Six Cylinders Motoring Notes - a Workshop Day Today

[Zelandeth]

Worth noting as well, I'm all up for a bit of Toledo/Spitfire etc tinkering, as they're cars I've absolutely zero experience with...either working on it driving.

Well not totally true - friend used to have a very yellow very late Spitfire which I enjoyed driving a few times.  Oh, except for the one day I got caught in a cloudburst with the roof off.

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, Dick Longbridge said:

That's a cracking video. Know any more about it? Feel free to pm if easier rather than me derail 6C's fred. 

I sadly dont know anymore about the video itself, Perhaps @Yoss or @busmansholiday may know more about it as they where active in the scene back then 

(although reading the comments again it looks like the one with the Trailer in the Video is BEA1 (RMA28) so theres a little more info  )

but if your asking about the Type of Routemaster used in it, in general then heres a good writeup on Ians bus stop about them  

http://www.countrybus.org/RMA/RMA.html#top

as a fun fact They had Larger engines and a high speed diff for 70Mph Motorway running!  

 

I first posted about it 2 years ago now (fuck! LOL) on page 78 of the Bus-Shite thread   https://autoshite.com/topic/10183-bus-shite/?do=findComment&comment=1726653 It looks like it was shot on film, so id love to find the original  and have it transferred to digital using a process better then whatever potato based one they used in the video posted to FB!

 

[Andyrew]

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[LightBulbFun]

12 hours ago, Andyrew said:

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 the Milkfloat really is one im quite curious/eager to have a look at/have bash at, as I find it very interesting both from as a shitter, but also as someone who is interested in old electrical things

 

AFAIK? the main thing she needs to get moving is just a power source, its a 60V DC 10Kw~ motor IIRC, so thats "only" about 166A

and going by how basic these generally are I dont think it would care where it gets it from, originally it would have run off a whole bunch of individual 2V lead acid cells wired in series

so alternatively if we can scrounge up 5 (or 6 to make up for any voltage drop) large Car batteries (or smaller ones wired in series-parallel sets etc or better yet 5 or 6 Deep cycle SLA's) to string together, I think that should work well enough to get her moving (although range might be a bit limited!) since 5x12V=60V  

the only potential  stumbling block, is I cant recall if it has any sort of load balancing or individual cell monitoring going on among all the many 2V cells or if they where literally all wired in series, and just terminated to positive & negative connection points

if they are just wired together as one big string without any interconnections then I cant see why the car battery/normal Sealed lead acid battery idea wont work to get her going

(and going by her age/how simple these things generally are I want to say thats the case, apart from maybe a 12V tap off to run all the lights and stuff, assuming that does not have its own battery or a DC-DC step down converter of some kind, but that would be easy enough to connect to one of the car-come-traction batteries or its own battery)

[busmansholiday]

 

9 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

I sadly dont know anymore about the video itself, Perhaps @Yoss or @busmansholiday may know more about it as they where active in the scene back then 

Seen that video before, M4 between London and Heathrow. Was actually looking at some 8mm I shot at Heathrow around 1973/4 only last week. Had RMA'S in the old BEA livery on plus a 707 taking off. Really has focused my mind to get it transferred professionally, as using your phone is crap. 

Also those three are in the three different liveries, BEA, BOAC and BA.

[Six-cylinder]

A bit of nonsense!

What years are our cars? 

They range from 1961 to 2005

Top year for us is 1983 with six cars

Why have we not got any cars 1980 to 1982

1961	2
1963	1
1964	2
1965	1
1966	2
1967	NIL
1968	2
1969	1
1970	1
1971	1
1972	2
1973	1
1974	2
1975	NIL
1976	3
1977	NIL
1978	2
1979	1
1980	NIL
1981	NIL
1982	NIL
1983	6
1984	1
1985	2
1986	1
1987	2
1988	2
1989	1
1990	2
1991	1
1992	1
1993	NIL
1994	2
1995	NIL
1996	3
1997	1
1998	1
1999	3
2000	2
2001	2
2002	2
2003	1
2004	NIL
2005	1

[wuvvum]

Re milkfloat - my memories of physics are pretty faint now so I don't recall whether wiring, say, five 100AH batteries up in series would give 60v and 500AH or 60v and 100AH, but even if it's the latter that should be enough to run the milkfloat for half an hour or so - enough to get to the chippy and at least part of the way back...

[Six-cylinder]

1 minute ago, wuvvum said:

Re milkfloat - my memories of physics are pretty faint now so I don't recall whether wiring, say, five 100AH batteries up in series would give 60v and 500AH or 60v and 100AH, but even if it's the latter that should be enough to run the milkfloat for half an hour or so - enough to get to the chippy and at least part of the way back...

