No new carb? No new more efficient alternator? No figuring out a custom programmed circuit to increase that 72% capacity to 99% or to use that excess capacity to charge and discharge a capacitor when necessary to prevent that bog down? No custom 3D printed gearbox to run a thingamabopper? No completely redesigned motor to create regenerative braking? No trying to get a golf cart up to highway speeds? I was sure by now you would have inspector gadgetted that thing to beat the Renault in a drag race! 😂 But seriously, love the channel. Thanks for the entertainment and knowledge. Your channel makes me feel like a kid excited to wake for Saturday morning cartoons.
Well he could set up a current sense for the electric motor, and when that drops to a low level, use the excess capability to charge a big honking capacitor (or a battery) out of circuit, up to its limited voltage. And then when the current sense on the motor exceeds a level, switch the big honking capacitor (or battery) into the circuit to provide more kick. Of course, it won't help efficiency any, but maybe it can do burnouts. :P
I actually put a 9” steel pulley as an extra flywheel on the predator 212 on my mini offroad tractor. It greatly smoothed power output and reduced the frequency of stalling when high loads were incurred at low RPM.
That would be my suggestion, some sort of one way like a sprag bearing to drive the flywheel shaft so it can speed faster than 3600 rpm and also coast a variator between the engine and flywheel so when under very little load the rpm can go up.
Thank you for this video! I wish I had a wand to promote this to millions more eyes. Which, I suppose is only 1/2 millions more people...anyway. I've been converting cars/tractors to electric for 10yrs and taking them to shows. I can't tell you how many times I get asked why I don't just, "put a alternater on a wheel so I don't need them bat-rees!" Why not just tow a second battery? When one dies, switch over to the second and charge the first while you drive, etc... My current project is an old VW pickup. The plan is to run a portable generator to power my onboard charger as I drive to extend my range. I don't need my range extended but I do need to find out how many mpg a Harbor Freight generator gets! Your experiment is probably the most inefficient method of cruising a golf cart and I love it! I can't wait to see what results I get. Great job!!
Gas generators like the small ~2-3kW size have terrible efficiency. I did a crappy test with a killawatt meter and calculated less than 30% from fuel to power.
Now all you need is a wind splitter and a diffuser and a four foot tall spoiler for aerodynamics, and an attachment on the front to hook up horses since you're near Amish country
As always, Jimbo, excellent! On diesel electric locomotives , even they are only running 70% +/-. The newer GE/Wabtec locomotives are running a little better than that, I understand. If anyone could have discovered how to squeeze out better efficiency, the railroads would have found that by now. So, your fun and very entertaining project actually reveals the math behind the scenes that engineers have been dealing with for the past 80 or more years! Now, how cool is that? Lol! Just like engineers have to do, sometimes, because as the saying goes, it is what it is, and you just have to work with what you got. The fun part? Thinking outside the box and challenging oneself to come up with solutions for challenges. You do that part very well, my man! Might I add, with the best sense of dry humor this side of the pond . . . Lolololol! Looking forward to the next set of diabolical shenanigans. 😅
Thank you so much! I really appreciate that you understand the efficiency issue. Believe it or not I have to argue with folks when I tell them this system is inefficient.
Even though it’s inefficient, there’s reliability in simplicity. There’s a balance to be had. What good is a 100% efficient device that is not reliable? 50% of the time, it works everytime!
I totally understand the production time for videos. We used to do videos of our bus restoration and gave up since it was taking more time to produce videos than the actual work.
The 30 mpg or more for golf cart is like a car manufacturers estimated MPGs. Is it possible? Yes, if you are rolling down a mountain with your engine off!
@@Rattus-Norvegicus He doesn’t even have seat belts yet🤣. How fast do you want it to go? Though I think at some point there will be a limit to how many amps the DC motor can handle. So let’s think about it. Suppose he put the 720 cc Kubota in there and increase the output by 4 fold. So now imagine he has 4 alternators and each of them is peaking at say 80 Amps. Each Alternator has a lead going to the motor, that’s 320 Amps. That 320 Amps is being delivered to a single contact on the DC motor……… The other thing is the DC motor may have an NGO RPM limit so . . . .. The other problem is weight. The motor sits behind the rear wheels, which is a bad place for a motor. As the weight behind the rear wheel increases understeer on the front wheels increases. When that occurs the weight distribution and road conditions determine how the vehicle steers.
@ Uh😎 where would you put the motor mounts, OUCH? Question, how much rotational torque, say in a crack shaft and flywheel, could you put on the axial center of gravity of a golf cart sufficient to flip it while moving at a moderate speed ?
The thing with the supercaps can be done, if you run the alternator field to keep a continuous voltage (as it would normally be in a car) and materialize a 150a PWM controller out of thin air - and hook up the supercaps between the alternator and the PWM driver power input. Such a powerful driver is not that common to find for cheap. But DIY can probably be done for
get a 48v lipo with a bank of capacitors I was thinking like the ones used in big power car amps that help prevent a voltage sag when the amp pulls a lot of power from the speakers hitting deep base
This setup would likely be more efficient, too. The only question would be whether the setup fits with the intention of the project. The batteries would essentially be replaced by a cap. I’d like to see this, though!
I tried for months to make my own PWM motor speed controller using mosfets and an Arduino, but I kept blowing stuff up. I was converting a pedal trike to electric with a 700 watt 36v motor. After the circuit failed and the motor went full power on me unexpectedly, I decided to buy a commercially available controller before I got myself hurt.
Jimbo, I wanted to say thank you. I paused your video in the middle to go fire up my 212 minibike with ape hangers and take it for a spin. I've not had it out in probably a year and a half. It makes me want to build some other fun contraptions.
He's calculating 3.9 hp out of the alternator. If the motor is 80% efficient that would be 3.1 hp to the road. Probably closer to 70% efficient so 2.7 hp. As you said, less than half. Diesel electric locomotives use a similar system. Their alternators and motors are more efficient but overall maybe 65% of the horsepower produced by the engine gets to the track.
