Chip with simple program for Toy

[terryc]

On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:40:52 -0700, Rob Dekker wrote:

You throw a wire over it. Just make sure to wear rubber gloves )

ROFL.

 

[terryc]

On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:36:42 -0500, John Fields wrote:

On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:40:20 +1000, terryc
newssixspam-spam@woa.com.au> wrote:

On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:23:06 -0500, John Fields wrote:


notie this paragraph after I flicked the other answer....

Now, when you consider that that electricity has to come from
_somewhere_ and that is has to be brought into the field using
conductors of finite resistance, then the problem becomes even more
severe.

So instead of 415V supply, you just tap the 11Kv lines instead.

---
How would you do that?

Sigh. Basics of electrical pwer distribution; distrubte in as high a
voltage as you can to reduce current being moved,then transform down for
local requirements.> AFAIK, 11Kv is the next step up from 415V supply.
> JF

 

When looking at battery tech for (PH)EVs, I came across an interesting
experiment converting a school bus into an electric vehicle.

http://www.arb.ca.gov/research/icat/projects/smud.pdf

The battery used here is a ZEBRA (NiNaCl liquid salt) battery pack.
These guys paid $53,500 for their 107 kWh ZEBRA battery (in 2003). In volume
production, the manufacturer price sheet goes to about $20,000 for the same
battery pack.
Lots of benefits here over other battery technologies, most notably its
cost, it's robustness, safety and its absense of 'rare' metals. Nickel and
table salt (NaCl) are the main ingredients.

Technically, school busses (and city busses and most delivery vans) seem to
be a great early adopter to become "electrified", not just because of their
frequent stops (regenerative braking advantages), and air pollution (noone
likes stinking diesels in urban areas), but also because they run short
trips (no more than one day at a time).

ZEBRAs seem to have a very bright future in PHEV tech.

If they cycle thousands of times then they are already competitive
with liquid hydrocarbon fuel in a lot of applications.


Bret Cahill

 

[John Fields]

On Sat, 26 Jul 2008 16:55:25 -0700 (PDT), BretCahill@peoplepc.com
wrote:

When looking at battery tech for (PH)EVs, I came across an interesting
experiment converting a school bus into an electric vehicle.

http://www.arb.ca.gov/research/icat/projects/smud.pdf

The battery used here is a ZEBRA (NiNaCl liquid salt) battery pack.
These guys paid $53,500 for their 107 kWh ZEBRA battery (in 2003). In volume
production, the manufacturer price sheet goes to about $20,000 for the same
battery pack.
Lots of benefits here over other battery technologies, most notably its
cost, it's robustness, safety and its absense of 'rare' metals. Nickel and
table salt (NaCl) are the main ingredients.

Technically, school busses (and city busses and most delivery vans) seem to
be a great early adopter to become "electrified", not just because of their
frequent stops (regenerative braking advantages), and air pollution (noone
likes stinking diesels in urban areas), but also because they run short
trips (no more than one day at a time).

ZEBRAs seem to have a very bright future in PHEV tech.

If they cycle thousands of times then they are already competitive
with liquid hydrocarbon fuel in a lot of applications.

---
Please elaborate on that quantitatively and show your work.


JF

 

[John Fields]

On Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:12:10 +1000, "Rod Speed"
<rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote:

BretCahill@peoplepc.com wrote:
When looking at battery tech for (PH)EVs, I came across an
interesting experiment converting a school bus into an electric
vehicle.

http://www.arb.ca.gov/research/icat/projects/smud.pdf

The battery used here is a ZEBRA (NiNaCl liquid salt) battery pack.
These guys paid $53,500 for their 107 kWh ZEBRA battery (in 2003).
In volume production, the manufacturer price sheet goes to about
$20,000 for the same battery pack.
Lots of benefits here over other battery technologies, most notably
its cost, it's robustness, safety and its absense of 'rare' metals.
Nickel and table salt (NaCl) are the main ingredients.

Technically, school busses (and city busses and most delivery vans)
seem to be a great early adopter to become "electrified", not just
because of their frequent stops (regenerative braking advantages),
and air pollution (noone likes stinking diesels in urban areas), but
also because they run short trips (no more than one day at a time).

ZEBRAs seem to have a very bright future in PHEV tech.

If they cycle thousands of times then they are already competitive
with liquid hydrocarbon fuel in a lot of applications.

