Electric Winch Project

Hi Dan, all understood, all of the technology is here now other than the small high capacitance cheap batteries. We have Tesla’s, GP15’s, self launch Libelle’s and in my and your country lots of sunshine. In fact one of our club legends who has been gliding for 65 years drove his new Tesla to the club the other day from 220km away. It took two days to recharge on the club mains power
I totally agree about the power and am the biggest supporter of nuclear power but we shall leave that for another day. The prop drag is only related to the torque attached to it, RATS have been around for ages, a goverener in the prop hub will load up the elec motor and via reverese current charge the battery, cleverer people than me will guess but it will probably have to be a 4kt thermal or so. It will all come down to the batteries and the various authorities allowing it to take place. You will probably still have a power bill to pay for the grid to allow society to function.

[quote=Dan Marotta;975487]That was a pretty interesting bit of science fiction.Â* And the
proceeding was not meant as criticism, only that most of the mentioned
technology is so far into the future that most, if not all of us will
never see it.

My one criticism is not acknowledging that it takes power to make power
(currently) and using a propeller to drive a motor/generator in flight
will create a LOT of drag which translates directly into sink rate.Â*
There's no free lunch yet, except in California.

On 9/2/2018 3:08 PM, Skypilot wrote:[color=blue][i]
I find all this stuff sexy, in Australia we all live in a bit of a
fantasy of energy, we export our LPG, Coal and Oil like it’s going
out of fashion and the “green” movements of our parties
ensure that subsidies and grants are available to clubs and
organisations for being green. My home club of Kingaroy would be a
perfect site to go for a huge grant for four elec whinches 2xmain and 2x
retrieve. The runway area is 2000m x100m of grass right next to a
bitumen runway, there is power available within 200m of both winch
sites. The only problem is the fact that it’s a certified runway
with probably 1-2 private movements per hour, so the local Shire council
are unlikely to approve winching. It’s a pity as there is a coal
mine 20km away and there is a planned coal mine next to the airstrip and
we have elections soon. If there was ever a time to pitch an alternative
to burning smelly dinosaur bones and reducing the noise foot print for
our solar powered sport now is it

I guess the panacea is to have an electric winch next to a battery bank
powered by solar panels. In Australia this is feesable given the space
and sunshine, BUT here is the crux - it’s battery technology.

The future will have elec self launch gliders, elec tow planes, elec
winches and all of this will be powered by a battery system that is dual
use. The batteries will be in runway edges, house bricks and other
structural items not just a battery.

You will wake up in your house that is a storage facility hooked to the
grid, most of the time you will be a next exporter of energy.

Jump in your electric car and drive up to the field.

Unplug your elec self launch Libelle and plug your car in, your hangar
will have a storage battery bank in the wall bricks.

Tow your glider out to the runway with your elec golf cart and launch
into the wild blue yonder with your retractable self launch system with
prop goverening.

Once airborne you will go find a big fat thermal and redeploy your self
launch prop mast and reverse the prop to recharge your batteries thereby
extending your range.

The next type of comps will be range comps that will allow much greater
distances and speeds, perhaps one day we will see solar panels on wings
that can feed power to the battery system built into the composite
fibres.

Fly until sunset and head to the clubhouse for a beer.

I just don’t understand why so many on here are negative to people
trying to improve things, because let’s face it if we don’t
improve things our sport is dead.

Justin

I like the way you think! :-D

Dan

On 9/3/2018 3:06 PM, Skypilot wrote:[color=blue][i]
Hi Dan, all understood, all of the technology is here now other than the
small high capacitance cheap batteries. We have Tesla’s,
GP15’s, self launch Libelle’s and in my and your country
lots of sunshine. In fact one of our club legends who has been gliding
for 65 years drove his new Tesla to the club the other day from 220km
away. It took two days to recharge on the club mains power
I totally agree about the power and am the biggest supporter of nuclear
power but we shall leave that for another day. The prop drag is only
related to the torque attached to it, RATS have been around for ages, a
goverener in the prop hub will load up the elec motor and via reverese
current charge the battery, cleverer people than me will guess but it
will probably have to be a 4kt thermal or so. It will all come down to
the batteries and the various authorities allowing it to take place. You
will probably still have a power bill to pay for the grid to allow
society to function.

Dan Marotta;975487 Wrote:
That was a pretty interesting bit of science fiction.Â* And the
proceeding was not meant as criticism, only that most of the mentioned
technology is so far into the future that most, if not all of us will
never see it.

My one criticism is not acknowledging that it takes power to make power
(currently) and using a propeller to drive a motor/generator in flight
will create a LOT of drag which translates directly into sink rate.Â*
There's no free lunch yet, except in California.

