Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] enquiry - Surface Propulsion

[David Buchner <buchner@wcta.net>]

(I got a couple weeks behind again.)

	Everything Ray said about not using a gasoline engine makes sense (I 
wouldn't trust myself to not get blowed up messing with that). But it's 
a shame, because it would be so handy. For instance, going 
all-electric, with a generator to run during surface cruising so you 
don't run down your batteries? Do they make small *diesel* portable 
generators? One you could lift out topside and start up?

	What would it take to make a gasoline *outboard* run after being 
submerged? Is there any feasible way of fitting all its openings (air 
intake, fuel cap, exhaust port, am I missing some?) with valves? And 
sealing up all the electric parts with a thick coating of some kind of 
glurp? Is this just a hopeless fantasy?

On Wednesday, September 17, 2003, at 03:35 PM, DBACKIDS@aol.com wrote:
> Regarding using an all electric design or a surface tender:
> Electric: you could easily put cheap solar panels on the top of you 
> sub to provide extra power.

	You'd have to float out there a LONG time to put any useful charge 
into a deep cycle battery. That, or have a few hundred square feet of 
panels you could fold out and float on the surface. Which, come to 
think of it, would be really, really cool. What a guy needs is a 
space-program-surplus outlet, with some of those high-power intricately 
folding panels...
	Right now, it's overcast - and I'm taking in less power than I'm using 
by reading e-mail on a laptop, and running the aquarium filter. I'll 
have to start the generator later. I'm not saying it's not magical cool 
free energy -- it's just not *that* magical...