Will this air engine push me along?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- Ad: Save big with 60% off iolo System Mechanic, the ultimate all-in-one PC cleanup utility! Use the code "jamesbruton" at: www.iolo.com/c...
I was watching a video from UA-camr @matthiaswandel about an air engine that he built a few years ago. In fact it was a rebuild of an earlier project which he didn’t film, so he made an updated version and made a video about it.
I thought this was really interesting and I wanted to understand how it worked better so I thought I’d build my own version. Matthias sells plans for lots of the things his makes, and he also has software for generating gears, so you should check that out as well as his channel if you don’t already subscribe.
I bought the plans for the air engine which come with lots of photos, plans to cut the parts out of wood, and also a 3D model which is for Sketchup. There wasn’t any indication of how much torque the engine would generate in Matthias’s video and I think I want to make a slightly higher power version, so I’m actually going to redraw all the parts in CAD from scratch.
Matthias's video: • Wooden air engine build
His downloads: woodgears.ca/
You can support me on Patreon, join my Discord, or buy my Merchandise:
***************************
Discord: / discord
Patreon: / xrobots
Merchandise: teespring.com/...
***************************
Other socials:
***************************
Instagram: / xrobotsuk
Twitter: / xrobotsuk
Facebook: / xrobotsuk
***************************
Affiliate links - I will get some money of you use them to sign up or buy something:
***************************
10% off at www.3dfuel.com/ - use code XROBOTS at the cart screen.
Music for your UA-cam videos: share.epidemics...
***************************
CAD and Code for my projects: github.com/XRo...
Huge thanks to my Patrons, without whom my standard of living would drastically decline. Like, inside out-Farm Foods bag decline. Plus a very special shoutout to Lulzbot, Inc who keep me in LulzBot 3D printers and support me via Patreon.
HARDWARE/SOFTWARE
Below you can also find a lot of the typical tools, equipment and supplies used in my projects:
Filament from: www.3dfuel.com/
Lulzbot 3D Printers: bit.ly/2Sj6nil
Bearings from: simplybearings...
Lincoln Electric Welder: bit.ly/2Rqhqos
CNC Router: bit.ly/2QdsNjt
Ryobi Tools: bit.ly/2RhArcD
Axminster Micro Lathe: bit.ly/2Sj6eeN
3D Printer Filament: bit.ly/2PdcdUu
Soldering Iron: bit.ly/2DrNWDR
Vectric CNC Software: bit.ly/2zxpZqv
Nice work 3D printing that air engine. Piston/cylinder blow-by was the biggest problem for me, probably the same on yours. The more precise you make it, the better it works. I think your piston was more precise than mine. But something a bit like piston rings would be what gives it torque.
You’re so cool Matthias. I’m 25 and I wanna be like you when I grow up 😂
Huge respect. 👍
even a process similar to what was done with the slide valve would probably give a very good improvement
Mathias, you are a big source of inspiration for my students. Thank you for your dedication.
Could you make "rings" for square piston using 4 corner pieces in a slot, maybe with short overlapping straight bits where the corners meet?
Rounded corners and rubber o-rings might be easier though.
Matthias' content is awesome, so cool to see one of his projects featured here and expanded upon!
Yeah man, that guy is super underrated. I love his band saws.
Me too - just finished building the big one (not the huge).
Love that dude but I can never tell if matthias is just super autistic or just super canadian.
Great project James! I've built steam engines as a hobby for years, and I have learned a few things about getting better power and efficiency. Mostly it comes down to stopping leaks. If you can do it, a round cylinder has a much better area to gap ratio, but I realize this is difficult with 3D printing. Making sealing surfaces longer also helps a lot (like making the piston thicker from front to back).Also, a good thick coating of grease can go a long way in sealing leaks in moving parts. And if you want it to spin faster, advancing the timing (reducing the phase offset between piston and valve to less than 90 degrees) helps. I've never done this with plastic (my engines are metal) but making the parts fit a little tight and then putting car polishing compound in the cylinder and valve body and spinning the engine will make the parts 'self machine' to fit each other better. I hope this helps!
this is what peak efficiency looks like
Like the insides of a piano
I know it might not be exactly as interesting, but maybe he could also try a vacuum-powered turbine one aswell? Could be a bit more efficient
@@xmysef4920 literally what teslas turbine was intended for.
Matthias' designs are pretty cool especially when you think about it, all he made just out of wood and off-the-shelf hardware, I often wanted to make some of his designs out of 3d prints. Another UA-camr not unlike yourself, that should have 10X more subscribers,
I'm expecting Mathias to be making a wooden balancing robot in an upcoming video
Just wanted to comment on how great of a decision not posting the CAD for this project since it wasn't your design in the first place, but asking people to go pay for the original if they want it. Creators supporting other creators is great to see!