What about max current draw without over heating them and bucking plates?

The plan is to link up some car batteries we have to prove all the control systems and motor work before investing is milk float batteries.

[hairnet]

15 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

A bit of nonsense!

What years are our cars? 

They range from 1961 to 2005

Top year for us is 1983 with six cars

Why have we not got any cars 1980 to 1982

so.......................much......................................nerd....................................

[LightBulbFun]

22 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Re milkfloat - my memories of physics are pretty faint now so I don't recall whether wiring, say, five 100AH batteries up in series would give 60v and 500AH or 60v and 100AH, but even if it's the latter that should be enough to run the milkfloat for half an hour or so - enough to get to the chippy and at least part of the way back...

it would be 60V 100Ah

as your still drawing the same amount of current from each battery, so the amp hour capacity stays the same (but since the voltage is now much higher you now have a lot more power for a given current since voltage times amps=wattage aka power, 1A at 12V is only 12W but 1A at 60V is now 60W)

 

from a brief bit of research (tho there is sadly not much online about the technical details on milk floats)  I think a Wales and Edwards Rangemaster (which IIRC is what Molly is) has a 350AH~ battery capacity for a 40 mile range I think?

 

 

17 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

What about max current draw without over heating them and bucking plates?

The plan is to link up some car batteries we have to prove all the control systems and motor work before investing is milk float batteries.

yeah that sort of data will probably be in the data sheet of whatever batteries you end up using, so should not be too hard to figure out

 

13 hours ago, Andyrew said:

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and just to bring this full circle to match Molly's original battery capacity/voltage you would need about 5600 AA batteries LOL (assuming 2.5Ah and 1.5V per AA Battery)

[wuvvum]

15 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

What years are our cars? 

They range from 1961 to 2005

Ahem...

[Six-cylinder]

 

Just now, wuvvum said:

Ahem...

Excluded, for being a proper Chelsea tractor.

[hairnet]

Just now, Six-cylinder said:

 

Excluded, for being a proper handbag.

 

[dozeydustman]

Many thanks to the Cylinders for the field of dreams. Hopefully at some point within the next 12 months (sooner rather than later) another gathering can take place, I can pitch a tent and sample some of this famous apple brew....

[Six-cylinder]

8 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

yeah that sort of data will probably be in the data sheet of whatever batteries you end up using, so should not be too hard to figure out

I guess it will be open a few car bonnets and borrow the batteries we can find on the day.

Max current draw (start up) seems to be quoted but not sustainable current draw.

What does amps does a starter draw once it is turning?

[wuvvum]

In theory a 2KW starter would draw around 170A once it's spinning.

[LightBulbFun]

18 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

I guess it will be open a few car bonnets and borrow the batteries we can find on the day.

Max current draw (start up) seems to be quoted but not sustainable current draw.

What does amps does a starter draw once it is turning?

thats the thing, a Car battery is design for a very high but short term current draw

you will find this rating sometimes as CCA, cold cranking amps which is how many amps a car battery can deliver in cold conditions

since a starter motor draws a Lot of current but only relatively briefly 

but they would not last long in say an EV application where they get charged then drained and charged etc, thats what Deep cycle batteries are for

(its actually one of the things iv been meaning to check on REV's battery, since im surprised just how well its done, despite standing for long periods of time between FoD gatherings etc, so I have to wonder given where REV came from if she is actually fitted with a Deep cycle battery borrowed out of someones Mobility scooter!)

 

if you got some spare time to kill I recommend giving this a watch  (he explains about a couple diffrent types of lead acid battery quite well)

 

 

53 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

enough to get to the chippy and at least part of the way back...

doing some rough calculations, assuming a top speed of 20Mph and the motor is drawing all of its 10Kw, 100Ah of batteries would get you about 10 Miles of range, but im not sure how far the Chippy is from the FoD LOL

[Mr Laurence]

I've never met any shitters in person, but if it's able to go ahead, then I'd love the chance to visit the FoD. Not sure how much use I'd be at helping though...

[Six-cylinder]

16 hours ago, Yoss said:

 

Forget Invacars (no offence) I want to recreate that exactly as it is there. I doubt you'd be holding up the traffic either, isn't most of the M4 50mph now anyway. 

We have a friend who used to have a Routemaster and we used to get to go on trips with it. He maxed it out for us on the A422 once and we got 44 mph on the GPS. It had the 11.3 engine but the low diff ratio.

