[Guest]

Hi All:

Consumer Affairs – Honda Insight.

___Any comments are more then welcome as it is quite an old article and has probably been debunked many times over … I hope.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.
___[email:2w2o6wqx][email protected][/email:2w2o6wqx]

 

[Sparky5501]

That guy should go measure his house and office for EMF levels as well. I'm pretty sure they will be just as "bad" as his Insight's reading.

 

[Aaron Cake]

Perfect example of "too little knowledge is a dangerous thing".

He'll probably get more EMF exposure using a paper shredder, electric drill, golf cart, etc.

And as far as I know, there has never been a 100% conclusive link to electric/magnetic fields and health concerns. I believe that until you get into the megagauss (magnetic) there aren't any concerns. Even after that, they're fairly theoretical. Could be wrong though, as I don't follow this type of (crackpot) science.

 

[Guest]

Hi All:

___Low and behold, the same info was already posted as an Insightcentral.net report/article located here. Still no solid conclusions however?

___I have visited many Google searched sites in the last hour listing 8 mG as the max you really want to be around. 1000 is considered dangerous by the US Government’s findings. 100 + in our Insight’s doesn’t sound that tantalizing to me? Fortunately, I am not on the pack so the A/C after DC/AC conversion should not be nearly as bad as what Brian found? DC supposedly is 0 in terms of emf so a pack sitting there or supplying DC gives off 0 mG. The Motor/Generator itself is far enough forward so it should also be in a smaller range given the distance away we sit. It is when regen or assist is in force with lots of A/C flowing between the M/G set and the Inverter/Rectifier that we may see numbers skyrocket?

___If anyone has any more information, please feel free to add …

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.
___[email:2seiv5d9][email protected][/email:2seiv5d9]

 

[Holicow]

Can you say "Witch hunt"???? I know you can. Ok, how about "bogus"?

Just what "technicians" measured this and why do they feel qualified to make any recommendations? As far as I can tell by that story, there is no support of any of this information.

Of course, he gives no specific references for supposed "danger" from magnetic exposure other than a 1993 study, which was performed on in vitro cell cutures, and, if you give this any real-world merit, reports a dose "threshold" at somewhere between 2 and 12 mG. Hmmm, that's just the measurement this guy got in his other car.

Maybe I should stop ordering MRI's....I wonder what the magnetic exposure is for that study? I bet it's a lot more than whatever is measured in our (or any) car.

 

[Guest]

Hi Holicow:

___Witch hunt or whatever, let’s get it measured independently and see what is or isn’t radiating? I think an engineer or two at work should have a Gauss meter available and if so, maybe I can borrow it for a day? It isn’t like some us walk around 28kV generators and 345kV step up Transformers every day

___Here is just one government published report on the subject although dealing with power lines themselves. 150 mG is the limit in Florida for the edge of a “Right of Way” for power lines. 1,000 mG can cause havoc with pacemakers and defibrillators but we are well beyond what was discussed by Brian’s Insight.

http://www.niehs.nih.gov/emfrapid/booklet/standard.htm

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.
___[email:3pnicjln][email protected][/email:3pnicjln]

 

[Rick]

Wow scarry. Guess I'm never having kids (you do have to consider where that cable runs by). That makes me wounder if the carpet pad I installed would have any shielding effect what so ever against that. Had I known I'd have probably installed a piece with the metal lining under the drivers seat carpet.

This also kind of makes me wounder how many mG my GEM neighborhood electric makes. That thing operates on high frequency DC.

 

[Holicow]

In all seriousness, the original "references" are completely useless in this context. See my previous post, and with the additional information that the single mentioned paper was a study to test the effect of a magnetic field on a supposed effect of melatonin to inhibit neoplastic tissue culture cells. Melatonin is not believed to have any significant role in cancer progression. That study was over a decade ago...

I mentioned MRI scanners. They have a magnet that is usually 1-2 Teslas, and a Tesla is 10000 Gauss. The MRI suite has a line that is marked as the "5G" line (5 Gauss) beyond which it is considered safe for the general public, meaning those with medical devices.

It is not substantiated in any medical literature that magnetic fields of any reasonable strength have any ill effects. This includes fields at low frequencies, like would be found in our cars.

Given the correct resources, the field in the Insight could be calculated. We should be able to find out the maximum current carried by the cables and this should be all that is neccessary to calculate the induced field. Anyone know the maximum current?

Also remember that this maximum field strength is very brief, occurring only at times of maximum assist.

 

[Arsenic1250]

yeah i had read this earlier...

 

[Guest]

Hi Holicow:

___If the NIH issues guidelines to keep EMF emissions to some minimum and our little beauties are higher then those minimums, I think there might be something to be concerned with? I am not an expert in the field nor do I get MRI’s on a daily basis for 3 + hours but I do drive my Insight almost every day for that amount of time.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.
___[email:17dliae1][email protected][/email:17dliae1]

 

[Tim Maddux]

Holicow,

R. Bamberg calculated less than 100 A on Honda-Insight newsgroup in 2000. 10kW motor with a power factor of 0.95 gives 9500 V*A. At 144V that yields about 70 A.

 

[b1shmu63]

Exel, relax.

