Alternator Delete Mod ::: MPGs

moldman05 said:
So we want to disconnect the alternator till when? The battery goes dead or when we get home and plug in a charger?
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And to elaborate on this, how much are you saving when the alternator has to run at 100% to try to charge the battery from a dead state?or even if you charge it at home with a battery charger, the wall electricity cost money too. And most chargers have a cooling fan inside also and lightbulbs for the gauges...
This is something I never understood when the hippies talk about the zero emissions of their electric cars. I'm like hey dude, that power didn't come from collecting cow farts
 
Why not use a small wind turbine on roof of vehicle to charge battery? That would save all of the energy used by the alternator. Big vehicles could have solar cells too
 
moldman05 said:
Why not use a small wind turbine on roof of vehicle to charge battery? That would save all of the energy used by the alternator. Big vehicles could have solar cells too
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Smokey Yunick tried this in the 60s. Showed at the nascar track with a propeller driven generator mounted on the front bumper. If I recall he failed tech before he got it off the trailer!

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dont be a negative nancy! vehicles today have better mpgs from a variety of *small* technology improvements combined. [some bigger than small, yes]. this is the day and age where white-coats are inventing new engine oils made from ulexite and other minerals to reduce friction and wear = increased longevity and small increases in mpg. you can turn your nose up all you want, but progress isnt made because someone said "its only worth experimenting theories if the "test" instantly yields better profits than the input". Wanna guess how much the first Quart of synthetic oil cost? And then how much more money they spent inventing cheaper ways to produce the ingredients?

Maybe in a geo metro running on 1.5 cylinders, the Alt delete would make the most sense? I find this stuff fascinating and dont care if in practiced it is only useful on a lawnmower so you only have to fill it once a year. I personally met a guy who used about a dozen different "mpg chaser techniques" and took his 40+ mpg vw diesel to 80+ mpg

Anywho. Back on topic. Does the Alt in newer vehicles today already cycle on and off? I understood them to always be producing - hence 14+volts on your gauge when the alt is good, and only 12 measuring just the battery.
 
ckruzer said:
Anywho. Back on topic. Does the Alt in newer vehicles today already cycle on and off? I understood them to always be producing - hence 14+volts on your gauge when the alt is good, and only 12 measuring just the battery.
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Yes, see my first post above.

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Tim C said:
Yes, see my first post above.

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lol alot of posts popped in while i was making that post. GOOD TO KNOW! ive never noticed by voltage drop tho. interesting. ill start paying more attention to that
 
ok, damn. I think John Fuller hacked your account. Cause~ this is straight up JF.:flipoff2:
 
Jeff B said:
ok, damn. I think John Fuller hacked your account. Cause~ this is straight up JF.:flipoff2:
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only fair. i photoshopped his fb haha

we are working on a gas/hho/lpg hybrid at the moment. been researching other things that could be done on top of that.
 
I tend to drive like a teenager in a stolen car. My truck averages 16-17mpg. The most recent tank I drove like a sensible adult, and got 18.3mpg. So at 2000 miles/month, $2.70/gallon, the savings between 16.5 to 18.3 is $327.27 to $295.08. Call it $30/month. $360/year. Thats a heck of a lot more savings than you will get by disabling the alternator and some other stuff. I'm pretty sure removing the mirrors on the 08-16 Superdutys would give another 1-2mpg improvement. Or just fold them in and hypermile, I'd probably be getting close to 12v Cummings levels of fuel creation.
 
jeepinmatt said:
I tend to drive like a teenager in a stolen car. My truck averages 16-17mpg. The most recent tank I drove like a sensible adult, and got 18.3mpg. So at 2000 miles/month, $2.70/gallon, the savings between 16.5 to 18.3 is $327.27 to $295.08. Call it $30/month. $360/year. Thats a heck of a lot more savings than you will get by disabling the alternator and some other stuff. I'm pretty sure removing the mirrors on the 08-16 Superdutys would give another 1-2mpg improvement. Or just fold them in and hypermile, I'd probably be getting close to 12v Cummings levels of fuel creation.
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Thanks for the numbers! Was hoping to see input regarding the theory. not costs. costs are not an issue because this is a test to prove facts that could be used to perhaps invent efficient products. right now we are working a duel fuel design for efi engines in conjunction with a new type of battery we are building.

Sorry thought was clear about wanting to test a theory propounded by internet warriors. lol.

ckruzer said:
Curious if anyone else has done anything along the same lines. .... Still - its a quite interesting theory.
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I wonder how much the inventor of MDS/DOD made to yield a couple % mpg to meet new EPA demands?
 
ckruzer said:
I wonder how much the inventor of MDS/DOD made to yield a couple % mpg to meet new EPA demands?
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Probly $50k per yr. Cuz the manufcaturer didnt give them shit for the idea, other than the ability to keep working.


Wouldnt cycling the alt on and off be similar to the argument of turning on/off your HVAC everyday? The large load when it comes on with use more energy than just simply maintaining the load along the way.


Aerodynamics and power to weight ratios play a much bigger role in MPGs than little stuff. Ever wondered how some sports cars with 400+hp are able to get 30mpgs? Engine efficiency and reduced drag.
 
paradisePWoffrd said:
Probly $50k per yr. Cuz the manufcaturer didnt give them shit for the idea, other than the ability to keep working.


Wouldnt cycling the alt on and off be similar to the argument of turning on/off your HVAC everyday? The large load when it comes on with use more energy than just simply maintaining the load along the way.


