jamius.com

No no, I've been doubting my setup for a while. The main reason I'm doing the overhaul is because 12V batteries going through an inverter to 230V aren't efficient. I'm going for 24V for the inverter and I'm keeping 12V for 12V-stuff and the switching regulator(s). If they are available cheaper, that's great! I'm gonna look into these when I get to the point of purchasing them, don't worry

Ah ok good. So you're going to have a 24V and a 12V system? What do buses run off of? Is it 24V or 12V? I think (I may be wrong here) that some bigger vehicles run off of 24V.

If it runs off of 12V I'm guessing you're going to make you battery bank 24V and you're just going to use the 12V bus electrical system to power the small stuff?

Hey look what I found. I have NO idea what these things are, but I googled "high power DC to DC" and I was eventually made it to this site.

http://www.vicr.com/cms/home/product-se ... Converters

Then, I eventually made it to this product...

http://psearch.vicorpower.com/search/pr ... 048T060T24

Hopefully that link works.

Basically I THINK it is a 48VDC to 6VDC 240W converter for $75 bucks. That's cheap for something with a bunch of power. They come in a bunch of different input and output voltages too. Hopefully someone else will shed some light on what these are...

corrado33 wrote:Ah ok good. So you're going to have a 24V and a 12V system? What do buses run off of? Is it 24V or 12V? I think (I may be wrong here) that some bigger vehicles run off of 24V.

Some are, but the buses I'm looking into have a 12V chassis battery for starting the engine and running everything related to driving.

corrado33 wrote:If it runs off of 12V I'm guessing you're going to make you battery bank 24V and you're just going to use the 12V bus electrical system to power the small stuff?

Jep. The good thing is that I read on a couple of places that while it isn't recommended to start your engine with 'deep cycle' or 'gel' batteries, you can certainly do it if you don't have to start your engine multiple times every day. So I'm probably going to replace the chassis battery by a battery bank. The other benefit is that my 12V battery bank would be customly charged by the alternator while driving, and that without fancy stuff! And of course, charged by the main battery bank which can be charged with a computer controlled generator, solar panels and shore power.

corrado33 wrote:Hey look what I found. I have NO idea what these things are, but I googled "high power DC to DC" and I was eventually made it to this site.

http://www.vicr.com/cms/home/product-se ... Converters

Then, I eventually made it to this product...

http://psearch.vicorpower.com/search/pr ... 048T060T24

Hopefully that link works.

Basically I THINK it is a 48VDC to 6VDC 240W converter for $75 bucks. That's cheap for something with a bunch of power. They come in a bunch of different input and output voltages too. Hopefully someone else will shed some light on what these are...

So you're practically saying I could have one battery bank of say 24 or 48 volts and then convert power down to 12V and 5V for the ignition, DC stuff and small electronics? Sorry if I got it wrong, and thanks for helping me a lot man! That is like again exactly what I need!

I'm still considering the 48V battery bank. I figured out that the benefits from upgrading from 12V to a 24V system (with an inverter @110V) mean that the basic voltage I need for a 230V inverter is definitely 24V. 12V would be insane. And I kinda like the benefits of a higher voltage, so maybe eventually I will go for 48 volts. Basically, i figured, since my system is european, a 24V battery bank for a 230V inverter is my basic voltage, comparable to a US 12V battery bank for a 110V inverter. And if americans say that the benefits from doubling the battery bank voltage are huge, maybe I should eventually double mine to 48V. So probably 4 rows of 12V batteries in series, and then add more "under them". I hope everybody can understand this rant, my English skills are failing today

Just another quick drawing, I know its unlikely anyone'll be using this design but I think it'll come in handy as the basis for some other ideas. Keeping a keen eye on all the electrical stuff in here, deffo something to watch if your building a RomaHome the advice in here is gold!

I do think the most important thing to do with a major design such is this is build it in stages. Don't try to do everything, just try to do a lot of little somethings and everything is done.

kNuX_V1 wrote:

Just another quick drawing, I know its unlikely anyone'll be using this design but I think it'll come in handy as the basis for some other ideas. Keeping a keen eye on all the electrical stuff in here, deffo something to watch if your building a RomaHome the advice in here is gold!

I may have missed somebody else saying this already, but I think this counts as "over unity". Yes you can have a fan that runs an alternator, but it will add more load to the bus engine.

Notice it says Alternator or other, I doubt if you covered your roof in these things you'd wanna use 10 alternators just to put the power to the batteries. I imagine there are loads of other things you could use in place of an alternator, it was simply the closest thing I could think of.

Scodiddly wrote:I may have missed somebody else saying this already, but I think this counts as "over unity". Yes you can have a fan that runs an alternator, but it will add more load to the bus engine.

Yes. If you are planning on using this while you're driving, it will not help you. The load caused by the wind turning the blades will mean the bus engine will have to work harder to push the bus. You would basically use more gas/diesel and you would get electricity out of it (and very inefficient too). Now, if you want to use these blades while you're sitting somewhere as windmills, sure, they'd work for that. But using them while you're driving will not help you. It will just make you burn more gas.

EDIT: But I'm sure you're thinking "But the bus is moving already and wind is already flowing over top of it, why can't I just put a fan in the way?" Well, that fan is going to cause the bus to have MORE drag, therefore the bus will have to work harder to keep it moving.

I mean think about it, if you stick your hand out of a car window, you feel the force of the wind. You stuck something big enough out the window (and you could hold on to it), you'd feel it slow down the car. You may think that a tiny fan or something wouldn't cause that much of a difference cause you don't feel a difference in speed, but it does.

The only way it would help while you were driving is if there was wind blowing, just like if you were standing still. Even then it would depend upon the direction. The wind could be working against you.

sjvsworldtour wrote:The only way it would help while you were driving is if there was wind blowing, just like if you were standing still. Even then it would depend upon the direction. The wind could be working against you.

And it's very unlikely that the wind would blow in the exact correct direction. (Especially since roads aren't perfectly straight)