Slashdot Mirror
The Electrocharger...Any Day Now?
bigmoosie asks: "It has been over a year since the Electrocharger was discussed on Slashdot. It appears to be almost ready for production, or is it still vaporware? Does the Slashdot community think an electric motor replacing the alternator on an internal combustion engine will add 5, 10, or even 15 mpg? How well do you think the super capacitor battery pack will hold up at -20 degrees Fahrenheit? Are there any other products out there that do the same thing? I know this is not as efficient as a hybrid car made at a factory, but it can reduce the fuel consumption and emissions for cars that are 5 or even 10 years old and still on the road. Does have the potential to be an environmental friend or disaster (how long does the battery pack last)?"
I could sure use that... Darn Gas Prices..
Just me
I think that despite when the 'electrocharger' is released, it'll be a long while until it really genuinely catches on. Even Hybrid cars which increase miles per gallon haven't really caught on yet. It could make things a lot better... but we'll really just see with time, won't we?
- dshaw
"Does have the potential to be an environmental friend or disaster?"
;-)
I know enough logic to know the answer to this question is definitely "yes."
It would be great if they gave some of the actual science behind how this works -- then I could find out if it would actually do something.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Try as I might I can't find a connection between Sigma Automotive and Texas A&M. The only other chatter I see about this on the web are on hybrid enthusiast sites..........I smell a rat.
Madre de Dios! Es El Pollo Diablo! -- Captain Blondebeard
That's what I was asking about in the other thread. I don't see what this wouldn't work.
Ask Slashdot: The Electrocharger...Any Day Now? (-5, Troll)
This is complete bullshit. Much like those "Tornado Air Chargers," but for the idiot with deep pockets.
If you want good gas mileage, convince someone to release a decent diesel-electric hybrid car.
Alternatively, take that $3000 and find yourself a used Geo Metro in decent condition and you'll be right at 50mpg with cash to spare.
Heck, some of us don't even have alternators.
I guess I could replace the generator and regulator, maybe upgrade from 6v to 12v (or more?) at the same time...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
The ElectrochargerTM replaces the vehicle's alternator and battery charging system and gets most of its energy during vehicle braking, while additional energy comes from the engine while the vehicle is at cruising speed.
It's certainly an interesting concept. I suppose it's wired up somehow to know when you press on the brake pedal, and energize the stator to start charging. Of course your brakes are still probably doing most of the work.
Who knows, maybe it could be workable. If only the site designing these would do some tests and provide some info. For someone who lives in a hilly area or does a lot of stop-and-go driving, this could be an affordable hybrid upgrade.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
See:
http://www.hybridcars.com/silverado-sierra.html
Even factory-made hybrid cars don't get 15mpg over the straight gas-powered one. Ask anyone who owns a hybrid Accord. The EPA estimates are way off; the actual difference in mileage between the two versions is very small.
This product will be fairly useless, because it seems to just drive the engine crankshaft, and is powered from supercaps. There are three major problems with this approach: the amount of energy the capacitor can store is very small, the electric motor will have to work against the gas engine's compression, and you won't even get regenerative braking because the transmission will just downshift when you slow down. This device is very unlikely to increase gas mileage.
In reverse. The belts turn the motor, which generates electricity.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
There is the remote possibility that it can have some benefits. The basic idea is vaguely sound. However, they're fond of making wildly inaccurate statements on their website, so I'd take any specific claims with a grain of salt.
My favorite FAQ is:
This is of course an outrageous statement to make without qualifications. My current vehicle does 0-60 in about 4.2 seconds. There is no way in hell that thing is going to give me a 1.2 second 0-60. Perhaps on a car that goes 0-60 much much slower, then maybe you could shave 3 seconds, but even then that sounds like an awful lot.
