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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : June SC Projects
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5116 |
I remember reading a popular mechanics magazine from the 50's, where the big future was electric cars that drove into a service station, and the battery pack was swapped out while the driver went it to pay for it. The battery pack was on rails and locked into place. The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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brucepython Regular Member  Joined: 19/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 64 |
I have visions of the meeting where all the auto manufacturers sat down to discuss the specs for a standard battery pack that would fit any 'domestic' electric vehicle, now and into the future. I suspect it would make a bad day in federal parliament look attractive. |
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TassyJim Guru  Joined: 07/08/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 6269 |
We could start with a few parking meters that double as charging points. Like these ones in Paris 
Jim VK7JH MMedit |
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| robert.rozee Guru Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 2430 |
the problem with batteries is that they have a very finite lifespan, are heavy (relative to the energy stored), costly to manufacture, relatively slow and cumbersome to recharge. these all conspire against the electric car. swappable battery packs create a logistic nightmare: the service station does not know if you are bringing in a near-new pack, or an at-end-of-life one. the customer likewise does not know about the pack they are receiving in return for what may be a pack they bought new only last week. unscrupulous persons may even make a living out of taking written-off packs, refurbishing them to a 'just functional' state, then quietly swapping them for servicable packs that are of far greater value. compare this to liquid fuels: easy to transport and store, extremely high energy density, non-complex means of turning into motive power. and the energy transfer rate of pumping liquid fuel into your car at the gas station is incredibly high. regarding windmills, some of the major problems are mechanical complexity, long-term maintanence costs, fragility, and noise pollution that may well have a fairly adverse effect upon close-by animal life as well as human mental health. i recently presented evidence to an environment court hearing regarding the psychological effects of a windmill installation (one windmill) that, quite literally, drove a neighbouring resident mad. cheers, rob :-) |
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| Paul_L Guru Joined: 03/03/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 769 |
About steel making -- Iron ore is an oxide of iron. To separate the iron from the oxygen you need a more active metal - carbon - to grab the oxygen away from the iron at high temperature. You start with coal, heat it to drive impurities out, and wind up with metallurgical coal or coke which is almost pure carbon. You mix this coke with iron ore at high temperature and the pure carbon grabs the oxygen atoms out of the iron oxide molecules leaving behind pure iron after the carbon dioxide gas dissipates. You then add more coke to the purified iron which forms molecules incorporating iron and carbon or steel which is harder and more stable than iron. The coal is needed as a source of carbon, not primarily for its heat. About batteries -- When you charge or discharge a battery they get hot. That heat is waste energy. Good batteries waste at least 20% of input power during charging and an additional 8% during discharge. You wind up having only 76% of the input power available for use. There are better ways to store electric power - pumped storage can return up to 97% of the input energy. About electric cars -- Every energy transformation wastes energy. With the most efficient available components big generators waste 23%, step up and step down transformers and transmission lines waste another 4%, the final transformer rectifier (battery charger) wastes 2%, charging the battery wastes 20%, discharging wastes 8%, the motors driving the car waste 3%. So you wind up with 1*.77*.96*.98*.8*.92*.97 = 0.517 or 51.7% of the energy you started with by burning natural gas in a turbine generator. You wasted 48.3% of the input energy. Currently available standard cars waste between 32% and 40% of the input energy, unless you just let them sit idling their engines waiting for a traffic light when you waste 100% of the input energy. The only obvious solution is to eliminate all traffic lights. Paul |
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| Gizmo Admin Group Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5116 |
