The real electric supercharger
 

Real electric supercharger obviously do exist, but most are a ridiculous stamped sheet metal fans on a motor so small that it could never produce any boost, no matter what kind of air pump you drive with it.

To spot a fake electric super charger look for stamed sheet metal fan sitting a top an electric motor with a price tag of under $250.
The other faux electric super charger is a boat bilge fan. Usually all plastic, squirrel cage fan and cheaper than the stamped sheet metal fan since all the seller had to do was buy the bilge vent fan from tne local marine store and put it in a cool looking box.

The real electeic super charger will come with a real supercharger price tag. Will have a compressor, most likely roots type or centrifugal type blower. Not a fan.
The electric motors will be rather large.

To do something rather modest such as boost a sub 2L engine to 5psi at 3000rpm at sea level on a 70°F day is going to take a compressor that can put out around 2.5hp.
To get a 12v electrical system to provide 1hp is going to require about 61 amps.
If you wanted performance level power you are taking about needing hundreds of amps to drive a compressor rated in tens of horsepower.

To get the 150 or so amps to run a 2.5hp supercharger you are going to need 2ga wire.
150 amps is going to be about the power the starter motor uses during engine start. The OEM electrical system isnt going to hold up to that kind of use at all.

Remember - A FAN TYPE is a SCAM TYPE of a Supercharger / turbo wannabe.

Designed to separate po people from their money.

so why are we bringing up a topic that is long dead in unicorn land.

ps. mods please move

You don't need much pressure to really wake up a well designed engine like the 1.5 in a civic VX, and hypermilers would rerely even need that. Very small extremely high speed for a little boost very rarely but max a couple minutes then it has to recharge. Could be combined with a turbo and even less displacement, maybe 100 HP out of .5 liter for a short while.

Then drive the car with the normally aspirated engine with higher load and better efficiency all the time when just maintaining speed, with better aero.

Go even more radical and have a two cylinder for each axle, or my drive system and get rid of the throttle altogether.

regards
Mech

Theres a good youtube video regarding this.

I like to look these scam fuel saving devices on ebay and see how many are sold and how many are watched. :D

Does the turbonator get good reviews Cobb ?

I think its called that , its the piece of tin you put the air cleaner hose for a spiraling effect with the air flow - its a static Turbo ..lol
its either the baby brother or big brother to the fan turbo / supercharger

I wonder how much a real , high hp electric supercharger costs.
I am thinking for a 100hp electric supercharger you would be paying over $10,000 for it, without a whole lot of options to save on the price of the kit.


Where as a 100hp waste gated turbo could be done, on a budget of $1000 or less if you were astute at picking your system and buying the parts wisely.
Europe has good upgrade part choices for turbo manifolds and programming maps


In the Future

If it did charge itself threw brake application and when downshifting it could remove the load from the alternator.

Its just young foolish and expensive right now..

It would be nice if it was passively charged threw wasted momentum , if it isn't already... then its just pricing that needs to be overcome.

Yeah, the real question is why on earth you'd want an electric supercharger in the first place. The point of a turbo is that the power needed to run it is free (energy that would otherwise be going out the tailpipe): with an electric supercharger, even if the thing actually worked, it'd be drawing considerable power from alternator & battery.

Shame having a thread without a reference to the "real" electric charger:

Boosthead.com: Pricing

http://image.turbomagazine.com/f/tec...percharger.jpg

Old kit... if I recall right, three custom-wound electric motors running about 15 horsepower... some 6-7 psi of boost. The current kits use a centrifugal supercharger and range between 10-18 hp... the 10 hp variant does about 5 psi of boost. Between $2-$3k... which is cheap... the original kit was around $4-5k ten years ago... which would mean $6-8k now.

Is it that simple? Aren't turbochargers similar in efficacy to superchargers, which run directly off of the engine?

A turbo is as close to a perpetual motion machine* as you can get. More exhaust pressure means more boost, means more air in the combustion chamber means more exhaust pressure...

