Tag Archives: electric vehicle

Dueling Digital Streams

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Even though the telephone was the first device that was widely used to employ digital (pulse width modulation) electronics, most of us cut our digital teeth on the personal computer. The digital nature of the phone system was invisible to us until the advent of cellular smart phones. The digital portion of the telephone (and co resident internet) system started at the telephone company office. Digital made sense to the electrical engineers. It was a lot easier to create a circuit that was either on or off. We all grew up with the light switch. Our lack of exposure to digital devices was a portion of the trepidation that we experienced every time we added a new digital device or card to the data streams within our computers. Usually this trepidation was well founded in that frequent system crashes occurred as we tried to activate yet one more device. Most of our computers were regularly sent to the computer repair shop to sort out the dueling digital streams.
It is not surprising that we think personal computer when the discussion topic of digital is brought up. Yes, the personal computer is still digital. What has crept up on us is that virtually every electrical device that we use is now digital. Even the humble electric light
that was the impedes for deploying our electric grids has evolved into a digitally driven LED (Light Emitting Diode) array. Most people are unaware that digital circuits pulse the LED’s to achieve the brightness without burning them out. The pulse circuits are powered by digital converters that create the proper voltage. Each digital step creates its own digital stream.
Most of the digital devices that we buy have been tested. Like the medications that we employ, this testing is done in isolation. We all hope that we will only need one medication at a time because next to no testing has been done to determine whether medications will work in combination. Vehicles have many electric devices. Each device runs on its own set of digital streams. All of these devises share a common wiring system which opens the door for dueling digital streams. Unlike the medical community, most vehicles devices are tested to confirm that they can work properly together. This does not totally prevent unauthorized engineering changes from creating dueling digital streams. I am currently recovering from an event where the digital stream from the headlights shut down the vehicle control.

Numeric Build

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Noah's Arc recreat ion in Holland - picture by Ceinturion

Noah’s Arc recreation in Holland – picture by Ceinturion


“This is how you are to make it; the length of the ark three hundred cubits. its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits.” – the Holy Bible. From the beginning of recorded history man has been employing the benefits of building guided by numeric specifications. In the case of Noah, the proportions for his ark made it seaworthy. We still use the same proportions afforded by these numeric instructions today when we design and create the ships that sail the high seas. Numbers have guided the builders of virtually everything for all recorded history. Until the advent of Computer Numeric Control, the craftsmen read and interpreted the recorded numbers and created the desired item. In Noah’s case, with God arranging the details, it is very possible that 3 numbers were all that was needed to get the job done. At least that was all that Noah needed.
Modern manufacturing is the convergence of a whole lot of processes that have been converted to numbers. At the beginning of the process is the quote. As we migrate to mass customization, every customer wants a price assembled just for him. Money is usually expressed in numbers. Calculating a custom sales price for every order has only become possible with the implementation of ever more computer horsepower. The airline model of charging an unique price for every ticket sold is spreading. Get used to it.
We hardly even think of adding numbers by hand

We hardly even think of adding numbers by hand


A lead time is a number. In pretty much all cases this number is greater than zero. I am sure that the people who needed an ark when the rain started to fall, discovered that the lead time number was a lot greater than zero. In this digital age, we place an order and expect it to be shippped in the next day or two. It is a good thing that other people start the manufacturing ball rolling a whole lot earlier.
GPS numeric coordinates track every item as they are transported to fulfill your order

GPS numeric coordinates track every item as they are transported to fulfill your order

Modern transportation management systems use numeric GPS coordinates to track every item real time. This coordination is needed for all the items to arrive together. It is more complicated than simply ordering everything you need to build at once. It is necessary to take into account the lead time of each item including transportation time. The longest lead time items need to be ordered first.
No, not even the latest computer implemented numeric build methods can deliver you an ark in a couple of days. However under the new Pack Mule Prime program the sum of the latest numeric build systems enable you to configure an electric vehicle to your needs and have it shipped out in a couple of days. Just keep watching for the rainbow, you might not ever need an ark.
There just might be gold at the end of the rainbow