I think you need the original numer of 12v batteries in the original configuration but much smaller batteries, so you have you power source with the engine static as a power bank and the alternator as a charging source whilst underway.
I've been an electrician for over twenty years now. In my teenage years, I was a small engine mechanic. And now I build grace engines outside of being an electrician. I find this very interesting!
The wacky little projects you come up with never cease to amaze me lol. Who would've thought this would actually function as well as it does. Happy Sunday and enjoy your coffee!
Thanks for the great video, Jimbo. Didn't realize how much power was lost through the alternator. Kind of like a transmission power loss at the wheels. Cheers 🍻
Really enjoyed this episode, Jimbo! 🏆👍🏼 Hey, three things: • as an under-trained Jack-of-all-Trades-Master-of-None, my “technical” assessment of the WOT Bog would’ve been “Rotational resistance of alternator may occasionally exceed available torque of petroleum battery”, and left it at that. I wouldn’t have given the technical explanation a moment’s consideration. However, I have to confess that, although I already understood what was happening, I really enjoyed your brief Electrical Engineering Explanation [abbreviated to EEE! 😬 in the Robot Cantina Study Guide]. I found the numbers interesting, atypical for a guy like me… I never knew BHP had an electrical analog. 🤔 • As an inmate in the Kommifornistan Prison Kamp, I would love-love-LOVE to see these Petroleum Battery Carts mass-produced and imported here, for no other reason than to stick-it to our slimy Diktovernor. Ol’ Grewsom would have a conniption! 😆 • I do realize that you don’t have much time to devote on Robot Cantina Merch, but I personally would love to purchase one of those metal “phone holders” featured in this week’s episode. Is that custom fabricated, or was it a repurposed item? Thanks for all you do, Sir!
LOL, California needs hybrid's like this. The phone holder thingy is a robot cantina exclusive. I 3D print them for all the "telephones" that we use for filming the video series.
@ Oh, that’s a print?! Great resolution, I mistook it for metal! Wish I could get prints like that out of MY printers. 😏 Well if you ever want to sell the files, I and I’m sure others would be interested.
I love your videos and the ingenuity that you put into them. They are both informative and enjoyable. Changing the pully ratio to a smaller pully on the engine would give you more torque on the alternator so that you could come up with more amps to keep it from stalling. You would however not be able to produce as many volts so it wouldn't go as fast. If however, you had a way to change the pully ration you may be able to solve both problems.
There's a website where you can search for gas stations with ethanol-free gas. If there's one nearby it would be easy to do a test of winter-blend vs straight-gasoline on the Insight. --- I'd be pretty curious about the results. Knowing that ethanol concentration can have a large effect on small engine wear and gasket lifespan.
Not sure the 0%-Ethanol stuff is immune from the winter oxidizer stuff they add (which is not ethanol) to the winter blends. "Race gas" like the 105 octane whatever would be since that is not for road use.
Jimbo always takes on the impossible and then shares successes of not so much successes. I'm waiting for him to tackle a perpetual motion machine. If anyone every can do it, Jimbo can.
Given your brother's name I really was to say, Looks like them Duke boys are at it again...🤣🤣🤣🤣 How to get a better golf cart, join your local golf club and just "borrow" one of there's. Have Duke waiting with the trailer just off the 10th hole...🤣🤣🤣🤣
11:20 Maybe not with just a capacitor, but with some power electronics you could make it so the capacitor gets charged when you're off throttle so that it can give you a temporary boost when you floor it. That'd defeat the simplicity though
Of course something like that could be done, but its not simple. we are trying to make this system simple so we don't loose the audience. We will do a more complex system in the future.
Ahh the coffee tastes even better! As an electrician, good job with the maths Jimbo! Sounds like we need more torque, not necessarily horsepower. Hmmm if only their were a little bitty torquey engine that were good to run on kerosene, diesel, veg, wmo, atf, and more.
Thanks for loading up the engine until it stalled! I did something like this nearly 20 years ago and was shocked when I stalled the engine. I didn't know the math but I understood WTF happened.
If you had a super capacitor bank setup to 48 volts, then wired with a high current relay on the power wire between the alternator and electric motor. The relay can be triggered by a simple arduino to charge once the voltage from the alternator exceeds, say 48 volts, and shut off when the voltage drops below 48 volts. The relay can also be triggered when the throttle is at full throttle AND the voltage from the alternator is less than say 28 volts( the exact settings would have to be adjusted). That way, when you go full throttle at low speed, the super capacitor bank would provide enough power to prevent the gas motor from stalling. Or you could program the arduino to only charge the super capacitor bank once the voltage exceeds 48 volts with a high voltage/high current diode. Then have a wide open throttle switch to kick the super capacitor bank in use with a high amperage relay(a starter relay should work fine for this) when the alternator voltage is low and full throttle is requested. This would add complexity, but it would help to prevent the gas motor from stalling when wide open throttle at low speeds was desired.
yes or course that would work, Keep in mind we are building a simple system right now and in our simple system we cant be doing shenanigans with Arduinos. Fear not, we will have a more complex system in the future. In order to stay on topic I cant use complex ideas on this simple project. I have a background in electronics and writing code and I am very much aware of what can be done, however I need to keep this simple in order to retain my core audience.
For fun future projects, I’ve always wanted to try doing a hybrid go-kart with an AC generator and AC motor, using a variac as a speed controller. Figured it’d be way more efficient, with fewer losses compared to switching DC to AC. Years ago I picked up a huge 50A 240V variac at the MIT Flea and figured it’d be perfect. Of course, it probably weighs more than the harbor freight engine you’ve got powering this.