On 9/2/2018 3:08 PM, Skypilot wrote:
I find all this stuff sexy, in Australia we all live in a bit of a
fantasy of energy, we export our LPG, Coal and Oil like it’s
going
out of fashion and the “green” movements of our parties
ensure that subsidies and grants are available to clubs and
organisations for being green. My home club of Kingaroy would be a
perfect site to go for a huge grant for four elec whinches 2xmain and
2x
retrieve. The runway area is 2000m x100m of grass right next to a
bitumen runway, there is power available within 200m of both winch
sites. The only problem is the fact that it’s a certified runway
with probably 1-2 private movements per hour, so the local Shire
council
are unlikely to approve winching. It’s a pity as there is a coal
mine 20km away and there is a planned coal mine next to the airstrip
and
we have elections soon. If there was ever a time to pitch an
alternative
to burning smelly dinosaur bones and reducing the noise foot print for
our solar powered sport now is it

I guess the panacea is to have an electric winch next to a battery bank
powered by solar panels. In Australia this is feesable given the space
and sunshine, BUT here is the crux - it’s battery technology.

The future will have elec self launch gliders, elec tow planes, elec
winches and all of this will be powered by a battery system that is
dual
use. The batteries will be in runway edges, house bricks and other
structural items not just a battery.

You will wake up in your house that is a storage facility hooked to the
grid, most of the time you will be a next exporter of energy.

Jump in your electric car and drive up to the field.

Unplug your elec self launch Libelle and plug your car in, your hangar
will have a storage battery bank in the wall bricks.

Tow your glider out to the runway with your elec golf cart and launch
into the wild blue yonder with your retractable self launch system with
prop goverening.

Once airborne you will go find a big fat thermal and redeploy your self
launch prop mast and reverse the prop to recharge your batteries
thereby
extending your range.

The next type of comps will be range comps that will allow much greater
distances and speeds, perhaps one day we will see solar panels on wings
that can feed power to the battery system built into the composite
fibres.

Fly until sunset and head to the clubhouse for a beer.

I just don’t understand why so many on here are negative to
people
trying to improve things, because let’s face it if we don’t
improve things our sport is dead.

Justin




--
Dan, 5J

At 17:57 02 September 2018, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sun, 02 Sep 2018 09:15:40 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:

Didn't the German winch require being hooked up to the electrical grid?
It seems the one currently under discussion would be self contained and
portable (on the back of a truck).

All the electric winch designs I know about (and I assume the new US
design is similar) require three things: a power supply, a large electric

motor and a battery bank to act as a buffer between the first two items.

The German Electrowinde winch needs a 12-20 kw mains supply to feed a
220kw motor via its battery buffer, so the batteries aren't just for
decoration.

It seems to me that the winch motor and battery bank capacity will be
much the same whether the winch is configured as a towable trailer, on a
truck chassis or built into a permanent building: they all need the same
three part power train and it really doesn't matter whether the power
source is the mains, a COTS 12-12kw trailer generator parked alongside or

a truck with all three items installed on it.

A major issue for a mains-powered electric winch, in the UK anyway, is
the cost of cabling the airfield. We looked at it some years back: there
are four places were we put our winch - normally on one end of 04/22 and
less often on one end of 16/34 (obviously this is wind dependent), so
we'd need to wire up all four points on the field with buried cables, and

the winch points for 34 and 22 are both around 1km from the club house
and hence the nearest mains supply. Wiring our airfield would be quite
expensive. Consequently, we've gone with a Skylaunch running on LPG
(cheap and environmentally benign fuel). And we already had the tractor
used to move it between garage and the day's winchpoint.

What's the point? Why not just use a piston engine for the winch then?

Because a (much) smaller engine driving a generator to keep the battery
bank topped up is probably more economical to run than a socking great V8

being running intermittently at high power, particularly when you include

the cost of wear and tear from temperature-cycling the big engine.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

I hear there's an electric winch at the gliding club at Unterwossen in
Germany. AIUI it is very fixed - in a concrete bunker. The site is in a
valley on the edge of the Alps so launching is always in the same
direction.

I've wondered if the best way to launch is by gravity, a weight falling
into a mine shaft and attached to the glider by a cable. If you have a
supply of water then the weight is by filling a tank. At the end of the
launch you dump the water, pull the much lighter tank back up, then refill
it. Given enough room you could have a circular airfield round the mine
shaft. The only energy that you need to supply is to retrieve the tank and
cable.

A few things to sort out but it's a start.

Chris

....and haul/pump the water.

On 9/2/2018 2:37 PM, Chris Rowland wrote:
At 17:57 02 September 2018, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sun, 02 Sep 2018 09:15:40 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:

Didn't the German winch require being hooked up to the electrical grid?
It seems the one currently under discussion would be self contained and
portable (on the back of a truck).

All the electric winch designs I know about (and I assume the new US
design is similar) require three things: a power supply, a large electric
motor and a battery bank to act as a buffer between the first two items.