11*43+456^2
From the footnotes: Hints that they sold the technology to BMW without actually saying so; "our programmer"--just one, eh?. The whole site gives the impression of a penny stock scam. Finally, do you really think it will be a good idea to put so much torque on the crankshaft without upgrading the front bearing? Also, how exactly are you supposed to extend your crankshaft in order to mount the required sproket--and why no mention of whether or not they supply the needed aftermarket sprocket and chain?
Does the Slashdot community think an electric motor replacing the alternator on an internal combustion engine will add 5, 10, or even 15 mpg?
Maybe. Even at their low 5mpg I find it hard that a small alternator sized motor could produce any more then 5 HP for short periods without needing serious cooling. This looks like it could only benefit very small light weight cars. A few mpg in city driving on a small Honda Civic like vehicle in the city might see some improvement if it does what it is supposed to do. There claims that it could help SUV is questionable. I own a 95 Chevy Tahoe (It is heavily used in our business so I need it) and it averages 10mpg. It weighs about 5000 pounds (2268 kilos) empty. Getting 5mpg more out of it will require allot of effort to see a 50% improvement. They don't produce any specifications on torque output so I would be a little skepticle.
How well do you think the super capacitor battery pack will hold up at -20 degrees Fahrenheit?
I don't know what they mean by "Super Capacitor Battery Pack" because a capacitor and a battery are 2 different components. Yes a capacitor is stores a charge like a battery but how is it a capacitor battery? I think they might mean the dc-dc inverter is bi directional and can use the cars battery in tandem with the capacitor bank. Capacitors do hold there charge even under extreme cold temperatures. Heavy trucks sometimes use capacitor banks to assist in very cold weather cranking.
Does this have the potential to be an environmental friend or disaster (how long does the battery pack last)?
If it uses regular capacitors and they are used within spec then they could last for years and years without any problems.
This thing could help recapture some lost energy. By charging while the car is idling or breaking, it uses the energy that the engine would be wasting.
As for power output? with a 42volt source I can't see this thing putting out more then 50ft/lbs at the crank (notice the reduction in pully size from the crank to the motor). Most likely less then that.
That power is also only available for short periods of time. But that does make it good for accelerating.
So, what I see this as a good idea for is vehicles like the "Smart Car". Those things rock. Specificly the 2 seat roadster. Anyways, those cars come with a turbo 3-cylinder engine that puts out a whooping 85hp. That is pretty pathetic, except that the car itself weighs in at only 1700lbs. That means that it's got an pretty exceptable power/weight ratio, but it's probrably a bit slow off the line (turbo lag), or if you have a second person in the vehicle. By tacking on an extra say 25ft/lbs of torque for 10 seconds, you could have a pretty dramatic effect on 0-60 times.
For beefier vehicles, specificly those with plenty of low end torque, this won't help a bit.
It also won't help at all for highway cruising. In a gas engine you need to keep the air/fuel mixture as close to 12.8 (Err was it 14? I'm getting my ratios screwed up) as possible to keep the engine running efficient. Too rich, and you waste fuel, to lean and you can have pre-det and damage the engine. And if you are going 60mph, your tranny will be spinning (depending on your gear ratios) 2500-3500 rpm, which means your engine will also be spinning that fast. And since the engine is spinning at that speed, it's sucking air at that speed (a gm 350 will suck 350 cubic inches of air every cycle), and fuel will have to be injected to match. Wether you are getting power from an electric motor, or the engine, that fuel is getting injected. Some engines are smart enough these days to turn off unused cyclinders though, so if it was integrated enough, there's a possibility it could help.
I'm waiting for the dyno's to make up my mind on it. But from what I've seen/can figure, this could be a great performance add on to light weight, high RPM vehicles.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
That belt will obviously be able to transfer huge amounts of force. And of course, it'll be easy to retrofit and replace the existing serpentine belt.
Ewige Blumenkraft.
OTOH, a similar device designed into an engine and used for peak shaving might allow the use of a much smaller (more efficient) gasoline engine by providing satisfactory peak (acceleration) power.
There's no rat, but there's no Electrocharger either, and the plans to produce it are currently scrapped.