Thanks for the explanation on the capacitor problem. So the piece needed would be the motor controller and have the alternator at your max wattage. I had always wanted to create a diesel hybrid to burn waste oil so I am interested in your experiment here. I have a chevy volt with a blown head gasket I thought it would be fun to pop in a small diesel engine to extend the EV range and remove the gas engine. Lots of computer parts to bypass on that vehicle though, let me know if you would want to play with that in the future.
The benefits of living in a rural area is that the neighbors are used to strange farming contraptions and innovations so a golf cart out on a venture isn't the strangest thing on the road. Meanwhile the cops are still thinking of if it's worth it to go out and take a look at a golf cart on the run.
Hey JIMBOOOO!!! loved this episode. You and your brother remind me to the straight brothers. Alvin taking his John Deere lawn mower to go see his brother Lile in Iowa. It would great to see this project with a three phase AC motor❤
JIMBO!!! it would be quite entertaining and quite the christmas present if you put a big heavy flywheel on the gas motor to help with your acceleration... maybe. The thought is that it would help sustain acceleration until the torque (current) demand of the drive motor drops to a level the gas battery can keep up with. may not be worth your time but it would be fun!!! You'd need a lot of weight spinning pretty fast to make it work.
Large horizontal flywheel underneath the carriage like where a mower blade would be, bonus of gyroscopic anti-rollover force. Problem being all the mass for the flywheel requires even more acceleration power.
I would like to see a larger engine and the alternator out of a Hummer installed. Yes you are going to add weight but it would be fun to see what happens. Love your videos can't wait for the next one.
Also need to keep in mind the efficiency range of the alternator. I have no idea how fast it's turning now, but it's possible that turning the engine faster would put it out of that range.
Having owned several gas golf carts, the one i had with worst gas mileage was a lifted yamaha with big tires, it still got 32-35 mpg. If you want a speedometer/odometer on your golf cart, there are many cheap bicycle speedometer on the jungle site that can be programmed down to golf cart sized tires.
Interesting as always. Makes me want to find out why boat propellers are so inefficient. Always wanted to know why torque is never used in there calculators to figure propeller size. Great video as always. Thanks for the info. 👍👍👍👍👍🍻
I think the diesel engine would be better use for this This might be a function of torque , on the capacitor part could charge the caps separately then use a relay to make contact when the peddle is 90% and breaks the circuit when the throttle is less then 90% so you only getting the extra kick at 90% throttle
*this circuit, But if you designed a circuit with something like a battery in the middle of it which I have no idea how to do but I'm not going to say it's not possible
Adding a capacitor in the way you described yes, but if you have the engine set to run at 100% and when you're not applying throttle it's charging the capacitor.... And then when you push the throttle past the capabilities of the engine the capacitor adds in the power. The capacitor should be an addition not a subtraction
It's always weird seeing how flat Kansas is. I live not far from the highest elevation in Ohio state (it's around 400m) and while it's no Switzerland, it sure is compared to your state lol. Some of the hills here are insane. If you are crazy enough to love climbing hills on bikes, I know from experience it's pretty unforgiving here! At least going downhill on a bike is fun... until you have to make the return journey.
he just happens to live in a really flat part of Kansas. We have extremely varied terrain, and we could find him some big hills not far away if needed.
Back in the day folks used huge old single cylinder motors, often diesel, for power on the farm. They ran very slowly so to keep wear and fuel usage as low as possible. Too large for our use but using a large cylinder low speed engine would be interesting. Turning low rpm's into high rpm's using electricity would be good clean fun.
Your electronics experience is very broad. I actually spent decades doing failure analysis at the silicon level for every major defense and automotive/aerospace manufacturer dealing with ICs from voltage regulators all the way to microprocessors. I am retired. - I learn a lot from you. I cannot actually fix anything, but I can tell you why it doesn't work.
Start and stop is always the milage killer. Use the momentum and weight to preload a launch mechanism that's triggered during acceleration to provide a mechanical propulsion assist so less current is necessary and the stall is prevented. The same concept will also greatly increase mileage by attacking the area where most energy is wasted...start and stop.
This is a really fun project! In the spirit of wacky things to try, how about a vehicle with a petroleum battery running a compressor, storing compressed air in a tank and then powering a compressed air motor?
You can add contactor and arduino to the capacitor. It can be charged at low load and discharged at high load. I think it is not worth adding capacitor but this could work.
Yes, a capacitor would work in that situation, however as I keep saying, the system I'm building is super simple and in a super simple system, we cant have complex dohickys. The good news is once I get done doing the simple system, I will do an arduino system. and than we can have all sorts of dohickys.
Re capacitors. If the throttle isn't reacting quickly enough to the load, then a capacitor could help. It depends if the engine is bogging down before the alternator hits 3kw demand. But, a chunkier flywheel could also help with this also.
The governor on the engine reacts quickly to the load. if the engine bogs, its because the engine is maxed out. On our simple system there is no place in the circuit for capacitors. on a more complex system, then yes we could do some tricks.
@@robotcantina8957 My thinking was, if peak power is at X rpm, the added load is essentially instantaneous, so lets say it engine slows 100rpm, youre then off peak power so you not only have to throttle up for the increased load, but to get back to the target rpm and thus peak power. youre getting a double whammy. I suppose the easiest way to confirm, is to limit maximum current draw. if youre still bogging down, youd need to either ramp up power more slowly, or add a capacitor, or a flywheel, aka a mechanical capacitor.
I'd recommend changing you belt pullies, cars have a ratio like that because there can be high demand on the alternator while the engine is at idle 700 to 800 rpm, running the engine at 3000 rpm you better off at a 1:1 ratio and I believe that would also help with your stalling problem under hard acceleration. smaller pully on the engine will provide more torque.