Matthias’ work is amazing. I’ve also built his wood engine and other projects. Many of them are in my classroom for my students to explore. Great work and ideas. I’m going to have to show this video to my students.
James, this is awesom. Further collaboration with Mathias is strongly recommended bc you will have 2 of the brightest minds in one channel.
If you're going to keep working on this, Keith Appleton has a bunch of videos on tuning single cylinder steam engines. They use the same style slide valve arrangement, just with pressure instead of vacuum. I'm sure that valve box could use lapping/matching, then the vacuum could make a good seal between the outer plate and the valve, not to mention a lower durometer sealing material wherever you can.
Depending on what slicer you use, there's a setting to have the travel path avoid crossing walls. It can be helpful for getting circular objects like that smooth on the inside. Also make sure your wall order is outer/inner/infill. You'll get better surface finish by doing the outer wall first.
Good on you giving credit where credit is due. So any UA-camrs would have just stolen the idea. Great build! God bless man, and keep it up.
11:42 The moment your wife walks in the door.
hey james, i doubt you’ll see this comment but i just wanna say i really appreciate your effort and consistency on your videos over the years, i used to watch your iron man builds as a kid and grew up on them. english isn’t my first language and i was so young i didn’t know what accents were so i’d copy your voice lol. anyways i just wanna say keep it up and keep doing what makes you happy.
Oh my god. I love that Johnny #5 in the background there... That's so cool. Short Circuit is one of my most favorite movies of all time. 5:46
I think it's fantastic to see other UA-camrs referencing Matthias and his vast back catalogue of extremely useful tools and projects! I guess the only question is this... who doesn't subscribe to matthias?!
Matthias using wood is probably why its a lot of squares, you should try circles for most things. The piston for sure. The valve could work as a spinning disk with cutouts as well I'd assume. Then you don't need to convert power from rotation to translation as well, no? Then all the ports being circles would also flow better too I bet.
What on earth... you just put a big smile on my face, seeing you riding that infernal vacuum-driven Nascar contraption. Love your work, precision! and cool show.
Project idea to expand this: Electric motor, belt driven air compressor, relief valve and ball valve with compressor tank rated for 400 psi or more, this "air engine" (which is really just a basic steam engine motor) attached on both REAR wheels, now you have an electric compressor live steam engine. Also the inlet and outlet are together like that for a reason. Another component called a slide box to move the air to the other inlet will give you forward and reverse control.
I found your channel about a year ago, and I've loved it since, and, this concept seems so cool
The fire is truly uncontrollable
@@MyHandleIsGood bro, why are you using my pfp?
Drive an upgraded version with compressed air from a divers air tank. I recall many have proposed using compressed air as "fuel" for vehicles. The issue is the size and weight if the tank to store sufficient compressed air to achieve any useful range.
This is what i love, using technology to increase the losses in system 😅😂 using electricity to create motion, using motion to create a airflow, air flow back into motion, gear train to increase torque. So 1800w input and it moves slowly across the floor. Add a battery and your close to an EV
Nobody:
Absolutely no one:
James Bruton: Let's make a weird cart powered by an air engine and ride It
James, you are a mad genious.
A foot powered belows system might be a fun alternative to the leafblowers too
I was thinking the same thing, two foot powered belows that you could alternately step on to provide air. I guess it would end up as more of an over engineered bicycle but still a fun thing to try and see if it would work.
I'm loving the Wallace and Gromit energy the cart has. I'd really like to see a version two of this, with at least another piston or two.
The bolts on the flywheel probably madd the flywheel off balance, adding to vibration. The only way to balance the piston is really a second piston .
the idea is to effectively have the piston and fly wheel equaly and oppositely unbalanced so the vibrations cancel out
@@crestfallensunbro6001 i understand the train of thought, but it doesn't quite work that way. The unbalanced piston is reciprocating and causes a linear back and forth vibration. The off ballance flywheel is an eccentric weight causing a "rotating" vibration. All you end up with is a vibrating piston, and vibrating fkywheel.
"I'm just gonna rub that down the same why Matthias did on his"
-James Bruton, 2023
I had to scroll way too much to find this comment...
The absolute magic of this after the :
"It's quite stiff the way it carne out"
Absolute legend that man !
@@ralph972 LMAO, I must’ve missed that part!!!
Thank you for making this straight forward
I really enjoyed the video! I feel like you left the dust in the vacuum so that people li
would say you should empty it after every use. It's probably a trivial amount but you'd probably get more power if you cleaned the filter and tank or run the portable vac with out a bag in it. keep up the great work!
Ideas!!! High output battery on a cordless something. Maybe add volts like the guy does to toys and speeds them up until they break. And then add a bicycle disk brake, or make it work in reverse somehow like a throttle.
