DC generators

[wpowokal]

Just over 12 months ago Batherst cottage posted a question here about possibly using one of two old DC generators on an old single cylinder engine.

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2009/3/19/102327/378

He was lampooned for his large pictures, yes they were big, although this was his only post here Glenn has overhauled one of the units with great success, OK with a little help from Flux and myself.

Why have I posted this! well sometimes I think we  me included are a little hard on newbies.

allan

[wildcrafter]

being new i must say i have felt the barbs myself i take it with a grain of salt and continue on.  Have to have a thick skin sometimes if you want to learn from the big dogs.

[bob g]

when the new software gets up and running there will be no more complaints about

posting pictures that are too big, SMF has a limit that is set by the admin

and you simply cannot get larger pictures to upload.

you also cannot post over 4 pictures per posting, it works very well and has proven

to eliminate a huge problem for us over at microcogen.

personally i think the new software will eliminate many issues that frustrate the moderators and admin here, and those that get newbie's into trouble here.

can't wait to the the change over here!

bob g

[fabricator]

The thing that has alway bothered me is someone who may not be all that computer literate (speaking purely from personal experience) posts on this ancient software and the poor sucker gets hammered for not knowing everything there is to know about the allowable size of pictures, it's really down right unfriendly.

[REdiculous]

A well designed board would simply convert pictures for the users instead. Each user should have a display preference; Small, medium and large.

There should be no hard-and-fast file size limit. Big is beautiful.

[kurt]

all the boards i post on that allow Direct attachment of photos to a thread for display will not allow you to upload them at all unless they are resized to exactly the proper size and most of the boards have embedded photos from outside hosts turned off so you cannot stick in a oversize photo from an outside host in either. you can link it but you cannot embed it so it displays in the post.  

[bob g]

what i do for our forum, in order to post pictures is to upload the big ones

to microsoft paint, and then crop the picture, save it as a jpeg and it is then

almost always well under the limit set by our administrator, and the forum software

accepts it just fine.

with the software making the decision there is no interaction with a moderator that would at times make him look like a tyrant (even though we know he is not).

this issue will become a non issue when the change to SMF takes place, and i think that

will be a good thing for everyone involved

bob g

[REdiculous]

What you describe is bad practice* and bad interface design, pure and simple. Your users shouldn't have to think about the file size or dimensions of their images. Requiring your users to jump through arbitrary hoops is never a good idea. Especially when you can automate most of the hoop-jumping entirely!!!...

I have a script that I use to automate it on my end and it's still a 3 step process. First I have to drop my image on the script. Then I upload the small file. Then I delete the small file.

If it were done on the server instead, it would usually be one step. Upload photo. Uno.

* Not everyone uses Windows; your "use MS Paint" solution is already broken for some portion of the population.

[bob g]

all i was saying or referencing by the use of paint is there are a number of ways to

resize a picture, openoffice has its version and there are countless online photo choppers to work with as well.

there really needs to be some limits to size, otherwise you got folks posting 10meg bitmaps that are so friggin big you have to scroll all over the place just to read the text.

your assertion that this should be an automatic function on the forum software seems a bit over the top to me, if one wants to be an active part of a forum you either play by the forum rules, work to get the forum rules changed, or go play somewhere else.

i think to expect any forum software to cover all possible situations is not being within the realm of reality, sure you can cover all things for all people today, but i guarantee tomorrow or next week or next month there will be one or more folks popping up with some bitch about something. its just human nature.

in my opinion having a limit of 640x480 is more than adequate for what we are doing,

and a file size of 500kb is more than adequate, SMF allows that easily enough as the default setting. the pictures display in the posting as mini pics that you can click on to expand to full size, reclick to reduce to the mini and go on with life.

why does anyone really need some monster 4000x3000 ten mb picture to illustrate a diy project anyway?

why would anyone be offended by having to resize an insanely large picture to fit either the rules of a forum or the software constraints of a forum?

btw, i don't use a mac, or linux, or any other operating system, but

my bet is each and everyone of them has a program that does the same as MS paint

i know even OS2 warp had their version of paint, and that was what?  20 years ago?

besides anyone that is serious about their project should be able or learn to be able to resize their pics if for no other reason but to compile them for their own future reference.

probably said to much already so i will shut up and go sit in my corner.

bob g

[REdiculous]

"your assertion that this should be an automatic function on the forum software seems a bit over the top to me"

Why is that over the top? I just whipped up a script that does most of what I described. Input is any common file format (w/ batch support, yay!) and the result is 3 images scaled to 640x480, 320x240 and 160x120 respectively, with whatever compression I want at the time. From start to finish in 10 minutes, literally. It's not something they could use (OS-specific, client-side design) but it can be done.