Nice work, as always. I LOL’d at “traffic is starting to pick up” as camera turns to show empty road. Textbooks and lectures only go so far, which is why STEM courses include labs. Your content, to me, is a series of cool lab experiments. Keep it up! @angrycorvair
I have a golf cart powered by a Kawi FE290 with high speed gears and it's street legal. It gets 25mpg more or less. We're in SD so our gravel roads look the same. Wife and I take it on road trips to go camping getting to the lake on back roads. On gravel it gets 20. So you're right in line with a gas powered golf cart with belt/transmission losses. On pavement I can go 34, on gravel it will only do 25. On a 4 wheel cart.
Just throwing it out there, trying a foot pedal off of an ac/dc sawing machine , and it did surprised me that the alternator didn't get that hot when you were running it with that high of a wattage output
Excellent video series!! Since it's a series, and time is more available than $$, I have the following questions which would also make for great video's. Would eliminating the governor and adding some more RPM with the use of performance parts help? And by how much? Also, would a direct drive between the gas motor and the axle help or hurt performance? You should in theory gain 40% efficiency back, and up the HP by 2 over the gas motor? Keep up the great work. Love the format and delivery style. Don't change a ting.
I have the same style rear end on my EZ-GO cart and it is not a good layout to power the cart directly with an engine. It can be done but there is not a lot of room forward of the differential. The more desirable carts to use direct belt drive have the original electric motor above and run parallel with the axel.
The governor must be retained. we need the automatic throttle compensation the governor provides. Anyway a 212 cc predator engine makes peak HP at 3600 rpm, going beyond 3600 RPM the HP starts falling off. We could do a stage 2 modification on the engine to get a few more HP, but the drawback is you have to have an open exhaust and this thing would be too loud. If noise is not an issue, then yes more power is available from the 212cc engine
Use an inverter gas generator like a yamaha EF2200IS, or Honda EU2200. Hook the 120 volt power source to a high amperage DC power supply. Now you have an auto variable demand generator speed control. Also you will have a much better mechanical to power conversion as these inverter generators have had many years of expensive engineering. Change the Pot on the power supply so it can be controlled by your throttle pedal. Even a harbour freight inverter generator would work. Just maybe not as quiet. My old Yamaha EF1000IS went from 2100 RPM to 5000 RPM. It was quiet in low rpm's, but was a screaming banshee at full throttle. You still need to make a reverse for this series wound shunt motor. Still better get a parallel wound shunt motor. Or still better. Get a 120 volt single phase to 3 phase VFD drive, and get a nice 3 phase induction motor, and replace the power supply and the dc motor all together. The DC bus on the VFD can be hooked to some battery/capacitor to store the braking energy. Okay that sounds like your Honda insight power train. The Yamaha inverter generators have 2 delta 3 phase windings. 1 winding is for low speed, the other is for high speed operation. Maybe with an Arduino you could go right from generator 3 phase to 3 phase VFD, and control the generator throttle stepper motor directly.
No new carb? No new more efficient alternator? No figuring out a custom programmed circuit to increase that 72% capacity to 99% or to use that excess capacity to charge and discharge a capacitor when necessary to prevent that bog down? No custom 3D printed gearbox to run a thingamabopper? No completely redesigned motor to create regenerative braking? No trying to get a golf cart up to highway speeds? I was sure by now you would have inspector gadgetted that thing to beat the Renault in a drag race! 😂 But seriously, love the channel. Thanks for the entertainment and knowledge.
Your channel makes me feel like a kid excited to wake for Saturday morning cartoons.
We will throw technology at this problem, but the first version is being kept super simple.
Well he could set up a current sense for the electric motor, and when that drops to a low level, use the excess capability to charge a big honking capacitor (or a battery) out of circuit, up to its limited voltage. And then when the current sense on the motor exceeds a level, switch the big honking capacitor (or battery) into the circuit to provide more kick. Of course, it won't help efficiency any, but maybe it can do burnouts. :P
Can’t believe I’m saying this 🤦🏼♂️, but, “STICK a TURBSKY on ‘er! Do it fer DALE!”
🇺🇸3️⃣🦅
Would a permanent magnet motor be any more efficient?
The best way to do this is replace the drive motor with a 4phase motor then drive it right from the alternator fields.
You can also put a HUGE flywheel on the petrol engine, to store some power for takeoffs.
I'd put some sort of 2.8Kw limiter into the system to limit maximum takeoff power to just under the engine's max output.
I actually put a 9” steel pulley as an extra flywheel on the predator 212 on my mini offroad tractor. It greatly smoothed power output and reduced the frequency of stalling when high loads were incurred at low RPM.
That would be my suggestion, some sort of one way like a sprag bearing to drive the flywheel shaft so it can speed faster than 3600 rpm and also coast a variator between the engine and flywheel so when under very little load the rpm can go up.
Yes I like this idea of a flywheel to smooth out and give more power!!!
So, a mechanical capacitor.
Needs a V twin predator swap!
Even a 420 would be nice. Maybe version 2.0 with a better cart.
You have taught me how to understand mathematical stuff way better then my school ever did thank you
Thanks for the kind words.
Thank you for this video! I wish I had a wand to promote this to millions more eyes. Which, I suppose is only 1/2 millions more people...anyway.
I've been converting cars/tractors to electric for 10yrs and taking them to shows. I can't tell you how many times I get asked why I don't just, "put a alternater on a wheel so I don't need them bat-rees!" Why not just tow a second battery? When one dies, switch over to the second and charge the first while you drive, etc...
My current project is an old VW pickup. The plan is to run a portable generator to power my onboard charger as I drive to extend my range. I don't need my range extended but I do need to find out how many mpg a Harbor Freight generator gets!
Your experiment is probably the most inefficient method of cruising a golf cart and I love it! I can't wait to see what results I get.
Great job!!
Gas generators like the small ~2-3kW size have terrible efficiency. I did a crappy test with a killawatt meter and calculated less than 30% from fuel to power.
It all in the math, unfortunately they also have to know theory in order to understand how it all works.
