^ Wow.....your alternator just spins......thats all it does, as it spins the windings cross the path of magnet, the magnet has "flux" the lines of flux from the magnet induces current into the wires creating voltage, the faster it spins the more current/voltage is produced, to keep the voltage in check you have a regulator which keeps the voltage around 14.4 volts so you dont fry your battery !!! thats how an alternator works. I didn't sit in class for 8 hours a day/5 days a week/18 months for nothing. your alternator spins as you drive the higher the rpm the faster it spins.........like I said before, just because you asking more from the alternator your not changing the load it already has on the engine !!!

 

Agree to disagree then.

Energy cannot be created or destroyed.
For every action, there is an equal an opposite reaction.

Mechanical energy is used to turn the alternator to make electrical energy.
The electrical part is fighting against the mechanical part. The more electrical you want, the more mechanical you need.

Please point out the flaw in my physics based thinking. Honestly. Im not trying to be an *** or anything, but one of us is right, one is wrong. Given solid proof that I'm wrong, I'll accept that the alternator 'just spins'.

Prove, or disprove. It has to go one way or the other, and I'm sure it will end this debate.

And it is a debate, not an argument. Don't take anything personal. I like to view something like this as an opportunity to learn something.

 

Agreed to disagree !!! I didn't take anything personal.......Never said you were wrong about the physics part. It does rob power from the engine since the engine is running it, just not any more than the norm.

 

sounds good.

I'd still like a third party to confirm/deny for a final definite answer.

 

There are plenty of those on here.....LOL "not u"

 

With a fixed size winding and coil the only way to produce more power is to increase the size of the magnetic field. The larger the field the more motive force it takes to turn the winding inside the field. You cannot get energy for free under any circumstance, the more power you draw from the alternator the more engine power it takes to output the power. Throw in the mechanical losses and you are only getting about 30-40% of the equivalent electricity from the given mechanical energy.

Not only that, but by the First Law of Thermodynamics, you cannot get more energy out of a system that you put into it. So if you were working in a theoretical system where there were no losses in the conversion, no mechanical losses and no losses due to heat, the most you could get out of it is exactly as much energy as you put into to it. The hydrogen to oxygen bond in water is a strong bond and recombining it cannot get you more energy than it took to break the bond in the first place.

 

And there we go. Now I know even more about alternators.

Thanks Steve.

 

Years of building power plants has taught me a lot about the physical and mechanical aspects of producing electricity. Stuff I forgot about that I learned 25+ years ago in college comes back when you see it put into practice.

The whole concept of Hydrogen powered vehicles is an interesting one. And when put into actual practice on a purpose designed vehicle that uses a Fuel Cell to produce electricity to drive electric motors is a promising one. However, putting hydrogen into an IC engine won't gain much and the amount of energy that it takes to create the hydrogen will exceed the energy you get out of it.

There are several "proofs" out there that charlatans like these try to prove their point, like the water powered car. One particular model uses Lithium metal to react with the water and create hydrogen and oxygen. But what gets left out of the equation is the huge amount of energy expended to extract and refine elemental lithium from the ground.

You are correct, Energy and matter cannot be destroyed only changes in state give the appearance. Every time you go from mechanical to electrical energy there are losses and going back and forth between them requires much more energy to be put into the system that is ever gotten back out of it.

Perpetual motion machine claims have been around for decades. Hydrogen powering your car for "free" is another twist on an old scam. If they charged thousands of dollars for their kit they wouldn't get as much money as if they charge $97 and a lot of gullible suckers out there send the money. That's the same reason that lotteries are around. The average lay person has no idea of the math behind it and a supposed "testimonial" from a fictional person or somebody who is a believer and influenced by the placebo effect just makes the story even more believable.

Just save your money and put it into things that will really make a difference. Or send me the $97 and I'll send you instructions on how to turn Lead into Gold then you won't have to worry about the price of fuel.

 

So if you install an alternator with more winding you can get more electrical engery from the same magnetic field?

 

Increasing the size of either the field or the coil has the same effect, you need more mechanical input to turn them. Face it, no matter what you do to increase the output from your alternator you will sacrifice more mechanical energy to do it, add in the losses and you are worse off than you would have been just burning the fuel to make the mechanical forces to drive the car forward.

Energy In = Usable Energy Out + Losses... the equation never changes.