You know how you deal with complaints? Please see our policy on this matter. Then you explain what you accept and what happens to files that don't comply.

"why would anyone be offended by having to resize an insanely large picture to fit either the rules of a forum or the software constraints of a forum?"

They shouldn't be offended, you're right. The problem is that some people simply can't figure it out or otherwise don't do it. My grandpa has sent GBs worth of pictures in one email on more than one occasion and it's not like the man is dumb. I doubt he'd appreciate being chastised if he broke the rule.

I happen to agree with the limits though, whatever they are. I wouldn't even care if the limits were half what they are (I use assistive zoom a lot anyway). The point is that the board should handle it when the user doesn't....people actually hunt down non-conforming images..computer time is cheaper.

"even OS2 warp"

lol, I thought you were basically quoting your actual page, or whatever....I thought that was the whole solution; use MS Paint. My mistake. And I've said way more than too much..oh well.

[Volvo farmer]

I'm going to agree with REdiculous on this one.

Personally, I am able to re-size photos. I began selling on Ebay before sites like Photobucket, where the camera shot in 640x480, you had to upload to your own space with FTP and link with HTML. However... Things are much, much different today.

Now, you can upload gargantuan photos to sites like Ebay, Facebook, and even Craigslist and their magic software makes everything load fast and look right for the end user. With all cameras shooting in the 5+ MP range out of the box nowadays, we need to decide what kind of people we want to participate on this forum.

One way to look at it is that it takes some intelligence and effort to get photos out of today's digital cameras and make them conform to the requirements of this board. We could raise the bar of those we want to participate on Fieldlines, and only allow those with enough intelligence to figure out how to re-size photos. We could also make a similar requirement that everyone spell all words and use proper grammar, because it also takes some intelligence and effort to use the English language correctly.

Personally, I think there might be some people out there who might have something to contribute, that either don't know or don't care how to re-size photos. I am a member of a forum hosted by the self-same programmer who is migrating the posts here. It is a PhpBB forum, but I have seen with my own eyes that it is possible to implement a script to make large photos display correctly and not scroll off the screen. If storage is a problem, I will personally buy a brand new 1TB hard drive for our hosts and buy another it when it gets filled up with uploaded photos.

Lastly, if the new forum does not allow links to off-site pictures, I will no longer be posting any pictures here. I like our hosts a lot, but I keep my stuff where I can control it. I think it is wonderful that they are willing to host pictures here, but I have an independent and rebellious streak and prefer to host my own pictures on my own server. I took the pictures and I like to retain my rights to them.

Good debate!

[TomW]

bob g said:



your assertion that this should be an automatic function on the forum software seems a bit over the top to me, if one wants to be an active part of a forum you either play by the forum rules, work to get the forum rules changed, or go play somewhere else.

I agree here. Either follow the well documenmted and posted rules, get them changed or go elsewhere to play.

Bitching is not gonna  work here.

The new software [under terst] resizes the display size but does not address the file byte size. File size is important as many of our true target audience [off gridders / rural] do not have the bandwidth the city dwellers have.

That is the facts.

Its inevitably the new folks that squeal the most so they should just live with it, work to change it or move on. Complaining in the forum is NOT "work to change it".

Bottom line is it is a long standing guideline that we still have for good and valid reasons.

Just to put things bluntly straight.

OK  absolutely NOTHING will be done to tweak this current software ever so until we get switched over we have what we have and the rules will be enforced. That is the way it is so no more whining. PERIOD.

Tom

[REdiculous]

"Either follow the well documenmted and posted rules, get them changed or go elsewhere to play."

"Bitching is not gonna  work here."