Now all you need is a wind splitter and a diffuser and a four foot tall spoiler for aerodynamics, and an attachment on the front to hook up horses since you're near Amish country
As always, Jimbo, excellent! On diesel electric locomotives , even they are only running 70% +/-. The newer GE/Wabtec locomotives are running a little better than that, I understand. If anyone could have discovered how to squeeze out better efficiency, the railroads would have found that by now. So, your fun and very entertaining project actually reveals the math behind the scenes that engineers have been dealing with for the past 80 or more years! Now, how cool is that? Lol! Just like engineers have to do, sometimes, because as the saying goes, it is what it is, and you just have to work with what you got. The fun part? Thinking outside the box and challenging oneself to come up with solutions for challenges. You do that part very well, my man! Might I add, with the best sense of dry humor this side of the pond . . . Lolololol! Looking forward to the next set of diabolical shenanigans. 😅
Thank you so much! I really appreciate that you understand the efficiency issue. Believe it or not I have to argue with folks when I tell them this system is inefficient.
Even though it’s inefficient, there’s reliability in simplicity. There’s a balance to be had. What good is a 100% efficient device that is not reliable? 50% of the time, it works everytime!
I enjoy this channel. I'll never create anything like this but it's the first video I click on when they come out. Thanks Jim and chase driver Duke.
Thanks!
Man, I love this channel. Making a homemade generator soon!
Always a great way to start the day, coffee and Robot Cantina.
That was a great explanation of the problem Jimbo. This has been a fascinating project and I'm glad you decided to build it.
My favorite channel to watch while making breakfast on Sunday mornings!!
I totally understand the production time for videos. We used to do videos of our bus restoration and gave up since it was taking more time to produce videos than the actual work.
Yes indeed, it take a massive amount of time to do anything when its being videoed.
Yet another well illustrated video. You just prove that math’n is hard, and es-plaining is even harder to make it easy to understand. Well done!
Right hand turns... This sure isn't NASCAR.
The 30 mpg or more for golf cart is like a car manufacturers estimated MPGs. Is it possible?
Yes, if you are rolling down a mountain with your engine off!
Sooo... no planned "big block" upgrades to the petroleum battery? Bummer.
I wouldn't mind seeing a diesel version.
@@Rattus-Norvegicus He doesn’t even have seat belts yet🤣. How fast do you want it to go?
Though I think at some point there will be a limit to how many amps the DC motor can handle.
So let’s think about it. Suppose he put the 720 cc Kubota in there and increase the output by 4 fold. So now imagine he has 4 alternators and each of them is peaking at say 80 Amps. Each Alternator has a lead going to the motor, that’s 320 Amps. That 320 Amps is being delivered to a single contact on the DC motor………
The other thing is the DC motor may have an NGO RPM limit so . . . ..
The other problem is weight. The motor sits behind the rear wheels, which is a bad place for a motor. As the weight behind the rear wheel increases understeer on the front wheels increases. When that occurs the weight distribution and road conditions determine how the vehicle steers.
BIG BLOCK is of course always the answer, but for now give me time to sort out this contraption.
@ Uh😎 where would you put the motor mounts, OUCH?
Question, how much rotational torque, say in a crack shaft and flywheel, could you put on the axial center of gravity of a golf cart sufficient to flip it while moving at a moderate speed ?
@@robotcantina8957I would love to see a jungle site diesel BIG BLOCK upgrade to this lol
Watching your videos every Sunday morning is a must for me… thanks Jimbo
Nice this is my Sunday morning routine
Coffee and Cantina. :D
The engine falling on its face reminds me of a stick shift car.
same scenario, only with an electrical load.
Yes!
The thing with the supercaps can be done, if you run the alternator field to keep a continuous voltage (as it would normally be in a car) and materialize a 150a PWM controller out of thin air - and hook up the supercaps between the alternator and the PWM driver power input.
Such a powerful driver is not that common to find for cheap. But DIY can probably be done for
get a 48v lipo with a bank of capacitors I was thinking like the ones used in big power car amps that help prevent a voltage sag when the amp pulls a lot of power from the speakers hitting deep base
This setup would likely be more efficient, too. The only question would be whether the setup fits with the intention of the project. The batteries would essentially be replaced by a cap. I’d like to see this, though!
Yes indeed that would work, but in our system we are dual purposing the alternator as a motor controller and a power source.
I tried for months to make my own PWM motor speed controller using mosfets and an Arduino, but I kept blowing stuff up. I was converting a pedal trike to electric with a 700 watt 36v motor. After the circuit failed and the motor went full power on me unexpectedly, I decided to buy a commercially available controller before I got myself hurt.
I enjoy your content. always thought provoking. Keep up the good work.
Excellent balance of detail and brevity!
Jimbo, I wanted to say thank you. I paused your video in the middle to go fire up my 212 minibike with ape hangers and take it for a spin. I've not had it out in probably a year and a half.
It makes me want to build some other fun contraptions.
Very succesful project!
Don’t forget that brushed motors aren’t very efficient either. Your wheel horsepower is probably under half the engine horsepower
He's calculating 3.9 hp out of the alternator. If the motor is 80% efficient that would be 3.1 hp to the road. Probably closer to 70% efficient so 2.7 hp. As you said, less than half.
Diesel electric locomotives use a similar system. Their alternators and motors are more efficient but overall maybe 65% of the horsepower produced by the engine gets to the track.
Right on time Jimbo
Thanks again, makes mu Sundays!
I think you need the original numer of 12v batteries in the original configuration but much smaller batteries, so you have you power source with the engine static as a power bank and the alternator as a charging source whilst underway.
Yes, a 48v surge capacity of 5-10 seconds would probably do it? Either lead acid or Lithium or maybe supercapacitors.
I've been an electrician for over twenty years now. In my teenage years, I was a small engine mechanic. And now I build grace engines outside of being an electrician. I find this very interesting!
I'm glad you are finding this interesting. its really a lot of fun.
