On the Move
Where do we begin?
As a boy in the 1950s, Val Bertoia played with his toy cars and always though of how the sun makes everything grow and move.
It was later in the 1960s when Val was a teenager in (Upper Perkiomen) high school that he designed the science project called, “Heat-a-go-go.” It was an honorable-mention awarded demonstration showing how heated lighter flints mounted on a wheel would run as a motor.
In the basement of his parents’ home, he built plastic models of “ratfink,” “Mother’s Worry,” and other funny cars that depicted animal behaviors.
During four years of mechanical engineering at Indiana Institute of Technology, he was awarded best speaker of the year in Public-Speaking, demonstrating how the standard Ford Maverick chassis could be revised into a more ergonomic design for humans to operate.
In the 1970s, Val worked with his father (Harry) in making sculptural parts. On his own time, he designed and built wind-driven electric generators.
His wind-systems of the 1980s and 1990s were used to feed electrical energy back to the public power-lines, or to charge batteries. After years of revising proto-designs, the wind-systems became reliable with minimum maintenance.
Val recognized the preference for a portable battery-set as an electricity-source where it would be used for household appliances or power-tools in the shop or outdoors. After buying several CitiCars and Comuta-Cars that were run on 48-v sets of batteries, he decided to sell them at profit.
By the 2000s, he decided to trade in his Toyota Camry for a so-called “Tiger-Truck” in the year of the Goat, 2003. It is an enclosed cargo-box mini-truck that he called the Generator-Operated-Art-Truck (GOAT), the first of the series of transportable 48-v battery-sets, trademarked as SEAT (Solar-Electric-Art-Trucks) for Bertoia Studio.
The SEATs began to take different functions, and were designed after the 12-year animal cycle of the Chinese. So Val’s quest for learning more about electrics and electronics continued. He bought the 4-door electric vehicle listed on eBay from William of EleCars. From time of order, it took a month by ship to arrive in California, and another month by ship to arrive in Philadelphia, Pa.
The greatest wealth is maintaining health while learning the many lessons in life. Val learned more about the 4-door vehicle by taking apart the electronic circuitry, and replacing it with his own simplified version of hand-controlled throttled, using 12-v, 24-v, 36-v and 48-v steps to accelerate. This one of 2007 became known as the PIG, or Philosophically Inspired Golfcart and so it was painted a piggy color.
As he taught himself, and with the help of Barry Peters (who helped him get the Tiger Truck operating properly again), and Bob Batson (Electric Vehicles of America) who sold to him the basic electronic components (such as Altrax controller, contactor, potentiometer, and series-motors for testing), he learned how these parts worked together for proper directional and speed control.
Val made sure to use his father’s grid-chair design as seats in all of these electric vehicles.
Having fun with this concept of following the animal chart, Val ordered another vehicle from EleCars in China. This time, it was the roadster, also run on 48-v batteriest. This one became two. It was taken apart and then rebuilt as the RAT of 2008 (Rechargeable Art Truck) with mower-deck (from Canada) within the middle of of the golfcart front-end (made in Poland) and the rear chassis (made in China), via William.
The other vehicle Val made from the roadster’s fiberglass body used a functional chassis froma Club Cars golfcart. Because of the mismatched fitting of the body with the chassis. Val decided to cut the fiberglass with a sawzall (a hazardous job) to make it fit, complete with wooden doors (like the Beach Boys’ woody-truck on their first LP Album) and a hingable solar-panel (from SunWise in Kingston, NY) as the roof. This is the Buffalo of 2009. Or sometimes known as the OX, with hugs and kisses.
All of these SEATs are portable battery sets, and can be used with a Xantrex inverter for 110-v outlets as sources of electricity within a 5-miel radius. And yes, there is alot of humor behind the scenes, as (Humoroid) Mr. MaGoo has troubles finding a way to go forward, or accelerating beyond 10-mph.