Electric Cars - the discussion continues.

[Old Koreelah]

On 06/08/2021 at 5:18 AM, Dax said:

… the hot water tank works on a heat exchanger, then the water is circulated through the house and back to the stove…

Heat exchangers work well with very high temperatures like in nuclear power stations, but solar and wood-burners may not be their best application.

My only experience with a heat exchanger was a colleague’s Beasley HW system that wasn’t heating the water effectively. One problem: sharp 90 degree bends in the circulation line were hindering the thermosyphon.

I suspect the coil inside the tank also had insufficient surface area.

[Dax]

57 minutes ago, Old Koreelah said:

Heat exchangers work well with very high temperatures like in nuclear power stations, but solar and wood-burners may not be their best application.

Use heat exchangers in all my vehicles, to preheat veggie oil in all my diesel engines, they work excellently and the same in my hot water system. Also use a heat exchanger on my bus, to heat the hot water system when moving.

 

In winter the stove water boils and heats the 480lt tank easily, same in summer the solar hotwater gets very hot and heats the tank without problems. Domestic hot water doesn't need to be that hot and I can't have a shower without using cold water winter or summer.

 

In my cruiser, the heat exchanger heats the oil to between 70-80deg, hot enough to not want to get any on you. Discovered that a long time ago when changing an inline filter, the oil that ca,e out of it burnt my hand, so changed the plumbing configuration so the HE was the last point before returning to the radiator.

[Dax]

1 hour ago, Old Koreelah said:

Heat exchangers work well with very high temperatures like in nuclear power stations, but solar and wood-burners may not be their best application.

Use heat exchangers in all my vehicles, to preheat veggie oil in all my diesel engines, they work excellently and the same in my hot water system. Also use a heat exchanger on my bus, to heat the hot water system when moving.

 

In winter the stove water boils and heats the 480lt tank easily, same in summer the solar hotwater gets very hot and heats the tank without problems. Domestic hot water doesn't need to be that hot and I can't have a shower without using cold water winter or summer.

 

In my cruiser, the heat exchanger heats the oil to between 70-80deg, hot enough to not want to get any on you. Discovered that a long time ago when changing an inline filter, the oil that ca,e out of it burnt my hand, so changed the plumbing configuration so the HE was the last point before returning to the radiator.

[nomadpete]

A friend made his own thermosyphon heat exchanger solar HWS. He objected to paying the price of a ready-made one.

His tank was an old vertical copper hot water tank with the original heat exchanger pipe coiled inside the top. His panel heated the water nicely but he wasn't getting much hot water out until he doubled the (mains pressure) pickup copper pipe coil inside. he was happy with it.

 

However my sister bought a heat exchanger solar hot water heater at great expense and it never worked satisfactorily.

Edited August 7, 2021 by nomadpete

[Bruce Tuncks]

At the farm, we have an "instantaneous" hot water which is a bottled gas burning coil heater. It takes forever to heat up since the flow is what ignites the gas. I have it set at 42 degrees which is as hot as I can take it and as cold as the wife can bear it. Mixing the output with cold water can create an instability and the shower can go cold on you.

I read about you guys systems with envy.  

[Dax]

1 hour ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

At the farm, we have an "instantaneous" hot water which is a bottled gas burning coil heater. It takes forever to heat up since the flow is what ignites the gas.

Here's a couple of things you can try, buy a roll of 12-50mm poly hose, sit it in the sun and connect it to your hotwater service when the sun comes out, the black poly absorbs the heat and you have hot water. Used that when building one of my homes in the Snowy's, it was off grid and was the simplest things to get hot water. Even worked in winter when the sun came out, until I put copper pipes on the back of the wood stove which did the job. As far as I know, it's still being used for hotwater and now has a rock base and wall so when the sun goes down, the rocks still provide heat.

 

Have a friend who slashed his property piles it all up into compost heaps with rolls of poly pipe inside, gives them really hot water all year round. He has 3 compost heaps, they sit in pits in the ground, one is being filled, one is being used for hot water and the last one provides the garden with compost. It's ingenious and been functioning for decades, plus they have wonderful gardens.

[onetrack]

Bruce, do you have a "water-saver" shower head with a plastic flow restriction valve in it? If you do, take the shower head off and knock out the flow restriction valve, and your instantaneous HWS will perform a lot better.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Here's an interesting history of the EV

 

[facthunter]

Batteries go flat and ICE cars run out of fuel.. With Batteries you can't go into town and get a drum but with a modern diesel or direct injected petrol IF you DO runout you won't be going anywhere without the agent playing with it and fast charging you  Dedicated GAS vehicles have to carefully plan where they can go. Have THEY just been forgotten? NEW fuel stations don't have them. Electric CARS will break down far less often than ICE. They are utterly SIMPLE by comparison.  AS usual LATELY WE lag the rest of the civilised world in MOST things Modern and efficient . Talk about the CLEVER Country? Being dumb as dog$#1t is now the "Australian Way"  Nev. 

