Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 19:28:49 -0500
Reply-To: tom ring <taring@TARING.ORG>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: tom ring <taring@TARING.ORG>
Organization: Tippen Ringware
Subject: Re: New electric power option?
In-Reply-To: <477FC1DF.6060405@gmail.com>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
This is a good ploace for fuel cell options -
http://www.fuelcellstore.com/
This was available 4 years ago, I can't find a trace of it now. A local place
used to carry them. They were about the size and shape of the current Honda
1KW inverter based system. This is what we'd all really like to have -
http://www.time.com/time/2003/inventions/invgenerator.html
tom
K0TAR
On 5 Jan 2008 at 9:43, Michael Elliott wrote:
> For those of us who like our electrical gadgets and refuse to camp in
> places with hookups (meaning cheek-by-jowl RV campgrounds out here in the
> SW USA), the options for keeping our auxiliary batteries charged up have
> pretty much been limited to solar (needs full sun, not a lot of amp-hours,
> dead silent, and non-polluting, expensive to wire up and a pain to deploy)
> or generators powered by internal-combustion engines (runs any time,
> plenty of power, loud enough to be annoying to anyone within 150 meters in
> a quiet campground, and not non-polluting, messy fuel to deal with).
>
> But it looks like a third option may shortly be available: the HydroPak
> Fuel Cell is debuting at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
> Dead quiet, decent power (400W), 14-hour run time on one cartridge, fuel
> cell technology (runs on water which is catalyzed into hydrogen which
> powers a fuel cell). 115VAC and 5VDC (USB) outputs, no emissions.
>
> $20 per cartridge, $400 for the unit.
>
> http://gizmodo.com/340275/hydropak-fuel-cell-to-debut-at-ces-2008
>
> BTW, I am not associated with this company or know anyone who is.
>
> The press release is light on tech specs. It's unclear how many watt-hours
> one can pull from a single cartridge. The 400W spec may refer to peak
> capacity. Or it may refer to total energy available per cartridge. One
> clue is in the statement that one cartridge can recharge an "average
> notebook computer 8 to 10 times." According to some sources, a typical
> notebook battery has anywhere between 20 to 60 watt-hours of capacity.
> This gives anywhere between 160 watt-hours to 600 watt-hours of energy in
> one cartridge.
>
> If their marketing dept took "400 watt-hours" and mangled it into 400W, I
> can make a guess about how useful this gadget would be to me. To convert
> from watt-hours to 12-volt lead-acid amp-hours, divide by 12.6 (ish), so
> 400 watt-hours will roughly provide 32 (ish) amp-hours (inefficiencies not
> included, calculating actual energy yield is left to the student).
>
> This is high enough energy density to keep me watching this product
> because during summer Mrs Squirrel and I use about 35 amp-hours per
> 24-hour period to keep the lighting and refrigerator running, watch a DVD
> (softly, no loud bangs to alarm the neighbors), listen to soft music, etc.
> Our solar rig* does a fine job of keeping the battery topped up, but if we
> don't get sun, we're toast. A backup source of silent, clean energy like
> this gadget sounds mighty interesting. It appears to be a real product.
>
> ==============
> * http://camping.elliott.googlepages.com/aboutoursolarpowerrig
>
> --
> Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
> 71 Type 2: the Wonderbus
> 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
> 74 Utility Trailer. Ladybug Trailer, Inc., San Juan Capistrano
> KG6RCR
>
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