These are quiet, exhaust-smell free giants of public transportation that I was instantly in love with. I only spent a moment trying to figure out what they could be used for when one of the Muni buses (a trolley) passed me on the street. I noticed that the wires were running in pairs of parallel tracks, and where one track crossed another, one of the pairs would have some extra hardware. But upon further examination, patterns emerge. This is especially so around intersections in the road. When you look up while downtown, just below the common sight of power lines at the top of the utility poles, you see what looks at first like a rats nest of electric wires. There were many things I liked about the city that appealed to different interests of mine (city planning, green spaces, diverse cultures), but one of the things that stuck out to me was the infrastructure for the trolley system. I originally became interested in the topic last year when I visited San Francisco. There are many advantages to using a bus with rubber tires over a train (can change lanes, can avoid obstacles, climb hills without wheel-spin) and many advantages to using an electric bus over a diesel bus, the main reason being torque to climb the hills of San Francisco. The short version is that a trolley is an electric bus that gets its power from overhead lines. I recently found a great set of posts about what a trolley is and how they work at Nathan Vass’ website. Inverter attached to battery Rinnai heater on extension cord w/ box-fan Author Aaron Minard Posted on DecemCategories learning, Projects, science Leave a comment on Emergency Heat What is a trolley? (link) So the car could potentially run the inverter as a generator as long as there is gasoline in the tank.Ĭheck out the rest of the info and pictures at my blog. I believe the inverter is well within the ability for the alternator to run. Some quick math tells me how much power this can potentially provide. My Honda Civic has an alternator with a faceplate rating of 70Amps. Of course, the inverter can be run from any 12V source. This would be longer if the box-fan isn’t running (less power would be used).ġ05 Amp hours (sticker value, full charge)ġ05 Amp hours x 12v = 1260 watt hours (approximate average voltage) Some quick and super dirty math approximations tell me that the battery (if fully charged) will run this about 11 hours. With the fan and the heater both running on LOW the draw was 115W. I tested the setup with a box-fan attached to the inverter as well and it worked fine. The Rinnai does buzz a bit loudly, but that’s because the inverter does not produce a “true-sine-wave” signal. I attached an inverter to a marine battery, then plugged in my Rinnai heater and it ran just fine. I never did lose power, but the test was successful and I am happy to know that if I did lose power in the winter, I can keep warm at home. ![]() With some inspiration from the potential snow storm last week, I endeavored to test my emergency preparedness for heating my apartment when the power is out.
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