Renewable Kart

[aaronbleop]

Hello!
I was wondering what i would need to make a solar powered kart; I know a little of the basics from google but i would like to hear what you guys think. I probably wouldn't use solar as main power source, i am trying to figure out how to miniaturize wind turbines and use those too. (and i have been considering a HHO generator but that might be too complicated) I am looking for cheaper parts, I ain't made of money lol. But i still want it to go a good speed, like maybe 15-20mph
Thanks!

 

[Doc Sprocket]

Aaron, you certainly have your work cut out for you. It's gonna cost.

With electric projects, it would seem that the compromise is between speed and range. I'm sure that you can attain 20MPH, but for how long? Adding a solar charge system should be reasonably straightforward, but solar cells don't come cheap. How much will it cost to charge the batteries in a reasonable period of time?

Welcome to the forum?

 

[itsid]

That sounds like a great idea,
unfortunately, it's not I'm afraid

Ordinary solar panels cannot produce anything close to the wattage you'd need to power a go kart if you don't have a really big surface.
That's why solar cars have huge panels and are extremely optimised to have a decent speed and mileage without having to carry enormous amounts of batteries.
And that's why they normally look something like this:

Wind turbines are even worse
they will actually loose energy, not produce some.
Why? first, they add weight of course
second they have an efficiency of about 80% at best,
so in order to make you go 8mph with the power of a wind turbine, you have to go 10mph.
see?

H2O is the weapon of choice I'm afraid
You can use small(er) solar cells to produce Hydrogen gas and store that in a tank,
then burn that to produce energy for your electric motor.
it's not perfect, but the one option I can think of being close to efficient.
(not calculating the amount of energy that is used in the process of making the solar cell of course)
so an ambient temperature hydrogen fuel cell would be the powersource of choice.
(expensive little boxes... sorry)

'sid

 

[landuse]

Here is one thread I found of a kart that had some solar panels. It wasn't reliant on them though

http://www.diygokarts.com/vb/showthread.php?t=20916