TronxII

Well indeed, it seems possible to fly that high with propellers.

the Helios Prototype piloted remotely by Greg Kendall reached an altitude of 96,863 feet (29,524 m),

Could any of the aeronautical experts explain how this thing flies at 65 000 feet?

Solar powered jets?

I thought there is little air up there for propeller planes to fly.

big H2 balloons under the wings?

The chinese girl has a power supply. But it seems that the controller box of the pump should be directly connected to the solar panels and handles switching on.

Thanks all for instructing me.

Flyingtiger's video suggests these pumps need a separate controller.

Bandersnatch, are your pumps also  in this voltage range of  110 - 180V DC?

To what power do you connect these directly to the panels via some controller?

Solar pumps 110V or the bigger one 185V DC, 17A, This is nice power and the pump will probably work much better than any other "solar toy pump".

But my question is, how do they use them?

I would struggle to find a nice way to connect them to ... what?

A 180V battery?  How to charge this?

An array of solar panels with 30 A output and no battery?  And then switch them on manually when the sun shines?  - imagine the spark at the DC switch

Maybe the Thai are more clever and have a simple solution, but for me I would struggle to make these work.

Apparently they sell them, so there might be a market.

Can anyone enlighten me please.

1 hour ago, TimeMachine said:

All my laptop and phone lithium batteries have been crap. .

Most likely because they have been repeatedly discharged to 0%  and then charged to 100% again, which damages them irreversibly.

I have Lenovo Laptops with 17 years old batteries which still hold charge for 20min to half hour. But there, you can set discharging and charging thresholds.

Also, is it really needed in locations near the Equator?

Did you already get your quality LiFePo4 from China ? I remember you wanted to order some in November or December.

How do you guys handle the initial rain water collection?

I suppose you have a metal roof.

So the first rain, takes all the bird <deleted> and dust away. How do you switch to fill the "clean" water in your big bottles ?Or do you have a filter?

This one does the job for me. 12V 2 to 3A current draw, less than 500Baht

I wish we could buy them in Europe.

7 hours ago, eezergood said:

Wasn't the issue with how & where to extract rather than their abundance? 

There is no issue, it's all "end of the world is near" propaganda.

If Lithium was as rare as gold, we would still have thousands of tons available per year, as we do with gold.

35 000 tons Li are extracted every year. We will not have a shortage of this by tomorrow, neither will we have a shortage of gold and silver which are much less abundant.

Tobacco ash contains 0.5% Lithium.

But I was wrong, it is only the 25th element by abundance.

1 hour ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

Some distortion of the rear undertray has been identified as misalignment of the tray and bolt holes making a “ bulge “ and an opening in which wind and water etc can enter .

Sounds promising.

Seems like the Chinese improved the already poor quality of the british MG manufacturing even further.

9 hours ago, Muhendis said:

always they have failed open circuit which, whilst a nuisance, is not dangerous. 

Well, if they always fail open then this is fine. Trusting these mechanical devices from China for a battery which can deliver 1kA , well ... yeah....

For me, a sand filled fuse very close to the battery is a must, so I recommend it to the newbies.

18 hours ago, Crossy said:

What makes you say this?

 

MCBs have been used for decades on both AC and DC and provided you use a recognised brand are very reliable.

Most of this stuff is not anymore what it was 30 years ago. Especially what you can buy in Thailand, is all from China with different quality, mostly in the lower range.

Once I lived in the UK, and the house had a power cut from time to time. Usually the main breaker would switch off. Probably we drew too much power. But it also happened when nearly nothing was on.

On one occasion, we had the power cut again, but the main breaker was on.  Electricity company came, measured, no power. Next day, they started to dig a hole in the street, took them a day, they didn't find anything.

In the end, the electricity guy switched the main breaker off and on again, and instantly the power came back. We looked at each other like idiots.

Neither me nor them have tried to switch the main breaker off, because it was on. That breaker was not a RCD.

Since then, I do not trust these breakers very much.

I don't have a picture of the breaker, but I documented the emergency measures, and I was very proud in these days to provide 230V out of the car battery with a UPS.

There must be a fuse. These circuit breakers cannot be trusted.

For the DC fuse it is important to be filled with sand to extinguish the arc.  The linked datasheet does not mention the sand, but to break 50k A as they claim, there should be sand inside.

1 hour ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

especially V2L and the cameras,

Well, that's a real incentive to go for the pricier version.

20 minutes ago, Muhendis said:

I notice they are fixed to the trough section of the roof material.

I thought the same.

Now you have them already 1 or 2 years, are there any leaks? Could you take a picture from underneath and share here?

5 hours ago, Longwood50 said:

Lithium is a rare earth metal and as its supply is exhausted ...

Lithium is one of the 15 most abundant elements on earth. Your statements are newspaper wisdom.

The same as "water will be scarce in the UK ..."

55 minutes ago, Bandersnatch said:

The same here, but if all the chargers are full at New Year it might be appreciated.

Thats nice community spirit to make your chargers available for emergency.

How does this work, I see a checkin button. So could someone reserve a time slot?

How do other charging stations handle this? Can you reserve a spot, or is it first come first serve?

36 minutes ago, Longwood50 said:

As to your claim of getting 510 KM perhaps you should advise Mercedes that unlike published reports your car outstrips theirs. 

Miles vs km in your picture. Any further questions? Does it compute?

On 1/2/2023 at 7:02 AM, Crossy said:

Also note that you are limited to about 3.5kW (16A) with a Thai outlet so separate inverters could be the way to go anyway

Seen the surface, angle and shading, you do not need to worry to get even close to 3.5kW

Paralleling the panels is the way to go.

7 hours ago, Muhendis said:

Pass 50 Amps through the joint and measure the voltage across it.

That's what the milliommeter does. Actually, now I know what I can use my bloated 50Ah junk cells for. I was always hesitant to make the opamp circuit for the meter, because no current source that could give 10A or more.

Nice little project coming up ...????

3 hours ago, Gweiloman said:

 

You can activate this when the battery is at say 15%

...

 

I hope my explanation makes sense.

Yes, thank you, this is all helpful for ignorants like me, as I have never driven a PHEV.

So can you set this, lets say permanently that the car drives electric from 100% to 30% battery, then switches to petrol. Or do you have to set this each time?

How did you manage to drive electric down to 6% of battery? Can you force this to nearly 0% somehow?

I'm asking this because I would like to limit battery usage to 20%, to not completely discharge the battery, as this damages the electrodes in the battery cells permanently.

8 hours ago, Gweiloman said:

At very low battery power, the ICE is working hard and quite noisy as it is also recharging the battery to a certain extent.

Is there a way to manually switch it to ICE when running on electric? Lets say you reach to 15% battery, and you want to switch just right now?