# Thoughts on a compressed air/battery hybrid vehicle



## ngrimm (Oct 19, 2007)

That would be great if you can get it to work. I looked into the air motors a while back and it seems to me the air needed to be compressed to several thousand psi and I'm not sure what the cost is to do that for a usable quantity. I imagine normal air grinders aren't very efficient but my 3 hp 12 amp 220 volt compressor won't keep up with a 4" cut off tool or any of my orbital sanders once the tank is depleted in about 20 seconds hence the need for very high pressure. I also looked into the vortex tubes they use for chilling air to use for a/c but again it takes lots of cfm. I'm not saying it can't work though. Norm


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## ga2500ev (Apr 20, 2008)

ngrimm said:


> That would be great if you can get it to work. I looked into the air motors a while back and it seems to me the air needed to be compressed to several thousand psi and I'm not sure what the cost is to do that for a usable quantity.


SCUBA and paintball actually have both created an infrastructure for this. There are a variety of pumps that can pump up to 300 bar (4320 PSI)



> I imagine normal air grinders aren't very efficient but my 3 hp 12 amp 220 volt compressor won't keep up with a 4" cut off tool or any of my orbital sanders once the tank is depleted in about 20 seconds hence the need for very high pressure.


Absolutely. The air cars out there are compressing 340 liters of air to 300 bar then dropping the pressure to 30 bar at the motor.



> I also looked into the vortex tubes they use for chilling air to use for a/c but again it takes lots of cfm. I'm not saying it can't work though. Norm


You'll already get the effect simply by running the air motor. The interesting thing about the vortex tube is that you can also get hot air out of it too.

ga2500ev


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