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Really Cool Invention Brings Teens Awards (Amazing Kids-Invented What GM Couldn't)
The Salt Lake Tribune ^ | 07/06/2005 | Jessica Ravitz

Posted on 07/06/2005 8:33:43 AM PDT by skyman

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To: Lee'sGhost

nope. the alternator upgrade was to cover lights and stereo, besides, its a jeep, who needs a/c when you have no top or doors? :)


181 posted on 07/06/2005 12:02:46 PM PDT by absolootezer0 ("My God, why have you forsaken us.. no wait, its the liberals that have forsaken you... my bad")
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To: whd23
Now, if you're talking about home use, geothermal is the way to go! Constant ground temperatures; run it one way and heat the house, run it the other way and cool the house. Very nice.

You actually have a system?.......

182 posted on 07/06/2005 12:07:42 PM PDT by Red Badger (The Army makes the world safe for democracy. The Marines make the world safe for the Army.....)
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To: Sloth

No, no, no. It works like this: You turn the little knob to all blue then the fan switch thingy to the picture of the Big Fan. Cold air comes out the hole in the dash and you make the slats turn to blow in your face. THAT'S how it works..........


183 posted on 07/06/2005 12:11:24 PM PDT by Red Badger (The Army makes the world safe for democracy. The Marines make the world safe for the Army.....)
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To: Sloth

you're kinda right. but it doesn't "move heat". think of it like this. what happens when you add cold water to hot water? it equalizes the tempreture, it doesn't displace it. a cars a/c unit sucks the heat from the (outside) air, then pushes the cold air into the vehicle, combining it with the warm air in the vehicle, which equalizes the difference between the two air tempretures. the excess (equalized tempreture) air is bled out of the vehicle (like what would happen if you kept filling the container of hot water with cold water until it overflowed.)


184 posted on 07/06/2005 12:12:56 PM PDT by absolootezer0 ("My God, why have you forsaken us.. no wait, its the liberals that have forsaken you... my bad")
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To: Sloth
My point was this. A Peltier alone does just one thing. It moves a lot of heat a very tiny distance. Then you have to do a lot more work to get the 'hot' side cooled off and get the 'cool' on the cool side where you want it. It can't really be compared to the heat cycle until you build the complete unit. With the heat cycle you have this moving mass of chilled liquid you can do anything you want to. Also you already have a system to dump heat as a part of the device itself.
185 posted on 07/06/2005 12:13:54 PM PDT by TalonDJ
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To: null and void
Very true. And peltiers are pretty inefficient.

Watt, er, what would be a cooler idea is to figure out a way
to use the engine/exhaust heat with additional peltiers to
generate the power needed to run the cooling peltiers.

186 posted on 07/06/2005 12:15:06 PM PDT by Calvin Locke
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To: Red Badger
You actually have a [geothermal] system?.......

My parents built a energy efficient home in 1985. Part of the design included a geothermal "heat-pump." Since the well provides plenty of water their system is configured as an "open-loop" design. However, I have seen systems that skip the coolant-to-water heat transfer and circulate the coolant itself in copper ground loops.

187 posted on 07/06/2005 12:17:32 PM PDT by whd23
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To: Arkie2

Another great invention car companies are beginning to use:

remote keyless entry that instead of flashing the lights, turns on the reverse lights with no brake light. I was driving through a parking lot and saw a large SUV (Yukon Denali) with reverse lights on and no brake lights. Waited... realized the driver was not even in the car. I have seen this on a couple other cars.


188 posted on 07/06/2005 12:20:16 PM PDT by VA is for Freepers
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To: whd23

My idea years ago (I live in Florida) was to bury a matrix of 12" PVC pipes in the ground, deep enough to be below the water table (about 4' or deeper during dry season here) The temperature of the water is always about 68°F year round. A circulation fan would direct air through the pipes and back into the house duct system with appropriate dust and critter filters.......


189 posted on 07/06/2005 12:24:28 PM PDT by Red Badger (The Army makes the world safe for democracy. The Marines make the world safe for the Army.....)
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To: Calvin Locke

The peltiers could be mounted to finned heatsinks that are in the air stream or a duct that directs air to them from the front of the car. The faster you drive the more cooling the get.....


190 posted on 07/06/2005 12:26:34 PM PDT by Red Badger (The Army makes the world safe for democracy. The Marines make the world safe for the Army.....)
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To: Red Badger
That's the essence of a geothermal system. Constant ground (or groundwater) temperature. You basically have a big AC unit inside your house; during the summer months the hot side of the AC is the ground and the cool side is your house, in the winter it's reversed so it's as if you're trying to cool the earth.

