Real and useful tips on saving fuel cost and environement

Lets take average family car Volvo V50 Diesel 100kW. On highway it is supposed to take 4.6 l/100km (50 MPG) and this is exactly what computer says while cruising 90km/h.

I tried out to cruise 90km/h behind big truck. This reduces air drag and the closer you are the less the resistance. Distance between truck was bit less than usually driving on highway but still long enough to react after sudden breaking. After-all small car breaks are better than fully loaded truck ones.

Result was that mileage increased significantly and computer was showing 3.5 l/100km (67 MPG).

Another way of reducing fuel consumption is to just drive slower. Reducing speed from 90 km/h to 80 km/h will bring fuel consumption down to 4.2 l/100km (56 mpg) and further slowing down to 70 km/h gives result of 3.8 l/100km (62mpg). Of course slowing down takes you longer drive to destination.

If driving 80km/h then after one hour you have still 10km to go which takes you 7.5 minutes. For 70 km/h it takes you 17 more minutes to drive 90km distance. Given diesel fuel costs 1.3EUR per liter then driving 90 km at each speed costs 5.4EUR, 4.9EUR and 4,4EUR. You can consider that you are payd 4EUR an hour for driving that additional 7.5min with 80km/h. For 70km/h your salary is 3.5EUR/h per extra hour spent on road.

Why go speeding at all?

DIY solar kit

Just to see how useful is solar power i purchased some items and made them to charge car battery.

Futurlec.com sells some cheap solar panels http://futurlec.com/Solar_Panel.shtml. To charge car battery voltage must be somewhat over 12V so i bought 3x6V. Each costs $19,90 and gives output of 400mA. Total power of these panels charger is 7,2W for $60.

In addition to solar panels is needed solar charge controller which costs $22,90 for 5A. If you have these and any 12V battery then you are basically ready to go. I bought also 10m of general electric wire to connect panels on the roof and battery at home. There re ventilation ducks from appartment to appartmentblock roof so it was very easy to put the wire through it.

To connect solar panels was needed to solder a bit, on the backs of panels was easily show plus and minus connections that needed to be soldered together like you see in picture. System also needed frame which i made simply from pieces of wood and a few screws. Harder part was to connect panels to frame but there is nothing that Super Attack glue will not help you in.

You will get best performance out of panels if they always face sun directly. Actually performance drop is not awful if you have panels statically mounted, facing south and in 45 degrees angle. Solar panels are giving out quite well even if weather is cloudy and sun is not directly shining on panels.

When i connected solar panels and battery to controller then panels immediately started to charge battery. Amazingly panels gave out exactly 0.4A as was promised in spec. Without any load total voltage on 3x6V series panels exceeds 20V and when charging battery this voltage drops to battery voltage around 12V.

To use solar power stored for common electrical devices is needed inverter. This costs around $50 for 300W of output power. Now there is emergency power at my home. If electricity happens to fail, i can still run my router and computer and have internet. UPS of similar size costs loads of more money and i can use green solar energy.

What to consider when using La Crosse WS2350.

1. Obvious but not too easy to accomplish is that outdoor temperature sensor must not be on the path of direct sunlight. Temperature sensor must be in the shade and ventilated. My sensor sits on top of the roof so i must stack it on top of the pole in the middle of the air and provide some cover for it.
2. Wireless connection gets lost without no reason. My sender and receiver are quite static but still connection gets lost from time to time, i can only advise that outdoor and indoor unit must be as close as possible and as few obstacles disturbing radio waves between them and possible.
3. All sensors must be fixed well. Sensors are all lightweight and when i set up rainsensor then it was constantly blown over by wind. Also wired for connecting wind and rainsensor to temperature unit are long and if not fixed will catch wind and drag stuff around.
4. Related to incuded software is that for me at least date and time went wrong, once year 2026 and once 2034. This caused worng times in history and also stopping of history saving. Check from time to time if saving history still works. Saving starts again when you change history file. Also HeavyWeather publisher is losing its saved settings sometimes and it is frustruating when all hard work must be done over and over again. For that I will modify and simplify usage of OpenJAWS to suit my needs when i get time to do it.
   

Measuring windspeed and wind direction with La Crosse WS2350

My weatherstation has been up and running now for a few months recording wind data. Main reason for purchasing La Crosse WS 2350 was to test windspeed in my area to see if this is suitable place for setting up wind generator.

Wind direction on top of my appartment is quite uniform, except east winds are bit rare. This can be explained by anemometer being loccated in eastside of rectangular building and if winds blows from east then it hits wall and tends to rise higher, thus blowing over the sensor.









What interest me most is winspeed. Most small wind generators start to spin with windspeeds around 2-3 m/s and give reasonable output with 5-6m/s. As measurements show average windspeed for me is 2,82m/s which is unfortunately too low for big investment into wind generator.

Sure enough i still intend to get myself wind turbine. Its pointless to get one for generationg huge amounts of electricity but in this location could be used some cheapest and smallest generator just for fun.

La Crosse Technology WS2350 review

To start wind speed measurements i went and bought WS2350 weatherstation. This is one of the latest models for european market. Most important change is that it has cup anemometer so wind direction does not affect speed measurements and also there is com port to USB converter included so when latest computers dont have co port anymore then you can plug it to USB port. One of the best list of all features is in Aces electronics website. Weatherstation costed 168EUR+5EUR delivery. When i ordered this from reseller Ronex webshop i was promised next day delivery and when 4 days was passed i started investigating, what happened was that they "forgot" to post the package.

