Mailing List flyrotary@lancaironline.net Message #40793
From: Ed Anderson <eanderson@carolina.rr.com>
Subject: Scam??? Thorton Electric Supercharger: [FlyRotary] Re: Supercharging
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 11:51:06 -0500
To: Rotary motors in aircraft <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
I went trying to find some independent source of "testimonials" on the Thorton Electric Superchargers... only found this one statement posted on a Cherokee SUV forum.
 
Thorton is a electric supercharger dealer. People have purchased products from their site and never received anything in return. Has anyone here had a experience with them? www.electricsupercharger.net Go here and look at the forum.    
I smell a scam.
 
So this is only one that came up - compared to what certainly appears to be some satisfied customers on the Thorton Forum. 
 
Still, when product specifications are not presented - it makes me skeptical - but, then I generally am of things that seem too good to be true {:>)
 
Ed. 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2007 11:25 AM
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Supercharging

Interesting find, David.  
 
I must admit after seeing all of those squirrel cage fan  "electric superchargers" advertised for $59.99 on E bay and else where back a few years ago (and perhaps even today)  - I was very skeptical of what I would see here.  I also could not find any technical specifications or compressor map on the website - and that does not lessen my skeptical feeling. 
 
 However, from the forum "testimonials" in which several folks have dynoed the results as well as collected other parameters, I must admit it appears there is some validity to the claims or else they are somehow fooling a lot of folks {:>).
 
It appears to take between 700 and 1100 watts of power from what data I could find.  So Power = Current*Voltage.  The current would then I = Power/Voltage = 1100/12 = 91 amps, or 700/12 = 58 amps.  So the current draw may depend on the model but would appear to range from 58 - 91 amps or around 1 - 1.4 HP.  So a fully charged battery would probably power it for 5-10 minutes - perhaps longer, you could get more precise interval by looking up the Reserve Capacity of your battery.
 
I must admit that for the price it is tempting just to get one and play with it - However, I have not seen anywhere mention of its weight.  From the electric motors I have seen,  - a  1 - 1.4HP electric motor can be huge and heavy.  Now this is surely  a smaller/lighter weight motor than those heavy weighs.  I forget my DC motor types, but as best I recall there is one referred to as a series winding that simply keeps spinning faster (and drawing lots of current) until it meets its load limit (or flies apart).  But again no specifications that I could find.
 
So putting aside my skepticism (for the moment)  I would think for aircraft use you would probably want a second battery you could dedicate to powering the superchargers electric motor for a several minutes.  Hummm, where did I put that second battery case, I took out of my aircraft. 
 
I would certainly want to know how long the motor could stand the load and heat.  It does not appear this is meant for sustained boost, just for getting your Mustang from 0-60 quickly then off the boost.  But, having 30 more HP for take off and initial climbout for 3-5 minutes could be nice to have.  Then the next question is how much effect it has on the air flow to your engine when it is not under power.  Eliminating the need for hot exhaust gas and water coolant lines would be also be a plus.  Could not tell whether it required any tie in to the engines lubrication system - one would presume so, but there was a turbocharger sold for a while that had its own oil reservoir. And of course what does it weigh?
 
 
Still for  $100 it might be interesting to experiment with.  But, I'll wait a bit - no mention of problems on the site, but also no mention of life cycles or hours of run time.  Still a bit skeptical, when I don't see any specifications on a website, but willing to suspend it for a while {:>)
 
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2007 9:06 AM
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Supercharging

Google place this ad for electric superchargers on the last post.  At least it is designed for an engine..

http://www.electricsupercharger.net/

Dave Leonard

On Dec 20, 2007 6:02 AM, Thomas Jakits <rotary.thjakits@gmail.com> wrote:
Here a another interesting bit on the screw type charger "wars":

http://www.svtsnake.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-1387.html

Obviously one must do his homework before deciding on one.
However the design seems superior to the roots anyway ....