Not if you count the cost of the batterys properly.

---
AIUI there's also that nasty catch that when they're not being used
they have to be kept hot.

JF

 

[Eeyore]

John Fields wrote:

On Sun, 27 Jul 2008 11:12:10 +1000, "Rod Speed"
rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote:

BretCahill@peoplepc.com wrote:
When looking at battery tech for (PH)EVs, I came across an
interesting experiment converting a school bus into an electric
vehicle.

http://www.arb.ca.gov/research/icat/projects/smud.pdf

The battery used here is a ZEBRA (NiNaCl liquid salt) battery pack.
These guys paid $53,500 for their 107 kWh ZEBRA battery (in 2003).
In volume production, the manufacturer price sheet goes to about
$20,000 for the same battery pack.
Lots of benefits here over other battery technologies, most notably
its cost, it's robustness, safety and its absense of 'rare' metals.
Nickel and table salt (NaCl) are the main ingredients.

Technically, school busses (and city busses and most delivery vans)
seem to be a great early adopter to become "electrified", not just
because of their frequent stops (regenerative braking advantages),
and air pollution (noone likes stinking diesels in urban areas), but
also because they run short trips (no more than one day at a time).

ZEBRAs seem to have a very bright future in PHEV tech.

If they cycle thousands of times then they are already competitive
with liquid hydrocarbon fuel in a lot of applications.

Not if you count the cost of the batterys properly.

---
AIUI there's also that nasty catch that when they're not being used
they have to be kept hot.

Pretty damn hot too AIUI.

Whichever way you look in battery technology there some downside.

Graham

 

If they cycle thousands of times then they are already competitive
with liquid hydrocarbon fuel in a lot of applications.

Please elaborate on that quantitatively and show your work.

Let me try something :

The battery (100kWh) costs $20,000 in volume (price in 2003).
Heavily used ZEBRAs can cycle about 1000x before they need to be replaced.
That is a capital write-off of about $0.0002 per kWh.

Actually that $0.0002/whr.

$20,000 / (1,000 cycles X 100 kilowatt hours) = $0.20/ kWhr.

If it can cycle several thousand times, however, then the price of is
only a few cents/kWhr

The cost of diesel increases that much in one year.

Even if everything goes wrong, battery hardly gets used, and the battery
fails one day after the warrenty expires, it's still negligent cost.

That means that the main cost (of 'fuel') is electricity.
Assume electricity costs $0.10/kWh.

That could drop with cheap PV.

Cycle efficiency (of this ZEBRA bus) is between 78% and 85% (see report).
That means a cost (of operating this bus) to about $0.13/kWh.

In sunny areas the bus could be plastered with PV which would be a
significant savings.

Diesel has a heating value average of 38.6 MJ/liter, or 146MJ/gallon. That
is 40.7 kWh.

Olive oil has 120 cal/serving (actually 120 kcal/15cc) or 8,000 kcal/
liter or 33 kWhr/gallon.

Efficiency of diesel engines, mmm, varies widely, but probably in between
30% and 40% (anyone has any better numbers?)

And that's when they are always running at optimum rpm.

in real life use in a large
vehicle.
That would mean that a diesel engine would release between 12 kWh and 16 kWh
of work from one gallon of diesel.

At close to $5/gallon (current diesel retail price in California), this is
$0.30-$0.40 per kWh.

So using my battery cost figure diesel is slightly more expensice than
battery-grid right now.

Since we know diesel fuel will continue to spiral, it would be foolish
not to replace diesel with battery-grid as soon as possible where ever
possible.

Net savings : $0.17/kWh. Or in different words : fuel cost saving is
certainly more than 56%.

That'll be true in a couple years anyway.

And this is not even considering regenerative braking (typically another 20%
of fuel cost saved).

I think that's 20% recuperation per stop, not overall.


Bret Cahill

 

[m II]

Rob Dekker wrote:

So, kind of emberrasing for an engineer : I made a factor 1000 mistake here
(

Time to retire the slide rule. I understand the new fangled calculators
keep track of the decimal point without need of paper and pencil. They
can even add and subtract, if my sources are to be believed.


mike



--
Due to the insane amount of spam and garbage,
this filter blocks all postings with a Gmail,
Google Mail, Google Groups or HOTMAIL address.
It also filters everything from a .cn server.

http://improve-usenet.org/

 

[Eeyore]

BretCahill@peoplepc.com wrote:

That could drop with cheap PV.