Setting up weatherstation was very easy, everything is plug and play. Total 5 AA batteries was needed to power everything and alkaline batteries should last up to one year. Main unit needs 3 batteries and has also power adapter. I mounted main unit onto the wall with screws just next to "serverroom". I drilled 2x12mm holes hext to eachother and passed data- and powercables through it so they are invisible when watching main units display. As unit has atom clock then right after powering up it discovered on its own correct date and time. Outer unit have 3 cable connectionholes, for rainsensor, for windsensor and for cable connection. When batteries were inserted and after pressing + button for 2s everything was ready to go, wireless link was up and running.

I live on first floor in 3 story house and when receiver is located near east side of house and transmitter in west side then there is no reception as too many concrete walls diagonally weaken signal too much. Placing transmitter directly overhead gave me proper reception.

Most important feature for me of this weatherstation is PC connection. Heavy Weather software enables real time display of weather conditions, creating some graphs and generating image to be published on web. Everything is very simple and my grandma could do this. Unfortunately this simplicity makes software not flexible and permits advanced analysis of it. I asked from La Crosse France to share technical data eg how to read their history file with my own program and i received back random email template that pleace go to www.heavyweather.info and you find excellent programs. I exlained again that their programs suck for demanding users but they replyed how pity they are but they will not give out any useful information. But nothing to worry about, i have enough technical knowledge and i will break their protocols, build my own application and publish this here if i just find enough free time.

Pedal generator alternatives

I tried to hook up my bike first to alternator because alternator has built-in voltage regulator. When turning rotor at different speeds, regulator keeps output charging voltage at optimal ca 14V range. Unfortunately my alternator seemed to have some issues and i went on exploring other possibilities.

Basically every motor can be turned into generator by spinning it. I took one QVALDA cordless drill which has 18V permanent motor inside and including gearing produces 15Nm of torque. Drill head seemed like ideal piece to be driven by tyre and actually it worked when applying moderate pressure. Open circuit voltage was easily 20V when pedaling at normal speed. Problems arised when i attached some load, tyre grip just was not enough. What amazed me was that when turning drill head half a turn with fingers it generated already 2-3A amps of current!

Alternator consists of single field pole at the rotor that creates moving magnetic field. Actually alternator initially generates 3-phase alternating current that is later rectified. What regulator does is changing current in field pole so that in turn changes output voltage from stators windings. As i tested alternator by often connecting and disconnecting battery then it could be this fired my regulator as this creates high spikes in voltage.

Anyway i prefer using alternator above other motors. This is because alternator is almost complete battery charging solution, its capable of sourcing a lot of current and its cheap to buy from junk yards.

Bike generator

Before going to build big thing i wanted to create something as proof as concept. Generating electricity with bike seemed to be the simplest and cheapest.

I went to car junk yard and picked up opel kadett car alternator for $8 and used 55Ah car battery for $20(at shop was told battery is just charged and ready to be installed to car, actually at home i measured under 10V eg battery was as dead as could be). Also i have at home 300W inverter that creates 220V 50Hz from 12V DC. I had at home mountain bike that i haven't used much. Also i picked up some 2mm thick metal plates, drill bit, mains wiring from hardware store and thats almost all that was needed.

To turn ordinary bike into generator is needed stand to lift up the rear wheel, secondly is needed generator to be connected to pedals. One industrial strength bike stand cost like $400 including shipping.


I created stand out of thick enough wood. I created 2 T-shaped pieces where upward facing part is thick enough. For connecting 2 pieces of lumber is used metal corner pieces. Wood stand was connected to bike frame with easily bendable metal strip used connecting gypsum carcass to walls, place the strip and just screw in a few screws with cordless drill.

Alternator itself was connected with holed metal plates. One end was connected to wood stand and then i just placed plates and cornered plates as the way alternator should have been. I drilled holes to better places and connected it with screws, bolts and nuts.

First setting connecting alternator was that i removed tyre and improvised drive belt from string. Best homemade drive belt i managed to build was created from multithreaded string. Each thread could be tied together separately and this made knot to be the smallest. Line was covered with duck tape to increase its traction.

Everything connected it was start to test. Peddaling with fastest gear successfully started up alternator and it started to ouptut bit over 14V. When alternator was connected to battery it gave out briefly 5A of current, pedalling bit more and again biref spike of current. What turned out is that when alternator reached its cut in rpm and it started to put power out then string started to slip and alternator slowed down so much that it was not working anymore.

I rebuilded my bike rig bike tyre went back on, attached toy car tyre to alternator and pushed this against bike tyre. This seemed to have better trackion than with strings and actually it was much easier to peddal without load. After wiring alternator back up similar problem happened. When alternator cuts in it gives peak of current and then nothing anymore. I tested with open circuit while measuring voltage on alternator terminals. It produced nivcely 14V and then after a while peddalling went harder and voltage dropped down to around 6V.

There are 3 terminals on alternator. 1) ground 2) + output 3) connection with marking +D, this must be excitation connection. Between output and ground is capacitor, disconnected one end and checked, this was holding voltage. When letting some current to excitation pole alternator cut in pint was at lower rpm. This all seemed like there is some short circuit within alternator as even if not wires are connected it consumes power and puts nothing out.