Wouldn't this be the death of Nitro?

[MTBikerTim]

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquir...fuel-cells-due

I know this is nothing new but I just liked this line "Recharging a fuel cell only requires squirting in more fuel".

It almost sounds like nitro especially since the fuel is methanol. Continuous running with pit stops for a refuel. Why would you keep running nitro. Sadly the article isn't more informative about voltages and amps.

[suicideneil]

Interesting. I wonder how much the fuel for the fuel cell costs though, an how easily obtainabale it will be? Im happy with recharging my batteries at the moment, and there is plenty of scope to improve battery technology. This sounds good for 1:1 vehicles though, electric ones that is.

[MTBikerTim]

The article is kinda crap as it doesn't go into much detail at all. It mentions recharging via usb so I assume you can recharge (traditional way) the cells also. It would be cool if you had a little machine which could produce the methanol for you.

[What's_nitro?]

How's the current current output of the fuel cells? Is it even usable to power 1/8 or even 1/10 scale vehicles? At race-like speeds? I saw the video of the fuel cell touring car a while back, but it had a 50 watt motor or something like that. I'd see them originally designed to power the chargers of LiPo batteries. Imagine a charger you could literally take anywhere. Away from all 120V AND 12V sources. All you need to bring is some moonshine!

[suicideneil]

Home-brew your own fuel-cell fuel.... hmm.

[What's_nitro?]

Yeah it's incentive NOT to drink the alcohol. You can't play with your truck as long!

[MTBikerTim]

Originally Posted by What's_nitro?

How's the current current output of the fuel cells? Is it even usable to power 1/8 or even 1/10 scale vehicles? At race-like speeds? I saw the video of the fuel cell touring car a while back, but it had a 50 watt motor or something like that. I'd see them originally designed to power the chargers of LiPo batteries. Imagine a charger you could literally take anywhere. Away from all 120V AND 12V sources. All you need to bring is some moonshine!

It doesn't talk about amp delivery but i would say it would be fairly low as the tech is only talking about using it in slow drain devices. For a charger you could take anywhere I am sure a couple of good solar panels could produce enough power to run your charger.

[jhautz]

Originally Posted by MTBikerTim

It would be cool if you had a little machine which could produce the methanol for you.

I dont know about you.... but I produce alot of methane. That has to be convertable to methanol. Imagine a fart powered rc.

Fuel cells are already in use in automobiles. I imagine the amp draw can be tailored to a great many apps if a 1:1 vehicle and a cellphone can both be efficiently powered with fuel cell technology.

J.

[lutach]

I remember a company in Florida called Consulier http://www.consulier.com/ had done something with fuel cells and I still have a magazine article on it. They were even talking about racing with a fuel cell car after they won one of the endurance races at the time with the Mosler Raptor. They now make the Mosler http://www.moslerauto.com/test/index.html which are just fantastic looking cars.

Slightly off topic, but I know hydrogen fuel cells (for automotive applications) car run around 350 amps at almost 200 volts, that is "short term" levels... aka can hold it there for 10 minutes without damage, but the fuel cell gets pretty hot if held there much longer. At "continuous" levels, the ones I saw were stable around 250V and 250A. The only issues currently are reliability and cost (uses lots of platinum) as well as storing enough hydrogen onboard (safely) to go more then 200 miles.

/Ending non RC conversations now/