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Originally Posted by G-CPTN
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Interesting to see the Eneco Solo - as far as I know this company does not exist now. There was one on trial where I was working but it was converted back to it's original engine and drive train long ago. It was not a great sucess - spending more time off the road than it did in service. The small diesel was a 1.9 Volkswagon engine, but it used as much fuel as the normal Mercedes power unit. This was because it needed to run flat out to charge the batteries during the day - this was despite them being left chargeing from the mains overnight via a massive charger. It needed bigger rear tyres to carry the weight of the drive motor batteries - it also had it's normal batteries for the 24 volt bus electrics and a 12 volt battery for the engine.
Other mods needed were an electric motor to drive a compressor for the brakes, suspension and doors and a way had to be found to charge the 12 and 24 volt batteries. One other problem was that the V.W engine would cut in an run flat out when the bus was on the stand and the batteries were low. Not the best idea when some of the stands were in residential roads outside peoples houses.