None of the exchange battery bank problems are deal breakers, they just need some engineering and legislation. Standards are usually created by industry, and put into law by government. Take gas bottles for example, they have a range of sizes, colours and fittings designed and standardized by industry, and its against the law to use use them in a way they are not intended. You try asking a service station to fill your scuba diving air bottle with LPG, not going to happen, because its illegal and the fittings wont fit? We now have Swap and Go for LPG, where you take your empty LPG gas bottle and exchange it for a full one. The supplier can not give you a bottle thats expired, or half full. If they do, they can loose their licence. For other gasses like O2 or Argon, the end user rents the bottle. The whole gas bottle industry is well regulated and safe, thanks to laws and industry input. There is no reason we couldn't have a Swap and Go battery exchange, there are bound to be issues, but nothing that couldn't be sorted. But while fuel is cheap, and batteries are too hard, we keep putting it off. Remember once we didn't have service stations. You model T Ford only had a range of 200km, so was only good for short trips because you couldn't find anywhere to fill it up between towns. It wasnt long before service stations popped up to supply the needs. But then there were problems with dirty fuel, water in fuel, inaccurate bowsers, etc. These were cleaned up by industry standards and laws, mind you, you can still get a tank load of bad fuel these days. Just like gas bottles, battery banks would have a serial number and a history. You car will know how many kwh is got from battery X, and notify you if its under what it should be. It could even send reports to a central database, to keep track of a battery banks history, life expectancy, where and when it was charged, etc. Would be easy to find a service station trying to pull a swifty. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| aargee Senior Member  Joined: 21/08/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 255 |
It just so happens my subscription is up for renewal this month and it looks like the June editorial has sunk it for Silicon Chip. At some point I can't go on looking past the ignorant derision regarding anything to do with conservation/climate change and the anti-science that comes up in the magazine to do with these topics. None of it based in facts peer reviewed by scientists. If Silicon Chip can't stand on its two feet being an electronics magazine then I choose to walk away... and sadly take my $105 a year support with me. As a side note - of late the fact that most newsagents stick Silicon Chip with "Alien Times", "Creationist News" and "Alfoil Hats for beginners" has drawn a wry grin from me. Maybe they already know. For crying out loud, all I wanted to do was flash this blasted LED. |
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| paceman Guru Joined: 07/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1329 |
The 'pure carbon' in coke doesn't actually do the 'grabbing', i.e. 'reduction' of iron oxide to iron, the reduction is actually mostly performed by carbon monoxide (CO) gas. CO is formed in the blast furnace by reaction of the hot coke with a restricted amount of oxygen from the air and it then converts to carbon dioxide when it reduces the iron oxide to iron. Many things can reduce iron oxide (e.g. hydrogen) but there are squillions of disadvantages to all of them compared to coke. I can promise you they've all been tried! Greg (retired metallurgist) |
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Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9589 |
I used to get Electronics Australia magazine, as they had some good projects to build for a time, but close to the end of their run, they changed format and concentrated on reviewing new technology and you'd be lucky if any one issue had ANY project you could make. At that point, I stopped getting EA, and they died off shortly after. The change in format was obviously an attempt to gain readership in other areas. It's really tricky for a printed magazine to exist these days. I'm still glad for SC and enjoy getting and reading my copies. I never really was much of a reader of the editorials(now Publishers Letter) anyway, so I don't really notice as much of a change there as some of you have been commenting about. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| Phil23 Guru Joined: 27/03/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1667 |
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yahoo2 Guru Joined: 05/04/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1166 |
I for one am not giving up on SC. If I can read a newspaper without being gullible enough to believe the opinion pieces then I'm sure I can do the same with an Electronics mag. For me there has been some really great stuff, articles about things like wide-band oxygen sensors and satellite transmissions changed my life. However I dont subscribe (I buy back issues) my postal service can take up to a month and quite often damages my copy enough to really irritate me. Yes, I have felt let down a few times by projects with password protected chips and designs that I find impossible to modify. My electronics knowledge has some major gaps. On the most complex projects I have no way of knowing if I actually understand the circuit description correctly or not. That has barely improved since I bought my first issue. Some online content, grouping some basic articles, links and simple code together to give a background, rather than expecting us to sift through 100+ print issues to find relevant material would be a big help. it is rare that I dont get something out of an issue. I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not... |
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