"Complaining in the forum is NOT "work to change it"."

You thought I was bitching and complaining? I thought I was making a pretty reasoned argument and highlighting a problem. Did I miss something?

"but [SMF] does not address the file byte size. File size is important [...]"

If dial-up users and the file size are that important then the board should handle it better. Users getting derided for not taking a class on image manipulation is bad. PERIOD.

Is SMF open source? I can understand having a "put up or shut up" attitude but we should still be able to talk about the issues like adults. Have a good one!

[TomW]

RE;

Calm down, all general comments.

Not sure how to say this without making you feel like I am attacking you. Here it is as simple as I can make it:

As I clearly stated. The current software will never get fixed so until a software change occurs it [picture posting rules] is a moot point.

This subject has been hammered to death for over a decade. You may not know that being "new".

Beyond that it is just wasting my time to even reply.  

If you had been here more than a few weeks or had read deeper into the archive you would already know the way it is now.

It is the users' responsibility to understand what is and is not acceptable on any forum they wish to post to. Simple fact.

It is what it is until we can work on it so, yes I consider discussing it bitching or whining because nothing can change anyway until we switch software.

Last I will comment on it.

Tom

[REdiculous]

I'm calm, don't worry...no big deal. This time the issue is actually topical though.

I get that the current software is dying and it sounds like SMF is a lot better...cool, can't wait!

I may have just recently signed up and started posting but I've been lurking a while. At least a few years. At least it's not another argument about VAWTs...those can get pretty heated.

I know how it works now...

Someone posts an offending picture and their thread gets dragged off-topic and flat lines because of it.

A bit of a generalization, I know, but I think we can do better...

What if someone set up a separate server to do image checking/conversion? I'd worry about availability in that case, but it could work...the 3rd-party server would just convert the images if needed, fieldlines would store the results. This way if the service went offline it would default back to the way it works now (no file size checking/correction). Yes, no?

I'm being lazy but I'll look into SMF soon. If it's open source I may be able to add it myself. Or maybe not. That's life, so have a good one.

[wpowokal]

Not to inflame the issue but I guess there are now three things not to discuss at a party of Re ppl........Religion Politics and Photo size

allan

[REdiculous]

You forgot hydrogen, vawts and overunity.

[REdiculous]

"SMF has a limit that is set by the admin and you simply cannot get larger pictures to upload"

I must have missed this before. If that's true then this really is a non-issue...yay!

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

And things that SOUND like overunity but really aren't.  B-)

I was a bit tweaked when a wind-assisted car thread got killed as "overunity" - too early for correcting one of my responses where I'd made an error and pushing down a path on wind sails and Darrieus-blade-like geometries where it's NOT overuinty.  There has actually been an experimental vehicle - commissioned by Dominos - utilizing the same effects as a Darrieus blade to get a boost from crosswinds.

And then there's the counter-current, gravity-assisted low-pressure tower still that initially got rejected by the patent office as perpetual motion when it was really just VERY efficient at recycling heat and pressure differences.  Damn I wish I could find the patent that was finally granted.

(Not blaming the admins, though.  Overunity stuff is so insidious and distracting that you gotta kill it quick before it overruns the board.  A little autoimmune disease is a fair trade for avoiding death by cancer.)

[REdiculous]

This is off-topic but I have to bring it up since it's related to your wind-assist car examples...

Have you heard of the large spinning pipe idea/thing? I saw it on a tv show, used to propel a boat...but it might/could be adaptable to a car...

I guess the idea is that one side of the pipe is rotating opposite the wind, so the wind slows down on that side. The other side is spinning with the wind so it speeds up...lift. All you have to do is spin the pipe at a few hundred rpm (I think).

When I first saw it I kept looking for the blades...I thought it was some kind of messed up vawt or something. I wish I remember what it was called..ugh! Oh well...

Have a good one!

