Pleiades

I think the problem is with your understanding of the mechanics involved, knowing the speed alone doesn’t tell you anything about how much power you can extract from some sort of movement. Read this page in detail; look up any words you don’t understand: http://www.howstuffworks.com/fpte.htm/printable For a more detailed explanation about power and torque, read this in detail, again, looking up any words you don’t fully understand: http://www.epi-eng.com/BAS-PwrTrq.htm In short, you need to know the torque and the speed to find the power of the rotating shaft. HP = Torque x RPM ÷ 5252 Where Torque is measured in pound feet.

My plan in post #7 has a lot of flaws, so you can disregard it. The engine RPM and the AC frequency output by the generator are directly tried if you keep the engine at a constant 1800 rpm, you will produce a constant 60Hz (assuming they are directly linked without gears). When you increase the electrical load, the RPM goes down as does the AC frequency, I’m pretty sure the voltage goes down as well, but I doubt the relationship between RPM and voltage is linear.

It seems Woodward makes a product designed to exactly what I need, the SG 2D Digital Speed Governor, midway down the page: http://www.woodward.com/engine/diesel/diesel2/electronic.cfm . Now all I have to do is wait until I can get my hands on the engine. I guess we can call the issue resolved then, I could probably rig something up, but it wouldn’t be as responsive as anything I could buy, and I’m not too fond of the lights dimming when I turn on the toaster. Thanks for the input YT.

I thought I read something about NASA developing metal foam for use as micrometeorite armor on spacecraft, maybe my memory is faulty. If you had bothered to use a search engine first, you would have found a ton of info on metal foam.

Well, it’s a diesel engine so there isn’t a carburetor, but yes the amount of fuel injected is controlled be a small lever that could easily be moved with a small servo. There are also many different ways to sense engine speed. The problem is that I don’t know enough about circuit design and feedback systems to do it properly. This is what I’ve come up with: When the dc motor attached to the shaft spins it puts out voltage in proportion to its speed, when the voltage is too low to trigger either of the zener diodes, the lower relay gives power to the servo to increase the fuel. When the voltage triggers Z1, the relay turns on, cutting power to the servo, this is the balanced state. If the RPM gets too high, the voltage raises until it triggers Z2, which engages the second relay, delivering power to the servo with a reversed polarity to reduce the fuel. There are probably a dozen things wrong with this setup, but it’s a start. I’m reasonably sure this could be done better with transistors, but I don’t know how. I’m also worried that the voltage may not be enough to engage the relays. Link to image:http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1253&stc=1&d=1142466034

I believe the early ones were mechanical, in fact many small engines still use mechanical flyweight governors, they are just far more complex than anything I could make. From the bullets at the bottom of this page http://64.78.42.182/sweethaven/MechTech/Automotive01/default.asp?unNum=4&lesNum=1&modNum=5 I am starting to doubt a simple mechanical governor would be accurate enough to control a generator that will power my house. After reading this page http://64.78.42.182/sweethaven/MechTech/Automotive01/default.asp?unNum=4&lesNum=1&modNum=6 I think I may be able to buy a hydraulic governor such as these: http://www.woodward.com/engine/diesel/diesel2/governors.cfm , I’m not sure which one I need, or which one will work, maybe I’ll email them.

Oh, ok, that makes more sense now.

I’ve been doing a bunch more searching and thinking, and I’ve found a few products that will govern an automotive engine to a set rpm, unfortunately the site is under renovation, so I can’t find out anything else about it. The simplest way may be to just build an old steam style governor and link it to the accelerator pedal (the engine won’t be in the van, but I might save the pedal), then I’d just have to play with the weights and linkages to get the right rpm, like this: http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/thurston/1878/f29p115.gif . I’m not sure if it will be accurate enough however. This page was also quite helpful: http://utterpower.com/governors.htm What would be really nice is if I could just find a good product for converting an auto engine to constant rpm use.

