geoffbeaumont
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Posts posted by geoffbeaumont
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Grossly off topic (the battery didn't even come out of a land rover), but there are a few members on here who've got some experience with solar setups, so I'm hoping I can pick your brains...
We have a partly installed heat sink system in our greenhouse. Fairly simple idea, a 3" pipe runs from up near the apex of the roof into a well under the paving slabs down the centre of the floor, where it splits into smaller pipes packed along rocks and stones. At the other end of the week another 3" pipe vents low down. There's a fan in the intake pipe to circulate air. During the day the rocks are warmed and it helps avoid excessively high temperatures, then during the night the heat is released back to keep the greenhouse warmer. As a bonus it circulates air reducing humidity.
Or at least it would if I finished it off...
The fan is a 12V inline boat bilge vent one, and I have just had to change the battery on my car so I have a 75AH lead acid battery which was getting dubious for starting but should still be happy enough running this fan.
The missing bit is a means of charging the battery. We're planning on a small solar panel, which even for this simple rig is I guess going to need some kind of controller/battery protection. If it incorporates the ability to switch the load on and off (above and below fixed temperature) that would be useful, but could easily be added later separately.
So... There's lots of small solar panels and controllers on the market. Most of them making grand and probably overblown claims as to what they're capable of... How do we figure out what we'll actually need to run this?
Don't want to spend a fortune - but also want to do this once and finish up with something reliable.
As an aside, this is what self-directed home education looks like in our house. One of my son's projects!
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On 1/4/2024 at 8:35 PM, TD5toV8110 said:
Chain mail tyres?
Well within Stephans capabilities...
Cheers
Dave
Looks like they'd work well on hard surfaces, but zero floatation and I'd hate to have to clear them after driving in clay... 😀
Still, Stephen can likely cook up some canny modifications to make them work anywhere!
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Merry Christmas everyone!
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That would be @FridgeFreezer's site, I believe?
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Don't think any of us will be telling you we told you so over that one...CO is one thing. Exhaust fumes interacting with meds isn't one that would have occurred to me 😲 Glad you're okay!
How thick do the fumes have to be? Sounds like a city street could be pretty dangerous...
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If it's got a good strong spark it'll be fine - if the spark is weak you'll have problems on propane long before it's an issue on petrol. When I had a duel fuel range rover classic I ended up upgrading from the standard coil and dizzy to EDIS distributorless ignition, which massively improved running. I ran standard plugs, thorough, and once on EDIS I was able to run greater than standard gaps (I had to run smaller gaps on the original ignition).
So - it's going to put your generators ignition to the test, but if that is already good it should be just fine as it is.
The fumes running on propane will be much less unpleasant, but don't assume they aren't toxic. If you can't guarantee keeping them out of you workshop, it's time to install carbon monoxide alarms. At least with petrol exhaust you can tell you're breathing it...
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2 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:
Also @Daan/mods/admin can someone rotate the pictures? Or maybe even look for an upgrade/plugin to the forum that allows pictures to be rotated after upload? Or maybe bribe one of the developer types that hang round here to write a little tweak
There're long running issues with iOS image uploads, as when iOS converts the image to a JPG to upload it, it strips out the meta-data that records which way the phone was held when the photo was taken, so they can't be automatically rotated. Don't know if anyone has ever added a button to Invision Community to allow easy manual fixing - doesn't look like Invision have every been inclined to, and this issue has been running for years.
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5 hours ago, landroversforever said:
just find it strange that it's got that branding on it if its something else!
Unless a previous owner figured they could sell it for more if they stuck decals from a known manufacturer on it...
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2 hours ago, Happyoldgit said:
I wouldn't be too snooty about current 4x4 pickups
I, at least, wasn't knocking the pickups. They can't get some of the places a Defender or, presumably, a Grenadier can get - but they'll get to a lot of places an ordinary van won't and they're quite capable of filling many of the roles done by Defenders in the past. As well as others Defenders were never good for.
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31 minutes ago, landroversforever said:
Hilux and Ranger I’ve seen in various guises.
Depends where the vehicle has to be able to get to.
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It's kind of hard to see what else they'd use from what's available on the UK market.
