking when it is cold. No more the sight of thousands of grumpy drivers scraping away at all their car windows to get rid of frost or snow. No more breaking car keys as you try to wrench open your drivers door or passengers or finally break in
thru' the boot. No more dangerous driving as you try to see out of a little post box size gap in the windscreen. No more of the steam that blights the glass from the other side. No more coughing and retching, and the car starts first time too. Oh bliss, as I go to work in a warm little motor - my very own steaming steed! whoa!
engine fluid thermos
http://www.exn.ca/S...s/1999/11/19/51.asp
engine thermos [meninotis, Nov 17 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004]
[link]
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knowing my luck I'd fall off |
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You could do this by combining a car with a tea urn and therefore have a refreshing brew whenever you start a journey. |
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People get really upset when you try to drive a car through their doors, Peter. |
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Aristotle, wouldn't the antifreeze make the tea taste funny? |
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I think that the thick, pulsing veins in the wind-screen would be distracting. |
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[dare99] have you lost the thread? |
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Engine block heaters exist. If you can start the engine remotely (and on many cars you can), you can have it start up a few minutes before you're ready to leave, making sure it's all toasty warm and defrosted by the time you get to it. |
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This is at least half-baked. I know that I've seen television programs on this kind of thing being installed in prototypes made by Cadillac.. Just can't find evidence. See link for something very similar... The warm engine would lead to all of the above happinesses, and using the heat from the last time you drove it around, you wouldn't have to pay anything to keep the "system of thread veins" warm. |
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<po> No more the sight of thousands of grumpy drivers scraping away at all their car windows to get rid of frost or snow </po> |
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To keep the windscreen warm the liquid would have to go through it. Hence veins. |
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[dare99] Ah. I was under the impression that if the motor's instantly warm, you can hit the defrost as soon as you get into the car.... Maybe I have an odd car, but when the engine's warm, the whole windshield defrosts in about a minute, even with ice. |
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Granted, this won't take care of inches of snow. I stand corrected (scraping at my windshield). |
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Leave the car running overnight with the heat blasting. |
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2 problems with that snarfy, a its illegal and b it would get stolen. |
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dare99 (is that some kind of ice-cream?)
thread veins are one thing - you were talking about huge throbbing arteries |
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Starchaser: As the proposal was to keep the system warm all the time a secondary hot water system would not need anti-freeze, unless the heating failed of course. The primary water system, to cool the engine, would have the anti-freeze. |
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[po]: I was assuming the car would be locked while it was running. As far as that being illegal -- dammit, I'm an American! |
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As egnor says, there are engine block heaters already. You remove one of the freeze plugs and replace it with an immersion heater. Plug it in before you go to bed and it keeps the engine toasty, or at least not frozen. I have also, although I can't find it now, seen an electric blanket one installed under the hood. |
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Remote starters are also available. Frob a button on the dongle and it starts the car without the key. If someone tries to drive it, it kills the engine. |
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There are several kinds of engine pre-heaters. (1) factory-installed block heater (2) magnetic mount block heater (3) dipstick heater (4) circulating block heater. The last comes close to what you want. It heats the oil pan and runs the oil pump to circulate the warmed oil throughout the engine. The dipstick heater is worthless, the others are effective for their cost. |
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The kids over at lab are very interested in the thermos full of warm primer fluid idea. |
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How does it run the oil pump? That's usually driven by a gear from the crankshaft, and if the shaft isn't turning, the pump won't either... |
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StarChaser - there's an ancillary oil pump. But these circulating systems often heat and circulate the coolant, rather than the oil. I'm still trying to post links, but having browser problems. |
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I've always thought that being able to divert the engine exhaust through vents near your wipers would be a great way to heat up the windshield, thus melting snow, ice, and preventing fogging on either side of the glass. |
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Not a great idea if you're driving a convertible, maybe. Best used with the windows up. |
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Alternatively, the exhaust could be channeled through a radiator. Then fresh air could be pumped across the vanes and onto the windshield. |
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Ah. Not sure I'd trust that. |
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Guncrazy's 'exhaust radiator' sounds like a decent idea... |
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John Varley's Titan-Wizard-Demon trilogy is a good source of wibni warm blooded rotary biomechanics. |
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Especially Scandinavian countries use the electric kind of engine (pre-) heating. They plug in at home or work, and their engines keep nicely warm, sparing the battery. Also interior heaters available. Both with/without timers.
Also available: fuel-burning heaters. Burns gasoline (vehicle fuel tank), heats air/coolant, and blows/circulates in/thru interior/engine.
See Webasto-Thermo.com or Eberspaecher.com. |
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Aha! (Idea pops to top of stack). There's another benefit here, other than being able to prewarm the car. If you have a network of fluid carrying veins throughout the interior of the car, you can change the ambient temperature up and down without blasting yourself with hot or cold air. |
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When I warm a car in winter I find it gets stuffy before it gets warm. When I cool a car in Summer I often get one of those 'I've just eaten ice cream too quickly' headaches before the car is cool. |
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If you pumped hot (or cold) liquid around the cars veins (as well blowing some air) you could bring the car to the temperature of the car to the temperature you want faster, and with no unpleasant side effects. |
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if your going to be that illogical, you may as well just pee on your car. |
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Why the hell is everyone talking about throbbing veins and a pump sending warm liquid through? What happened to the good old fashioned thin wire rear window heaters? Wouldnt that use less electricity than a pump and get the same results? Gosh |
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Shocker just had one of the only energy efficient suggestions for window defrosting I have seen in this thread. Guncrazie's exhaust radiator would sound like a good suggestion if not for 2 critisisms.
1- the loss of efficcency from the extra exhaust restriction needed to keep hot exhaust gas at the windows would make it too expensive to run.
2-I think that we can come up with a better use of all that heat and pressure energy than just shooting it in the general direction of the cabin (i.e. generator, turbocharger) |
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ok, i belive in meantime you already find webasto (or similar) from germany and you pre-heat your engine and car in winter. |
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