The connection between Sigma Automotive and Texas A&M is--in a word--me.
You can check out all this with google, here's the facts: I am a grad student at Texas A&M, and my name is David Hoelscher. I work on power electronics and motor drives under Dr. Ehsani. A year and a half ago we got a visit from a man named Michael Van Steenburg, and he had an idea to make retro-fittable hybrid electric vehicles, ala replacing the alternator. The reason he came to Texas A&M is because Ehsani specializes (or specialized?) in switched reluctance motor (SRM) drives.
As an aside: SRM drives are basically a rugged motor drive--they don't need any magnets, so there's no demagnetization problem. Basically the idea is that when you put a paramagnetic material in a magnetic field, the material will temporarily magnetize and align with the field as much as possible (you can find more on paramagnetic at Wikipedia). To achive this, the rotor has to have salient poles--that is, it must physically have a toothed surface. And when you combine a toothed surface and large magnetic forces, you get a loud noise, which is THE biggest problem with SRM.
Back to the subject at hand though...so Mike wanted to use SRM motors because the alternator is near the engine (which is hot) and there's nothing to demagnetize. Ehsani knows motors, but he doesn't manufacture them. In fact, not many companies manufacture them. In this case, he found an company, International USA, who could manufacture them. So things are looking good.
Summer 2004, I take off a summer to work with them, specifically sizing the battery/ultracapacitor pack and determining the best type of battery to use, etc. But every step of the way, the delivery date for the test motor drives is pushed back. The work by International was unfunded, as the company was incredibly small and funding was tight (you can see how small by checking out the contact page: http://www.ecolectrictechnology.com/contactus.htm and yes, I'm the Dave).
At some point, the web page information showed up on Sigma Automotive, and then on Slashdot--I admit, I was surprised when a lab mate told me he read about it in a major news outlet (I hadn't checked Slashdot yet on that day). FYI, the actual webpage for the company is www.ecolectrictechnology.com
We also went out to the SEMA show in Las Vegas, but the most we had to show was a mock-up on an engine--at this point, I had been back at school a few months and just answered questions here and there, maintained contacts, but was largely out of the day-to-day business.
About the start of 2005, key personnel for our product at International had left the company, so there was no one left to work on it, and even if there was, there still wasn't money to pay them.
Since then, the project has been dead in the water. As for me, I'm finishing up my research at A&M and starting the job hunt. If anyone's looking to hire a Masters EE with a power electronics/motor drives background, 5 years of experience building solar cars, and 6 years experience software development, feel free to email me at david dot hoelscher at gmail dot com
The original idea is still a good one, albeit a bit complicated. For example, to add much torque to the driveshaft, there needs to be a significant upgrade to the belt that used to run the alternator, which in turn (likely) requires a new pully, and changing out a lot of belts. The motor drive itself has to fit in the place of the old alternator, so there are size restrictions there. Also, the motor controller needs to go SOMEWHERE, preferably close to the motor but not in the engine compartment. Finally, a mass air flow sensor (or something) needs to be used to determine when to run the motor and when to regenerate. All that while keeping the costs reasonable.
If you factor in that t
There are 5 bilion and 600 milions people who don't use Fahrenheit degrees. -20 degrees Fahrenheit = -28.8888889 degrees Celsius
this post contain no useful information, no need to mod it down
Maybe not in the US, but here in Europe, with current fuel-prices hovering around 6$/gallon (not a typo --six-- dollars) I can promise you some people are more than "sligthly" interested in better fuel-economy.
Apart from that, there's too many claims that are simple nonsensical no matter how you turn and twist it, and no matter what technology you're talking of. For example:
- Claims to improve mpg by *atleast* 5, without any qualifiers as to type of vehicle. For a large and heavy vehicle like a heavy SUV that would require an improvement of like 50%, not bloody likely.
