[libre-riscv-dev] travelling

Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton lkcl at lkcl.net
Wed Oct 30 19:17:04 GMT 2019


On Wednesday, October 30, 2019, Jacob Lifshay <programmerjake at gmail.com>
wrote:


> > Correct! Bill Ross is the inventor of exactly that. He uses Potassium
> > Hydroxide as a catalyst, and nickel plates with 0.004 in clearance, 2.5v
> @
> > 50 A and you get enough hydrogen to add to a family sized car.
> >
>
> I don't think that's nearly enough power (unless your using a whole bunch
> of those cells in series and parallel): if a car slows down at the same
> rate at which it accelerates, then the braking system has to absorb as much
> energy as is produced when it accelerates: for a puny 10hp engine that's
> about 7.5kW -- much more than the 125W absorbed by 2.5V 50A.


spoke to bill about it: the cylinder is basically a dead short (it's 2
cylinders, one inside the other, around 10in high, 5in diameter).  he's had
it up to 1000A (once!) but the problem is heat.  the system was designed
not just for electrolysis it was designed for thermal dissipation without
mechanical parts.

he's going to do a test at 1000A again, see what the thermal rise is.  if
it's below what would normally be an emergency braking time then we're fine.

although what he actually said was, "time to blow shit up again" :)

l.

> Patents from 1880 and 1921 show that water flashing to steam when injected
> > at TDC will not only cool the cylinder but will actually do "work".
> >
>
> neat!
>
> My personal favorite is the sterling engine, which in a hybrid car can
> overcome it's disadvantage of needing a long time to start due to being
> able to operate from the batteries while the engine is warming up.
> additionally, it's much quieter due to not discharging the cylinders to the
> exhaust.


yehyeh.  oo the wikipedia page animation is nice. twin cranks offset by 90
degrees, oooo :)

l.


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