Power Pirate Box by excess car alternator energy?

Has anyone tried to use excess car alternator energy to power their pirate box? Such as have a stand alone battery for it, that is constantly charged every time you turn on your car.

Then my other thought was, what if all cars had them? And the pirate boxes were linked together. Couldn't we create a whole new internet, powered by excess car alternator energy? Chances are a car alternator can charge more than just the battery that it is charging.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2014 03:42PM by ChrisT.

You're in luck. This is very easy to do. In fact, this configuration is utilized on RV's and bigger boats. All you need is the extra battery and a continuous duty (or marine grade) solenoid. You connect the positive terminal of your extra battery to your vehicle's 12V power through the solenoid. Then you connect the S (for switch) terminal of the solenoid to a fused circuit that only gets energized when the ignition is energized. You determine this with a test light or volt meter. When you connect this right, you're extra battery will be in the charging circuit when the ignition is on, and isolated from the main battery when you turn the car off, and therefore will not drain the main (starting) battery.

I'm all for having Pirate Boxes link together, although I don't think there is any effort in that direction. I can't be of any help, I'm a Chuck Moore deciple.

I've recently stumbled upon the PirateBox project, and I had the idea to put a dedicated PirateBox in my car and was planning on tying it into my car's power. I was just researching if others had already done it and how.

The author of the OP has a brilliant idea. If many cars in a small area had a PirateBox operating - and the PirateBox had the ability to auto-mesh with other PirateBox networks, You could in theory create a massive yet mobile network that auto-forms itself constantly - thus spreading the reach of said network while all nodes are nearby.

Imagine the possibilities of this for a moment... Traffic Jams, Concerts, Camp Grounds, Slow moving traffic, and quite simply - entire neighborhoods could have an instant and quite expansive mesh network that auto-forms, linking all parties to each-other securely and anonymously.

It's quite a grand idea... I'm going to do more research on it.

I just wanted to follow up on my post here - I'm currently in the process of building a read-only system for the PirateBox project. I'll be configuring the system so that all uploaded files have a lifespan of 1 hour, and that when power is turned off autonomously in my car, all data is lost due to the uploaded files being placed into a ram drive. I've found a very nifty solid state motherboard with a dual core processor and 8GB of ram that will hold a ram drive quite nicely for this purpose - and make the necessary changes for the Pirate Box to run on a Read-Only SD card via Devil Linux. The motherboard I'm using has DC 12V input so that will work nicely with automotive. I plan a dual battery system utilizing a solenoid battery isolator and the use of several "normally open" and "normally closed" automotive relays to ensure power is lost if the main battery is disconnected (under the hood) or if any door or hatch is opened on the car. The board will be concealed totally within a small box - and inside with it will be a theremin. I plan to code Devil Linux to monitor the frequency and amplitude of the theremin output for changes - and if changes are detected, to simply send a signal via USB relay controller to cut power to the entire system.

I think it should be really secure - which I want, because I need to protect myself against those who would misuse and abuse the system; because I plan to have it turned on 24/7/365 in my vehicle for anyone who stumbles upon it to use.

I will continue to update this thread as I progress - I plan to provide build instructions as well.

Until next time,
Wayne