Rethinking small gas engines

It's spring here in Minnesota, when everyone emerges from their houses and hits the neighborhood trails, yards and parks. The air is filled with the sounds of birds and the whir of small gas engines.

At Software Defined Power we operate much like an architecture firm, but instead of developing or redeveloping open space, we engineer or re-engineer motion. One area is re engineering off grid motion systems that are powered by alternative energy systems, such as solar or wind. But how about all those small gas engine applications?

The emphasis on electric and hybrid propulsion for vehicles over the last few years has yielded significant improvements in battery technology. Now these improved batteries can be put to work replacing small gas engines. But to do the job right requires a system approach. It can't be done with components from a catalog. The cordless tool manufacturers realized this and designed their tools from the ground up. The battery packs, chargers, motors and mechanical systems are all designed to work together to accomplish a mission, which may be to drive all the screws in the construction of a deck. New system level concepts needed to be worked out. For example, continuous service life can be achieved by sizing the battery for both a reasonable mission life and a fast recharge time, then including two batteries and the charger in the system.  Another is designing everything downstream of the battery (controller, motor, linkage, etc) for maximum efficiency, which extends battery life.

Again, the cordless tool manufactures have done a good job of this, but those are low power applications; a few hundred watts at best. At Software Defined Power, we have the technology to push the cordless power limit to 4KW and beyond, This can turn any application that uses a 5HP gas engine or smaller into a cordless app. Not only producing a greener product, but a smarter one.

For this and more ideas of what Software Defined Power can do for products, check out our website www.softwaredefinedpower.com.