The wacky little projects you come up with never cease to amaze me lol. Who would've thought this would actually function as well as it does. Happy Sunday and enjoy your coffee!
Yes, it works really well.
Great video as always, makes Sundays always better. Keep it up!
Thanks for the great video, Jimbo. Didn't realize how much power was lost through the alternator. Kind of like a transmission power loss at the wheels. Cheers 🍻
I love this channel! It's as fun as it is educational.
Really enjoyed this episode, Jimbo!
🏆👍🏼
Hey, three things:
• as an under-trained Jack-of-all-Trades-Master-of-None, my “technical” assessment of the WOT Bog would’ve been “Rotational resistance of alternator may occasionally exceed available torque of petroleum battery”, and left it at that. I wouldn’t have given the technical explanation a moment’s consideration. However, I have to confess that, although I already understood what was happening, I really enjoyed your brief Electrical Engineering Explanation [abbreviated to EEE! 😬 in the Robot Cantina Study Guide]. I found the numbers interesting, atypical for a guy like me… I never knew BHP had an electrical analog. 🤔
• As an inmate in the Kommifornistan Prison Kamp, I would love-love-LOVE to see these Petroleum Battery Carts mass-produced and imported here, for no other reason than to stick-it to our slimy Diktovernor. Ol’ Grewsom would have a conniption! 😆
• I do realize that you don’t have much time to devote on Robot Cantina Merch, but I personally would love to purchase one of those metal “phone holders” featured in this week’s episode. Is that custom fabricated, or was it a repurposed item?
Thanks for all you do, Sir!
LOL, California needs hybrid's like this. The phone holder thingy is a robot cantina exclusive. I 3D print them for all the "telephones" that we use for filming the video series.
@ Oh, that’s a print?! Great resolution, I mistook it for metal! Wish I could get prints like that out of MY printers. 😏
Well if you ever want to sell the files, I and I’m sure others would be interested.
Always a good way to spend a Sunday morning.
I feel like this inevitably becomes a hybrid with a more 'standard' battery and controller. Which is also awesome.
Well done Jimbo!
19mpg. Not too shabby.
Keep up the good work 😎
"Duke has some better things to do"
I doubt it.
Excellent. I can't wait for your next video.
Working in the cold is a BIG advantage
Yes, We will have to do some warm weather testing at some point.
Brilliant,thanks.
I love your videos and the ingenuity that you put into them. They are both informative and enjoyable. Changing the pully ratio to a smaller pully on the engine would give you more torque on the alternator so that you could come up with more amps to keep it from stalling. You would however not be able to produce as many volts so it wouldn't go as fast. If however, you had a way to change the pully ration you may be able to solve both problems.
There's a website where you can search for gas stations with ethanol-free gas. If there's one nearby it would be easy to do a test of winter-blend vs straight-gasoline on the Insight. --- I'd be pretty curious about the results. Knowing that ethanol concentration can have a large effect on small engine wear and gasket lifespan.
Not sure the 0%-Ethanol stuff is immune from the winter oxidizer stuff they add (which is not ethanol) to the winter blends. "Race gas" like the 105 octane whatever would be since that is not for road use.
we actually have non ethanol gas at a good portion of stations here in kansas.
But like spudz said, i think they may still get an additive package
This was very informative, precise the test i was hoping for, just not the result, but never mind, now we know,
Thank you very much
Jimbo always takes on the impossible and then shares successes of not so much successes. I'm waiting for him to tackle a perpetual motion machine. If anyone every can do it, Jimbo can.
LOL, I would love to make perpetual motion machine videos, those videos get a lot of views. Hmmm....
Given your brother's name I really was to say, Looks like them Duke boys are at it again...🤣🤣🤣🤣
How to get a better golf cart, join your local golf club and just "borrow" one of there's. Have Duke waiting with the trailer just off the 10th hole...🤣🤣🤣🤣
LOL, Indeed. I can see it now, a golf cart jumping the water hazard with the Dixie horn playing.
@@robotcantina8957 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
11:20 Maybe not with just a capacitor, but with some power electronics you could make it so the capacitor gets charged when you're off throttle so that it can give you a temporary boost when you floor it. That'd defeat the simplicity though
GOOD IDEA!!! JIMBO PLEASE!
Of course something like that could be done, but its not simple. we are trying to make this system simple so we don't loose the audience. We will do a more complex system in the future.
Thanks man, good job😊 very interesting.
Ahh the coffee tastes even better! As an electrician, good job with the maths Jimbo! Sounds like we need more torque, not necessarily horsepower. Hmmm if only their were a little bitty torquey engine that were good to run on kerosene, diesel, veg, wmo, atf, and more.
Just fantastic 😊 great stuff!
The traffic start picking up 😂 tell this to Los Angeles ! Love this guy
Great job. Very interesting!!!!!
Great test! Thank you, greetings from Brazil.
Amazing 👏 thanks for the video!!
Horsepower is a goofy metric. Since it's "work done", _over time_ it's dynamic, and engine speed is relative to HP. Cool vid, Jimbo.
Thanks for loading up the engine until it stalled! I did something like this nearly 20 years ago and was shocked when I stalled the engine. I didn't know the math but I understood WTF happened.
Hands on experiments the best. Especially for us that went to the school of hard knocks.
Great information as always jimbo and crew
If you had a super capacitor bank setup to 48 volts, then wired with a high current relay on the power wire between the alternator and electric motor. The relay can be triggered by a simple arduino to charge once the voltage from the alternator exceeds, say 48 volts, and shut off when the voltage drops below 48 volts. The relay can also be triggered when the throttle is at full throttle AND the voltage from the alternator is less than say 28 volts( the exact settings would have to be adjusted). That way, when you go full throttle at low speed, the super capacitor bank would provide enough power to prevent the gas motor from stalling.
