Solar Powered Bike / Trike

[Sunking]

John you are still boring. Go back to your super secret make believe job. Yawn!.

[Sunny Solar]

Sdelgad8 sorry that I contributed to the off topic subject that Sunking was on.Why he decided you should be doing what I consider a totally
insane project instead of the one you wish to attempt. Some of his comments even in his posts about yourcurrent project are bizzare.Mabe he was
reading some posts on another forum but putting the replys on your thread. One can only speculate.??

SUNKING Post #2 .. At the end of the day what you will discover it is much cheaper to buy power than make it. ??? What had this to do with your
project? You had not said anything about the cost of the needed electricity,.?

SUNKING Post #4 John based on an earkier post the solar will be stationary using a 360 watt panel. REALLY??? Where did he get that tidbit of info
from?? You cearly stated it was a solar powered bike/tryke which is a mobile device.It certainly must have been written in an "earkier" post
elsewhere.??

SUNKING Post #12 Now that I beat you down let me offer a concept that can work and has application in Military and Civil communications. A flying
wing pressurized with helium or hydrogen with graphite for the structure support that can carry a communications radio package to high altitude
and orbit a strategic area like a city indefinitely. It is possible with tech we have today. Military would love such a product or Civil search
and rescue operations where there is not cell phone over 70% of the USA land mass.

Why is the attempt to get you off your present project and start on some concept of communications that has already been done very successfully.
To say the military and Civil and rescue people would love such a product is nuts. But he didnt give up as you can see in post #14

SUNKING Post #14Well FWIW the military already has a aircraft very similar to it, it just uses fuel and a turbine engine. It is a big glider.

They take it high altitude, cut the engine and let if glide a few hours, restart and climb again. repeat until fuel is exhausted.

NASA built such a craft but it crashed in the Pacific. But I have a slightly different idea.

Build a flying wing with with carbon fiber framing. Stretch thin film across the top of the wing and seal it to the lower skin. Use hydrogen to
pressurize the wing and lighten the aircraft. For deployment use a weather balloon to get to high altitude initially and quickly, then orbit the
tactical. When the sun rises turn on the electric motor to climb and recharge the battery, then glide at night and the radio equipment runs off
battery. It can be done with the tech we have now.

Why would civil search and rescue need or want a device like that,, Asimple baloon like a weather baloon can take communications equipment up
above the surrounding terrain ,.In a much simpler and cheaper and more reliable way.



SUNKING Post #22You are not going to find it as batteries and motors are as efficient as they can possible be. LiPo batteries efficiency is 99%
and synchronize motors are 95 to 98% efficient. There is nothing more to gain. With 12 volt motors are are extremely limited. .. YES those 12 v
motors are extremely limited?? in whatway ? compared to what? And who said anything about using 12v motors?? You said you were going to use a 36v
motor.? The remainder of that post is just SUNKINGS version of english.

SUNKING Post #23
Quote Originally Posted by Sunny Solar View Post

For civilian emergency use in calamities 300ft is more than adequate.This was a previous post of mine.

Well John then all I can say is you do not know much about low power UHF and Microwave radio frequencies if that is what you believe. If that
were true no city would need more than one cell tower. In every city of the USa every downtown high rise building has it own cell radio installed
in it just to serve that building.

How did he come up with reading into my post that a city would only need one cell tower.There was never any mention by me that this one baloon

and its equipment was to serve the needs of the inhabitants cell phone usage.??? It is only a device to use by emergency personal. with a very
limited number of users.

I fully understand what Ihave posted is not helping you with your project but Ithought it necessary to get you to see the folly of going off on a
tangent and following SUNKINGS dream "FLYING WING".
The main obstacle with your project is getting enough solar panel area on the bike/tryke.

[MakeBCN]

HEY!!! Whats with the thread hijacking??? This is a thread on a solar trike project. Go make your own thread guys and leave us to talking about solar bike projects here. Please!
Thanks
make

[Sunking]

John you are really boring. I am done with you on this post. You missed the point. It is a college student working on his senior project on a budget. So get lost again.

[Sunny Solar]

Dallas itself without counting Fort Worth and Arlington only has an area about 1000 sqklm.