[Zelandeth]

I'd suggest before getting too deeply involved with trying to actually power the milk float that you make sure you have a DC clamp meter on hand to measure current draw so you can keep an eye on what's going on.  While there's not a huge shock risk at these voltages (back EMF from some probably substantial contactors possibly aside!), strings of batteries like that have an alarming habit of when things go even slightly wrong of turning themselves into arc welders.  It's also quite possible for some unknown and unseen fault to sink many hundreds of watts of power without any visible evidence whatsoever...until either A: The battery mysteriously goes flat for no obvious reason or B: Something catches fire.

I'm generally a fan of the relaxed approach to spannering, but when working on HV battery strings which can deliver hundreds of amps under shirt circuit conditions I'd be taking a very methodical, very careful approach. 

At the very least it's worth taking some time to trace all the wiring out so you know where all the terminals are so you don't accidentally short something out with the handle of a spanner.  It's alarming enough doing that with a normal car battery...never mind doing it with several in series.

...Or on a big commercial grade one.  Saw a friend do that on a bus once.  There was a loud bang, a bright flash of arc...then two ends of a 17mm spanner welded to the terminals with a several inch gap in the middle.

[Six-cylinder]

7 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

There was a loud bang, a bright flash of arc...then two ends of a 17mm spanner welded to the terminals with a several inch gap in the middle.

I have seen a battery with a handle before. When I sold batteries from a car parts store the customer asked if the return battery would be ok with a spanner melted to it that had fallen across the terminals. I said yes so he bought a new battery and bought me the old one that had a large spanner melted to the terminals. 

[HMC]

Reminds me of the story of the french Aston entry at Le Mans, (1), 1961. Still running strongly in the 23rd hour, everyone’s exhausted in the pit crew. Somebody leaves a spanner on top on the battery at the last pit stop- and fries the electrics. Car retired.  Incroyable!

 

[Ghosty]

9 hours ago, Mr Laurence said:

Not sure how much use I'd be at helping though...

Don't worry, as long as I keep coming to the FoD you won't be the most useless person there. :P 

[strangeangel]

11 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

apple brew

 

Be careful... as someone who has sampled Mrs 6C's cider, it goes down easy but sneaks up on you like an assailant with a sock full of pool balls 🤣

 

[bobdisk]

17 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

I have seen a battery with a handle before. When I sold batteries from a car parts store the customer asked if the return battery would be ok with a spanner melted to it that had fallen across the terminals. I said yes so he bought a new battery and bought me the old one that had a large spanner melted to the terminals. 

Would like to have seen a pic !! 😁

[Six-cylinder]

2 hours ago, bobdisk said:

Would like to have seen a pic !! 😁

It was a long time ago before digital cameras and there was a cost to taking pictures. It is unfortunate that I did not consider taking pictures of my everyday work at the motor parts shop worth the money as now the inside of a early 1980s motor parts store would be interesting . All I have is a not very well framed picture of the outside of the very shop in High Wycombe the battery with a handle incident happened.

Then in 1985 I went to work for a Volvo dealer selling cars, I so wish I had photographed the showroom, used car display, service cars and new vehicle compound every few months, they would be great to look at now. I did photograph all my company cars which at the time my boss thought I was weird.

[High Jetter]

That's around the time I was working at Longlife Accessories. The thought of saving images of it for prosperity never came close to being a thought.

[Andyrew]

6 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

 as now the inside of a early 1980s motor parts store would be interesting .

Just pop by my work 😆. Some of the old tat still kicking around, infact from the first picture below (estimated around the late 70s) those windows and doors were only replaced about 3 years ago! The door was hanging off and all the windows had dropped down. 

Prime shite outside as standard too.

Bonus street view of Our shite van (still around as i sold it to the now sadly late vauxhall lover ian, so hopefully it lives on with someone else as he loved that van when i had it and wanted to make it look like new again. Puma was bean canned. 

[Six-cylinder]

16 minutes ago, Andyrew said:

Just pop by my work 😆. Some of the old tat still kicking around, infact from the first picture below (estimated around the late 70s) those windows and doors were only replaced about 3 years ago! The door was hanging off and all the windows had dropped down. 

Prime shite outside as standard too.

Bonus street view of Our shite van (still around as i sold it to the now sadly late vauxhall lover ian, so hopefully it lives on with someone else as he loved that van when i had it and wanted to make it look like new again. Puma was bean canned. 

Take some pictures inside even if nobody will want to look at them for 30 years.

[hairnet]

7 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

 which at the time my boss thought I was nerd.

 

fixt