So such thing yet exists.

In sunny areas the bus could be plastered with PV which would be a
significant savings.

A kW or so ? Please !

Graham

 

[John Fields]

On Sun, 27 Jul 2008 09:15:50 -0700 (PDT), BretCahill@peoplepc.com
wrote:

The battery (100kWh) costs $20,000 in volume (price in 2003).
Heavily used ZEBRAs can cycle about 1000x before they need to be replaced.
That is a capital write-off of about $0.0002 per kWh.
That's negligent.

So, kind of emberrasing for an engineer : I made a factor 1000 mistake here
(

I'm not a tweaker. Two orders of magnitude, OK, but _three_ orders of
magnitude, well, that's stepping over the line.

My diesel heat content in another post was off by a factor of three,
well within my margin of error.

Battery cost of $20,000 for 100kWh is $200/kWh.
With 1000 charges lifetime, that's $0.20/kWh.
That's NOT negligent.

Diesel will go _up_ 20 cents/kW-hr over the next year or so.

The idea that we should wait another year when we _know for sure_ the
cost is going up is just plain $%#$@! stupid.

---
The idea that something can be put into place which will phase out
diesel in a year is what's stupid.

In the meantime, there are lots of folks who are working very hard to
find a solution to the problem instead of just whining about how bad
everything's going to get if someone doesn't do something.

If you think there's a problem, and you want to help, then get up off
of your lazy ass and do something meaningful instead of just flapping
your gums.
---

It's some kind of mental blindness going around.

For awhile I toyed with the idea that Big Oil, like Big Tobacco, paid
Hollywood to somehow brainwash the public but that would be nearly
impossible with farms which are run like a business.

The only explanation is everyone is in some kind of state of denial.

---
"I'm not crazy, everyone else is."

JF

 

The battery (100kWh) costs $20,000 in volume (price in 2003).
Heavily used ZEBRAs can cycle about 1000x before they need to be replaced.
That is a capital write-off of about $0.0002 per kWh.
That's negligent.

So, kind of emberrasing for an engineer : I made a factor 1000 mistake here
(

I'm not a tweaker. Two orders of magnitude, OK, but _three_ orders of
magnitude, well, that's stepping over the line.

My diesel heat content in another post was off by a factor of three,
well within my margin of error.

Battery cost of $20,000 for 100kWh is $200/kWh.
With 1000 charges lifetime, that's $0.20/kWh.
That's NOT negligent.

Diesel will go _up_ 20 cents/kW-hr over the next year or so.

The idea that we should wait another year when we _know for sure_ the
cost is going up is just plain $%#$@! stupid.

It's some kind of mental blindness going around.

For awhile I toyed with the idea that Big Oil, like Big Tobacco, paid
Hollywood to somehow brainwash the public but that would be nearly
impossible with farms which are run like a business.

The only explanation is everyone is in some kind of state of denial.


Bret Cahill

 

[John Larkin]

On Sun, 27 Jul 2008 12:07:49 -0400, Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca>
wrote:

On Sun, 27 Jul 2008, christofire wrote:


"cliff wright" <c.c.wright@paradise.net.nz> wrote in message
news:488c699f$1@clear.net.nz...
jimp@specsol.spam.sux.com wrote:

In sci.physics Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> wrote:

On Sat, 26 Jul 2008, jimp@specsol.spam.sux.com wrote:

In sci.physics kronecker@yahoo.co.uk wrote:

Amateurs are the worst kind! etc.

