Re: Condenser fan
Posted by:
barry herbert (IP Logged)
Date: March 14, 2010 06:01PM
,Rolly,
My only experience with condensing cars is in respect of my two Dobles.
Certainly Abner Doble fitted steam driven turbo fans to the Doble Detroits and to the later E and F types. The early E types were fitted with a fan driven of the auxilliary drive which Abner soon changed to turbo driven ones. The fans are large, being 24 inches in diameter.
None of the 4 "D" types had any fans, nor space to retro fit them without increasing the chassis length..
The best I have come up with, on D2, is to feed any condensed water from the radiator via a splitter pipe into the main water tank by means of a Jabsco pump. Any steam still remaining is passed directly through this splitter and the pipe from this is then led through the bottom of a a 25 gallon supplementary water tank on the rear of the car. This condenses the water as much as it going to and does gradually warm up the water in this tank. The 25 gallons is gradually used to supplement the water in the main tank thereby gving me enough water for one days cruising.
My E type has two vacuum pumps driven from the auxilliary unit and these, alond with the turbo fan, creates a situation where I get a vacuum reading most of the time on the system when cruising. The condensate after passing through the vacuum pumps goes into the main 17 gallon water tank.
There is a lot of hype about the water mileage obtained by E type Dobles. Nobody seems to get the 500-1000 miles out of the standard water tank (17 gallons) that has been reported. Abner was good at marketing and his figures were always to his advantage. The average seems to be around 120 -150 miles, i.e. again enough for a good days touring. Most owners fill up with water when they fill up the fuel tank.