Posted on 07/06/2005 8:33:43 AM PDT by skyman
But isn't the alternator going to be running anyway? If the current is coming from the battery there shouldn't be increased stress/strain on the alternator.
Free energy! Get as much electricity as you want from any size engine!
Take a physics class before you embarass yourself anymore.
It is absolutely inefficient if you don't need the extra output. You are just throwing away energy.
Think down the road 20 years. Think about hybrid technology.
takes alot less to run an alternator than to run an a/c compressor. i've got a jeep that i increased gas mileage (and power output) by yanking the a/c and upgrading the alternator.
It's still too early to know if the boys will receive the patent. Nonetheless, it's wonderful that our patent system allows anyone of any age to patent an invention. When these boys invented their AC unit, they were too young to vote and probably too young to drive legally. However, they weren't too young to receive a patent.
The load the alternator exerts on the engine is based on how much current it is supplying. This whole concept reeks of perpetual motion type physics. I can't imagine 5 of these things have the capacity to do much more than reduce the hot intake air to the ventilation system to ambient temperature, much less make the cabin comfortable.
I think that guy did eventually win a huge court settlement based upon this stolen design.
When you operate one of these devices (by simply passing a current through it - connect it to a battery) the current itself dissipates some heat in the material, but that heat and some of the heat on the "cold" side get swept to the other side, the "hot" side. If you pinch one of the devices between your fingers and run it, one finger gets hot and the other cold. Materials with low thermal conductivity but good electrical conductivity have the highest figure of merit, and it turns out that the winners are made of bismuth and tellurium, especially. (Silicon has excellent thermal conductivity - no good here, it short-circuits the temperature difference.)
Incidentally, if you hook up the battery backwards, it simply reverses the cold and hot sides, with equal efficiency. And if you actively heat one face and cool the other face, it's an (inefficient!) electrical generator - in this case, the heat is being forced to flow, and the charge carriers are what get swept along for the ride.
Not if you cycle it on and off, which is what air conditioners actually do. Either operate at peak efficiency, or not at all, as I said. You can get more or less cooling by altering the duty cycle of when it's on, up to being on full time.
It sounds to me that the system would have to have another to cool it's exhaust. Since it is ambient, I don't think the traditional water cooling system would be all that useful.
"1964 General Motors analysis that explored the idea before the car company concluded it wasn't possible. "
"And though repeated attempts to communicate with Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. have gone unanswered, high officials in Japan - an ocean away - are awaiting the arrival of Riverton's young inventors."
Congratulations to these young men. I hope that the adults around them don't take advantage of the young men's success.
Those two quotes... is it any wonder our country is in the shape it's in? Or that GM is where it is today?
I think it's a greeny-based global warming boondoggle. For some reason Tellurex Corp, which is one of the manufacturers of Peltier effect devices, thinks it won't work. You'd think they'd jump at the automotive market if they thought they could sell it, wouldn't you?
"Doesn't necessarily follow. The energy to charge the batteries has to come from somewhere."
I don't know the specifics, but I do know charging the battery isn't near the drag of running a compressor. The alternator is always "running", and a voltage regulator system decides whether the batter needs a charge or not. So, even though it's not free to charge the battery, it's close.
...and the Japanese patent law system of very narrow patents, will allow them to copy the idea with some minor changes and declare it a different "technology" with an exclusive japanese issued patent.
or
They just reverse engineer it, say it is an older idea they already had or simply it is too general a concept and fight the patent.
"does it dehumudify like a typical AC unit?"
I would expect it does. Dehumidification takes place naturally as a byproduct of cooling warm moist air.
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