Has anyone here tried a solar powered battery charger? I know they are generally meant to assist the alternator, but I was thinking, if you had a powerful enough solar charger hooked to your battery, would it be possible to actually eliminate the alternator?

It would be a great way to increase engine efficiency and lose a little weight!

 

Cars morely run off of and alternator than they do the battery. Its more there for starting and having a place to store the charge the alternator puts out. Not to mention what the hell do you do when driving at night or in the rain??

 

If I ripped the alternator out of your car.....

Would you & your "solar charged" battery go for an all-night ride???????

 

As the first guy stated the car runs off the alternator. The battery only provides the inital spark. THe car doesn't run off the battery the whole time. You would have to do some crazy ish to get a solar powered EF.

 

Actually, it's really not all that crazy of an idea. The way solar cells work is they have to have some sort of storage for the energy the convert. This form of storage is usually a battery. Now, if you think about it, all day long the solar cells could be charging the battery it uses to store the energy, thus by the time you reach night, enough charge is stored to last (who drives ALL night long anyway?). There are cars that are out there that run COMPLETELY off of solar energy, so this could definately be done, seeing as this is just a smaller scale use of solar energy. However, it could get expensive and might not be worth it.

 

plus another battery would totally kill the lose a little weight theory

 

Whats the point... its not going to make your car anymore efficent in anyway nor will you gain a single thing from it all, you have a alternator and your car stays charged, but its your money and your time

 

Wow, this is one of the dumbest threads i've seen in a long time.. lol. Buy a lighter battery

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by bigcalidave &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Wow, this is one of the dumbest threads i've seen in a long time.. lol. Buy a lighter battery </TD></TR></TABLE>

The weight of the battery has absolutely nothing to do with my post.

Philkehn " Whats the point... its not going to make your car anymore efficent in anyway ..."

Removing the belt from the alternator will most definitely make the engine more efficient. More power will be going to the wheels instead of turning a generator.

n3h3bkau " Cars morely run off of and alternator than they do the battery."

I think you may have a point, but I need a translator to be sure.


Hey, it may not be the most brilliant idea, but I think it's funny when people who can barely form a sentence call me stupid.

Anyway this is an idea I read about on a website filled with info about getting better gas mileage. A guy said he used a solar charger and disconnected the alternator belt. By having the belt removed he gained a few miles per gallon. I generally just use my Civic for driving to work and back. I drive in daylight and have no stereo. Also, my car sits in the sun all day, and I live in Tucson where we have intense sunlight virtually everyday. I realize that completely eliminating the alternator is a stretch, I thought with a solar charger I might be able to disconnect the belt.

I think pretty soon we may all need to get a little more creative with our cars to make them more fuel efficient. Just a hunch.

Thanks for the help.


Modified by Pooby88 at 4:00 PM 12/16/2006

 

If you really want to know if it is feasible then just take the belt off, and hook up the solar cells
that way if your bat dies, you can just put the belt back on and your ready to go.

It is a neat Idea, so let us know

 

It is stupid. And how does buying a lighter battery not help?? You said you wanted to save weight, your battery weighs close to 40lbs, they make racing batteries that weight closer to 20. That's more than your alternator weighs. Your car cannot run from just a battery for any significant period of time. We don't use alternators on our drag cars, but they are put on a charger as soon as they make a run. Disconnecting the belt? How about this, learn something about the physics here first, then try to say I can't form a complete sentance. You don't need to disconnect the belt, how about just put a switch on the field wire that turns off the charging. When the alternator isn't charging, it's not putting much of a load on the engine at all. Do you understand how alternators work??
You only need a battery to start a car if your alternator is healthy. I have a better idea, get a bicycle.

 

lol take off your power steering belt or ac belt and tell me if you feel a difference haha, you dont, so yea nothing is gained

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by philkehn &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">lol take off your power steering belt or ac belt and tell me if you feel a difference haha, you dont, so yea nothing is gained</TD></TR></TABLE>

You do gain power. I have a whole book of dyno tests, and it averages about 2-3 HP for taking out AC. Not a huge deal, but hey, I'll take it!

 

Here do this, no one has done it before.

-Do the battery in the trunk conversion.
-Take your alternator off and figure some way to attach it to one of the rear wheels so that it is still driven by the car in some way but not the engine.
-Run the appropriate wires.
-Watch all "tuner" dudes follow suit.

 

Lol, wrap the belt around a gear welded to the rear axle.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by FourthGenHatch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Here do this, no one has done it before.

-Do the battery in the trunk conversion.
-Take your alternator off and figure some way to attach it to one of the rear wheels so that it is still driven by the car in some way but not the engine.
-Run the appropriate wires.
-Watch all "tuner" dudes follow suit.</TD></TR></TABLE>

And how the hell are you going to charge your battery when you are on a stand still??

I think the charging system is pretty efficiant right now since we are using gaz powered engines ...maybe with electric engines the solar power thingy would be more of a use. But i hope we dont get there or we will only hear buzing on the road...-_- no more reving..