First thing that comes to mind when somebody says "Electric Turbo" is bright red plastic air mattress pump that has been hacked apart and shoved onto E-bay for 4.99$ (usually with 35$ shipping charges) touted as the most amazing advance in Turbo technology....

Have times really changed? Have a read through this online article and see what you think. I noticed the price of these "electric turbo" systems have gone up, more than a standard supercharger or turbo unit in fact!

Thomas Knight Turbo Electric Supercharger - Tech Review - Turbo Magazine

Cheers!

 

Interesting. I'm used to the plastic mattress pumps being the usual "Electric Supercharger".

Hmm.

 

I remember seeing this article before. The idea is actually quite feasible. It's just not something that's been executed correctly. That e-bay crap is pretty tacky.

 

I get a kick out of the fact that the main attaction of having an electric turbo has been the low cost... now that somebody has finially put together one that "works" the cost is astronomical. :p

I know there is a few other advantages of it, mostly being it dosn't directly use any engine power (unless you count the energy needed to charge those batteries).

 

those do wonders to dry and style hair.

 

wow that is awesome. so no more dogging on the electris superchargers eh?

 

Well.. maybe still just a bit :p

 

i am not sure how electric supercharger is practical compare to pulley driven supercharger or turbo, yeah i know what some people say parasitic loss with typical S/C or turbos but i think similar arguments can be applied to having an alternator charging the batteries. plus like what the TKT guy said his system works kind of like a nitrous system where it might give you a momentary boost before having to recharge the system for the next shot. but is that really useful in all application and from a driveability standpoint? the very fact that boost pressure from typical S/C or turbo varies makes it practical under varies throttle position / engine response up to a certain point before the compressor efficiency falls off the chart. to make ESC practical in all application you will likely need a variable speed drive to control the electric motors and that VSD has to have a control logic based on say a combination of throttle position sensor and engine speed and perhaps other input to determine the motor speed and in turn, boost pressure. the upside of the equation is the ESC may be that it might extend both the upper and lower bound of the the compressor map because of "near instant" on/off capability of an electric motor, but at what cost? a twin-turbo set up also helps with boost response but without energy trade off analysis it's hard to say which system has a greater utility. the second thing that i see with ESC is that it may require a separate electrical subsystem to drive it depending on electrical load analysis. I am not sure if i would want to tie the rest of the car to an electrical system that may fluctuates quite a bit. i am sure power filters, EMI filters, stabilizers and all that will play a part in keeping electrical system in check, but knowing what else is driven off the car's electrical bus, i would think that it should be free from any noise as much as possible. also having a separate electrical subsystem to sustain ESC may negate some of the benefits from it due to added weight of the alternator, batteries, wiring, etc. i think ESC is a novel idea and it is ideas like these that drives technology for tomorrow and i am sure those are smart guys and may have already thought of all these issues, but it is just a 2 cents.

 

hmmmm almost looks like its still a lot of work

 

No it doesn't. It looks like it'd actually provide boost.

 

I will stick to the old fashioned turbocharger myself.

 

:) Not a fan....question- if he has been building these electric blowers for so long then why isn't any of the top racing cars using them? I would kinda compare this to a LEAF BLOWER...these come in two types "GAS" or "ELECTRIC"....IMAO the gas kicks a@@. The electric not so great.
Point in ending....save up for the real thing!

tonyd

 

He's been building them, but it wasn't until recently that he's got them to work without problems. That's why racing car use the proven technology of an exhaust-driven turbo. (or so I assume/believe. only makes sense)

 

As an avid R/C airplane flyer, I am aware of the latest high-performance and efficient electric motors. It's very difficult to use electricity to boost intake, by my own calculations...

First is the problem of efficiency, ie, alternator converting mechanical power into electrical, and then that electrical back into mechanical -- that's like maybe 20% efficient total. And second, a charger typically uses ~4% of engine power. 5HP is about 3700 watts! At 12 volts, that's a monster amount of current at even 100% efficiency...

Boost is mechanical all the way, for any sane setup, that was my conclusion.

What I want is a "CVT"-driven supercharger (ie, variable belt ratio).

 

So that as rpms increase, boost increases? That'd be nice.

 

what about some kind of electro magnet deal working with a charged blade and some how kind of tied to a pulley so the more engine speed the more electric current produced to spin the blade? but ionnois tired from all day driving and probably doesn't make sense/disclosure...haha... also didn't read article don't know if there are any similarity between these

 

ok. in order to get it to work well, you'd have to run LOTS of power. meaning LOTS of batteries. meaning LOTS of weight.

what'd be cheaper is using a leaf blower motor