Or you could program the arduino to only charge the super capacitor bank once the voltage exceeds 48 volts with a high voltage/high current diode. Then have a wide open throttle switch to kick the super capacitor bank in use with a high amperage relay(a starter relay should work fine for this) when the alternator voltage is low and full throttle is requested.
This would add complexity, but it would help to prevent the gas motor from stalling when wide open throttle at low speeds was desired.
yes or course that would work, Keep in mind we are building a simple system right now and in our simple system we cant be doing shenanigans with Arduinos. Fear not, we will have a more complex system in the future. In order to stay on topic I cant use complex ideas on this simple project. I have a background in electronics and writing code and I am very much aware of what can be done, however I need to keep this simple in order to retain my core audience.
For fun future projects, I’ve always wanted to try doing a hybrid go-kart with an AC generator and AC motor, using a variac as a speed controller. Figured it’d be way more efficient, with fewer losses compared to switching DC to AC. Years ago I picked up a huge 50A 240V variac at the MIT Flea and figured it’d be perfect.
Of course, it probably weighs more than the harbor freight engine you’ve got powering this.
Thanks for the explanation on the capacitor problem. So the piece needed would be the motor controller and have the alternator at your max wattage.
I had always wanted to create a diesel hybrid to burn waste oil so I am interested in your experiment here.
I have a chevy volt with a blown head gasket I thought it would be fun to pop in a small diesel engine to extend the EV range and remove the gas engine.
Lots of computer parts to bypass on that vehicle though, let me know if you would want to play with that in the future.
The benefits of living in a rural area is that the neighbors are used to strange farming contraptions and innovations so a golf cart out on a venture isn't the strangest thing on the road.
Meanwhile the cops are still thinking of if it's worth it to go out and take a look at a golf cart on the run.
YES, YES and YES. Love it!
Hey JIMBOOOO!!! loved this episode. You and your brother remind me to the straight brothers. Alvin taking his John Deere lawn mower to go see his brother Lile in Iowa. It would great to see this project with a three phase AC motor❤
Great Video! You deserve more subscribers.
Thanks Jimbo great job
This is way better than sunday morning cartoons!
Nice to see you 😊.
JIMBO!!! it would be quite entertaining and quite the christmas present if you put a big heavy flywheel on the gas motor to help with your acceleration... maybe. The thought is that it would help sustain acceleration until the torque (current) demand of the drive motor drops to a level the gas battery can keep up with. may not be worth your time but it would be fun!!! You'd need a lot of weight spinning pretty fast to make it work.
Put the flywheel on the alternator which is spinning much faster.
Large horizontal flywheel underneath the carriage like where a mower blade would be, bonus of gyroscopic anti-rollover force.
Problem being all the mass for the flywheel requires even more acceleration power.
@@Spudz76 Please show us your frictionless drive for your idea.
I would like to see a larger engine and the alternator out of a Hummer installed. Yes you are going to add weight but it would be fun to see what happens. Love your videos can't wait for the next one.
You know....shits and giggles is a valid reason for doing everything
More RPMs. Get rid of the limiter. These engines will spin much faster and produce more HP
yes. but it will require a new pulley to take advantage of that RPM and turn it into more torque. Because otherwise the motor will still bog down
Some will break faster too. Like the briggs 5hp.
And burn even more fuel
Also need to keep in mind the efficiency range of the alternator. I have no idea how fast it's turning now, but it's possible that turning the engine faster would put it out of that range.
The 212 burns a good deal more fuel over 3600rpm. They are designed to be most efficient at 3600.
Having owned several gas golf carts, the one i had with worst gas mileage was a lifted yamaha with big tires, it still got 32-35 mpg. If you want a speedometer/odometer on your golf cart, there are many cheap bicycle speedometer on the jungle site that can be programmed down to golf cart sized tires.
Interesting as always. Makes me want to find out why boat propellers are so inefficient. Always wanted to know why torque is never used in there calculators to figure propeller size. Great video as always. Thanks for the info. 👍👍👍👍👍🍻
I dont know, but peak HP and peak toque are at different RPM.
I think the diesel engine would be better use for this This might be a function of torque , on the capacitor part could charge the caps separately then use a relay to make contact when the peddle is 90% and breaks the circuit when the throttle is less then 90% so you only getting the extra kick at 90% throttle
A small bank of 48v Lead acid batteries and a motor controller would work better. Capacitors don't hold much energy.
Absolutely correct. The Supercap is detrimental in this circuit.
*this circuit, But if you designed a circuit with something like a battery in the middle of it which I have no idea how to do but I'm not going to say it's not possible
Adding a capacitor in the way you described yes, but if you have the engine set to run at 100% and when you're not applying throttle it's charging the capacitor.... And then when you push the throttle past the capabilities of the engine the capacitor adds in the power. The capacitor should be an addition not a subtraction
But you could also just add a battery 🤦
Good video again. Capacitors? LoL. Maybe for better results pump up the tires on the blue trailer.
This idea reminds me of the gasoline range extender that Scout is going to use in their new trucks
It's always weird seeing how flat Kansas is. I live not far from the highest elevation in Ohio state (it's around 400m) and while it's no Switzerland, it sure is compared to your state lol. Some of the hills here are insane. If you are crazy enough to love climbing hills on bikes, I know from experience it's pretty unforgiving here! At least going downhill on a bike is fun... until you have to make the return journey.
I really wish we had a hill or two around here for testing purposes.
he just happens to live in a really flat part of Kansas. We have extremely varied terrain, and we could find him some big hills not far away if needed.
If you added a little bit of flywheel weight you might be able to get through the acceleration demand. An inertial capacitor so to speak
Need a lot of weight spinning very fast.
Back in the day folks used huge old single cylinder motors, often diesel, for power on the farm. They ran very slowly so to keep wear and fuel usage as low as possible. Too large for our use but using a large cylinder low speed engine would be interesting. Turning low rpm's into high rpm's using electricity would be good clean fun.