[bob g]

i for one am not saying that they hydrogen boys are lieing, but

i will say they are sorely lacking in scientific method when it comes

to test protocols.

anecdotal evidence is worth about as much as a fuel line magnet in my opinion.

having personally developed, built and used a test cell for measuring BSFC

(brake specific fuel consumption) for a diesel engine, i will be the first to tell

you it is extremely difficult to get meaningful data.

what you "feel" is happening is damn near impossible to support with testing, where

good instrumentation and repeatability is key.

squeezing even a percent or two in increased efficiency in a diesel is very hard to do, making 5 percent more is near impossible, and the claims of some that are over that

are laughable in my opinion.

99.9% of the claims have no basis in reality.

now producing hydrogen for cooking, perhaps that might be useful or possible with energy from a windgen that is going to a dumpload anyway? then who really cares how

efficient the process is?

bob g

[wildcrafter]

couldnt you make hydrogen with a mill then burn it in your car? sounds like a good way to use your dump load to me.

[clflyguy]

Bob, who are you replying to? Looks like Censorship is alive and well 'round these parts... It's a shame that the carefully documented evidence of hundreds of folks is and will forever remain "anecdotal" in the eyes of some.

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Yes.  Somebody posted a link to a video of a windmill that had three spinning cones instead of blades.

Don't think it would be good for wind-assisting vehicles.  They want to run at a high TSR.  Example:  60 MHP powered by a 10 MPH crosswind - TSR of 6.  Spinning cylinders are for very low effective TSR.  On a vehicle it would give you some forward force from the crosswind and several times that much side force from the apparent wind of your motion - in the direction the crosswind is already pushing the vehicle.

Wind assisted vehicles would work by taking the cross-track component of the wind and redirecting it rearward.  That means lots of downwind side-force already, and fighting that with tires without rolling, sliding, or having steering side-effects will already be a battle.  Multiplying it by a factor of many is a big jump in the wrong direction.

[REdiculous]

If you could compress and store the hydrogen, sure. Good luck with that!

[bob g]

i will respond directly to you if you would like

hydrogen derived in the electrolysis of water is a net energy loser

and anyone that tells you otherwise is just not dealing in reality.

and having 100's or 1000's of folks claiming the contrary does not make it so.

lets take a look at what is happening

a typical car engine is no more than about 25% efficient, the alternator rarely over

50% so the overall return is about 12.5% of the energy spent is available to produce the fuel that is going to be burned to create the next tank of hydrogen.

even if the engine were to be 35% efficient (very good for a diesel) the alternator

is still only about 50% so you get 17.5% return??

and this does not even factor in the heat losses of electrolysis

surely you know this?

my only support for hydrogen fuel is if you use waste energy or some sort of virtually free energy to produce it, such as dump load from a windgen or from a hydro installation, or possibly using excess power developed by a genset in order to keep it

in an efficient operating range (possibly) and then use it for some use that

you don't have a better fuel for, such as possibly cooking?

bob g

[clflyguy]

"i will respond directly to you if you would like"

Yes, please do. We have already hijacked this thread without an apology. I looked for your email but didn't see one. Mine is sidney dot raiford at gmail dot com. I can't/won't argue the math with you, but as a supplement the results speak for themselves.

[bob g]

ok, how about this

if if works for you, by all means do it!

spend all the time and money you like on it and prove the world of physics wrong.

i on the other hand, will keep my wallet firmly in my pocket.

personally i am getting of the age where i need to pick my battles, and doing battle

with the laws of physics is just not one i have much time or energy for.

good luck to you though, maybe you are onto something, maybe you and those that believe in hydrogen derived from common electrolysis will be the first in the 21st century to undo the laws of physics and thermodynamics?

those pesky laws are just so troublesome anyway

bob g

[TomW]

Bob;

This whole topic drift is EXACTLY why we used to prohibit these discussions.

Apparently nobody cares anymore and like you. bob, I pick my battles these days.

I really would like to see these things work but so far it is not apparent they do beyond scams and youtube faked video. I see hydrogen as an energy carrier [think battery] and the fuel cells work well but are insanely expensive unless you need that level of energy reserve [think spacecraft]. Beyond that today the process it uses more energy than it transports so it is just an area of interest for me.

The new software will allow us to split these arguably interesting sidetracks off into their own thread. That is still a few days or months or years away so for now I will spend my energy on testing and configuring the new board.

Carry on.

