Armortek

I was just thinking that having two 'spare motor shafts' sticking out into the middle of the tank. With a pulley mounted on one of these shafts, would it be possible to connect a belt drive to some sort of dynamo\alternator to charge the main batteries as you drive along? Perhaps I am pipe dreaming, so your thoughts please.

Turning the generator to produce electricity will increase the load on the drive motors and battery. Conservation of energy would seem to dictate that unless you could make it more than 100% efficient, you'll end up with a net loss of battery power

Adrian.

Hi Robin

Adrian is spot on. It would take more power out of the batteries than you would generate by a large margin I'm afraid.

What you are proposing is the Holy Grail of perpetual motion, so if you ever manage it you'll be a VERY rich man.

Mick

Gentlemen

Just as a side note on the observations above. The 4QD speed controllers supplied, are full four quadrant controllers. They supply power to the motors in forward and reverse to make the tank move, and take power from the motors in forward and reverse to make it brake. This braking power is automatically returned to the batteries. Because of the amount of gearing and friction in a tank drive train the actual amount returned to batteries is pretty small, but it does represent all that is theoretically available. In the SDKFZ222 the effect is much more beneficial and explains why the thing seems to run forever on one battery charge!

Mark