Stone me! What a mess we can get into sometimes here.
Lets point out a few facts about VLF signals (below say 50KHz).
1. Yes indeed. You need a "dirty great" antenna. These frequencies have
been used since almost the beginning of radio and antenna designs of
enormous proportions have gone with them.
In 1907/8 Marconi used 45KHz for transatlantic service from Ireland
and used an antenna about 3Km long by 1Km wide with about 50 Kw of rotary
gap spark power. Later the German staion at Nauen used directly generated
24 KHz and an antenna like a vast skeletal circus tent 200 m high at the
centre and 75 m high at the edges covering many hectares of ground.
This could be recieved by a crystal set in South America.
Megawatts while common to overcome antenna losses are mainly used to make
the service as absolutely reliable as possible.
Also early means of generation like arc transmitters tended to be
easy to build in high power forms. Like the US navy's 0.5MW staions built
about the end of WW1, and the arc system was inherently limited to low
frequencies.
The signal is apparently ducted between the ground and lower ionospher
which explains the world wide coverage.
ALL these signals have to be low speed telegraphy of some kind. The
bandwidth of the tuned antennas alone would preclude the use of modulated
signals, and ther simply isn't the spectrum space for sidebands in their
usual sense.
The lowest frequency I have ever come across, and I have had a
professional and amateur interest in it for many years is 9KHz
although in practice around 12 KHz is getting near the practical limit.
It is of course simply VERY much easier to radiate higher frequencies.
As soon as Hams discovered the properties of short waves in the early
1920's most of this ELF disappeared except for specialist applications
like submarine communication. BTW I've always wondered what sort of
antenna the sub uses for reception? I bet that's still classified perhaps?
Cliff Wright ZL1BDA ex G3NIA


Take a look at the RN Radar and Radio Museum pages at
http://www.rnmuseumradarandcommunications2006.org.uk/PAGE%2032.htm. There's
some information on a variety of different types of LF/VLF receiving
antenna, the ALK for example, which apparently used loops attached to a
buoy. Lots of reference to the 10 to 40 kHz frequency range here. Also it
seems fairly well known that transmission of VLF signals to UK submarines
was moved from BT's Rugby station to VTC's Anthorn station
http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/anthorn.php in 2003 or thereabouts. The
frequency of these transmissions seems to be variously reported as 16 kHz,
19.6 kHz, etc. - perhaps it's FSK.

I seem to recall reading that submarines did generally come close to the
surface to receive signals, so I think the buoy system makes sense. And
of course, a lot of work has been done on making good receiving antennas
at low frequencies, loops and even active elements. You lose too much
trying to use a tiny antenna to transmit low frequencies, so you have
to keep raising the power and at some point you get virtually no return
for the increases. At the receiver, you use amplification to compensate,
but it's easier to amplify small signals than power signals.

Incidentally, the remark above 'the arc system was inherently limited to low
frequencies' is probably incorrect. The arc was just a means of making and
breaking a circuit and history records that some of the earliest
demonstrations of radio (Lodge and others) were carried out in lecture
theatres using a sparking induction coil and a short dipole antenna (two
plates) transmitting to a nearby loop antenna. The average wavelength may
have been around a metre or less.

Spark seems to be what you are talking about, and yes it was inherently
wideband.

The arc transmitter came a bit later, and was limited to relatively
low freuqencies (though I'm not sure the limitation was noticed
at the time; as previously posted for a while the higher frequencies
were dismissed as "useless" so everyone hung around a relatively
small slice of the spectrum). It was a real CW transmitter, the arc
transmitter was a real oscillator.

I seem to recall there were also transmitters that used mechanical
generators to cause a CW signal, and those obviously were limited
to low frequencies.

Michael

Poulsen arcs typically worked in the 50-100 KHz range, up to a
megawatt or so. The arc chamber dwarfed the operators and had massive
air and water cooling bits.

Around 1927, Alexanderson alternators (rotating AC generators) were
generating 400KW at 24 KHz and 1 KW at 200 KHz. Goldschmidt
alternators hit numbers like 200KW at 50 KHz.

John

 

Battery cost of $20,000 for 100kWh is $200/kWh.
With 1000 charges lifetime, that's $0.20/kWh.
That's NOT negligent.

Diesel will go _up_ 20 cents/kW-hr over the next year or so.

The idea that we should wait another year when we _know for sure_ the
cost is going up is just plain $%#$@! stupid.

The idea that something can be put into place which will phase out
diesel in a year is what's stupid.

Then why did you suggest it?

Care to try another strawman?

I haven't covered this issue yet but I'm guessing it would take up to
six years, about the time diesel is $25/gallon, to electrify most
basic food crop farms.

In overall costs, grid battery is already competitive or cheaper than
diesel in many areas. It would be foolish to replace an old diesel
with a new diesel when grid battery will not skyrocket in operating
cost.

In the meantime, there are lots of folks who are working very hard to
find a solution to the problem

You don't think intellectual property requires work, both the original
concept as well as the development? You think copyright laws and
patent rights are a scam?

Maybe Madison screwed up with Art. I, Sec. 8 of the U. S.
Constitution?