And as I said a cell has a range of about 5k about same as you say. And I was not suggesting one tower only. and everyman and his pet spider knows the 3 cell frequencies, So you aired nothing new. And the whole post totally you wrote was nit picking on an unimportant part,it wasn't really relevant for the discussion if Dallas was 2or 2000 sqklm.

You, as always missed the important part . you originally said you want some new fangled wing to supply communications for military and emergency use . But why ? when there is already sat phones for that and of course can be used for other purposes And they cover as I said most of the planet,. And as you must be aware the military has its own excellent communications system in place and so do the emergency services.. Who needs a city with 5647 flying wings parked in the sky above it? And what deleterious effects are going to happen to communication from ground to satellites and return when the signal bounces off these sometimes powered? wings.??? what research have you done into that aspect??And what were the results of that testing?

[Sunking]

Let me do some research. Sounds interesting

For a college project you do not even have to put a real voice repeater in the plane to demonstrate the concept. In the RC world there are lots of plans to build electric aircraft. To save money you can use balsa wood and stretch film to make the plane strong and very light in weight. Search the net and you can find plans to build a solar powered RC plane. There are several good forums for such things. Two that come to mind are RC Groups and Watt Flyer. Both have a wealth of information and you can get help directly from the members. There you will find pros in aviation, defense, and military defense contractors who are more than happy to share their knowledge.

To demonstrate the communications simple buy one of the telemetry units made for model RC aircraft or camera as they are cheap. Everything you need can be bought except for the charge controller if you decide to use a LiPo battery to assist accent. Once at altitude cut motor power and glide until telemetry tells you to switch back on the motor to ascend. They even make props just for such idea that fold when not running to reduce drag. Or you can even do duct fans in a wing type aircraft.

Will it make you rich? Not likely but it can land you a great job with a civil or defense contractor which will make you rich later.

Good Luck

Dereck

[sdelgad8]

Now that I beat you down let me offer a concept that can work and has application in Military and Civil communications. A flying wing pressurized with helium or hydrogen with graphite for the structure support that can carry a communications radio package to high altitude and orbit a strategic area like a city indefinitely. It is possible with tech we have today. Military would love such a product or Civil search and rescue operations where there is not cell phone over 70% of the USA land mass. That you can sell.

Let me do some research. Sounds interesting

[sdelgad8]

Other than the ideas presented before, what you want is LiFepo4, and NOT LiCoo2 batteries under your ride. That is, put Lithium-Phosphate (Lifepo4) into service rather than unstable Lithium-Cobalt (laptop / cellphone chemistry). Lifepo4's are MUCH more stable and safe than LiCoo2. There are many lifepo4 manufacturers out there now, from duct-tape garage setups, to quality units. The EV community has the better ones and they've been out for years now. Of course, like any battery you can abuse them if you lose respect.

Charging a Lifepo4 is not rocket science. You can use a simple solar charge controller, provided you set the upper voltage limit properly. Ie, for a 12v application, one can simply run at 14.2v or so and be in business.

In fact, Genasun started from something as simple as this. While a standard pwm charge controller worked to charge his lifepo4, it suffered a quality failure, and Genasun refined the quality and more exacting charge capabilities. But you CAN put an existing solar charge controller into use with lifepo4 as long as you set voltages properly.

While I desire to use a lifepo4-specific charge controller eventually, my lifepo4's are doing just fine with a menagerie of Morningstar pwm controllers.

I agree this is the same information I found in my research. Our problem is just trying to generate enough energy to charge the battery in a reasonable amount of time. We have some ideas we are researching including a stationary solar power charging center. We are also thinking of using 2 batteries one charging from the solar panel and the other being used.

[sdelgad8]

I cant give you any long term emperical info but im very happy with our semi flex lightweight panels on our solar rickshaw project so far. Posted in Solar living section. We are not using it yet as a motor power source but more for 12v acsess. power. I feel when we come up with more effecient batteries or motors we are going to struggle self powering. but i find it fun and ihope you do too and maybe we can help each other. good luck on your project.
make

We are doing research. It looks like we are leaning towards these flexible as a partial solution to power. We wont be able to completely charge the battery in a decent time but we have a few other ideas. I am going to check out the solar living section and share some info that I find

[Sunking]

. Its got almost nothing to do with the power of the transceiver in the tower...