[spacesailor]

Battery cars !.

They seem awfully heavy to me, & they have lots of tyre noise.

Also excessively complecated.  ( only saw one battery pack  ) with wires everywhere. 

Could have been the B M  wires.

spacesailor

[Marty_d]

22 hours ago, spacesailor said:

Battery cars !.

They seem awfully heavy to me, & they have lots of tyre noise.

Also excessively complecated.  ( only saw one battery pack  ) with wires everywhere. 

Could have been the B M  wires.

spacesailor

There's no reason they'd have any more tyre noise than any other car, it's just that you can suddenly hear it because there's no engine noise.

Same thing with a glider, you hear a lot of wind noise.  Probably hear it in a regular plane too if the spinny thing at the front stopped.

 

 

 

Edited November 21, 2021 by Marty_d

[Old Koreelah]

1 hour ago, Marty_d said:

There's no reason they'd have any more tyre noise than any other car, it's just that you can suddenly hear it because there's no engine noise...

…and because people love to show off their massive acceleration.

[Old Koreelah]

An interesting new vehicle from a team with a record for good design:

https://www.drive.com.au/news/ak47-gun-maker-kalashnikov-to-launch-fleet-of-electric-vehicles/?utm_campaign=syndication&utm_source=smh.com.au&utm_content=article_3&utm_medium=partner

[willedoo]

9 hours ago, Old Koreelah said:

An interesting new vehicle from a team with a record for good design:

https://www.drive.com.au/news/ak47-gun-maker-kalashnikov-to-launch-fleet-of-electric-vehicles/?utm_campaign=syndication&utm_source=smh.com.au&utm_content=article_3&utm_medium=partner

Kalashnikov make a lot of stuff apart from arms. Tracked vehicles, track undercarriages and components, motorcycles, boats, motor yachts, UAV's, medical equipment, instruments, oil and gas equipment and power tools to name a few.

 

This is their electric bike:

 

 

[willedoo]

I guess Kalashnikov's diversity is minor compared to corporations like General Electric and Mitsubishi. GE will make you a fridge or a gatling gun and everything in between. I think a lot of the world companies will be looking at the renewable industries. There's a lot of money to made from it in the future.

[facthunter]

GE build some of the worlds best Jet engines and nuclear power stations.  Nev

[onetrack]

I don't know what it is, but suddenly I'm seeing Tesla's everywhere? Used to be I might see one Tesla every second day, but I'm seeing about 6 or 8 a day now! Their sales must have rocketed up recently?

[Marty_d]

I usually see 3 or 4 even down here.  Pretty sure there's one from somewhere up our road.

 

[spacesailor]

AND I have seen two RR cars yesterday, both had numberplates with RR on them.

Are we getting richer .. That people can drive those gas guslers !.

spacesailor

 

[facthunter]

I saw a Two tone Convertible RR the other day in Melb and the driver looked like the North Korean Leader.

   Donald Trumps "little Rocket Man." That description is sure to help things run smoothly. Bentleys are probably better cars today.. Nev

[Marty_d]

3 hours ago, spacesailor said:

AND I have seen two RR cars yesterday, both had numberplates with RR on them.

Are we getting richer .. That people can drive those gas guslers !.

spacesailor

 

 

Sure it wasn't the same one?  They often have the same number plate on the back and the front...

[spacesailor]

One white the other black.

Both with those expensive personalized plates.

spacesailor

[old man emu]

It's not going to affect us in Australia, unless you like to go snow skiing, but my mate in Sweden was telling me that it has been down to -10C this week, and driving around has been difficult, not only because of the snow on the roads, but due to traffic jams. He said this today

 

 I saw on the news yesterday that because of the cold temperatures and the snow storm here in Sweden, many of cars were stranded everywhere around the city, causing traffic and lots of work for the towing services; these cars that stopped were the electric cars!!! It seems that their batteries couldn’t take it very well and when the owners contacted the dealers complaining the case about, they got an answer they the owners are responsible for that, because they should have planned the trip properly.

[onetrack]

https://www.wired.com/story/electric-cars-cold-weather-tips/

[facthunter]

I've had diesel wax up on Hotham at low minus figures too. Batteries can lose some charge when cold. . Nature is not so easily overcome. Black ice affects all cars equally.(unless they have spikes in the tyres). Nev