🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <362@cbuxc.UUCP>, jrm@cbuxc.UUCP (John Miller) writes:
>The problem: The 6v starter system is crummy, it turns slowly and in the
>winter will sometimes not start. I have jumped it with a 12volt battery
>and found that the started (as expected) turns faster and the overall
>starting interval is shorter.

A (perhaps dumb) question, and a (perhaps dumb) suggestion.

When you jumper a 12-volt battery across a 6-volt system, doesn't that
produce harmful current flows both for the 6-volt and the 12-volt batteries
involved?  Is this done with the 6-volt battery temporarily out of the
circuit?  Or is the 12-volt power just connected to the starter, with the
starter otherwise out of the circuit (which is what I suspect....)

As for the question itself....
Maybe something could be rigged up with TWO 6-volt batteries, normally
charged in parallel from the generator/alternator, but reconfigured by a
heavy DPDT relay or switch to be in series for purposes of cranking the
starter if necessary?  Then only during cold weather need the starter
be operated overvoltage.  Since the thermal inertia of the starter
winding assembly is normally fairly great (note that most starters, maybe
all of them, are operated at current levels which they could not survive
continuously anyway) and the windings are well chilled anyway during
such cold weather conditions, this may be safe under these conditions.
(Someone wrote in to explain how they had burnt out 6-volt starters with
12 volts, however, so boost at your own risk.)  The lashup is simple:


                             +-----------------> to rest of electrical system
                             |
                     +------->---------+                  /
                     |       |  /      |                /
                     |       | /       | +-------------0    0----> to starter
                     |       |/:       | |  _______   original
                     0       0 : /   0->-+-|-      |  starter
                               /       |   |  6v   |  switch or
                              /        |   |(extra)|  relay
                     0       0       0-+---|+      |
                  "Boost"    |   "Normal"  |_______|
                           -----
                            ---
                             -
-- 
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|       dan levy | yvel nad      |  my own and are not at all those of my em-
|         an engihacker @        |  ployer or the administrator of any computer
| at&t computer systems division |  upon which I may hack.
|        skokie, illinois        |
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