electric house truck questions

Alternative Fuels of all sorts, Biodiesel, Electric, Human Power, Steam, etc.

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Papa Bear

electric house truck questions

Post by Papa Bear »

Well,
My wife and I are starting a 1930's esque travelling carnival based out of Eugene OR. One of my first purchases that I'm picking up this weekend is a 1946 ford 1 1/2 ton flat bed. It's a gasoline v8 flat head and has a vacuum shifter to allow 55 mph. It runs on a 6 volt system. I'm planning on building my house on the back of that. The carnival has the intention of running as many vehicles and generators off of electric, solar, and recycled veggie oil. I'm thinking eventually I'll pull the engine out and put the batteries in there while having solar panels across the roof. Maybe even figuring out how to put up small wind turbines so while in transit it's trickling power into the batteries. Soooo... should I pull the engine out and put the batteries under the hood? Do you think it would be smart that while building the house I make plans to put the batteries either under the house or build in a space between the cab and house that I can slip enough batteries into. Unsure if I'll be able to afford the conversion in the first year so I need to plan for future changes in the vehicle. Comments? questions? suggestions?
Papa Bear
cirquedillumination@yahoo.com :D
Sharkey
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Post by Sharkey »

Gee, I'm thunderstruck!

First of all, don't shred up the gasoline drivetrain in the truck until you learn a whole lot more about electric vehicles. Very large EV's are not at all practical for anything more than tooling around a small venue. It would run out of juice in minutes in the open road, even with a gargantuan battery bank.

Windmills are not an option. Perpetual motion has yet to be perfected. An acre of solar panels might keep it running, but roof mounted PV's would take days to charge it up for a ~very~ short road trip.

I would say, if you want it to be renewably fueled, put your money and effort into converting it to run on a modern diesel engine and fuel it with biodiesel. Do the Earth and yourself a favor and forget straight vegetable oil in any form.

Good luck with it, post some pictures when you get the truck.
Papa Bear

air compressed vehicles

Post by Papa Bear »

Have you checked into air cars? It's a new technology but it drives vehicles on compressed air... kinda cool. Just do a web search for air car. What do you think about that in a big ole steel truck hauling 2000 lbs?
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Papa Bear

Post by Papa Bear »

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Papa Bear

truck

Post by Papa Bear »

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Sharkey
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Post by Sharkey »

That's better, now we can see the truck. Looks to be in very good condition.

What I see looking past the truck in the second photo is your perfect candidate for an electric conversion, that red A2 VW Golf. If you are going to even think about an electric vehicle project, that would be the car to convert first to gain experience and get your EV chops up!
Papa Bear

golf

Post by Papa Bear »

Actually I'm trying to sell that golf on the eugene OR craigslist cause I'm really really really really broke right now... (not trying to advertise but hell... sometimes you just gotta do it).
Tim Clevenger
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Post by Tim Clevenger »

Where batteries would really help in a housetruck is in providing electric power for the appliances. If you can cram enough batteries in there to power your electrics for a couple of days, you can eliminate (or greatly reduce) the use of a generator, which produces many times the pollution of the main engine.
Just there

elec on veggie

Post by Just there »

As the scurge of the road aka a dimwitted twuck dwiva, I purchased an APU to decrease my fuel consump when parked. Now its start cost is a bit high 10,013.67 but when you factor that it runs for an hour on 1/3 gal of fuel or less depending load, it's worth it. Now for the good stuff, it makes 6k power capable of surge's to a lil over 9k. With something like that running off veggie (works great) I had to try, fuel an elec vehic could go far on 10 or 20 gallons of fuel. Just an idea for thought. A high start cost for the gen, hold the phone sorry, that price was with the HVAC unit also. Take 2700 off for the HVAC and take another 900 off for installation. Humm me tinks that would power an elec car, truck, van, or maybe even a small bus, with watts to spare. Hey Honey wee need fuel, where's the nearest Asian restaurant ?
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