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A comment on Street View camera rigs do much more than just take photos. Parent comment

Re:Street View camera rigs do much more than just take photos by barbegal on Tuesday May 12, 2020 @08:00AM (#23153017)
Those modifications seem unlikely, You can't easily reinforce pillars in a car and they are designed to support the full weight of the car in a roll-over situation so a few 10s of kgs of equipment on the roof make little difference. Similarly, a typical alternator is rated to 2kW so far above the required power of a few LIDAR, camera and computing devices. Having said that, early vehicles did have heavy duty alternators installed (although they may have confused these with heavy duty inverters which are needed) and modified suspension components [1]

[1] https://pub-tools-public-publication-data.storage.googleapis...

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Re:Street View camera rigs do much more than just take photos by jeffbee on Tuesday May 12, 2020 @09:03AM (#23153495)
The linked history of street view does mention that the first instance had an alternator “from a fire truck”.
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Re:Street View camera rigs do much more than just take photos by tyingq on Tuesday May 12, 2020 @09:28AM (#23153735)
Fwiw, direct fit high-amp alternators are available for most cars. And they are in the same ballpark of ~200 amps, and high output at idle as a "fire truck alternator".

So it's a fairly cheap modification just to swap out the stock alternator. ~$500 or less.

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Re:Street View camera rigs do much more than just take photos by Scoundreller on Tuesday May 12, 2020 @09:54AM (#23154000)
Car choice/ÉCU programming may come into play here.

I thought cars were “intelligent” enough to not charge while idle or warming up because that’s when emissions and inefficiency are highest.

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Re:Street View camera rigs do much more than just take photos by tyingq on Tuesday May 12, 2020 @10:12AM (#23154163)
I think it should "just work". The added load would drive voltage down, so the inputs the ECU gets continue to send the right message. So long as the alternator has enough capacity to meet the demand...
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Re:Street View camera rigs do much more than just take photos by MertsA on Tuesday May 12, 2020 @10:51AM (#23154604)
Yeah if a manufacturer wanted to hold off on drawing a higher load to recharge the battery until after the car was warmed up they would just do that by lowering the setpoint. If you try and draw higher current from it it would still meet that lower setpoint.
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Re:Street View camera rigs do much more than just take photos by jeffbee on Tuesday May 12, 2020 @10:03AM (#23154075)
I doubt that was the case for the depicted 1992 Chevrolet Astro Van.
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Re:Street View camera rigs do much more than just take photos by kube-system on Tuesday May 12, 2020 @11:48AM (#23155313)
A typical alternator for a small car is rated for something like 60-120 amps, which at a typical 14v output, is 0.8 to 1.7 kW.

2kW falls into more of a light truck or high-output category.

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