Electric via gasoline/diesel?

Hey, I woke up this morning after a dream of electricity and a thought hit me. I still haven't put into form my 10 HP diesel pusher trailer and I know that at full force it can crank out 6kw peak at 120volts. If I gear it so the engine is set just slightly higher than an idle for a full 3000rpms of a couple of 12 volt alternators would a couple of those hub motors have enough power to move myself, bicycle, trailer, and motor down the road. Range wouldn't be an issue as it would be off the engine.

It is just a shot in the dark. Any thoughts? Anything else out there like this?

When I searched for your engine from the pusher thread I found where they'd mounted one in the hood (wouldn't fit under) of a Chevy Sprint to power the electric motor.

Funny thing is it looks like that engine is bigger and heavier then the 3 cylinder Suzuki the Sprint has.

Do you mean run both hub motors at the same time or just one at a time? A hub motor would be 36v, 48v or higher, depending on the motor. So you get into the details of how many 12v batteries you'll be using. Your question leaves it open to too many possibilities and too much speculation. And are you trying to keep the batteries charged to keep the motors running so you don't have to stop and recharge? Any way you look at it, this would be an extremely heavy trailer and lord help if you ever had to actually pedal if things went haywire.

That and stopping it is going to be a nightmare. First pusher with trailer brakes? Sure with any vehicle you can always tow a lot more then you can carry but then stopping becomes the real issue. You have to figure that not only are you stopping the bike, your own weight and the weight of the trailer with only a couple of square inches of tire contact with the road.

Honestly I think with something that heavy you should be looking into possibly building a EV trike with it. With the motor being 10hp and the hub motors being way over 250W you may have to license it as a motorcycle.

Putting that engine in a pusher trailer kind of reminds me of the Monster Garage where JJ built a trike out of a semi.

I remember that episode. I guess my wording was poor. If not a hub motor maybe an old E-tek motor. The engine and batteries would be trailer-ed, but the power unit would be the bicycle itself. pulling the trailer. I have thought a few times about rigging a counter weight under the trailer so that when the bike slows down the weight shifts forward and causes a couple of go-cart braking mechanisms to act against the axle rotation and when you come to a complete stop the weight, no longer held forward by the shifted momentum, falls plumb and releases the brakes ready for forward motion again. As for the electrical system, I was thinking of using the batteries for a charge buffer zone. If I can figure a way of turning three or four alternators worth of electricity into 36 or 48 volt maybe I could produce enough that it could run off the engine alone leaving the batteries in loop a a full well for it to draw off of. Weight wouldn't be and issue for stopping with a top end of 14 or so as a target. With the E-tek motor I could do gearing to help with the low end torque.

I hope this helps

if your talkimg about running an electric motor off a car alternator from a gas motor
1: The alternator from a John Deere Diesel Gator
Part Number: AM877740
Output: 40 amps
Weight: 2.96 lbs.
Price for group: $ 291.67

2: The alternator from a John Deere 322
Part Number: AM877557
Output: 20 amps
Weight: 1.81 lbs.
Price for group: $ 145.49
Note: This alternator requires an external voltage regulator part
number

You may want to look into some of the permanent magnet converted alternators. They put out 3 phase A/C but can be easily converted back to D/C with a bridge rectifier and from what I've seen they just use the same rectifier that's in an alternator.

BTW, most car alternators put out over 100A now to run all the accessories.