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22 hours ago, western said:
Not when it's a armoured version.
According to the article the armour was added later.
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Where solar panels are concerned I've read (but can't remember where) that the main issues are not so much lack of will to recycle as the need to develop the (expensive) technology to do it coupled with low supply of materials as not many (in the grand scheme of things) solar panels are life expired yet. But the companies investing in this field are expecting big returns as larger numbers of panels need to be changed out.
I'd imagine the same would apply to EV batteries.
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Rear doors on the police ones are different to both the standard and LSE. Hard to say without taking a tape measure to them, but they look like they're same length as standard coming to a wheel arch in LSE position (or maybe two inches further back - I for one aren't going to claim I could tell the difference from photos).
So definitely not standard LSE shells.
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21 hours ago, landroversforever said:
Interesting to know about the chassis… I’m suspecting it’s just a stretched Rangie instead and it’s just been misinterpreted from the wheelbase.
They just look like regular LSEs. I did wonder if they might have been put on a 110 chassis to handle the extra weight of the armour, but I don't think the 110 chassis is any stronger? Plus if the article is correct they weren't originally armoured.
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1 hour ago, Snagger said:
Absolutely. Get the batteries sorted and it’s a no-brainier.
That's the thing - you need to compare the whole system. The motor may be much smaller and lighter, but a good deal of that advantage, probably all of it*, disappears when you include the power storage for both.
That's not disagreeing that EV has some definite advantages.
* Definitely all of it if you have identical range.
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On 10/25/2023 at 8:34 PM, elbekko said:
Mmm, an Epsom Green RRC. Makes me miss mine.
Likewise - although mine was Ardennes green apart from the bonnet (you could only tell in really good light - and then if you were looking for it).
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3 hours ago, Ed Poore said:
Larger tyres should make the speedo "over read"... Going from a 3.54 to 3.75...should cause the speedo to "under read" slightly.
Other way round, surely?
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5 hours ago, landy_andy said:
Touché… where it gets fun is when you bolt a blower on 😉
Without hunting very hard - so there may be far more impressive figures out there - but that's a blown and presumably tuned Godzilla, generating around the same ballpark as a similarly breathed on 3l:
Obviously, how it's delivered is likely to be somewhat different, but a hybrid would probably offer that flexibility without such eye watering fuel consumption (Audi RS6 Avant mild hybrid has more torque from the factory, for example).
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7 hours ago, landroversforever said:
Never a good idea to get @Hybrid_From_Hell started on couriers
"Bloody hell mate, what's this made out of? Ooff!"
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DPD are highly dependant on the local drivers. We had loads of trouble with deliveries by them (mostly claims we weren't in for deliveries when we were and the parcel had instructions saying it could be left anyway). Turned out they were short of drivers round here and sending drivers out from Liverpool - they were incapable of finding anywhere if satnav didn't take them straight to the door, and it's a rural area where it usually dumps you in the middle of the postcode. They'd just give up and record it as householder not in.
These days DPD are very reliable round here.
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1 hour ago, miketomcat said:
I'd also be asking why the break away cable didn't work or was it attached to the bit that fell out, if so I'd be finding something else to attach to.
Mike
Not familiar with this particular one, but with removable type balls you often have to loop around the tow ball neck. There's nothing else available on my car to attach to. Far from ideal.
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29 minutes ago, FridgeFreezer said:
TBH given how many cars are mostly fly-by-wire these days I'd suggest it's not an EV thing but just a "modern car" thing.
True - but it is a quality issue (and not specifically a Chinese one either).
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Talking of Chinese electric cars...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-67005620
Obviously, nothing yet on what actually went wrong.
OT: Solar battery power
in Tools and Fabrication
Posted
The fan is 3 Amps, so if I remember my physics correctly, 36 Watts.
As far as I can see pretty much any controller will handle that. How much headroom do I need to allow on the solar panel rating? I'm guessing a 40W panel likely won't deliver 36W (never mind charge the battery at the same time) in our weather?
Is MPPT overkill for this? Looks like at the budget end of the market I could get IP65 (probably a good idea) or MPPT but not both. Then again, sounds like it's a bit of a gamble whether cheaper controllers really are MPPT...