Tsikot.ph PHUV Prototype

[dprox]

So now I want to be completely off-tangent.
Put four hub motors on it (one per wheel). The Chinese make these in huge quantities for electric bikes. Put a generator and gasoline engine (a 10,000 peso Honda GX180 might work..) on it. And a golf cart battery for the times when you need lots of current e.g. off a traffic light.
This is a series hybrid, just like Ferdinand von Porsche's Elefant tank of World War II.
You can forget about a differential or propshaft. No transmission since motors have huge torque. Right there you have something disruptive. It allows you to throw the whole ladder frame rolling chassis constraint out the window.
I have no idea if this is practical though.

Hi Orly.

The idea IS very practical! In fact, it's brilliant and has actually been done. It's called the Articulated Wheel System (AWS). "Each wheel had its own electric drive, a DC series wound 0.25 hp motor capable of 10,000 rpm, attached to the wheel via an 80:1 harmonic drive, and a mechanical brake unit." That was 1971, Apollo 15, on the moon, 1/6 G -- the LRV, aka "Moon Buggy". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_rover)

I might have seen it in applied on earth, in a docu, perhaps Discovery Channel's "Future Cars", and maybe in connection with drive-by-wire propulsion systems. GM put out something like it in 2002, in its Hy-wire Concept Car, except that it took the form of independent control, rather than propulsion. Anyway, that's vgood out-of-the-box thinking.

It was actually a Filipino "surplus" mechanical engineer Eduardo San Juan (aka 'The Space Junkman') who invented the AWS, and ended up working as NASA's primary designer for the Lunar Rover.

His AWS prototype lorded it over the competition and was considered brilliant. "Each wheel appendage was mounted not underneath the vehicle, but was placed outside the body of the vehicle and each was motorized. Wheels could work independently of the others. It was designed to negotiate crater ingress and egress. The other vehicles did not make it into or out of the test crater." This is a MUST READ for all naysayers and crabby kababayans out there: http://inventors.about.com/od/filipi...rdoSanJuan.htm

Just like your seemingly OT 3wheeler concept, how can we not welcome your suggestion? However, for us to start from scratch on this is like reinventing AWS, requiring heavy funding. NASA started with a budget of $19M and had a 100% cost overrun.

Then again, maybe we can invite Ed San Juan to the PhUV team. Calling hitomi and Mapuans! Kaya niyo pa bang kontakin si Ed San Juan? Buhay pa yun! We'd like to invite him to tsikot! -- ie, kung papayag si "Uncle Dubya". Suntok tayo sa buwan - why not? :hysterical:

With or without San Juan, we could invent our own prototypes -- with a bit of R&D funding, why not? However, as I mentioned to hein, the best in the case of PhUV, is the enemy of the good. That may be the ideal, but not the practical starting point. The consensus here, I think, is that we commence conservatively, and go bold later.

Nobody said hein was wrong. The case against him was not so much about competence (aptitude) as condescension (attitude). Like, here's a bunch of tsikoteers getting their feet muddy just starting to do a good thing, and then, out of the blue, a newbie fence-sitter flaunting golden two-shoes (imported from Italy) barges in, disparaging us for having muddy feet and taunting us to junk the project altogether. Turns out he's working for some bigboy car mfr. Tsk tsk.

BTW, architect had already started the 3wheeler thread. Please feel free to dive in whenever ~ http://tsikot.yehey.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36533

You're OK.
dprox