|
|
Post by silverdragon on Mar 3, 2018 9:19:55 GMT
Or just buy a motorhome with one normal driven axle, and one electric driven axle. You may have to check local laws on "live" driven second vehicles behind the first, "Push trucking", on heavy goods vehicles, you would think you could slave a remote control to the front vehicles driver, save on manpower, but I aint sure on the legality of not having a driver in the second vehicle if its not just being towed. it would just be used as a battery pack in towed mode. the motorhome would be the prime mover. The problems come when you try to push with that set of wheels. In Push Trucking where the rear engine unit just pushes, counter intuitively, you need no steering input, the geometry of the steering sort of automatically just follows the vehicle in front. If you put in there a solid tow hitch of any type, it makes it an articulated hitch, and steering that is "difficult", add power on, and you may get the tail wagging the dog, and ask any trucker who has experienced a partial jacknife, that aint good at all. If its JUST towing a battery pack, I suggest you just alter under the frame of the main vehicle and put the batteries in there, because that lowers the centre of gravity, which is good, and the extra weight helps with traction, this you can increase the power harvesting to almost brake replacement levels unless it emergency braking. |
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Mar 3, 2018 11:31:43 GMT
it would just be used as a battery pack in towed mode. the motorhome would be the prime mover. The problems come when you try to push with that set of wheels. In Push Trucking where the rear engine unit just pushes, counter intuitively, you need no steering input, the geometry of the steering sort of automatically just follows the vehicle in front. If you put in there a solid tow hitch of any type, it makes it an articulated hitch, and steering that is "difficult", add power on, and you may get the tail wagging the dog, and ask any trucker who has experienced a partial jacknife, that aint good at all. If its JUST towing a battery pack, I suggest you just alter under the frame of the main vehicle and put the batteries in there, because that lowers the centre of gravity, which is good, and the extra weight helps with traction, this you can increase the power harvesting to almost brake replacement levels unless it emergency braking. yes, but then the range of the car suffers if you put its batteries on the motorhome chassis. |
|
|
|
Post by silverdragon on Mar 4, 2018 7:59:29 GMT
The problems come when you try to push with that set of wheels. In Push Trucking where the rear engine unit just pushes, counter intuitively, you need no steering input, the geometry of the steering sort of automatically just follows the vehicle in front. If you put in there a solid tow hitch of any type, it makes it an articulated hitch, and steering that is "difficult", add power on, and you may get the tail wagging the dog, and ask any trucker who has experienced a partial jacknife, that aint good at all. If its JUST towing a battery pack, I suggest you just alter under the frame of the main vehicle and put the batteries in there, because that lowers the centre of gravity, which is good, and the extra weight helps with traction, this you can increase the power harvesting to almost brake replacement levels unless it emergency braking. yes, but then the range of the car suffers if you put its batteries on the motorhome chassis. Simple answer, make the battery pack detachable, "just tow" the car, and use the batteries either in the car or under the bus. Tesla may have the answer to this, as the complete underside belly of the car is the battery pack, obviously armoured underneath to protect against road damage, but its detachable with relative ease. I am sure that relative ease can be changed to a couple of quick clamps and one or two snap connectors. Also, on the towed vehicle, having that braking, tends to alter the braking characteristics of the whole vehicle, where the whole vehicle is the main bus and towed trailer. On many trailers that brakes are applied by a short telescopic tow hitch that when compressed applies the brakes, but this causes problems under braking on a bend. Its the old problem of American vehicles not being able to corner?. No I wasnt going to say that... but... well... No the real problem is that under braking the trailer tries to straighten out the vehicle to a straight line if the brake bias is set on the towed part and not the back wheels of the main vehicle. Most braking under heavy braking is done by the front wheels if the weight shifts that much, but if the load sensors get it wrong and assign too much bias towards the trailer?..Then the The back brakes have more stopping power than the front, and if that is the heavier part of the vehicle when under braking, all the weight of the front vehicle being over the front brakes, the "Middle set" of wheels loose weight and traction. This is also why sometimes a vehicle jackknifes, under heavy emergency braking, the brake bias is towards the rear on a trailer where the load sensors are not tuned properly, and the brakes go to the front of the cab and the back of the trailer "lifting" the cabs driving wheels, they loose traction, and you have a bent banana. Or the towed vehicle doesnt have enough braking and doesnt want to stop, a body in motion staying in motion until a force is applied, and if that force is affected by a moment of turning ability, it just flows around that turning point and tries to overtake the front. Solution?. I know the problems, but you may have to ask one of the more Engineering minded people of the board for a better understanding of brake dynamics. But put an articulation between the driving or braking or brake harvesting F1 style "Kers" system wheels and the steering wheels, opens up a whole new can of Surströmming. Which is rather an apt analogy, because cooked brakes do smell that way....  This is also why centre articulated site vehicles and road mending vehicles like snow plough dump truck and some reach forklifts have "oversized" pneumatic cylinders to do the steering bit, under braking, they slightly pressurise both sides of the system to tighten up to prevent further forced articulation. This also prevents wild swings of steering input by the driver, to prevent stability problems. How they do that, I only have a conceptual idea of, because I aint the spanner man?. Brake Bias is an art form that the only solution I know by heart is the Two wheel variety. I can by experience, sense the back or front brakes traction ability and alter my braking by .001 psi if I "feel" the need, and that is better than any machine can manage.  Car brakes, I can "feel" older non ABS vehicles start to slide, I also have been taught cadence braking, but I much prefer the car I have that has ABS and stomp-and-steer....  Wagon brakes, you stomp and hope that the load sensors can manage this one.....     and all the other facial expressions that cross your face as you cross your fingers toes and eyebrows and hang on and hope.... |
