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  #1  
Old 06-30-2003, 12:48 PM
boundsie
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electric supercharger

I saw an item on e-bay that is some kind of electric motor supercharger. The guy says it takes 40 amps and kicks in at full throttle to provide a little pressure for some extra horsepower. Seems like an idea that could work. Anybody have any experience with this?
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  #2  
Old 06-30-2003, 01:09 PM
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try plugging "supercharger" into the search engine on this site...there was a thread last week on the Ebay item you're referring to. Something to consider - the wattage needed by the unit has to come from the car's electrical system so you need to balance it off of the advertised increase in hp (assuming you actually realize the advertised number).
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  #3  
Old 06-30-2003, 01:37 PM
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there's an AU online car magazine http://www.autospeed.com/index.html that tested this thing some time back and basically said it was snake oil. The most the device can do is help if the system has a large negative pressure region in the intake tract since it's really just a fan and not a sealed pressure system. The only way to know for sure would be to install a pressure gauge and see just what the value was at the MAF.

FYI, Most SVX owners have found little substantive gain from mods to the intake (pending some working on true superchargers/turbos)
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  #4  
Old 06-30-2003, 02:27 PM
Chicane Chicane is offline
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It won't do anything. In order to make enough power to spin it fast enough to create pressure, it would cause a huge drain on your electrical system.

YOU CANT GET SOMETHING FROM NOTHING.

And you always lose energy when you convert it from one form to another. Always.

- Rob
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  #5  
Old 06-30-2003, 03:41 PM
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well, its not quite just converting energy forms... the energy used by the engine is in the gasoline. by adding more air, the car then adds more gas. if it was a lightweight fan, and you spun it really fast, electrical loss would be there, but i would think it would be minimal... i'm not really sure though...
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  #6  
Old 06-30-2003, 03:46 PM
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energy conversion

Rob,

Actually you are dead wrong (once again!)

Energy can neither be created or destroyed but rather only changed from one form to another.....

So "always" is incorrect here... The truth might rather be that to produce energy, it must be derived from some other source and in a car there are not many sources of energy but electrical, kinetic, mechanical and occasionally solar are all donor sources

Hotshoe

ps: dontcha hate engineers????? (I'm not one either!)
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  #7  
Old 06-30-2003, 03:54 PM
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Energy can neither be created nor destroyed but when energy is being used to do work some energy is converted to an undesireable form such as heat. The entropy, or disorder, of a system tends to increase. The "loss" of the energy from our motors to heat and friction prevent us from having a 100% efficient engine.
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  #8  
Old 06-30-2003, 05:20 PM
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Re: energy conversion

Quote:
Originally posted by hotshoe50
Rob,

Actually you are dead wrong (once again!)

Energy can neither be created or destroyed but rather only changed from one form to another.....

...snip...
So why would you say energy can't be created or destroyed, because it can go either way. Consider matter/anti-matter contact creates energy, i.e., the whole E=MCsquared thing.

Yeah, I just hate engineers - but don't ya just love physicists
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  #9  
Old 06-30-2003, 10:21 PM
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if you're a physicist you should know that in general speak unless specified specifically nuclear type reactions are not considered, and if they are, the concept of energy changes entirely the whole e=mc^2 thing is about the conversion of matter to energy,

the concept that energy and matter are all the same and can potentially be changed from energy into matter and matter into energy, and that the amount of energy created by the change from matter into energy is equal to the mass of the matter being converted times the speed of light squared,
yes he was a genious...
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  #10  
Old 07-01-2003, 07:05 AM
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I'm backin' Rob on this, as he is quite correct in what he says, even though others seem to misinterpret what he has actually said.

This device is probably snakeoil, because the gains it can give are only available after major current drain, which itself will cause the alternator to work overtime to keep up, and how many horsepower will that sap?? I'm willing to bet more than the fan can deliver.
[Fan blade pitch needs to be set to an optimum efficient value for the rotational speed of normal operation. Outside this range they can be very inefficient]

As a fan of superchargers, I know that driving them to the 100,000 rpm they need to get up to in order to deliver operating pressure will use up a possible 40 hp, depending on the device and efficiency.

In principle, ram air can be used to add horsepower. Kawasaki bikes such as the ZX9 gain horsepower at very high speed from ram air effect. Speeds would be pretty high, over 120-130, and the added horsepower is I think about 5 extra on a 120hp bike. However, this energy is "free", or at least taken back from the wind pressure the bike creates at this speed, it does not have to be produced electrically or mechanically by the engine.

Joe
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  #11  
Old 07-01-2003, 09:59 AM
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This is a piece of junk. They used to sell it # years ago on a direct internet site then they disapeared. Now all the snake oil hucksters seem to gravitating toward e-bay. Rob is right. Save your money or spend it on a good meal or some good wine.
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  #12  
Old 07-01-2003, 01:21 PM
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Hey, your right. Energy can't be 'destroyed', however, you do LOSE some of it. That doesn't mean it's gone.

If you try to spin that thing at 10,000 rpms, and pump more air into the engine, to get more power, to use more fuel, you might get more energy. BUT YOU WILL NOT SEE AN OVERALL GAIN. Reason being, in order to SPIN that thing up that fast, its going to need a LOT of energy. Ever put your hand on a motor (read ELECTRIC motor, because all MOTORS are electric) after it's been spinning really fast?

ITS HOT.

Know why? BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT 100% efficient. That 'heat' is wasted energy. TRUE. You cannot 'destroy' energy, but you can waste it like that. Every time you CONVERT energy from one form to another... let say you had a battery... and you connected it to a light bulb...then put a solar panel near the light bulb.... and tried to charge a battery with taht solar panel. There is NO WAY you would get that battery fully charged. YOU ALWAYS LOSE ENERGY WHENEVER YOU ARE CONVERTING IT FROM ONE FORM TO ANOTHER.

- Rob
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  #13  
Old 07-01-2003, 05:20 PM
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Quote:
Originally posted by NomadTW
if you're a physicist you should know that in general speak unless specified specifically nuclear type reactions are not considered, ...snip..., yes he was a genious...
Yes, I'm a physicist, which probably explains my sense of humor (or lack thereof), and I was just doing a little gentle leg tugging (reminder to self: use more smilies).

I will agree that he was a genius: photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, relativity, etc - what a year he had. Too bad he never warmed up to quantum mechanics.
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Old 07-01-2003, 06:19 PM
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Quote:
Originally posted by lee


Yes, I'm a physicist, which probably explains my sense of humor (or lack thereof), and I was just doing a little gentle leg tugging (reminder to self: use more smilies).

I will agree that he was a genius: photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, relativity, etc - what a year he had. Too bad he never warmed up to quantum mechanics.

yikes! I had a brownian motion once..... But I feel much better now.....
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