I have a diesel Nissan Vanette that was recently involved in a little ‘accident’ and will probably not pass its inspection next year, the engine however is in good condition. I have this crazy idea that I could take the engine out and couple it with a generator head to make a generator set. I have a feeling this is gong to be a biggish project but I can’t bear to throw out a perfectly good engine. I did some searching and I found that a 30 kW generator set costs around $10,000, but a 30 kW generator head only costs $1,000 - $2,000. So I want to use the engine to make a relatively cheap generator set. My biggest concern is the governor mechanism (voltage regulator): in order to make electrical power a the right voltage and frequency, the head has to be running at its rated rpm, the engine needs different amounts of fuel to produce the same rpm under different loads, so I need a governor to adjust the fuel to the engine so that the engine speed remains constant. Does anyone know how or where I could get such a mechanism, and how I should modify the engine to accept the governor? Is this beyond the average persons abilities, or can it be done? I looked at the engine and it’s labeled as a “LD 20”, information on the internet is scarce, but I found this page: http://www.jescoweb.com/LD20.htm that gives some info. I figure it should be able to handle a 15 kW generator head with room to spare, which is certainly enough for my home (even with the water heater and all the air conditioners!) Any info on putting together a generator set would be greatly appreciated.

I still don’t understand where the energy comes from. Are you saying that if you used a permanent magnet to lift the steel ball enough times it would be depleted and no longer magnetic?

I have a question then: you suspend a permanent magnet several inches from the ground and roll a steel ball under it, the magnet picks it up. Where did the energy come from to move the ball against gravity? This is driving me nuts.

A breeder reactor is not the same as a nuclear bomb, besides, the kid never finished it. http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html The basic principal of a nuclear bomb isn’t hard to comprehend, but getting the calculations right and actually building a working one is not easy.

I met this nuclear engineer once and we got to talking about bombs, a ways into the conversation, he asks me: “how do you know about all this stuff?” I was like: “Ummm… the Internet?”

I hate it when programmers use the CPU as a timer; it’s just sloppy if you ask me. Ok, I can forgive my copy of the Alien trilogy for running at double speed on a modern pc, but come on; this is the Xbox, what’s the matter with these people.

I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure it has to be at fairly low pressures. As Mr. Wizard taught us, a fluorescent tube will light up if you put it in the microwave. So yes, a magnetron should do it.

You would probably need to have multiple banks of capacitors and cycle through them, its going to be a problem finding components that can handle continuous switching of that much energy though. Check out http://www.powerlabs.org/emguns.htm if you haven’t already. Rapid firing also brings the problem of heat buildup; witch will increase the resistance of your coils further decreasing efficiency.

What about the Earth’s rotation? Wouldn’t freefall towards the center follow a spiral path? I never did ‘get’ circular motion.

I found this article which sheds some light: http://www17.tomshardware.com/2006/01/09/strip_out_the_fans/. These guys found that the oil caused the computer to crash if it got into the CPU socket. There explanation is that because the oil works as a dielectric (as YT pointed out) it can interfere with the high frequencies where the CPU connects to the motherboard. In regard to the whole spread spectrum thing I found these products: http://www.tritech.co.uk/Products/Products-Modems.htm . The Q-PSK modulation that this thing can use looks pretty cool. With some fancy video compression, you might to be able to get decent video over this link. It looks to be quite bulky, and probably very expensive. I’d rather go with a tether.

Agar is NOT the same as gelatin, Gelatin is made from boiled collagen from animals, and agar is made from seaweed. You can grow bacteria on a gelatin medium but usually not as well as you can on an agar one. Agar can be bought from the store (I’ve seen big bags of it in stores stocking Asian foodstuffs) you will often see it as a vegetarian alternative to gelatin. You make it just like Jello; mix the agar and nutrients in with hot water, pour it into the Petri dishes and let them cool; you can probably find some info on the internet about what to add for nutrients.

Lots of inspiration here: http://www.hackaday.com/

How can you be bored on the internet! Here: http://www.thewebcomiclist.com http://www.howstuffworks.com/ http://www.stumbleupon.com/ http://www.torrentspy.com/ http://maddox.xmission.com/ http://www.bored.com/

Fiberglass doesn’t taste of anything, its just fine fibers of glass, you are thinking of Glass Reinforced Plastic, commonly known as “fiberglass”, which is a plastic resin with glass fibers for strength. Either way though, you wouldn’t want to smoke it. I doubt anyone would cut weed with fiberglass, it would be much easier just to use the dried leaves of a common plant. I suppose any of the drugs that are white powders could be cut with fiberglass though.

Synthetic caffeine is the same as natural caffeine, it’s not any worse for you, besides, guarana has caffeine in it naturally.

Umm… Why not? If you know of some way to transmit live video through the water in real-time, please, let me know. This thing is a toy, I want to be able to control it remotely, I don’t want it to do things on its own, I want to control it; I want an ROV, not an AUV.

You would have to change the oil fairly frequently then, vegetable oil breaks down when you heat it, not sure the free fatty acids are good for engines, lol. How hot does engine oil get in an engine anyway?