Tom

[clflyguy]

"those pesky laws are just so troublesome anyway"- yes, they are, and when they become cumbersome & obsolete we modify them and/or invent new maths to work our way around them, don't we?

 "scams and youtube faked video."

 -scams- yes, there are some. Not all.

-Youtube faked video- Some yes, again not all, one must employ diligence and perseverance in sifting the wheat from the chaff.

"spend all the time and money you like on it and prove the world of physics wrong"

I have spent a lot of both and have absolutely no desire to prove the world of physics wrong. Believe it or not there exists in this world real, honest, intelligent, dedicated and committed people that are making this work. I personally have met several of them and examined their work and documented results, most recently at the Fall HHO Games in Bradenton, Fl. during a three day seminar.

Know what, Bob? There wasn't a physicist among them, just a bunch of people getting great mileage and greatly lowered emissions numbers.

"The Truth is the Truth, even if no one believes it; and a lie is a lie even if everyone believes it."

Tom, that's great stuff, I have enjoyed it since you started using it! Now, take a moment, flip it around to represent something you always held as righteous and true, but discovered that you were wrong.

Save your flame thrower fuel and your typing fingers, because I am out of here folks, it's been real and occasionally it's been fun, but it hasn't always been real fun. I'm leaving my stuff onboard for a week if there is anything anyone wants. After the 13th It's gone. To the Dan's: Thank you and God bless you and yours. Put the money to good use and keep spreading the word.

[TomW]

CFL;

Sorry you decided to take your ball and go home like a spoiled child.

Fact is hydrogen is off topic here and letting it go causes this stuff. Yet I let it stay.

Don't let the door hit you ....

Tom

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

hydrogen derived in the electrolysis of water is a net energy loser

and anyone that tells you otherwise is just not dealing in reality.

No argument there.  Generating hydrogen, or Brown's gas (2H2 + O2) is never going to pay back if you are attempting to use it JUST for fuel in the engine of the system generating.

The payoff, if any, occurs if a small amount of it improves the combustion of the main fuel (or conversion of its energy to mechanical power) enough to pay off the energy cost of generating it with a bunch left over.

Efficiency of an auto engine (at least as of the way they were operated back in the 1960s or so) COULD be improved significantly by fuel tweaks:  One that was shown to work well was water injection - either straight, or even better the ultrasound hack that creates microscopic droplets with a layer of oil-based fuel over a water core.  It didn't get productized by the auto industry because of the operational problems of having an engine (in the mechanical-computer days) that required two, separate, "fuels" to run properly.

So there's the possibility that adding a touch of hydrogen or Brown's gas to a main charge of some atomized liquid fuel might improve engine performance enough to more than pay for the cost of generating it.

But modern engines are VERY good at what they do, after computerization and another half century of product R&D.  So I wouldn't expect there to be a lot of room for gain.

For modern production engines I'd put any claims for an improvement over stock operation by such a scheme in the category of "extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence".  So anecdotes won't cut it for me and I want to see controlled experiments with good instrumentation and repeatable conditions.

As for "the auto and oil industry conspiring to suppress fuel economy improving technology":  I used to work in the engine engineering part of the US auto industry.  Trust me:  If they could squeeze even one more MPG out of some practical "magic carburator" or other system they'd LOVE to do it and the refiners could go whistle!  CAFE standards cost enormous amounts to meet and once MPG was a sticker item it became the subject of competition.

[bob g]

not that i think it will make any difference to you, but it might to someone else down the road, so here goes...

there is no reason we cannot have a vigorous debate or dialog, and there is no reason to get in a wad,,

if you are confident in your position or your assertion, then you should be able to express that position clearly and defend it with proofs and evidence.

the bottom line to me when it comes to interactions on a forum comes down to taking the time and having patience if possible to walk an opposing view toward my position, while also taking the time to think seriously about the opposing view.

its just a lot easier for some folks to take their ball and go away than it is to support their assertions, i had hoped this was not the case with you, but i guess i was wrong.

real easy to make a claim, get up in a wad about it, and when put into a position to have to support the claim, get PO'd and then just leave.

so think about it, there is no reason to leave, no reason to be PO'd, stand up for what you believe.

if it was easy everyone would be doing it!

bob g