The German Electrowinde winch needs a 12-20 kw mains supply to feed a
220kw motor via its battery buffer, so the batteries aren't just for
decoration.

It seems to me that the winch motor and battery bank capacity will be
much the same whether the winch is configured as a towable trailer, on a
truck chassis or built into a permanent building: they all need the same
three part power train and it really doesn't matter whether the power
source is the mains, a COTS 12-12kw trailer generator parked alongside or
a truck with all three items installed on it.

A major issue for a mains-powered electric winch, in the UK anyway, is
the cost of cabling the airfield. We looked at it some years back: there
are four places were we put our winch - normally on one end of 04/22 and
less often on one end of 16/34 (obviously this is wind dependent), so
we'd need to wire up all four points on the field with buried cables, and
the winch points for 34 and 22 are both around 1km from the club house
and hence the nearest mains supply. Wiring our airfield would be quite
expensive. Consequently, we've gone with a Skylaunch running on LPG
(cheap and environmentally benign fuel). And we already had the tractor
used to move it between garage and the day's winchpoint.

What's the point? Why not just use a piston engine for the winch then?

Because a (much) smaller engine driving a generator to keep the battery
bank topped up is probably more economical to run than a socking great V8
being running intermittently at high power, particularly when you include
the cost of wear and tear from temperature-cycling the big engine.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org
I hear there's an electric winch at the gliding club at Unterwossen in
Germany. AIUI it is very fixed - in a concrete bunker. The site is in a
valley on the edge of the Alps so launching is always in the same
direction.

I've wondered if the best way to launch is by gravity, a weight falling
into a mine shaft and attached to the glider by a cable. If you have a
supply of water then the weight is by filling a tank. At the end of the
launch you dump the water, pull the much lighter tank back up, then refill
it. Given enough room you could have a circular airfield round the mine
shaft. The only energy that you need to supply is to retrieve the tank and
cable.

A few things to sort out but it's a start.

Chris



--
Dan, 5J

At 21:35 02 September 2018, Dan Marotta wrote:
....and haul/pump the water.

It comes in rivers and streams, pumped up for free by the sun.
Just open a sluice.

Gliders are fusion powered, this extends that to the launch.

Chris

At 21:35 02 September 2018, Dan Marotta wrote:
....and haul/pump the water.

It comes in rivers and streams, pumped up for free by the sun.
Just open a sluice.

Gliders are fusion powered, this extends that to the launch.

Chris

On Sun, 02 Sep 2018 20:37:24 +0000, Chris Rowland wrote:

I've wondered if the best way to launch is by gravity, a weight falling
into a mine shaft and attached to the glider by a cable. If you have a
supply of water then the weight is by filling a tank. At the end of the
launch you dump the water, pull the much lighter tank back up, then
refill it. Given enough room you could have a circular airfield round
the mine shaft. The only energy that you need to supply is to retrieve
the tank and cable.

A few things to sort out but it's a start

I like it!

Just get M C Escher to design the airfield and Bob's Your Uncle!


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

Just get M C Escher to design the airfield and Bob's Your Uncle!

I love it!

I suspect the challenges associated with digging and maintaining the 1km deep holes at each end of the runway might get in the way of an otherwise excellent idea! You could of course make them shallower with some pulley's but I think that would interfere with the aesthetic simplicity of the idea.

Mark.

On Monday, September 3, 2018 at 6:45:05 AM UTC+10, Chris Rowland wrote:

I've wondered if the best way to launch is by gravity, a weight falling
into a mine shaft and attached to the glider by a cable. If you have a
supply of water then the weight is by filling a tank. At the end of the
launch you dump the water, pull the much lighter tank back up, then refill
it. Given enough room you could have a circular airfield round the mine
shaft. The only energy that you need to supply is to retrieve the tank and
cable.

A few things to sort out but it's a start.

Chris

On Sunday, September 2, 2018 at 11:15:43 AM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
Didn't the German winch require being hooked up to the electrical grid?Â*
It seems the one currently under discussion would be self contained and
portable (on the back of a truck).


Dan, 5J

Hi Dan,

the Elektostart winch in Germany has 50 starter batteries on board which supplied the bulk of the current during the launch. Since the electric infrastructure is so much more densely developed in Europe, it is never too far to the next power tie-in. A relatively low Amp connection is all that's needed to recharge the batteries between launches. Some clubs operating this winch trenched a cable to either end of their field and just plug it in.
The early Elektrostart winches had some issues with the software for the controller, which - if I remember correctly - was an industrial VFD. There were some instances reported where the controller couldn't cope with line tension oscillations but that is all worked out now.
As much as I like the winch I built for my club - powered by one kick-a$$ Ford 460 BB - electric drive is the way of the future!

Uli
'AS'