Your electronics experience is very broad. I actually spent decades doing failure analysis at the silicon level for every major defense and automotive/aerospace manufacturer dealing with ICs from voltage regulators all the way to microprocessors. I am retired.
- I learn a lot from you. I cannot actually fix anything, but I can tell you why it doesn't work.
Start and stop is always the milage killer. Use the momentum and weight to preload a launch mechanism that's triggered during acceleration to provide a mechanical propulsion assist so less current is necessary and the stall is prevented. The same concept will also greatly increase mileage by attacking the area where most energy is wasted...start and stop.
Great channel!
I was waiting for a good bump to knock your phone off the cart. But then I spotted the strip of velcro during your math lesson. Whew! 😅
This is a really fun project! In the spirit of wacky things to try, how about a vehicle with a petroleum battery running a compressor, storing compressed air in a tank and then powering a compressed air motor?
Even more inefficient, but I love it!
You can add contactor and arduino to the capacitor. It can be charged at low load and discharged at high load.
I think it is not worth adding capacitor but this could work.
Yes, a capacitor would work in that situation, however as I keep saying, the system I'm building is super simple and in a super simple system, we cant have complex dohickys. The good news is once I get done doing the simple system, I will do an arduino system. and than we can have all sorts of dohickys.
Re capacitors.
If the throttle isn't reacting quickly enough to the load, then a capacitor could help.
It depends if the engine is bogging down before the alternator hits 3kw demand.
But, a chunkier flywheel could also help with this also.
The governor on the engine reacts quickly to the load. if the engine bogs, its because the engine is maxed out. On our simple system there is no place in the circuit for capacitors. on a more complex system, then yes we could do some tricks.
@@robotcantina8957 My thinking was, if peak power is at X rpm, the added load is essentially instantaneous, so lets say it engine slows 100rpm, youre then off peak power so you not only have to throttle up for the increased load, but to get back to the target rpm and thus peak power. youre getting a double whammy.
I suppose the easiest way to confirm, is to limit maximum current draw. if youre still bogging down, youd need to either ramp up power more slowly, or add a capacitor, or a flywheel, aka a mechanical capacitor.
I'd recommend changing you belt pullies, cars have a ratio like that because there can be high demand on the alternator while the engine is at idle 700 to 800 rpm, running the engine at 3000 rpm you better off at a 1:1 ratio and I believe that would also help with your stalling problem under hard acceleration. smaller pully on the engine will provide more torque.
Nice work, as always. I LOL’d at “traffic is starting to pick up” as camera turns to show empty road. Textbooks and lectures only go so far, which is why STEM courses include labs. Your content, to me, is a series of cool lab experiments. Keep it up! @angrycorvair
Try it with a Kubota on your next golf cart it would be funny 😂
I have a golf cart powered by a Kawi FE290 with high speed gears and it's street legal. It gets 25mpg more or less. We're in SD so our gravel roads look the same. Wife and I take it on road trips to go camping getting to the lake on back roads. On gravel it gets 20. So you're right in line with a gas powered golf cart with belt/transmission losses. On pavement I can go 34, on gravel it will only do 25. On a 4 wheel cart.
Just throwing it out there, trying a foot pedal off of an ac/dc sawing machine , and it did surprised me that the alternator didn't get that hot when you were running it with that high of a wattage output
Thanks for the idea, We have the foot pedal situation solved (cheaply) and it will appear in the next video
a great break from studying for finals! by God, this semester can't be over soon enough
Excellent video series!! Since it's a series, and time is more available than $$, I have the following questions which would also make for great video's. Would eliminating the governor and adding some more RPM with the use of performance parts help? And by how much? Also, would a direct drive between the gas motor and the axle help or hurt performance? You should in theory gain 40% efficiency back, and up the HP by 2 over the gas motor?
Keep up the great work. Love the format and delivery style. Don't change a ting.
I have the same style rear end on my EZ-GO cart and it is not a good layout to power the cart directly with an engine. It can be done but there is not a lot of room forward of the differential. The more desirable carts to use direct belt drive have the original electric motor above and run parallel with the axel.
The governor must be retained. we need the automatic throttle compensation the governor provides. Anyway a 212 cc predator engine makes peak HP at 3600 rpm, going beyond 3600 RPM the HP starts falling off. We could do a stage 2 modification on the engine to get a few more HP, but the drawback is you have to have an open exhaust and this thing would be too loud. If noise is not an issue, then yes more power is available from the 212cc engine
Worn out electric vehicles batteries are becoming a common problem, and a way to convert them to internal combustion is very useful.
Yes! the new generation of EV's will have petroleum batteries.
Use an inverter gas generator like a yamaha EF2200IS, or Honda EU2200. Hook the 120 volt power source to a high amperage DC power supply. Now you have an auto variable demand generator speed control. Also you will have a much better mechanical to power conversion as these inverter generators have had many years of expensive engineering. Change the Pot on the power supply so it can be controlled by your throttle pedal. Even a harbour freight inverter generator would work. Just maybe not as quiet. My old Yamaha EF1000IS went from 2100 RPM to 5000 RPM. It was quiet in low rpm's, but was a screaming banshee at full throttle. You still need to make a reverse for this series wound shunt motor. Still better get a parallel wound shunt motor. Or still better. Get a 120 volt single phase to 3 phase VFD drive, and get a nice 3 phase induction motor, and replace the power supply and the dc motor all together. The DC bus on the VFD can be hooked to some battery/capacitor to store the braking energy. Okay that sounds like your Honda insight power train. The Yamaha inverter generators have 2 delta 3 phase windings. 1 winding is for low speed, the other is for high speed operation. Maybe with an Arduino you could go right from generator 3 phase to 3 phase VFD, and control the generator throttle stepper motor directly.
I enjoy watching wear was that hill at
This is dumb, but fun as hell. Thanks Jimbo.
Yes, doing dumb things is fun!