System mechanic is brilliant, been using its for years
Vaccumes have an intake and an exaust, they can both be hooked up to your piston.
Can you 3d print Teflon parts, or similar low friction materials, so you could get a better seal on the piston, especially on the shaft?
my parents have used a couple of shark vaccums for a while, but one thing my dad said, was that the Shark Rotator vaccums have enough vaccum power to suck a sock through the entire system and to the debris catch. i would reccomend a Shark Rotator vaccum if you want to get the most power out of a vaccum engine, of course you might need to do a few improvements to the engine to get to the stage where you need more vaccum power, but you can do it any way you want, i dont mind
Both of your vacuum cleaners are inefficient as air pumps, since they also have to fight the resistances of their own filters. I suggest you use a leaf blower to blow air through the engine instead of sucking it out, since leaf blowers have no filters. Or if you wanna expand on this idea, you could make an adapter to attach an air compressor fitting, assuming you have a compressor that can pass enough air to power this thing. Good work though, and it's nice to see Matthias Wandel's influence in your work. I've been following him for well over a decade and was starting to wonder when this crossover episode was gonna happen, lol.
9:20 stamping for myself. LOL God that epic Dyson sting was so unexpected
Would be neat to this being used with compressed air. Small canister with compressed air/c02 to drive a vehicle sounds like a good STEAM project for our youth.
You should publish it on his site.
Its always cool when one youtuber i have been watching for years references another youtuber i have been watching for years
I think most of us watch each other.
You could probably use a 3 stone hone to make a rounds sleeve smooth pretty quickly and easy but the plastic may clog up the stone
Can't wait to try out this build. I showed it to my wife and for once she is super excited about a build... like unusually excited. She's even suggesting some design changes like getting rid of the wheels, increasing the rod thickness, and a throttle for variable speeds. Well.. a wins a win. Glad she is finally starting to take interest in my hobbies.
...
Might wanna get some casting silicone as well. For, uh... casting some gaskets for better sealing. Obviously.
oh no....
I think it’s likely my apartment neighbors would think how long does she run that vacuum???????
Mattias's channel is awesome!
There are many opportunities for improving the efficiency, but I lack the experience and tools to know what would give the most improvement for a given level of design and build effort.
Clean up the airflow: smooth out the sharp corners, increase the radius of curvature, use a constant cross section where possible, etc...
Use a different style of air pump: vacuum cleaner suction decreases when the inlet is fully blocked, so vacuum cleaners don't overheat when clogged. But it means the torque curve sucks.
Match the cylinder size to the air source: it is a classic engineering optimization problem, but non-trivial.
Seals, wheels, bearings, etc ...
Also for that future version that you mentioned, I recommend using a different valve gear setup. The one you have now is know as the Stephenson valve gear, and for more speed and power I recommend using either Walschaerts or Baker valve gears.
James, I would like you to know that I have been subscribed to Matthias roughly as long as I've been subscribed to you and this video felt strangely targeted by the 30 second mark. 🤣
I also Love your Mechanism tech ❤❤❤❤and Tequniques
Tom Stanton : builds 50 variations of the air engine
This guy : driving around in his first attempt 😂
The vacuums have a suction safety to prevent overamping the motor. It’s just a bypass valve. If you disable that valve temporarily, you’ll get much more available vacuum.
Love me a good 2am James Bruton vacuum video.
I loved the vacuum change craze!
Amazing video bro.. You are the best robot guy..
A favorite creator referencing another favorite must be among my favorites.
Matthias Wandel also built a very powerful vacuum out of wood, and tested several variations. It should be simple to build. A two-cylinder version of your motor would more than double the power and probably self start.
I love the absurdity of this project!
Haha I remember this wooden engine. Someone on UA-cam a few years back made a smaller 3d printed version that ran off an aquarium pump and was used to power a marble machine that ran all over the guy's house.
I loved Matthias contents too! brilliant mind as well.
This was probably recommended a couple of times already, but you should try making it steam-powered. Integza made a small steam-powered piston engine similar to this design using a pressure cooker with a tube going from it to generate steam.
Hot steam!
With steam you need hot water plus a heat source and pressure and that needs to match the cylinder size. I think this would all get too big here to be mobile and also hot and dangerous seek the steam under pressure.
I see another obstacle in plastic with steam (just like the original in wood), which should probably break very quickly under load.
If you want to work with steam you have to work with metal I think and do some reading because steam behaves differently than compressed air.
Steam? With 3D printed materials? Errr. No.
@@AlbertDongler Maybe yes, but only with 3D printing in metal.
9:28 Henry sucks! - *BRING ON THE DYSON!!* 😂😂
They made toys back in the '90s with air-powered engines. They were called "Air Hogs". There was a plane that really flew, a monster truck, and I think a race car. They weren't R/C at first though, so you'd throw the airplane once and usually never see it again.