Or are you so ashamed of your "contributions" you won't share them
with anyone?

Maybe you are a loser in your own mind.

If you are a loser in your mind, then you are certainly a loser in my
mind.


Bret Cahill


"Only nobodies are ever modest."

-- Goethe

 

That could drop with cheap PV.

So such thing yet exists.

One plant in San Jose puts out a GW a year.

There's a limit to how much PV you can put out before the price starts
to drop.

In sunny areas the bus could be plastered with PV which would be a
significant savings.

A kW or so ? Please !

A _sunny_ area, not some place where it rains so much a tennis match
can last until 9:30 at night.


Bret Cahill

 

[John Fields]

On Sun, 27 Jul 2008 10:49:51 -0700 (PDT), BretCahill@peoplepc.com
wrote:

That could drop with cheap PV.

So such thing yet exists.

One plant in San Jose puts out a GW a year.

---
So what's the conversion efficiency of the PV and how much power does
it use to "put out" that GW?

Include the energy used by employees to travel back and forth to the
plant.
---

There's a limit to how much PV you can put out before the price starts
to drop.

---
That's a strange way to describe economy of scale, if that's what
you're talking about.
---

In sunny areas the bus could be plastered with PV which would be a
significant savings.

A kW or so ? Please !

A _sunny_ area, not some place where it rains so much a tennis match
can last until 9:30 at night.

---
You are the walrus?

OK then, since it seems you're asking desperately for help, let's try
to exorcise you, kicking and screaming, out of the realm of smoke and
mirrors into which you've fallen and ensconced yourself and which you
love so dearly, into the world of real science.

Assume the sun is a point source and assume we have a square,
stationary, (with respect to the surface of the Earth) 1m˛ PV array
outdoors on a perfectly sunny 12 hour day with the sun normal to the
PV array at noon and perpendicular to one of the two sets of parallel
edges of the array at sunrise and sunset.

With an insolation of 1kW/m˛ at noon and a conversion efficiency of
10%, what would be the total power output of the array from sunrise to
sunset?

Show your work, please.

JF

 

[Eeyore]

BretCahill@peoplepc.com wrote:

That could drop with cheap PV.

So such thing yet exists.

One plant in San Jose puts out a GW a year.

And it's area is ?

There's a limit to how much PV you can put out before the price starts
to drop.

In sunny areas the bus could be plastered with PV which would be a
significant savings.

A kW or so ? Please !

A _sunny_ area, not some place where it rains so much a tennis match
can last until 9:30 at night.

Let's say you can fit 60m2 of PV on a roof of a bus. At PEAK insolation
(mid-day) it will produce at typical efficiencies a total of 9 kW. About
12 hp.

Average daily insolation over the year might run at 35-50kWh for the whole
bus in the sunnier parts of the USA. Pitiful.

The expense and maintenance costs - HUGE.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

BretCahill@peoplepc.com wrote:

That could drop with cheap PV.

So such thing yet exists.

One plant in San Jose puts out a GW a year.

---
So what's the conversion efficiency of the PV

They claim 15%.

Which is when the the panel is perpendicular to the source. Are your buses
going to have wind-dragging tracking arrays that lose more power than they
generate ?

The simple fact is that the physical and engineering details of this are WAY
over your head.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

BretCahill@peoplepc.com wrote:

Diesel will go _up_ 20 cents/kW-hr over the next year or so.

It might also go down. Suggest you inspect history.

Also, newer tech diesel engines are getting ever more efficicent. Check out
Detroit Diesel's site IIRC for example. They're not letting the grass grow under
their feet.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

BretCahill@peoplepc.com wrote:

I haven't covered this issue yet but I'm guessing it would take up to
six years, about the time diesel is $25/gallon, to electrify most
basic food crop farms.

If diesel reached $25 / gal, the world economy would be in tatters and we'd
have much bigger things to worry about.

Did you know that something like 30% of all fuel oil is used in SHIPPING. No
more trade with Asia (fuel costs too high - already sea transport can
account for 10% of the FOB - destination cost), no more cruise lines, you
name it.

The Arabs aren't stupid, they know who pays for the modernisation (and
bombing) of their countries. It won't go that high.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

BretCahill@peoplepc.com wrote:

Maybe you are a loser in your own mind.

You are simply lost in your mind. You are typical of someone who knows
nothing about engineering, mechanics and accounting and simple
practicalities.

Graham