New battery chemistry… Faster charge and discharge… Interesting stuff!
3 Likes
Tesla just announced that the S and X won’t get the new 21700 cells so my thinking is that this new chemistry will be for the S/X to support Supercharger 3
2 Likes
Ahhhh, what a time to be alive! Trust me, Tesla only accepts the best of the best talent. Tired, many times and failed to get in. They have a lot of brilliant engineers so I would only hope they make some break throughs like this.
3 Likes
So the future that await us will have vehicles with huge capacity batteries and unreal discharge currents never seen before, all packed in extremely small packs and cheap as dirt.
I wonder what will happen when energy could be stored 30 times more than actual packs, I guess vehicles will start to fly reaching insane speeds, they will all be controlled by AI to avoid accidents and prevent disasters before they happen.
I really hope to see this technology and take advantage of it before I die
9 Likes
If energy could be stored 30 times better, then jetpacks might actually look a whole lot more practical 
Jet/turbine engines are still more powerful/compact then their electrical cousins EDFs though. Need to figure out a way to make liquid fuel 30x more energetic 
There are so many “sci-fi” technologies that are that way almost entirely because we don’t have anything energy- and power-dense enough to run them for more than a few seconds or minutes. Jetpacks, powered exoskeletons, electric heelys 
@CoolRextreme I think an EDF jetpack is totally feasible in terms of engineering, aerodynamics, motors, and controllers. The main limiting factor is the battery.
I can only hope I live to see the day.
1 Like
The future looks bright…
Indeed. Energy density is a huge set back for many concepts. Jetpacks especially.
While our technology has advanced quite far from burning vast amounts of wood to create (steam) energy, we have yet to get to personalized flying vehicles in the side of a jetpack that is feasible for more then 10-30 minute flights.
I have been recently fascinated by the jetpack world.
I know Hackersmith has been thinking of a ‘jetpack’ via EDFs (The project has been on hold for some time now due to funds, but you can check out their series so far here:)
Jet turbines are much more compact, but their fuel is not. There IS a working jet pack;
Pretty cool, but limited range.
I personally like, and would like to build a jet suit myself. Like Richard Browning
I could definitely do so, for a cool <30k lol
But again, fuel is the limiting factor 
Also money 
I am but a humble college student.
2 Likes
I wonder what will happen when energy could be stored 30 times more than actual packs, I guess vehicles will start to fly reaching insane speeds, they will all be controlled by AI to avoid accidents and prevent disasters before they happen.
3 Likes
I think if significant engineering resources were dedicated to a refreshed, 2019-technology-based version of the Bell Jet Flying Belt (Which could fly for 25 minutes), one could be built that would fly for close to an hour. With modern fuel controls, aerodynamic models, and metallurgy, the efficiency of the engine could be significantly improved. I think it would be more efficient to use a single slightly larger engine than to use two smaller ones, since gas turbines are more efficient at scale due to reynolds numbers, etc.
The JB-9 is based on turbojet engines with a radial-flow compressor (the same type used in RC planes), which while simple, are not particularly efficient. A single slightly larger axial-flow low bypass turbofan would be far more efficient. The real challenge would be making it light enough.
It would indeed be more efficient to use a single larger engine then two small ones, but jetpacks need to have stability, and they do this by centering the main load (human) between both both (or possible more then two) sources of thrust. They also use the vectoring both jet’s thrust to turn. If one was to fly a jetpack with a single engine, unless the rider was centered above the SINGLE point of thrust, there would be a large misbalance of of thrust. Gyros and other things would also be forced to automatically make minute vector differences in a single direction at a time.
(Woops, accidentally sent early)
I suppose this single-engine design could be more stable if it was to blow it’s thrust into a sort of upsidedown Y, and use both open ends of the Y as ‘separate’ thrust outlets. But I don’t know if the force lost in halving, then moving the initial thrust through two bent tubes would justify the efficiency of using 1 engine vs 2.
To be honest, I do not know the exact difference between Axial, Radial, and Centrifugal flow turbines, but I DO know that the RC turbines do not use the efficient type of turbine layout as aircraft do.
On a side note, I believe Boeing has just finished building a turbine that has a superb efficiency rating when compared to other turbines in use at the moment. I believe they will be used on the 777-x If I remember correctly. Exciting times!
1 Like
The Bell version had a single engine feeding a set of ducts. It essentially acted like it had multiple engines from a control and stability standpoint.
1 Like
Yes. As I finished in my last post, I figured that design would make a good case for jetpacks running off a single engine 
1 Like
The main difference between axial and radial compressors/turbines (besides the way the air flows) is that radial compressors are usually single stage, which limits the maximum pressure ratio the engine can generate. The higher the pressure ratio, the more efficient the engine (Just like cars. More compression = more better.) Axial compressors have multiple stages, each one increasing the pressure a little more, so where a single stage hobby engine might get up to a ratio of about 3:1 or 4:1, a GE-90 with 13 stages has a pressure ratio of 42:1!
1 Like
All future predictions are really exciting, but what about anything near from the actual reality?
I really want esk8 drones, we need to bring that to this community somehow, it has already been done more than a year ago, technology must have been made leaps forward by now, we just need to bring the price down and work hard implementing safety meassures.
2 Likes
Can’t wait to see that
But as everyone said technology has been evolving rapidly, we have small electric planes already flying, battery tech needs to improve just a bit more (ok, nota bit, almost double in energy density) to make comercial planes viable
1 Like
as an application developer i can truely say: NO, I don’t want that I mean yes, it is awesome as long as everything works But vehicles will drive way more dangerously together, so if there is, lets say, a software update who shuts down the car while driving…
But who cares, were skaters, we dont drive cars ^^
1 Like
Then there is the faster and more compact Flyboard 
4 Likes
I worked out a while ago that I could build an edf jet pack combining 8 edfs, and I think 14 gens ace tattu packs. It would supposedly lift myself (60kg) for less then 8mins.
Still pretty cool though, except for when I realised it was gonna cost 20k just for the electronics lol
3 Likes