- Also claims to improve acceleration 0-60 by a *minimum* of 3 seconds. I guess this means if you've got a lamborghini that can do it in 4 seconds without this thing, it'll do it in 1 second *with* the thing. And that's the claimed minimum improvement. Fit the thing to a F1-car and it'll be going 60 *before* it's started.
You don't need a science-degree to see that any product that a) doesn't actually exist and b) are marketed with such claims is nothing other than bullshit.Not only that, but calling that equation "simple" is ludicrous to the point of stupidity.
I could be wrong, but I am guessing you don't spend much time around mechanical designers. I used to be an analyst at a company that makes jet engines. I was in computaional anaysis, but the old school empierical guys used equations that make that one look like 8th grade math. In my professional opinion as a mechanical engineer, that equation is simple.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
The commerce aspects of SigmaAuto are shared with:
Aquaristics
BOSSBi
Earthority
NanoRC
SmartCarisma
so, whatever they're selling, they're selling a lot of different things.
Fishier and fishier said Alice.
Not A Sig
It's worth reading that page for a good laugh though. A link to it: http://www.sigmaautomotive.com/IRD/superfuelmax.ph p
If you're looking for something real, I think Valeo (recently had a piece on lemonde.fr) already has something along these lines.
"Sept 7th, '05: Technically, the maker is ready to launch this device but their hands are tied until the programmer is done refining the software. Please be patient."
Hey guys, just so you know, if you want the heads up on all this, look at the replies I've posted...I was actually involved with the project, so they'll probably be your best source of information about it. In one of the replies, I even lay out the whole story (the reply to the topic "No connection")...
You don't seem to understand the basic principles of how a gasoline engine works. On a gas engine, you do not control the RPM's with the spark advance, you control it by limiting airflow.
.5l of air/fuel mixture. Period. You can not magically "burn more fuel". You can only burn .5l per cylinder per cycle. In order to burn more air you have to accelerate the engine. You accelerate the engine by improving the efficiency of the engine (advancing timing)
.5L of of displacement doesn't have to burn .5L of air/fuel. It is usually running some vacuum and not sucking in as much air/fuel as it can. The only time the cylinders suck in as much fuel as they can is at wide open throttle, and your throttle body isn't limiting the amount of air that can enter the engine.
You can burn more fuel over time, but you can not burn more fuel per cycle. More air/fuel is the RESULT of acceleration, not the cause.You can burn more fuel over time, but you can not burn more fuel per cycle. More air/fuel is the RESULT of acceleration, not the cause.
Incorrect. More air/fuel is the result of opening the throttle body, which allows more air to rush into the engine, and you can therefore burn more fuel. An engine is NOT always sucking in the same amount of air/fuel. There is usually some amount of manifold vacuum because of the sucking force of the pistons on the intake stroke and the throttle body which will only let as much air past as you allow.
A cylinder that displaces half a liter of space will only ever be able to burn
Wrong. A cylinder with
Also, spark timing doesn't have much to do with this. You adjust your spark timing to get the most power out of the power stroke as possible, but it is not what controls the rpm. And it is not what controls the idle.
If you ever play with a gas model airplane engine, you'll see this for yourself. They don't have spark plugs, they have glow plugs. Therefore you cannot control the spark advance. But you can still regulate the idle and RPM, and you do this by adjusting the throttle body in the carburetor.
Cliffs Notes: A gasoline engine is air regulated.
Interestingly, a diesel engine works more like you say, although it has no spark plugs either. On a diesel, you cannot limit the amount of air that enters the engine (no throttle) and there is no spark. You control its speed by limiting fuel (injection timing and injection amount)
I've come across many people who do not understand how an engine works. They are so used to the modern advances of an engine that they think they are the fundamentals of engine operation.
Gasoline engines are controlled by limiting airflow, not spark. In fact, you do not really even need a sparkplug for an engine to work, and the smallest gas engines don't have spark plugs. I have a model airplane engine that will run on gas, and it only has a glow plug- no spark advance there. But it does have a throttle body (in the carb), which is a fundamental of gasoline engine operation.