Aerodynamics and power to weight ratios play a much bigger role in MPGs than little stuff. Ever wondered how some sports cars with 400+hp are able to get 30mpgs? Engine efficiency and reduced drag.
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well... legally speaking the MFG was the "inventor" and the dude that thought it up and built it was just an employee/tool of the inventor... lol. gotta love capitalism

i agree 100%. when the camless motor pans out, we are hoping to lay a few other things on the table.
 
I'm not sure why so many people are missing this despite it being said multiple times in this thread.
Alternators have turned on and off since the late 60's...also the same time when vehicle manufacturers switched from generators to alternators. I'll let @Fabrik8 chime in and give the text book differentiation between the two....not interested in typing that much.
Now where there *could* be an argument is the efficiency of the sensing circuit. While it isnt really on the topic I will link you to this: Catalog If you can understand the theory there, you will understand how some alternators may "overcharge".

If you've ever played with an older car you've probably seen an external voltage regulator...what did it do? It regulated volatge (DUH) depending on need. A former employer and both mine and @Fabrik8 had a neat project I was lucky to be a part of. They were working on this hypermile European contest...it was all part of a mastermind to create new ideas that could be incorporated into their (now existing) then potential company venture in vehicle electrification. This same company was also one of the 3 largest producers of alternator in the world. So for this little 800 lb test car they did such things as design the most efficient alternator possible...including experiments with rotating field and rotating armature and suspending the shaft on some super high end ball bearings. In the end the alternator produced for the contest cost just north of $7,500. To be certain mass production could reduce this cost, probably to as low as $1,000 manufacturer landed cost. Total parasitic draw was negligibly different from a full delete and LESS than a standard production idler pulley.

However the total savings was less significant than a (1/10) psi tire pressure change. So if you arent pre-tripping with a $200 tire pressure gauge, you are wasting your time down this rabbit hole.
 
Ron said:
I'm not sure why so many people are missing this despite it being said multiple times in this thread.
Alternators have turned on and off since the late 60's...
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many people comment before reading the entire thread. thats just the way it goes. i juggle the forum with work, so i ll go to respond to post #3 and work out a sentence every 15 minutes or so. so by that time alot of posts have been made that may already answer a new post. i know in an above post i made a "oh i see" comment and made another comment about looking into efficiencies.

Thats cool you got to be apart of that history. Its a great feeling.


Ron said:
...To be certain mass production could reduce this cost, probably to as low as $1,000 manufacturer landed cost. Total parasitic draw was negligibly different from a full delete and LESS than a standard production idler pulley....you are wasting your time down this rabbit hole.
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I dont agree with that. There are an easy half dozen things on your vehicle that were mandated by ABCs. To say a $1000 alternator is a wasted invention because it doesnt equate to proper tire pressure int coherent with the backbone of this economy and its direct relation to non-sensical "improvements" to meet new regulations! lol. every year mfg's are forced to make new types of vehicles or use different assemblies (regardless of costs, passed onto the buyer) simply because they are required to meet certain new standards (and not all exclusive to safety and emissions).

its not just because of inflation and consumer entertainment demands that vehicles are getting more expensive every year

Thanks for the link! Ill take a gander on my next bathroom break :poop:
 
I snatched the mechanical fan off my 12valve. It offset fuel loss from blowing all that beautiful black smoke.


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NO alt would equal the ultimate in fuel economy cause once the battery goes dead your ass aint goin no whurs.Gas will last forever,or at lest as long as it takes to turn in to varnish.
 
ckruzer said:
Anywho. Back on topic. Does the Alt in newer vehicles today already cycle on and off? I understood them to always be producing - hence 14+volts on your gauge when the alt is good, and only 12 measuring just the battery.
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They cycle on and off with ECM control for voltage regulation and load reduction. They are usually producing under many/most conditions, because there is usually always a decent average electrical load with all of the computers and radio and ignition and fuel pump and all that other stuff. If you disable the alternator output for whatever length of time, you just need to charge the battery more from the alternator at some other point in the future, because that average power versus time has to come from somewhere (else you're in depletion mode and the battery eventually drains). The tricks you can play with ECM control are about using the alternator in its best range of efficiency though, so you can charge more at a certain RPM range and charge less when in a less efficient RPM range, or disable the alternator during hard acceleration (similar to the ECM disengaging the air conditioning compressor at full-throttle, which has been done for decades), or disable it for a while and then run it at higher output if that is more efficient than running at medium output. You can do fun things with changing the regulator output voltage to control current flow as well, so you can dynamically control the output current a lot better than a self-regulating alternator (traditional type).

Before that, alternators were just controlled by output voltage. The higher the voltage difference between the alternator and the battery, the more current would flow from the alternator to charge the battery. This difference decreases as the battery is charged, so the alternator output decreases as the voltage difference between the alternator and battery decreases. If it's low enough, the alternator stops charging. That stays like that until that voltage difference increases again as the battery discharges, or if the voltage difference is artificially created by another electrical load.
It's all just current flow being controlled by differences in voltage, and the alternator load on the engine is very dependent on that current flow. There's also the engine power required to accelerate the alternator mass, and power loss from internal cooling fan drag, and bearings, belts, etc., but those things are a function of RPM and not generally a function of output current.
 
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Y'all silly fuckers know that Delphi is already doing this shit on new cars, right? They don't have alternators or starters. They have a little electric motor hooked to the serp belt and to a 48 volt battery. The motor acts as starter, auxillary power for WOT acceleration, and regens on decel. Engine accessories are electric wherever possible. Gas motor shuts off whenever it's not expressly needed.
 
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