It's effectively "free" power because you're already wasting engine power to push air out the exhaust ports. With a supercharger, you're adding an extra 15-30 hp load to the motor that wasn't there before. With an electric supercharger, you either need to source that 15-30 hp via a powerful alternator (at which point, you might as well have a direct belt drive instead) or you're continuously using an extra 5 hp or so to run the alternator to charge the batteries for the dozen seconds or so of boost you can actually use continuously.

-

Formula 1's take is a good way forward... use a conventional turbo, but when you don't need the boost, convert exhaust pressure to electricity. Then use the stored electricity to help spool up the turbo faster (for extra power AND anti-lag purposes).






*Ignoring, of course, that none of this would happen without gasoline or diesel... :D

In all seriousness you can get a craftwerks belt driven centrifuge blower for a few hundred bucks and use a range of electric motors to drive it. The bigger issue is fuel management. Ive been told many MAF or MAP sensors do not work well with a positive air flow.

Free power from a Comprex would be my choice. Nearly bought an old Mazda the other day just for its 'charger. Also means you can save money and weight by ditching silencers, as it is using the 'sound' to charge the engine.

Or a used eaton off of a pontiac/buick 3800 for less than a 100 at a self service junkyard (have 2 sitting on the shelf). I'd prefer a VVT like on my bike for all around efficiency and fun.

That is neat technology , adding one to a small turbo car would be something.

a twin turbo ..

First of all production super cars are now coming with electric superchargers from the factory. This means they can produce peak boost from idle RPM, which is what gives the latest hybrid supercars their insane performance. The same principle is used in F1.

While an E-S/C does take a lot of power to run, it's only required for a few seconds at a time while accelerating. It's easier to fit than a real turbo and you can return the car to OEM at resale and move the E-S/C to your next car. If the E-S/C were to fail, you're just driving an OEM car, with a Turbo, you're calling a tow truck.

Perhaps the main point for Ecomodders, is that you can still engine off coast a E-S/C vehicle without fear of running the turbo bearings dry.

Here are the links from the previous thread:

FTS-TQ25024V - New site

Green Car Congress: Valeo acquires electric supercharger business from Controlled Power

Green Car Congress: CPT VTES Electric Supercharger Selected for Two Projects

Green Car Congress: Use of a Low-Cost Electric Supercharger Could Significantly Reduce Smoke from Turbocharged Diesel Engines

Jay Leno Tests out the Ricardo Hyboost Ford Focus | Digital Trends

Well, it makes Perfect economical sense to the manufacturer.

It would be wiser to buy a tuning box and gain 40 or more hp that way.

Only a small precentage of vehicles will see any gains from cheap tuning boxes. You're also taking a bit of a gamble as engines have been destroyed by low end ECU bypassing boxes.

You won't gain 40 or more HP, you'll gain at most 40hp (unless you have a Cummins or something). I have a $1200 tuning box (with engine damage warranty) in my 2.5 TDi for a claimed 30hp increase. This still doesn't fully address the low end hole before the turbo spools.

I would suggest people buy $250- $350 dollar one and pass on by your $1200 one.
After hearing you describe its lack of bottom end I'm not impressed either.
What a PRICE it must be real pretty !

Keep in mind I'm pulling 2 tonnes with my 2.5TDi, all I'm saying is I'd rather have boost at idle so the Traction Control light doesn't keep flashing once the turbo hits full boost. Getting 455Nm to the ground via the front wheels of a 2 tonne vehicle will always have it's challenges :) If I forget myself I can spin my wheels in third :D

I got my tuning box used for $400 so it was a pretty good deal. If I was paying the new price of $1200 I would have got a proper remap instead, and I would still prefer to go that way but it's a lot of money.

Keep in mind that a dealer charges ~US$400 for an oil change (& 'inspection') here.

An electric supercharger makes sense as an auxiliary device to overcome the turbo-lag, in a similar way to the regular belt-driven supercharger featured in Volkswagen TwinCharger engines.