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.

@Bennybo1997

11 ай бұрын

You’re so cool Matthias. I’m 25 and I wanna be like you when I grow up 😂

@CubicSpline7713

11 ай бұрын

Huge respect. 👍

@crestfallensunbro6001

11 ай бұрын

even a process similar to what was done with the slide valve would probably give a very good improvement

@ifitsrusteditsmine

11 ай бұрын

Mathias, you are a big source of inspiration for my students. Thank you for your dedication.

@OzAndyify

11 ай бұрын

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!

@denniswoycheshen

11 ай бұрын

Yeah man, that guy is super underrated. I love his band saws.

@yagwaw

11 ай бұрын

Me too - just finished building the big one (not the huge).

@Mortarman0341

11 ай бұрын

Love that dude but I can never tell if matthias is just super autistic or just super canadian.

this is what peak efficiency looks like

@marcodykstracarmona

11 ай бұрын

Like the insides of a piano

@xmysef4920

11 ай бұрын

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

@sarchlalaith8836

11 ай бұрын

@@xmysef4920 literally what teslas turbine was intended for.

I'm expecting Mathias to be making a wooden balancing robot in an upcoming video

Whatever you use as an air source in the future. It would probably be more efficient to make it a closed loop so the exhaust from the piston goes to the intake of your blower to be pressurized and fed back into the intake of the piston. As long as there is no cooling requirement that gets hampered by this you will have essentially made a fluid coupling that uses air instead of a liquid.

@lilbitofeverything5801

10 ай бұрын

How would that increase efficiency tho? Only really necessary if you need an air engine in space

@nocare

10 ай бұрын

​@@lilbitofeverything5801 In a perfect system it wouldn't. However because the vacuum is exhausting the air it pulls thru the system to the atmosphere at a higher pressure and velocity than atmospheric. If it instead pushed that air into the intake side of the piston then some of that wasted energy would be recovered in the engine. Essentially creating a higher pressure differential between the engines intake and exhaust side increasing max torque.

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!

A foot powered belows system might be a fun alternative to the leafblowers too

@adamfreeman3652

7 ай бұрын

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.

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 .

@crestfallensunbro6001

11 ай бұрын

the idea is to effectively have the piston and fly wheel equaly and oppositely unbalanced so the vibrations cancel out

@H34...

11 ай бұрын

@@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.

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.

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.

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 KZreadr not unlike yourself, that should have 10X more subscribers,

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.

Thank you for making this straight forward

I found your channel about a year ago, and I've loved it since, and, this concept seems so cool

@MyHandleIsGood

11 ай бұрын

The fire is truly uncontrollable

@uncontrollablefire

11 ай бұрын

@@MyHandleIsGood bro, why are you using my pfp?

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.

James, this is awesom. Further collaboration with Mathias is strongly recommended bc you will have 2 of the brightest minds in one channel.

Good on you giving credit where credit is due. So any KZreadrs would have just stolen the idea. Great build! God bless man, and keep it up.

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.

System mechanic is brilliant, been using its for years

I loved the vacuum change craze!

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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

I love the absurdity of this project!

When I saw the Dyson power the motor and pull you, I couldn't help but think that is a true testament to the Dyson vacuum cleaner brand. Amazing!

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!

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)

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.

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.

@jamesbruton

11 ай бұрын

Hot steam!

@JohnADoe-pg1qk

11 ай бұрын

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.

@AlbertDongler

11 ай бұрын

Steam? With 3D printed materials? Errr. No.

@JohnADoe-pg1qk

11 ай бұрын

@@AlbertDongler Maybe yes, but only with 3D printing in metal.

Amazing thanks I learnt a lot. I have made the wooden one but not as good as I like it.

Interesting project!

Mattias's channel is awesome!

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.

Love me a good 2am James Bruton vacuum video.

very cool. thanks for sharing

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.

That's amazing, the wonders of gear reductions!

The grease that you puted on the piston it also sealing the whole cylinder and the pistons sides

I think it's fantastic to see other KZreadrs 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?!

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.

Amazing video bro.. You are the best robot guy..

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

The dewalt 54v leaf blower would be a great one to build with.

I love both your channels! yes!

I think that this is inspired by a Japanese forge blower in reverse. The blower is push pull creating a continuous flow of air.

I also Love your Mechanism tech ❤❤❤❤and Tequniques

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.

Nice work, James. I feel like your suck and stroke machine could be useful for the pleasure droid I'm building. We're really living in an exciting future.

9:20 stamping for myself. LOL God that epic Dyson sting was so unexpected

Can't wait to see Air Cart 2.0!!!!

Vaccumes have an intake and an exaust, they can both be hooked up to your piston.

I loved Matthias contents too! brilliant mind as well.

Making some of the cylinder's part out of clear acrylic would be helpful for educative use of the engine.

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.

Love machine IS Alive !

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.

Very Nice!

Looks like a good way to power the fan drive on a hovercraft.

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

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

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!

Classic freshmen year engineering project 👌🏼

Its always cool when one youtuber i have been watching for years references another youtuber i have been watching for years

@jamesbruton

11 ай бұрын

I think most of us watch each other.

this thing is awesome :) when are you and Mattias making a big wooden robot?

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 ...

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.

How do you guys get your Prints stable? Mine just break like glass

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

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.

Complimenti bel lavoro!!!! Ho una domanda, se con la ruota che gira fai girare un alternatore producendo corrente elettrica, magari un alternatore grande, come quelli alimentati dai generatori a benzina, riusciresti a produrre corrente elettrica? E se sì potresti alimentare il motore elettrico che. Usi adesso e, probabilmente avresti anche corrente elettrica in più, free Energy? Sarebbe possibile?

How long would it run if it was powered by, like, a pair of scuba cylinders?

id love to see a video with somthing to do with a liquid piston rotary engine

A favorite creator referencing another favorite must be among my favorites.

This is really cool, im hoping to see an H2 or a parallel twin or an i3 in the future

You should publish it on his site.

May be using a teflan (ptfe) sheet as piston but keeping it more tighter would have more effective? 🤔

Looks like an old Dyson and just a note for that predictive text, they do not make rockets as far as I know and some cordless Dyson is actually use a centrifugal compressor 9:33

A piston of sufficient area will even lift you with ease, the force is multiplied by the area.

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.

Tom Stanton made a very interesting air-powered motor that might be worth consideration for this application.

Now you need a bottle of White Ace cider and you're ready to take on Rainbow road 😀

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

What is the purpose of air motor if your already using motor in vacume cleaner

Perhaps some thin rubber seals around the edges of your piston?

Can you make a fully fleshed out doc oct arm? I think it would be awsome!

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

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. 🤣

wow i never thought that was posible

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?

An inverted japanese box bellows, really cool idea.

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!

You could use graphite powder as it is a good lubricant

Congratulations good sir, you have successfully manufactured an electric motor, with extra steps. Although, I'm kinda onboard for this.

Awesome.

How did you go through this whole thing an never empty the bin?

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.

You should make a compressed air vehicle with an onboard air tank next time!

@jamesbruton

11 ай бұрын

It wouldn't last that long, so I'd prefer electric fans or a compressor on board too.