When will you be doing this? I feel any knowledge is good knowledge.
I totally agree, JDM. I've started already, and have a discussion thread already open in this branch of the forum ("New Project Idea...". I would welcome any input from you on the idea in the form of suggestions or experiences, or even criticism and derision ;-)
I have a friend working on a hardware design, his being a bit more up to date on component technology than I am, while I'm working on the software algorithms. I hope to get a prototype together to alpha-test before the end of the slippery season, but that might be optimistic.
The current plan is to modulate power based on three variables: battery voltage, speed, and temperature. At high voltage the systems will drive each heated zone normally, just like any other system, but under low voltage conditions the controller will go into a special mode whereby it dishes out only a limited amount of power, distributed sequentially across all zones so as to minimize drain on the battery. Power would be reduced below the nominal at low speed, and increased above the nominal at high speed. The power would also be increased as ambient temperature dropped and decreased as ambient temperature increased. You can read more in the other thread.
I guess I should file a patent application on this, shouldn't I, rather than blab it all across the Internet and lose it to somebody else
I actually have another trick or two up my sleeve, but I'm not ready to reveal them yet :-)