Auxilary Power Units

[MustangP51]

This is kind of just a brain storming thread. This weekend some of my friends and I went down to the lake which was frozen to play some Ice Hockey. It was at night and I was using my Explorers headlights to light up the ice. Now everyone knows the battery will go dead in a short period of time so I had to have the engine running.

What I want to do is come up with some sort of what is know as an APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) in the aviation world. Basically a very tiny gasoline engine that could run a generator to power lights and accessories without the cars engine running to save gas and make less noise. Possibly an alternator attached to something like an RC engine?

Does anyone know if anyone makes anything like this? I would not want to have a separate fuel tank either, I would want it to feed out of the cars tank.

Like I said brainstorming, so contribute anything.

 

[Bruces expo]

sound's like a good idea , but would it be worth it in the end , i guess it all depend's on how much you would use it , compaired to the price to buy, or make what you need !!

 

[MustangP51]

Yea it would probably rarely get used, but it could be helpful if you go camping, or to the beach, etc.

I was also thinking that you could set it up so that if the battery drops below a certain voltage it would start automatically.

 

[Bruces expo]

yea that would be good for alot of use's, good luck with this , and i will check in and out to see the progress

 

[Lefos]

You would have to find a spot to mount it, the only hard part. I have some this done in marine technology. On a personal motorboat with a friend of mine, he mounted two batteries in his rear. One would power the starter, and the engine, the other for auxiliary "house" lights, radio, etc. What we would do is drive around at night then kill then engine and just glide with the running lights on for a while, they never shut off, but if they did all we had to do would be to start it up for a minute and we could repeat lol. So maybe this would be something to take interest in, a second battery dedicated to your lights(must last a few hours if dedicated to just lights) then when u start your car you have no worries.

OH how my friends system worked.

Batteru A connected to a control panel and the engine
Battery B connected to the fuse panel and all other electrical devices in his boat.
Control panel connected both batteries
What would be done is he would activate a bridge that would connect the two batteries via the control panel(physical switch) to "charge" the second battery. Once charged he would terminate the bridge so that if power would go out he has a full battery for the engine.

I love your idea for prolonged playtime, just remember though, you need a place to mount it, maybe make a unit that you could effectively wire, and then use a connector and just sit that engine down on the ground next to your car... Just thinking outloud

 

[JDraper]

What you are asking for already exists.....Buy a gas powered generator and some halogen lights.......

 

[abomb]

Conceptually this is a nice idea, but space is pretty tight in the explorers, anything permanent seems like it will take up a good chunk of space. I see on bucket trucks, the better trucks use a separate generator to run the generator and tools so you don't have to leave the engine on all the time. But space for a 5000w generator isn't hard to find on those trucks.

A few months ago I bought a very small generator from Pep Boys for $100. It's a 2-cycle engine so you need to mix oil into the gas, but its got both a 120v output and a 12v output, so you could in theory run a pair of halogen work lights or run the headlights for many many hours. And when you're done you can take it out and keep all your storage space.

I found a youtube video with the generator pictured...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIkuQBEaFTM

Maybe it's a better way to go?

 

[MustangP51]

How much hp does it usually take to drive a 90w alternator?