BS John, I work with Cellular companies on a daily basis and use to be an RF engineer. We still do the propagation studies. Cellular works on 800, 1900, and 2100 Mhz which is strictly line of site. On an ocean depending on atmospheric conditions about 2 to 4 miles miles depending on fog and rain. Cellular Carrier is very low power at 20 watts max with low traffic. More traffic less power down to 5 watts. With CDMA today you can carry 512 calls on a 5 Mhz carrier and 2560 calls on a 15 Mhz carrier.

FWIW Dalls is a lot larger than you give it credit for. The metroplex if viewed like a circle is some 60 miles or more in diameter, covers 12 counties, and some 9,286 square miles .

[Sunny Solar]

Now that I beat you down let me offer a concept that can work and has application in Military and Civil communications. A flying wing pressurized with helium or hydrogen with graphite for the structure support that can carry a communications radio package to high altitude and orbit a strategic area like a city indefinitely. It is possible with tech we have today. Military would love such a product or Civil search and rescue operations where there is not cell phone over 70% of the USA land mass. That you can sell.

I dont know if you have heard of them but there are way up there in the big blue sky communication satellite's.. If you have a Sat phone a phone that is similar to a everyday cell phone you can communicate with these satellite's from just about anywhere on earth including the 70% of land mass in USA that has no usual cell phone service..

[Sunny Solar]

Well John then all I can say is you do not know much about low power UHF and Microwave radio frequencies if that is what you believe. If that were true no city would need more than one cell tower. In every city of the USa every downtown high rise building has it own cell radio installed in it just to serve that building.

I never said to only use ONE balloon/transceiver.?? the reason as you should know that there are so many cell towers is because so many users. Its got almost nothing to do with the power of the transceiver in the tower... Example how far away from a tower can you use a cell phone from in the ocean??At least 5lkm. If you had a city the size of Dallas and only 5 users then you would need very few such balloons. even for Facebook users., And why would you spend endless money anyway on developing this new infrastructure in the sky when towers on every building work just fine and not subject to the problems you will encounter doing to transceiver in the sky...Its a dam site easier to climb a tower and repair a device that climb a 156,000 ft rope ladder to your wing in the sky. And if your argument is military use its a lot easier to shoot down 267 stationary wings in the sky than towers on ground zero.

Your answer is ridiculous in the extreme..and totally out of wack to what I was replying,.
In an emergency situation which is most likely to need a transportable cell type transceiver is in a rural or semi rural area with a limited number of emergency /rescue people to use it..

Its not a set up for 100,000 teenagers needing their daily fix of Facebook.

[russ]

Not if lift is important as helium is twice as heavy as hydrogen. Since it is unmanned the danger is negated and would be a fairly small amount.

Handling the balloon during charging is the most dangerous time for people - I would pay the penalty.

[PNjunction]

-36 Volt Lithium Battery 15ah
- Solar Panels in research now

Other than the ideas presented before, what you want is LiFepo4, and NOT LiCoo2 batteries under your ride. That is, put Lithium-Phosphate (Lifepo4) into service rather than unstable Lithium-Cobalt (laptop / cellphone chemistry). Lifepo4's are MUCH more stable and safe than LiCoo2. There are many lifepo4 manufacturers out there now, from duct-tape garage setups, to quality units. The EV community has the better ones and they've been out for years now. Of course, like any battery you can abuse them if you lose respect.

Charging a Lifepo4 is not rocket science. You can use a simple solar charge controller, provided you set the upper voltage limit properly. Ie, for a 12v application, one can simply run at 14.2v or so and be in business.

In fact, Genasun started from something as simple as this. While a standard pwm charge controller worked to charge his lifepo4, it suffered a quality failure, and Genasun refined the quality and more exacting charge capabilities. But you CAN put an existing solar charge controller into use with lifepo4 as long as you set voltages properly.

While I desire to use a lifepo4-specific charge controller eventually, my lifepo4's are doing just fine with a menagerie of Morningstar pwm controllers.

[Sunking]

For civilian emergency use in calamities 300ft is more than adequate.

Well John then all I can say is you do not know much about low power UHF and Microwave radio frequencies if that is what you believe. If that were true no city would need more than one cell tower. In every city of the USa every downtown high rise building has it own cell radio installed in it just to serve that building.