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Interesting flywheel application. Part storage battery and part generator.

An unusual combination product that became available recently is Aura Systems' Flywheel Alternator Starter, or FAS for short. Also marketed as Aura GenPower, it's priced at less than $1000 and is currently an aftermarket product designed to replace your car's alternator, starter, solenoid and belts. The FAS is an electromagnetic device that provides both starting and power-generating functions. It basically turns your automobile's idling engine into an electrical power generator capable of powering an entire residential home.
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It generates hundreds of amperes of current at 12 volts.

more at http://www.popularmechanics.com/automot ... 66776.html

If your NG is cheap enough, you can use one of these:

12kW Natural Gas or Propane Air-Cooled Standby Generator

It's easy to make electricity provided you have the kinetic energy source available. That is the challenge.

But the Generac Guardian isn't portable. The flywheel doesn't even take up cargo space.

BabyPeanut wrote:Interesting flywheel application. Part storage battery and part generator.

But a very small storage 'battery'.

Energy is energy is energy. In the case of a flywheel, the 'energy' of a flywheel is expressed in mass, speed and the 'size' (how far out the mass is from the center) For there to be alot of energy to tap, the flywheel has to be fast, massive and big. Fast, massive and big are NOT things you want in a car, as the car has to move mass about, has to overcome any gyroscopic effects of that flywheel, and if there was a failure (car stops suddenly via collision) the car needs to 'become safe'. All of that moving a flywheel about means a more massive car in the form of metal to hold the flywheel in the car VS the flywheel flying away from the car. A flywheel, unless on magnetic bearings and in a vacuum, suffers friction losses of the bearing and the air around the flywheel.

While 'interesting' - not really useful.

I think you have all misread the article.

The proponent of this idea is simply combining the alternator and the starter motor into a single unit which also acts in the same manner as the existing engine flywheel in a car (this is a steel wheel, weighing 5 - 10 kg, whose purpose is to keep the engine turning at a constant rotational velocity and not going faster at each firing stroke and slower between them). It does not propose using a flywheel to store additional energy that can later be converted to electricity. In fact, a conventional alternator can provide the same electrical energy. There is nothing miraculous about it. In fact, there is nothing new about combining the starter and generator in the same unit; it was done before WWII as DC components. Nor is there anything new about replacing the flywheel with electrical components. What appears to be new is combining the rotor of a combined alternator/starter motor and flywheel.

The question I would ask is whether the starter motor part turns all the time; if so, what about brush wear?

Devil wrote:The question I would ask is whether the starter motor part turns all the time; if so, what about brush wear?

Agree with devil about the article.

If it is anything like any of the other S/A that have been recently developed, it would likely be a interior pm machine - no brushes.

Has popular mechanics become a marketing whore? No info on how the damn thing works, great reporting guys!

I suppose it's possible that it might ultimately be cheaper than two independent starter/charger systems and hence, possible interest by manufacturers.

As an aside, I was looking at a Harley Davidson golf cart one time; 2-stroke motor that could run in either direction (that's how reverse works). The combination starter/generator had appropriate polarity supplied depending on which way one wanted to go.