There just might be gold at the end of the rainbow

Battery Assault

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by Reynardo Detroit Electric 1917 taken in Maffra, Vic

by Reynardo Detroit Electric 1917 taken in Maffra, Vic

“I sell here, Sir, what all the world desires to have – POWER”, Matthew Boulton. From the infancy of the industrial revolution where Matthew promoted his steam engine, we humans wanted to encapsulate power in our hands. In the early 1900s electric cars running on lead acid batteries vied with the early unreliable internal combustion engines. Now, 100 years later, we mostly use vehicles powered by internal combustion engines, but a few remaining vehicles, such as lift trucks and Kiva robots, are powered by lead acid batteries. Lead acid battery life is still an issue. For example, Kiva (now Amazon robotics) robots, require brand new batteries every year.
Modern electronics ratcheted up the demand for portable sources of electric power. When I used my HP45 calculator, the nickle cadmium cells in the battery pod drove most users nuts.

HP45 by Daniel Sancho

HP45 by Daniel Sancho

As an engineer, I replaced cells in the pods as they died from military surplus. Never figured out what caused this highly variable battery life. Some died the first week, others went for a year or longer. Market pain of this level spurred heavy development effort, which resulted in the NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) battery. The highly toxic cadmium electrode was replaced by an intermetallic electrode, which in the most effective versions includes rare earth elements. This improvement tripled battery storage capacity (almost equaling lithium ion) A few marketplace knee jerk reactions occurred. Chevron bought the patent and blocked NiMH battery use in electric vehicles. NiMH use in hybrid vehicles was approved, because they still run on gasoline. The driving range of a Prius in electric only is about 1 mile. The Tesla end run using lithium batteries, probably caused the NiMH patent sale to BASF in 2012. The Chinese leveraged their short term monopoly on rare earth supply for political purposes.
Prius by JBleeker

Prius by JBleeker

When the Prius first came out the automotive engineering community believed that a short NiMH battery life would be its downfall. Slamming power in and out at variable ambient temperatures is exactly opposite to what is optimum for extending battery life. NiMH battery life proved better than our concern, but is still a factor. Smash and grab thieves currently target Prius battery packs, because they can get $1000 for a used pack when an owner is faced with a $2500 replacement after about five years of use.
We enthusiastically adopted the convenience of laptops when the intersection of lower power usage computer chips coincided with lighter weight lithium battery development.
Laptop Computer

Laptop Computer

Lithium batteries take advantage of the fact that lithium is the lightest metal. Unfortunately, all high density energy storage materials are a fire hazard. We have heard about lithium battery fires in laptops, planes and even Tesla cars. Our familiarity with normal cars causes us to forget that gasoline fires in cars are also very common. Most lithium battery makers are still focusing on electrode development in that battery life is still a frustration.
Based on a successful trial, Eos has just received third round funding for their grid scale zinc air battery. http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/eos-raising-25m-to-build-megawatts-of-low-cost-grid-batteries They are working with Con Edison to replace coal fired peaking power plants with batteries. It takes a whole lot of batteries.
Modular ZInc Air in Sea Land picture of Big Bend Power Station by Wkniught94 talk container picture by Marc Cromme, Denmark

Modular ZInc Air in Sea Land
picture of Big Bend Power Station by Wkniught94 talk
container picture by Marc Cromme, Denmark

In modern logistic fashion, they package their batteries with the control electronics in sea-land containers. A multitude of these containers equals a power plant. The Eos battery evolved from the zinc dry cell that every one knows. Hearing aid manufacturers needed an affordable light weight battery to create a comfortable unit. The design of the dry cell was evolved to gather one reaction agent from the air. Most people do not realize this is similar to a gasoline engine which burns 10 lbs of air for every one pound of gasoline. Gasoline engine cars would be heavy, like Tesla electrics (4000 lb vrs 2000 lb), if they also had to carry the air that is burned. Eos evolved the zinc air battery further to create a rechargeable battery with a long life. This innovation cut the cost of storing electrical energy in batteries by 50 percent. Most of the electrical vehicle manufactures have taken notice and it would not surprise me if all electric vehicle manufacturers use zinc air for some portion of their batteries.
Batteries are encapsulating power in our hands. The cordless drills, shavers, weed eaters, vacuums, lawn mowers, snow blowers that we enjoy, are just the spin off benefits.