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Mar 4, 2018 11:31:22 GMT
yes, but then the range of the car suffers if you put its batteries on the motorhome chassis. Simple answer, make the battery pack detachable, "just tow" the car, and use the batteries either in the car or under the bus. Tesla may have the answer to this, as the complete underside belly of the car is the battery pack, obviously armoured underneath to protect against road damage, but its detachable with relative ease. I am sure that relative ease can be changed to a couple of quick clamps and one or two snap connectors. Also, on the towed vehicle, having that braking, tends to alter the braking characteristics of the whole vehicle, where the whole vehicle is the main bus and towed trailer. On many trailers that brakes are applied by a short telescopic tow hitch that when compressed applies the brakes, but this causes problems under braking on a bend. Its the old problem of American vehicles not being able to corner?. No I wasnt going to say that... but... well... No the real problem is that under braking the trailer tries to straighten out the vehicle to a straight line if the brake bias is set on the towed part and not the back wheels of the main vehicle. Most braking under heavy braking is done by the front wheels if the weight shifts that much, but if the load sensors get it wrong and assign too much bias towards the trailer?..Then the The back brakes have more stopping power than the front, and if that is the heavier part of the vehicle when under braking, all the weight of the front vehicle being over the front brakes, the "Middle set" of wheels loose weight and traction. This is also why sometimes a vehicle jackknifes, under heavy emergency braking, the brake bias is towards the rear on a trailer where the load sensors are not tuned properly, and the brakes go to the front of the cab and the back of the trailer "lifting" the cabs driving wheels, they loose traction, and you have a bent banana. Or the towed vehicle doesnt have enough braking and doesnt want to stop, a body in motion staying in motion until a force is applied, and if that force is affected by a moment of turning ability, it just flows around that turning point and tries to overtake the front. Solution?. I know the problems, but you may have to ask one of the more Engineering minded people of the board for a better understanding of brake dynamics. But put an articulation between the driving or braking or brake harvesting F1 style "Kers" system wheels and the steering wheels, opens up a whole new can of Surströmming. Which is rather an apt analogy, because cooked brakes do smell that way.... This is also why centre articulated site vehicles and road mending vehicles like snow plough dump truck and some reach forklifts have "oversized" pneumatic cylinders to do the steering bit, under braking, they slightly pressurise both sides of the system to tighten up to prevent further forced articulation. This also prevents wild swings of steering input by the driver, to prevent stability problems. How they do that, I only have a conceptual idea of, because I aint the spanner man?. Brake Bias is an art form that the only solution I know by heart is the Two wheel variety. I can by experience, sense the back or front brakes traction ability and alter my braking by .001 psi if I "feel" the need, and that is better than any machine can manage. Car brakes, I can "feel" older non ABS vehicles start to slide, I also have been taught cadence braking, but I much prefer the car I have that has ABS and stomp-and-steer.... Wagon brakes, you stomp and hope that the load sensors can manage this one..... and all the other facial expressions that cross your face as you cross your fingers toes and eyebrows and hang on and hope.... yeah, disassemble and reassemble your car every time you switch it from towed to driven. much easier than plugging in a bigger umbilical. (which actually, my original idea was a small car like your mini and the motorhome picked it up and carried it) as for the surge brake you use on your civilian model trailers, that actually has more than a fair bit to recommend it, as the inherent nature of it is to self limit how hard it pushes on your tow vehicle; which means less fettling than our electrically controlled brake systems. most of our heavier rental trailers use a surge brake system instead of an electric brake system for that reason. the weakeness to surge brake systems is trying to back them uphill. on my dad's old pickup, the trailer brake controller was quite literally controlled by the brake pressure. the master cylinder had an auxiliary tap which fed a brake cylinder in the controller, and that was connected to a variable electric switch that fed more voltage to the trailer the harder you pushed the pedal. the new ones, since it took them a while to figure out you could do all this from the ABS controller (I think some modern cars have an output directly from the brake control module to control electric trailer brakes) is to have an accelerometer of some variety in the controller body with an on-off switch connected to the brake light switch. if the brake lights are on, then it uses the accelerometer to guess how hard you are trying to stop, and calculates how much power to send to the trailer brakes. but in the case of the motorhome paired to the electric car, I was thinking of just having the motorhome plugging into the car with a bigger umbilical, so it could use the car's battery pack as an extension of its own. you could get fancy and use the drive motors in the car to reduce hitch loading, but I was anticipating the car being light enough to be not worth the bother. (or, as I said, being carried instead of towed) |
|
|
|
Post by silverdragon on Mar 5, 2018 10:07:51 GMT
There exists somewhere a Motorhome coach sold to the ultra-rich that has utilised the luggage space under the main passenger deck as a storage "garage" that slides out that can accommodate a small lightweight convertible "sports" type car, convertible because you cant fit an average car in there unless its got its roof down, and you are limited to the size of the vehicle in length and width, but I am sure you could fit most small 2 seater cars in there easily if they are say no bigger than a Caterham 7... or maybe a TVR...
