Electric Turbo 1. Small (T04)
Electric Turbos have fascinated me for many years. Not many is commercially available even today.
The electric turbo should fill the torque gab from idle to where the Turbo kicks in. Especially in small engines with high boost. It also should reduce the turbo lag. It should work in the engine range 1000-2800 RPM. At the best increasing the torque with 150-200nm to 350+nm from almost idle. Yes, a dream…
My idea was to make an electric turbo using a small compressor side and add one of the very compact high power 3 phase motors used in the model RC world.
Though one of the problems making a high air pressure, more than 0.8 Bar, in a relatively small volume say up to 5.000 l air per min requires a small compressor but it must run more than 120.000 RPM. The small RC motors seems limited to approx. 50.000 RPM.
Anyway. I have made a lot of experiments with 12 volt and 22 volt motors from 1-4HP. I have even tried to make a bigger one with compressor from K27 Borg Warner (Electric Turbo 2. Big).
The first version was with the compressor from an AiResearch T04. Billet 60 mm h 32 mm 12 blade. I mounted the motor in the front for cooling. I made and 6 mm axle and adapted to the 3.175mm motor and used 4 mm ceramic ball bearing at the end.
The first motor was a QF-2827 3500KV 4S (14.8V) but I ‘over’ run it with a 6S 22.2volt battery. It was drawing 64 amp and 1340W (1.9HP). Though I only got 64.000 RPM measuring one phase with a scope and calculate. It gave a max of 0.3 Bar, a little disappointing.
Though I wanted to make a version running in the car at 12v dc.
The Turnigy XK-3650 5400KV 4 pole 5.4k RPM/V Max 135amp 3S 12.6V max seems the best I could find.1700W (2.3HP peak) it is very impressive in a size L 50 mm dia. 36 mm shaft 3.175 mm and 200g, 28USD.
It got to work and generating 0.3 Bar at around 11V 100 amp. (1.5HP). It was mounted in front of the other turbo (GT2056) initially without any air bypass switch.
The last picture shows a data log where the boost sets in from 1100 RPM, note the brown curve V Bat drop to 11V at 100 amp even with 12mm2 wires and a very powerful ECS and my own developed control circuit adapted for the accelerator pedal.
The curve shows 0.46 Bar at 2200 rpm, not very impressive as the GT2056 alone could generate 0.37 Bar 3.g without the electric turbo in front. The results of generating 30% more TQ from idle to 1800 RPM was not worth it. Also, it sounds like a jet liner 😊 But fun.
Anyway, I could not stop electric turbo development and tried with a bigger compressor, made a gearbox and a 3HP motor. Check Electric Turbo 2. Big K27