He is getting lost in the details and failing to grasp the overall concept of how the engine works.
So we are agreeing on everything but symantics, and the importance of spark timing. Your description of how air flow effects engine speed is exactly how I described airflow adjusting the speed of a 'fixed speed' engine (ie: 2 stroke lawn mowers, model airplanes engines, etc). Limiting air flow reduces engine power and opposing friction reduces net torque to 0. (I'm sorry I misrepresented that to start with, I didn't know you (or other readers) where up on their physics). But you still run into the restriction where as the manifold vaccuum approaches 0, the engine is unable to suck more air, at that point the only way to further adjust the speed is by igniting the spark earlier which will increase the power, accelerating the engine causing it to suck more air in (increasing the manifold vaccuum).
Advancing the spark won't help if the air flow is limited, the engine will accelerate, but have no torque (thus why 750cc motor cycle engines spin at 10,000rpms with only a tiny amount of torque). If you increase the air flow, but don't advance the spark, the engine will hit it's max efficient rpm at a much lower RPM but have significantly better torque (a 6.6l gas generator for example, tons of torque, but no way for it to spin over 1800 rpms)
In any case, in breaking any idleling you are not running the engine in it's most efficient form and a lot of energy is shot straight out the exhaust. that is the energy the device is trying to "recapture" by forcing the engine to run more efficiently.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Correct, when I step on the gas, the throttle body butterfly valve opens, increasing pressure in the manifold which causes the spark to advance, so that the explosion will occur earlier, have more force and accelerate the engine, which will suck in more air/fuel mixture which will provide more power at that RPM.
.6l, stroke 2 will compress that .6l to lets say .06l (10:1 compression). Just as the piston hit's top dead center, the spark is ignited, the gas begins it's expansion right at TDC. for ~ .1 seconds the gas tries to expand at X ft/second, any thing that limits that expansion will increase the force applied against the piston. But at the end of that .1 seconds, the gas is spent. But it only takes .06 seconds per rotation (at 1000rpms). So what happens to the extra .04 seconds of burn? tossed out the exhaust when the exhaust valves open at the end of the power stroke. stroke 4 then pushes the spent and unspent fuel out the exhaust. .01 second allows you to have the combustion starting before TDC, which means you will have expansion occuring while the combustion chamber is at the smallest size, which means more pressure (force) which accelerates the engine. The engine spins faster, sucks more air per minute, but still sucks the exact same amount of air/fuel per rotation that it always did.
.6L cylinder is only drawing in a small fraction of .6L of outside air. It will be operating under a vacuum (not total vacuum of course, but pressure lower than atmospheric). Only at wide open throttle will the cylinders theoretically be filled with .6L of air, and that's if your engine were able to operate at 100% volumetric efficiency, which it probably doesn't.
Forget about the spark advance right now, as that's a (relatively) recent trick used to get more power. It's not one of the fundamentals required for engine operation.
If you look at a lawnmower engine, it has some of the basic requirements for an engine to run. It has a basic spark that's triggered by a magnet on the flywheel passing by the coil. There is no spark advance at all- it always runs the same timing. What makes it accelerate is opening the throttle, which sucks in more air/fuel. That allows the engine to produce more power and rev higher.
Stroke 1 will suck in
But then what? You advance the spark timing. Advancing the spark timing by
You are completely getting lost in the details here. You are thinking along the lines that the engine sucks in the same amount every stroke. You've said that in this post and other posts. An engine doesn't work that way. The throttle body will limit the amount of air that can pass, and the cylinders will have a lower pressure. So when you think about the amount of air *at atmospheric pressure* that the engine sucks in, this amount changes based on how much throttle you're giving ig. At idle, which is your lowest throttle setting, the
Again, spark timing advance is only a tweak made to get more power out of combustion. It's not a requirement for engine operation and that's not what makes the engine change speed or even work. Many engines have no spark advance, and some small engines have no spark at all, they work by using a glow plug.
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