But all you need to do is find a [ previously ]lightweight sports car and convert it to electric...?..
Raise the floor level?.
Um, Yeah, you know how I said sold to the ultra rich, well the floor in there is Italian Marble.
However, there is another idea, that is something I have seen for Racing, in that a motorhome is bought that is just a little longer than you need for your home needs, and convert the rear space to a garage with a fold down rear ramp.
Works in many ways, because you get extra weight over the back axle for traction, dont have any towing problems, and it keeps you car nice and dry.
|
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Mar 5, 2018 15:26:44 GMT
There exists somewhere a Motorhome coach sold to the ultra-rich that has utilised the luggage space under the main passenger deck as a storage "garage" that slides out that can accommodate a small lightweight convertible "sports" type car, convertible because you cant fit an average car in there unless its got its roof down, and you are limited to the size of the vehicle in length and width, but I am sure you could fit most small 2 seater cars in there easily if they are say no bigger than a Caterham 7... or maybe a TVR... But all you need to do is find a [ previously ]lightweight sports car and convert it to electric...?.. Raise the floor level?. Um, Yeah, you know how I said sold to the ultra rich, well the floor in there is Italian Marble. However, there is another idea, that is something I have seen for Racing, in that a motorhome is bought that is just a little longer than you need for your home needs, and convert the rear space to a garage with a fold down rear ramp. Works in many ways, because you get extra weight over the back axle for traction, dont have any towing problems, and it keeps you car nice and dry. we call that a toy hauler. in which the master bedroom or dining room doubles as a garage when you are moving your toys from here to there. yeah, it's probably got a not so faint smell of petrol to it, but the kind of people who use them like smelling of petrol. usually they are trailers, here, but I found a motorhome version. campingearth.com/blog/toy-hauler-campers/ |
|
|
|
Post by ponytail61 on Mar 5, 2018 20:03:35 GMT
There exists somewhere a Motorhome coach sold to the ultra-rich that has utilised the luggage space under the main passenger deck as a storage "garage" that slides out that can accommodate a small lightweight convertible "sports" type car, convertible because you cant fit an average car in there unless its got its roof down, and you are limited to the size of the vehicle in length and width, but I am sure you could fit most small 2 seater cars in there easily if they are say no bigger than a Caterham 7... or maybe a TVR... But all you need to do is find a [ previously ]lightweight sports car and convert it to electric...?.. Raise the floor level?. Um, Yeah, you know how I said sold to the ultra rich, well the floor in there is Italian Marble. However, there is another idea, that is something I have seen for Racing, in that a motorhome is bought that is just a little longer than you need for your home needs, and convert the rear space to a garage with a fold down rear ramp. Works in many ways, because you get extra weight over the back axle for traction, dont have any towing problems, and it keeps you car nice and dry. we call that a toy hauler. in which the master bedroom or dining room doubles as a garage when you are moving your toys from here to there. yeah, it's probably got a not so faint smell of petrol to it, but the kind of people who use them like smelling of petrol. usually they are trailers, here, but I found a motorhome version. campingearth.com/blog/toy-hauler-campers/ |
|
|
|
Post by silverdragon on Mar 6, 2018 7:33:16 GMT
we call that a toy hauler. in which the master bedroom or dining room doubles as a garage when you are moving your toys from here to there. yeah, it's probably got a not so faint smell of petrol to it, but the kind of people who use them like smelling of petrol. usually they are trailers, here, but I found a motorhome version. campingearth.com/blog/toy-hauler-campers/Nice find, that almost exactly the one I saw, except the one I saw was in white with black marble floors, and the car inside was silver, but heck, if you got that kind of money, colour schemes are an option right from the design specs eh?.. |
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Mar 6, 2018 15:07:41 GMT
Nice find, that almost exactly the one I saw, except the one I saw was in white with black marble floors, and the car inside was silver, but heck, if you got that kind of money, colour schemes are an option right from the design specs eh?.. interestingly, there was a big to-do when, about 10 years ago, our RV manufacturers realized people might want colors other than muted pastels inside their RVs. previously, they did all their upholstery and carpets for the year in the same color, and if you didn't like it your only option was to go to an upholsterer and have it custom made. it was a quantum advance in RV technology when they realized they could make an RV in colors that would appeal to someone other than an 80 year old woman.  |
|
