Quote:
Originally Posted by BADDASSC6
OK. an air conditioning compressor take a lot less power than a blower based on size and the sheer volume of air compressed per unit time.
The power usage of a blower can be measured many ways. ATI (maker of procharger) actually runs thier blowers with a very large electric motor with an either an orifice or an actuall motor. The current and voltage are used to determine the power used.
With you can calculate an ideal 100% efficient power requirement using ST/P equations. I don't know about the insight, but if it's a tiny car and it's not direct drive then you can get away with a small motor. But that doesn't have anything to do with powering a blower for a performance car. If you want to compress air it takes power.
Again I don't know about the insight, but here is my theory (as used on modern large naval vessels):
You can use a much smaller motor that runs continously at a contanst RPM to power a generator. The power that is generated is stored chemically (i.e. battery) then direct drive electrical motors are used to drive/stop answer the variable loads. Gas/diesel engines can be designed to operate in an ideal rpm range where many of thier inefficies are minimized. Think s2000. I don't know if this is what's going on in hte insight, but it sound like you are not sure if they are using a 15hp motor.
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This all makes sense. I think the thing I probably stumbled over is that a blower is really a compressor, therefore, the much higher power requirements than say just a propeller. Doh.
As for the Insight, I was misguided about that too. It has a 13 HP electric motor, but it is in line for assisting the gas 1.3L gas motor, not moving the car on its own. Here's the stats of that wicked beast.
http://automobiles.honda.com/insight...fications.aspx