Can't wait to see Air Cart 2.0!!!!
Now you need a bottle of White Ace cider and you're ready to take on Rainbow road 😀
3:22 you're having to much fun shoving your rod inside this spacious box.
Looks to be a fairly traditional pressure engine, a la steam engines. Some of those changed piston size across the engine to good effect, the exhaust from one leading into the next until almost all the energy in the gas was extracted.
this thing is awesome :) when are you and Mattias making a big wooden robot?
Classic freshmen year engineering project 👌🏼
How long would it run if it was powered by, like, a pair of scuba cylinders?
You'll get allot more power using the vacuum cleaner as a blower to pump air into the motor.. Also adding some seals where you can
A female friend asked me if you sell just the engine part? Something about when she's vacuuming and a cucumber....idk🤔
Your valve gear mechanism (aka "motion") is very good for describing how the valves work on steam and air powered machines, which otherwise looks more complex and harder to visualise in the more common cylindrical layouts (though those can handle higher pressures)
The dewalt 54v leaf blower would be a great one to build with.
Amazing thanks I learnt a lot. I have made the wooden one but not as good as I like it.
Tom Stanton made a very interesting air-powered motor that might be worth consideration for this application.
Love machine IS Alive !
You might want to look into compressed air, and maybe make a design similar to compressed air locomotives that were used in mining before electric drive became more common!
I think that this is inspired by a Japanese forge blower in reverse. The blower is push pull creating a continuous flow of air.
Build onr from Lego 4 years ago. Didnt manage to power an lego car xD
Wow! This is almost like a simpler version of walschaerts valve gear! I may honestly use a similar design for an actual steam locomotive someday. However, that is in the far future.
I love both your channels! yes!
May be using a teflan (ptfe) sheet as piston but keeping it more tighter would have more effective? 🤔
You should make a compressed air vehicle with an onboard air tank next time!
It wouldn't last that long, so I'd prefer electric fans or a compressor on board too.
Interesting project!
dysons aren't known for their CFM, try a shopvac or a kirby you'd get alot more power the higher the CFM on a vacuum
Congratulations good sir, you have successfully manufactured an electric motor, with extra steps. Although, I'm kinda onboard for this.
"So, James, what'd you do this week?"
"I invented a car that runs on _vacuum energy"_
That's amazing, the wonders of gear reductions!
This kind of air engine would be best used with air pressure as the raw source of energy. Like from a steam boiler, then it would do useful work and not just be a loss in the system. Would be an interesting challenge too
Interesting idea. The only bad thing is that DYSON is very LOUD machine. I have tested many of them but the irritable whine is so terrible that I can’t stand for it. In the thumbnail you have nice looking hoover. Didn’t it work well enough?
A piston of sufficient area will even lift you with ease, the force is multiplied by the area.
This is really cool, im hoping to see an H2 or a parallel twin or an i3 in the future
He lives 400 meters away from my house on the street behind mine. We live in a TINY rurual town ( the locals call it a 'city') in a TINY rural province. For the life of me, I don't know where he buys his supplies as they only sell the basics around here. Stuff that every 'normal' person would use for the same normal, boring household projects. He must special order most of it.
You should do some research into triple expansion steam engines so you can get the most work from the pressure. Also it would be like the great ocean liners of old
wait until you find out that there is hundreds of people who make these from lego (v8s, rotaries, turbines)
Making some of the cylinder's part out of clear acrylic would be helpful for educative use of the engine.
Matt: I built an engine that doesn’t need electricity or gasoline! Maybe you can build one too?
The entirety of all energy supply monopolies: You sure about that?
This is pretty much what the Dyson concept car looks like. 😵💫
Whenever I see 3D printers at work, there's almost always an outline of PLA on the base, around the outside of the part about 5mm away from it. What's this for?
You can see it quite well at 2:20
I have always thought your printing must take ages, I didn't realize how many printers you have. No wonder you repeatedly thank lulzbot!
Nice work have you thought about adding a valve gear
remember this is atmospheric powered. you only the have the pressure of the atmosphere pushing against whatever pressure remains in the exhausted cylinder. and yeah, as a vacuum cleaner doesnt really pull a vacuum but simply moves air.. youre lucky to get 3-4 psi of "push". whereas a true "atmospheric" steam engine can pull a nearly perfect vacuum... at the start of the stroke!
impressive that it did move, another stage of reduction may have helped. may not have.
it would be interesting to run a brake on it and get a graph, see where the vacuum hits the stall speed due to piston speed and volume change and the torque suddenly drops... will it be the port size liming things, or the piston speed?
now all we need is another cylinder and walsherts valve gear and itll be perfect!