A good loudspeaker has a gap flux density (magnetic field strength) of about 5,000 to 10,000 gauss. Note that computer speakers have to be shielded to keep them from destroying the display on your computer monitor. 100 mG ( milligauss) is 50,000 to 100,000 times less than that. EMF which is the force of a magnetic field given of by an electric current has various characteristics depending on the frequency. At DC, the field is indistinguishable from the field of a permanent magnet or the earths magnetic field. EMF at microwave frequencies can damage tissue as the wavelength is long enough to penetrate skin and short enough to excite molecules. The Insight does not generate microwaves, but if it did, the floor of the Insight is aluminum and as such forms a Faraday cage (radio frequency shield). Only extremely low frequency wavelengths such as the switching frequency of the electric motor driver can get through. In the grand scheme of things these frequencies are akin to those radiating from house wiring due to the AC nature of our electrical system. Granted there are those who feel that we are all getting "nuked" by the power grid, but I'm not one of them. If you are going to lose sleep it should be about the high frequency EMF given off by the microwave oven, the color TV, the computer monitor, the switching power supply in the computer or my personal favorite; the microwave generator that people hold against their brain known as the cell phone :roll:

As for the Rotor of the IMA; its field is well shielded by the stator of the motor. However, if I were to remove it from the engine (which requires a special tool), and if I wore a pacemaker, I would not want to hold it against my chest as the field could theoretically damage the pacemaker. In practice a pacemaker should have shielding, but I believe Honda cautions against this for legal reasons.

 

[Guest]

Hi B1shmu63:

___I wasn’t losing any sleep as I do work around 28 kV Generators and 345 kV lines and am a lot closer then most will ever be while driving under a 238, 345, 500, or set of 765’s. Just another interesting topic that came about from another Hybrid forum with questions being asked. I still don’t know how to answer them? Somehow, Brian measured > 100 mG in our Insight. How he received that kind of field with the car running is what I am interested now as the only time I believe it possible is during heavy assist or charging. I will see what I can dig up from work and get some more numbers for myself.

___Good Luck and thank you all for the discussion.

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.
___[email:3mfzqjx4][email protected][/email:3mfzqjx4]

 

[Holicow]

It's also interesting that this guy also got "high" EMF readings in an Odyssey. How is that? This would bring up a some possible explanations:

1. Whatever might be causing "high" EMF readings must not be specific to the IMA system.

2. The measurements are not being done correctly.


3. If 2 is not true, then perhaps the levels are a common finding.

 

[b1shmu63]

I believe the article stated that he was using a trifield meter, which probably measured magnetic, electric, and RF fields. The measurement was in gauss which is the measure of a magnetic field. IMHO his results were very low indeed. If Excel took readings where he works they would probably be off the scale! I talked with an engineer who had done work on the "Star Wars' program in the States at MIT. He was experimenting with hyper power super conducting magnets. I asked what the effect on the human body was. He told me that extreme magnetic fields could slow down the bodies metabolic chemistry and perhaps change a persons percertion of time but other than that he did not know of any health risks. To give you an idea of the kind of power we are talking about, he related an incident where a flywheel that was being used to store energy broke loose and destroyed a concrete wall before coming to rest in a river! The power was to run a laser capable of destroying an incoming missile. His task was to study the effect of the atmosphere on the beam. Cool!

 

[Will M]

Likely, the truth is somewhere between the alarmist and the sarcastic, dismissive views. Every day, our environment assaults our bodies with things trying to kill us. Every day, the body fights back. Some days, the body is more effective than others. There's always a threshold beyond which we die. Eventually, each of us finds that threshold. We get hit by a truck, bombed by the enemy, or we get really, really old and die from a common cold given to us by some charming, snotty-nosed infant. Get too little Sun, you die of vitamin D deficiency. Get too much Sun, you die of skin cancer. Most of us get enough, but not too much Sun.

We should be aware of any meaningful studies done of electro-magnetic radiation bouncing around in our hybrids. I doubt there's nearly as much coming from the cable as from the electric motor in the engine. Wires that are not coiled just don't tend to generate all that much of a magnetic field unless they have a waaay whole lotta current running through them. If anything, the higher voltage of the Insight's booster stuff would lower the current, not raise it from the 12 volt side.

We hold cell phone transmitting antennae against our heads. We sit under flourescent lights in front of CRT monitors. If we start worrying about magnetic fields without any real science on the topic, we'll likely lower our death threshold due to simple emotional stress.

 

[predrag]

sorry I'm late!

Hello everybody!

Since this EMF topic has been spread out over several locked and unlocked topics here on the forum, I wanted to inform you that I just posted some of my personal findings on the subject:

http://www.insightcentral.net/forum/vie ... php?t=3092

Please let me know if anybody has any responses and ideas :idea: !

Thank you!

 

[Guest]

Hi Predrag:

___To put this thread to bed, I believe the user measuring the fields in his Insight found higher magnetic fields in his Honda Odyssey. Go figure?

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.
___[email:cqdhehxs][email protected][/email:cqdhehxs]

 

[predrag]

Yes, I did read that somewhere on the forum, thanks for bringing it up. Interesting. Well, one really doesn't know where the high reading will come up next! I understand how that gets frustrating.

I still love my insight, and don't make any references to K-19 The Widowmaker (seen the movie? - it's about a nuclear sub gone haywire). I just got interested in possible lowering of the EMF, however difficult it seems to be! It will take a bit more until i manage to ignore the issue (for the lack of remedy).

Hey, maybe my headaches will turn to be a pure hypohondria, and disappear too! :wink:

predrag

 

[james]

Hummm.... You could try Feng Shui, or maybe if you can find out exactly when yours came off the assembly line, you could do a horoscope