This project is from way back in April 2011 when I was watching plenty of videos on compressed air engines as part of some research work into a potential A-level project (which was later settled on an engine mount).
The below video is what got me interested in trying to make one myself, so I set about designing one on CAD and making it out of acrylic.
The premise from the video is very simple, the cam allows the air to pass into alternate chambers and that turns the flywheel which then in turn takes it over the edge and into the next phase.
Thankfully it was very easy to design and the premise was simple, get the panels cut out and epoxy it together then spray a lot of air in there and hope for the best.
After using the facilities at the school to cut the acrylic out it was quite easy to slot it all together then use acrylic to make it air tight.
After it was all bolted down to a rather shoddy piece of MDF it was hooked up to an air compressor and it ran for a small amount of time. Nothing powerful, as mentioned in the video there is plenty of leakage between the chambers and my system of attaching it all together had a lot of slack, but it still ran. Below is the video of it running, filmed by a friend (also plays the roll of the starter motor) in the DT department.
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ReplyDeleteHello, I like the engines. I've just got a laser cutter and would love to try and build one of these out of 6mm ply. Is there any chance I could get a hold of those DXF's ? Thanks
ReplyDeletePerfo,
DeleteUnfortunately in a change between computers I have misplaced this file, I can only apologise, with any sort of CAD software you should be able to get something along these lines pretty quickly.
The only thing to watch is that the two ovalised holes (at the top of the inlet/outlet) do not overlap the outermost hole in the central position as it will just vent your working gas.
I will remove that section of the post.
Sorry again,
Max.