Junk or Good idea?

drewmitch44

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http://delaware.craigslist.org/boa/1108944873.html

Its like tiny wind turbines that are supposed to charge batteries. I was told that if you use a trolling motor that the wind from you moveing will charge the battery as much as you are using power from the battery. That means that you could in theory run in an endless lake with a troller and a deep cell battery and these wind chargers. I dont believe that! I bet that they are even less effective than the solar panels that are supposed to charge deep cell batteries. What do you guys think? Seems like a sham to me.
 

aspeck

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Re: Junk or Good idea?

That would be creating energy out of nothing! You can't use the battery power to propel the boat, displacing water, and still displace enough air to recharge the battery ... In the whole process there is energy loss. Now the batteries might be able to last longer that way ... but it is not an infinite source of energy ... if it were we would have deep cell batteries connected to trolling motors all across this country generating enough electricity to power our cities and towns.
 

lowkee

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Re: Junk or Good idea?

HAHAH, I like the pretty colors, as they represent the seriousness of the idea.. not at all. If you have them mounted to a dock and hook them up to your battery, yes, IN THEORY, they can charge your batteries while it is docked. In reality, they wouldn't put out even remotely enough juice to even get more than 1/2 amp MAYBE.

Pretty funny, though. Reminds me of the guy who got on the evening news for adding about 12 desk fans to his car, saying it would charge the car while he drove, making it run 80% longer or some such nonsense.. and they believed him. Have to love the news.. so informative and intelligent.
 

Limited-Time

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Re: Junk or Good idea?

There's no free lunch or perpetual motion. You can not create more energy than your expending. Sorry.
 

david_r

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Re: Junk or Good idea?

looks like junk to me!!!!!......and how you gonna fish with that contraption in your way.....and if you put it on the back of the boat you might just block what little wind you do create lol.....besides how fast do you go when you are fishing?

i bought one of those solar panels and it barely charged my cell phone much less charge a elec fence batt like it said it would......of course i bought the $75 ones so i kinda expected it not to work real well....5 watts ...yeah right.
 

Rocky_Road

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Oct 8, 2008
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1,798
Re: Junk or Good idea?

I recognize the boat in the ad...it's the Gorebal Warming II, that is slipped in Long Island.

Registered owner is...you guessed it...Al Gore.
 

bucky7680

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296
Re: Junk or Good idea?

That's not even a deep cycle battery.

Run Forest, Run.
 

drewmitch44

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Re: Junk or Good idea?

I bought 640 of those fan things. I mounted them to the top of my house. Now i can charge my cell phone without plugging it in to the regular house receptical. So i figure these plastic fans will pay for themselves. It will only take 200 years to generate the energy to pay the cost of the fans. What is terrible though is this dude that made these will most likely get rich with this scheme.
 

alangf

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Re: Junk or Good idea?

http://delaware.craigslist.org/boa/1108944873.html

Its like tiny wind turbines that are supposed to charge batteries. I was told that if you use a trolling motor that the wind from you moveing will charge the battery as much as you are using power from the battery. That means that you could in theory run in an endless lake with a troller and a deep cell battery and these wind chargers. I dont believe that! I bet that they are even less effective than the solar panels that are supposed to charge deep cell batteries. What do you guys think? Seems like a sham to me.
Recent spikes in energy cost has led to the marketing of products ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime. Wind turbines work but not cheaply or terribly efficiently. I don't understand why people with docks on waterways with tidal action or running currents don't harness this naturally available energy to power generators. The technology is the same as for wind turbines except there is less slippage using water for a transfer medium. We have barely scratched the surface in methods of economical energy generation.
 

jay_merrill

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Dec 5, 2007
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Re: Junk or Good idea?

I doubt that the setup shown would prevent a battery being used for a trolling motor from fully discharging while in use, but I still like the idea. What's encouraging is that people are beginning to view renewable energy as an area that is ripe for business development.

Remember that for every successful invention, there were many that failed. If necessity is the mother of invention, failure is surely its father.
 

Huron Angler

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Re: Junk or Good idea?

It is a good idea but not feasible in that configuration. The fans would need to be around 5-20 times larger(also made of metal) and mounted in the air 50-120 feet up. You know, like a real wind power setup.

Your rig would really only extend the life of the battery while still requiring recharging by conventional methods. I've looked into the same thing for my trolling motor/deep cycle and am still waiting for newer tech that will work better. Not holding my breath though since R & D for this stuff dried up with all other business loans. Also with oil under $50/barrel people don't invest in alt energy as much as last summer with oil over 100.

Hopefully someday this will be possible as I would also like to boat using perpetual energy. Best I can come up with so far is known as a sailboat.:D
 

Vlad D Impeller

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Re: Junk or Good idea?

I doubt that the setup shown would prevent a battery being used for a trolling motor from fully discharging while in use, but I still like the idea. What's encouraging is that people are beginning to view renewable energy as an area that is ripe for business development.

Remember that for every successful invention, there were many that failed. If necessity is the mother of invention, failure is surely its father.

Precisely my view.
 

QC

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Mar 22, 2005
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Re: Junk or Good idea?

Wonder if that's SgtMaj's enterprise?:D
LMAO

It's not feasible period . . . reread post #2. You need power to push the "fans" (turbines) through the air. There could not be any power left to run the boat if the fans could even generate enough energy to power the boat enough to power themselves (100% efficiency). The fact is that running an electric motor is only 80 - 95% efficient, they take more power to run than they produce . . . and again this doesn't include making the boat go against it's own hydrodynamic drag. Jeez . . . :rolleyes:

P.S. I have a ton of faith in many things . . . Perpetual motion is not one of them, we need a new universe for that ;)
 

tashasdaddy

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Re: Junk or Good idea?

there are a lot of things with patents that, just did not fly.
 

kenmyfam

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Re: Junk or Good idea?

100% energy in has never equalled 100% energy out !!!
 

thurps

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Re: Junk or Good idea?

If the wind changes direction, does it suck the juce out of your battery?
 
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