Idea: Site to facilitate development of open source green vehicle projects
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One of the ideas I've been pondering is: Open Green .. It would be a place to facilitate open source green vehicle related projects. I've been scribbling ideas in a notebook for a couple months and while I'm not convinced about this it seems to be a good idea with some merit.
Goal: increase the availability of 'green' technology .. engage the people themselves in solving the issues of sustainable technology, because it seems if we leave it to the big companies they'll twist it to not be green nor sustainable ..
The Instructibles site is pretty close to what I'm thinking of. BUT their focus is on HOWTO and not DESIGN TEAM ... that is, someone who's already figgered out how to do something, they can show off what they've designed. But if a group wants to work together on a project, Instructibles is not the place to do it.
One requirement is some writings giving guidance on the open source model, the kinds of licenses which are known, governance, etc. I've looked at several projects which profess to be open source vehicle projects, and often the license has conditions which don't meet the norms of open source, or the project development isn't done in the open, etc. On the other hand as we discussed in Open Source Ponderings an open source license on a physical widget can make for business difficulties.
It seems such a site needs to be organized as 'projects' each of which has a cluster of pages for documentation, some kind of forum for project discussion, an issue tracker for reporting and tracking "bugs", and a source code management system for storing and versioning the assets of the project. Most of that can be built using Drupal and can even reside within the VisForVoltage site (if we wanted). The issue tracker is difficult in Drupal but either it's not as necessary as I'm thinking, or else a bugzilla instance could be installed and used instead.
What prompted me to write is an exchange on the ThunderSky group .. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ThunderSky/message/1741 ...
And, I've been collecting a number of links on open source hardware licensing and projects ..
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Re: Idea: Site to facilitate development of open source vehicle
Go for it. I think it's a great idea. I'd love to collaberate on some ideas I have. First on my list is a general purpose sensorless controller. Freescale has a reference design for a controller that doesn't require hall sensors in the motor. It uses back EMF on the third phase line to the motor to detect rotor position. Getting rid of the hall sensors would make EVs more reliable. I also would like to put the power switching components in a separate module that would connect to the controller through a standard set of control lines. That way one standard controller could handle any motor size and upgrading or repairing blown mosfets could be done by replacing just the power module rather than the whole controller.
Second on my list is a two wheel front fork.
My end goal is a fully enclosed 35mph commuter scooter. All electric transport for one.
John
Re: Idea: Site to facilitate development of open source vehicle
You mean like this? www.diyelectriccar.com
XM-3000...
-DC-DC converter replaced with a Dell D220P-01 power supply.
-72V mod
-Expensive bank charger until I come up with something better... Still trying.
-
Re: Idea: Site to facilitate development of open source vehicle
reikiman - you might want to look at Trac. It's an open source project collaboration tool: http://trac.edgewall.org. If you want "Open Green" then you might not want to host it on V, after all EV's aren't the only green tech ;-) I'd encourage throwing the net open wide - it would be cool to become the sourceforge of green tech! I'd certainly upload my ramblings on a backyard (or basement) algae bio-reactor. Don't worry I won't post the water fuel cell stuff - don't want to ruin your reputation ;-)
I think it's a cool idea - I hope you do it.
LaThala - that controller sounds like an awesome idea, if ever you want to develop that idea further count me in.
John H. Founder of Current Motor Company - opinions on this site belong to me; not to my employer
Remember: " 'lectric for local. diesel for distance" - JTH, Amp Bros || "No Gas.
Re: Idea: Site to facilitate development of open source vehicle
diyelectriccars.org - their site keeps coming up in blogbridge but I haven't spent much time over there. But they're different than what I'm thinking... John pegged it, the sourceforge of green tech.
trac - Yeah, I've looked at it before. The 0.15 (or so) version number doesn't give much confidence.
Come to think of it the code that runs sourceforge is available and could be used for this. However while hunting around I came up with http://OpenEco.org -- a project sponsored by my employer. It's not quite right but I'm trying to find out more.
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki
Re: Idea: Site to facilitate development of open source vehicle
I've a forum with nothing (I mean nothing) on it that's waiting for some goal in life, if anyone is interested in a new place to hang out and start fresh.
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<a href="http://www.BaseStationZero.com">[img]http://visforvoltage.org/files/u419...
[size=1][color=black]www.[/color][color=#337799]BaseStationZero[/color][co
Re: Idea: Site to facilitate development of open source green ve
I had this idea several years ago and tried to get people involved but nobody cared.
http://www.greenenergyproject.org
I wanted to get real engineers who've worked on projects to give their advice and explain to the public how these things work and why they don't. I have a hosting company, I'll be glad to put this site back up if you like. It's nice to see people seem to actually give a crap about this kind of thing for a change. I was feeling so extremely alone.
I'll see if I can hunt down some information on lithium batteries and how they are made as well and how to make them, perhaps in my office lab. These damn patents are what is stalling progress, that's a fact.
Re: Idea: Site to facilitate development of open source green ve
Here is a nifty video on how lithium batteries are made. I'm wondering if the narrator is David Schwimmer. NiZn batteries are easier to make. I suspect all the materials to build them can be found locally. If you read the patents, the tricks to getting them to function great can be done at home too.
XM-3000...
-DC-DC converter replaced with a Dell D220P-01 power supply.
-72V mod
-Expensive bank charger until I come up with something better... Still trying.
-