TJ

On Dec 19, 2007 11:15 PM, Ed Anderson < eanderson@carolina.rr.com> wrote:
 
----- Original Message -----
From: "Charlie England" <ceengland@bellsouth.net>
To: "Rotary motors in aircraft" <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 10:47 PM
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Supercharging

> Ernest Christley wrote:
>> David Leonard wrote:
>>>> 6000RPM is about the speed that commercial leaf blowers use.  The
>>>> blowers just happen to be about the same size as an engine housing.  A
>>>> conservative blower will easily deliver 600 CFM at 150MPH.
>>>>    
>>>
>>>
>>> Somehow we are going to have to connect the blower to the drive
>>> chain.  That
>>> is either going to be a belt (with pullys we can size however we want) or
>>> some sort of gear.  Either way, everyone will have a blower running
>>> the rpm
>>> they need, no advantage (or disadvantage) to the rotary running at
>>> 6000 rpm.
>>>
>>>
>>>  
>>
>> What if you replace the flywheel with the fan from the blower?  No
>> gears.  No belts.  No chains.  No heavy mounting to support any of
>> them.  The advantage of the rotary running at 6000 RPM is that we don't
>> have to pull the power off and transfer it over to a different
>> structure.  We can mount the blower as an integral part of the drive chain.
>>> 
>>>>  We don't
>>>> usually want a LOT of boost in an airplane, since that will impact
>>>> reliability, but how much is a LOT?
>>>>    
>>>
>>>
>>> True, not "a lot" by race standards, but if you just turbo normalize you
>>> WILL be using a lot of boost (by OEM standards) when above 10000'.  I
>>> could
>>> easily max out my stock turbo at 14000.
>> More power is always more better, but what deal with the devil do you
>> have to make to get it?  My project can't handle the weight of a turbo
>> or a supercharger, and I personally don't want to deal with the
>> complications of either.  So I back off, accept less power as the
>> penalty for doing less work.  Can I get 10Hp for a couple pounds on the
>> nose and a few more feet of intake plumbing?  The answers we've come up
>> with so far say that it is a definite 'maybe', with a solid dose of 'it
>> depends'.  Maybe I won't be able to completely normalize, but I think I
>> should be able to increase my service ceiling.  An alternate air intake
>> will enable me to test to see just how much it increases.
>>
>> --
>> Homepage: 
http://www.flyrotary.com/
>> Archive and UnSub:  
>>
http://mail.lancaironline.net:81/lists/flyrotary/List.html
>>
>>
> A 'sanity check' (of the concept) might be in order.
>
> How big is the 'fan' in the leaf blower (diameter & thickness)?
>
> How big is the 'fan' in a typical turbo for the rotary?
>
> Is it likely that the 'fan' from the leaf blower can move as much air
> against the same back pressure turning 6k rpm as the turbo turning 100k rpm?
>
> (A P-port will *reduce* weight as it adds HP. :-) )
>
> Charlie

 
 Hi Charlie,
 
Flew past your place on Monday heading back from Louisiana, gave a radio call but got no response and didn't have time to stop for a visit.
 
Regarding your suggestion/question.  Part of the problem is that the engine will always displace the same cubic inches per revolution.  Therefore, there are only two ways to get more power per revolution - increase the density of the air or provide more oxidizer through a chemical process such as Nitrous oxide.  You simply can not force the engine to produce more power per rev without doing one of the two - or both. 
 
A turbo compressor or supercharger has to compress (increase the density of the air) without letting the higher pressure air (as a result of increased density) flow backwards past the pump impellers   from the high pressure area to the low pressure area.  The roots type blower does this by acting as a positive displacement pump it self whereas the centrifugal compressor simply uses the superfast spinning blades to beat the air molecules from the low pressure area (intake) to the high pressure area (manifold) and with such close tolerances that the air molecules have difficulty overcoming the momentum of the air and trying to flow back from the high pressure area against the spinning blades.
 
So the reason the turbo and supercharger increase power for a given rpm over an N/A engine is  they increase the density of the air not the velocity or volume - those are just side effects.  The flow rate will in fact appear to increase because the non compressed flow will flow faster into the compressor's intake as the increase in density after the compressor  must come from additional airflow into the compressor.  However, the engine itself is still flowing the same cubic feet/sec its displacement of course does not change  - its just that its combustion chamber is now packed with more air due to the higher density.
 
 I certainly hope the experiment proves worthwhile - but, I must admit I can not see how it is going to significantly increase power.  Whether the power addition is worth the effort will depend on how much effort it requires for the gain.
 
Just my 0.02
 
Ed
 
 
 
 
 
 




--
David Leonard

Turbo Rotary RV-6 N4VY
http://N4VY.RotaryRoster.net
http://RotaryRoster.net
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