I don't have the URL handy, but one site showed a unit being installed in a NYC townhouse! They drilled into the sidewalk to place the ground loops. The catch with geothermal HVAC is that the initial costs are huge compared to traditional systems. However, my mom's winter electric bill was the same as mine (geothermal "runs" on electricity) but I still had to pay for propane. Ouch!

191 posted on 07/06/2005 12:35:28 PM PDT by whd23
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To: Red Badger
Peltiers can be ruined with too much heat. I should have said something about non-destructive operating temperatures.

I've read few articles on generating applications. Mostly propane-based, out in the real remote locations.

Also for wood stoves, but the overheating issue is a biggie. Too easy to cook your investment w/o much of a return.

Anyway, you're stuck in traffic, and there's not much [cool] air moving across the the cooling fins, and you end up
like the guys with baked peltiers on wood stoves.

I'd rather have an RTG, myself... :)

192 posted on 07/06/2005 12:38:08 PM PDT by Calvin Locke
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To: Calvin Locke

A GTO with an RTG. What a combo!


193 posted on 07/06/2005 12:42:09 PM PDT by null and void (You'll learn more on FR by accident, than other places by design)
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To: hopespringseternal
Free energy!

I must have missed it. Where is the FREE energy mentioned here? I had impression that it was about improving the efficiency. Please explain where I am wrong.

194 posted on 07/06/2005 12:42:46 PM PDT by A. Pole (The Law of Comparative Advantage: "Americans should not have children and should not go to college")
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To: coloradan
Listen to a diesel-powered generator, running an arc welder. The engine strains more when the arc is on, and certainly uses more fuel.

I think myself6 should also stand next to a diesel electric power unit on a train as the engineer accelerates the trottle.

195 posted on 07/06/2005 12:43:33 PM PDT by AxelPaulsenJr (Pray Daily For Our Troops and President Bush)
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To: skyman
"It's been a total, unbelievable dream," marveled Tyler's mom, Diane Lyon, last week. "They're just typical boys. But when someone believes in you, amazing things can happen."

Democrats don't believe in our troops, the intelligence of the American people, the legislators or the institutions of marriage, church and family. NO wonder they keep losing. And no wonder I am a
Recovering_Democrat.

196 posted on 07/06/2005 12:44:56 PM PDT by Recovering_Democrat (I'm so glad to no longer be associated with the Party of Dependence on Government!)
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To: myself6
You decide you want to drive your car 55MPH down the road. You set the cruise control.

Lets say your engine is running at 2500 RPM.

You plug in one of those DC powered tvs to the lighter jack and turn it on.

The car is still running at 2500 RPM driving down the road at 55mph.

There was NO EFFECT on the mechanical load of the engine, therefore MPG was not effected.

If you increase the electrical load on the alternator beyond what it is rated for (you will probably blow a fuse before this happens) your engine will eventually stop running and your battery will be dead.

I refuse to drive a car that modifies the RPM of the engine according to the electrical needs. F--k THAT!

Within the alternator's rated capacity, if you perform the above steps, switching on the TV will increase parasitic drag on the engine. The drop in rpm will be barely noticeable, because the engine control opens the throttle to compensate - as if you were climbing a hill. You're holding steady at a given rpm, but you're burning more fuel to maintain that rpm given the increase in load.

197 posted on 07/06/2005 12:50:54 PM PDT by Charles Martel
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To: Mycroft Holmes

How is Sherlock doing these days? I hope all is well.


198 posted on 07/06/2005 12:51:03 PM PDT by AxelPaulsenJr (Pray Daily For Our Troops and President Bush)
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To: Charles Martel

I'm suprised that after nearly 200 posts someone has not mentioned the 480 system that I have on my car. Four windows down and 80 miles an hour.


199 posted on 07/06/2005 12:59:26 PM PDT by AxelPaulsenJr (Pray Daily For Our Troops and President Bush)
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To: Sloth
You were wrong, but a lot of people were attributing a position to you that you didn't actually take (i.e., free energy).

His position was equivalent to the free energy position, and the knowledge (ok, faith) that perpetual motion machines are impossible to make serve to expain why his own position was wrong. If, in fact, it took the same torque to run a generator irrespective of the electrical load on it, then you could make a perpetual motion machine in the following way:

Get a small motor, and a bigger generator. The small motor is enough to overcome the friction in the larger generator with no load. Now, turn on the generator -which supposedly doesn't change the torque required to turn it. Since it's a bigger generator, it can not only power the small motor, there is power available for free on top of that.

The fact that the above is impossible can be used to prove that the torque must change with electrical load; the perpetual motion scheme falls on the assertion of torque being independent of electrical load. In fact, when you connect the generator to the motor (that is, when you draw a load from the generator) the little motor will no longer be able to maintain RPMs - it will soon stop if there is no other power source.

200 posted on 07/06/2005 1:02:40 PM PDT by coloradan (Hence, etc.)
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