Posted by Rob Kleinschmidt on March 17, 2010, 2:43 pm
> TOG@Toil wrote:
> > You've been drinking, haven't you?
> Now whatever could possibly give you such a wrong impression?
> I tellya, the idea came to me in a vision (with no pink elephants
> involved, either).
> Why wasn't diesel/gas-electric used early on? Probably because
> in the time before microcontrollers and other modern solid state
> devices there was no economical (at mass production consumer
> volumes) way to regulate the power delivery to each wheel
> where needed.
Think Panzer tanks and diesel locomotives. The part that's
fairly recent is adding the battery.
Posted by Sean_Q_ on March 17, 2010, 4:47 pm
Rob Kleinschmidt wrote:
> Think Panzer tanks and diesel locomotives. The part that's
> fairly recent is adding the battery.
<thinking> ... ok, but as a thought experiment consider what
would happen if I started off on the Dnepr and differing
amounts of torque were applied to each rear wheel.
What would happen? I think a large difference would cause
me to fight with the steering. It does even now on
accelerating, with no torque at all on the chair's wheel.
I don't know about the Panzers, but a locomotive of course
is constrained by its tracks so steering stability is not
an issue.
SQ
Posted by Rob Kleinschmidt on March 17, 2010, 4:41 pm
> Rob Kleinschmidt wrote:
> > Think Panzer tanks and diesel locomotives. The part that's
> > fairly recent is adding the battery.
> <thinking> ... ok, but as a thought experiment consider what
> would happen if I started off on the Dnepr and differing
> amounts of torque were applied to each rear wheel.
> What would happen? I think a large difference would cause
> me to fight with the steering. It does even now on
> accelerating, with no torque at all on the chair's wheel.
> I don't know about the Panzers, but a locomotive of course
> is constrained by its tracks so steering stability is not
> an issue.
Quick googling expedition says I got the Panzer part
at least part wrong. Says that Porsche used it for the
Elefant tank destroyer and the Maus prototype tank
which never made it to production and deployment.
With a mechanical transmission, I think steering on a
tracked vehicle would have been accomplished by
braking one track. If so, multiple electric motors would
have actually been a more elegant design.
Posted by J. Clarke on March 17, 2010, 11:10 pm
On 3/17/2010 4:47 PM, Sean_Q_ wrote:
> Rob Kleinschmidt wrote:
>> Think Panzer tanks and diesel locomotives. The part that's
>> fairly recent is adding the battery.
> <thinking> ... ok, but as a thought experiment consider what
> would happen if I started off on the Dnepr and differing
> amounts of torque were applied to each rear wheel.
> What would happen? I think a large difference would cause
> me to fight with the steering. It does even now on
> accelerating, with no torque at all on the chair's wheel.
> I don't know about the Panzers, but a locomotive of course
> is constrained by its tracks so steering stability is not
> an issue.
And WWII German tanks were not diesel-electric in any case, they had
very conventional gasoline engines and mechanical transmissions. There
was one limited production run with electric drive and it was not
particularly satisfactory.
> SQ
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> > You've been drinking, haven't you?
> Now whatever could possibly give you such a wrong impression?
> I tellya, the idea came to me in a vision (with no pink elephants
> involved, either).
> Why wasn't diesel/gas-electric used early on? Probably because
> in the time before microcontrollers and other modern solid state
> devices there was no economical (at mass production consumer
> volumes) way to regulate the power delivery to each wheel
> where needed.