We're all engineers here. What are some creative ways we can think of to temporarily increase the range of an EV to make it comparable to a regular car when needed? (Speaking for myself, we live on an island and only own nissan leafs, which are perfect for us in every way except with successive...
Because of the way the world is going, I just bought a portable generator for emergency power. It's a Chinese clone of the Honda eu2000i . I measured about 70dBa from two car lengths away.
I will be running this to power my ground-floor apartment but I'm concerned about the annoyance it will...
I'm having a storage floor (raft) installed beneath the roof of my garage, consisting of plywood sheets resting on mild-steel hollow square joists. The joists have welded right-angle flanges at the ends. The end flanges don't completely seal off the hollow section at the extremities, so air can...
I've looked at and operated oil-filled electric radiator-style heaters (image shows an example) and I'm wondering what the benefits are for manufacturers to go to the trouble and expense of increasing their thermal inertia by filling them with mineral oil instead of heating the fins directly...
I figured this is probably the correct subforum since it relates to electrical motors.
I noticed that paper shredders and stand mixers, to name a few, have abysmally low duty cycles. Every one of the 50-dollar shredders in the office will overheat and enter protective shutdown after 5 minutes...
I just bought my first portable air conditioner - a new Trotec PAC 2010SH. A curious design feature is that while the evaporator coils on the top have a conventional plastic air filter to filter air going through them, the condenser coils at the bottom don't have a filter - they seem to suck in...
Typical example:
The label states that the charging voltage is "14.6-14.8V". I have a computerized hobby charger (similar to the iCharger 206B) that does CC-CV charging where the voltage of the CV stage can be set to an accuracy of 0.01V per cell.
So, the question is, what's the best voltage...
I'm building a makeshift portable "generator" for powering essential appliances during power cuts (basically a modem(5W), desktop PC (200W), fan (40W) and possibly fridge (160W) on occasion). It will essentially consist of a battery and a 500W (continuous) pure sine wave inverter that I carry...
I'm comparing two different contemporary approaches to engine design in high-power farm tractors.
One school of thought is that "there's no replacement for displacement" - so we have the Cat C18 ACERT Tier III engine in the Challenger-MT800 tractor:
585 bhp, turbocharged, 6-cylinder-in line...
Land vehicles that use external combustion engines (like steam locomotives and steam cars) don't have a clutch and don't idle. They simply stop the engine while still geared to the drivetrain. To restart they simply open the steam valve and the engine spins up the load from zero rpm.
Thinking...
I come from an RC background so I'm much more familiar with brushless DC motors. I've recently acquired a desktop 3D printer and it got me interested in stepper motors. I've spent the last month studying up on their construction and operation.
One thing that impressed me was that simply moving...
Here's the situation: I have a small inverter generator (1200W peak, 1000W continuous. It's a Zipper STE1200IV) and I'd like to be able to run certain high-powered kitchen equipment in case of power cuts. Specifically, a 1600W sandwich toaster and a 1300W convection oven.
I was thinking of...
I have a very inexpensive 1000W 4-stroke inverter generator (Zipper ZI-STE1200IV) that's not quiet, but not noisy either. It's quieter than the normal generators that run at 3600rpm, but it standing next to it requires raising your voice a little to hold a conversation. Having gotten used to its...
I bought a brand-new Zipper ZI-STE1200IV on eBay (from Germany, no idea who the OEM of the unit is, but it's identical to the Parkside PGI-1200A1 generator sold in the UK).
The specs claim 1200W for 5 seconds and 1000W continuous output. I've been testing it with one of those halogen heaters...
I refer to the tiny suitcase-style generators with plastic cases that you take with you on barbecues, like the Honda EU1000i and all its competitors from Yamaha, Kipor, Hyundai and so on.
In general, they seem to have single-cylinder 4-stroke engines of 50-100cc, weigh 10-20kg, make 60-90 dB of...
By "steering effort", I mean the force required to deflect the steering wheel by a certain angle to the left or right. I'd like a qualitative description of how the three fundamental steering system angles (toe, camber and caster) affect the force needed to deflect the steering wheel of a road...
This is a "what-if" question - asked mainly out of curiosity, not because I need to implement any of the scenarios mentioned.
Consider a modern European hatchback designed for fuel efficiency and low price - so low displacement turbocharged engine is the order of the day. Say, 1.0-1.5 liter...
