Impressive.

Posted at 3:25 pm on Jun 24th, 2009 by Colin

can’t wait till they refine this. Although it does seem like a lot more to break.

Posted at 3:39 pm on Jun 24th, 2009 by Addictronics

it has less moving parts so wouldn’t it be less things to break.

Posted at 3:50 pm on Jun 24th, 2009 by 0n37w0

Is VANOS the same kind of system?

I know that BMW was investigating something like this, I don’t know where it went though.

Posted at 3:53 pm on Jun 24th, 2009 by nubie

FIAT have an implementation of this in the works. Only they use extra cams on the exhaust camshaft to pressurise an oil system, which via electronic valves acts on the inlet valves. So a half camless motor. I’d be interested to see if this fully camless method is reliably usable on a large scale motor.

Posted at 3:57 pm on Jun 24th, 2009 by Bracken

figure out of the energy saved is greater than the energy required to constantly run the computer. if so, proceed to market.

Posted at 4:05 pm on Jun 24th, 2009 by cyanide

This is similar to what all the F1 teams are doing. At very high revs (before they were limited they were pushing 22,000 RPM) mechanical valves aren’t fast enough so everyone uses electronically controlled pnuematic valves. As with this project, it also gives them a lot of control over fuel efficiency.

Posted at 5:50 pm on Jun 24th, 2009 by Subbota

@ Cyanide, this guy is pulling 14 amps at 42 volts to run that solenoid, forget the computer, the solenoids don’t seem very efficient.

Pneumatic valves? Now that seems cool.

Posted at 5:56 pm on Jun 24th, 2009 by nubie

simply Awesome

Posted at 6:20 pm on Jun 24th, 2009 by jim slipper

@ Nubie… your a dumb shit

Posted at 6:22 pm on Jun 24th, 2009 by jim slipper

Wow, this is a really cool project. @nubie how long are the solenoids pulling that much current? Probably for a very tiny amount of time, so the average power is probably far less than 14*42=588W. It could be quite efficient compared to a mechanically driven system.

Posted at 6:23 pm on Jun 24th, 2009 by eric

I’m curious as to what the MTF on those solenoids is. obviously this is a prototype, so who cares really, but in a practical application, it would have to be thought about.

Posted at 7:12 pm on Jun 24th, 2009 by Man On Fire

an alternative to the solenoid/poppet valve might be a stepper motor/rotary valve. ideally, this would require less power to drive, and eliminate the possibility of eating a valve.

Posted at 7:49 pm on Jun 24th, 2009 by cmholm

@cmholm

Rotary valves have been existence for a while but never widely implemented due to sealing issues. Coates http://www.coatesengine.com/ specifically is one such example and eliminates valve float. A good read and has been available for years but the cost must be excessive as its not widely implemented or known about even.

Posted at 10:01 pm on Jun 24th, 2009 by propeine

Quick, make it run a generator that can power the computer.

Posted at 10:40 pm on Jun 24th, 2009 by x500

@subbota –

You’ve got it mostly wrong. Although F1 (and many MotoGP) engines use pneumatic valves, they still use cams to actuate the valves. The pneumatic aspect of the system is simply used as a spring replacement, as air springs. This is completely different.

Posted at 10:46 pm on Jun 24th, 2009 by paunchy

@ 0n37w0

Have you ever worked on a typical engine? this definitely has more opportunity to fail. In a typical engine there is a cam running lifters, to push rods, to rocker arms and then the valves. There may be more parts, but they are very rarely an issue when compared to nearly any other failure. The weakest link would be the timing chain, but even those are rarely a problem.

I would trust a typical engine over one run by a couple of solenoids any day…

I’m not saying this isn’t awesome, I am not trying to take away from what has been done…

Posted at 10:52 pm on Jun 24th, 2009 by bigbob

Looks cool. How do I build it? >:3

Posted at 12:08 am on Jun 25th, 2009 by Spork

Heh, my friend and I started to think about developing a system similar to this a few years ago in high school. same concept, but we were going to try starting with an old staight-4 engine. Nice to see that someone has made quite a nice working prototype, even if only on a model engine

Posted at 12:27 am on Jun 25th, 2009 by abbott

Nothing on this engine is inherently new (camless valve systems have been about for years), or useful over what is currently in production. Dynamic valve timing, displacement on demand (removing cyls from use when not required), variable compression ratios for easy start etc are all already on production cars across the world.

However it’s a fun little project and seems to be well executed, so it gets a thumbs up from me!

Posted at 2:57 am on Jun 25th, 2009 by James

aye, f1 uses pneumatic springs, not pneumatic valves. this is to stop valve float when mechanical springs go resonant at high rpm, pneumatic pressure has no resonance.

the mechanical valve is much faster than a solenoid, it is the difference between waiting for the carrot in a rabbit trap to take effect, and having Pele kick the rabbit into the trap.

the bmw sytem initially used purely electric solenoids, but due to the massive steel plungers required to generate enough force from the available flux they moved too slow to get up to freeway rpm. but that was over 10 years ago now

small solenoids porting hydraulic power sounds interesting though

Posted at 3:11 am on Jun 25th, 2009 by springs

I wonder what is the failure mode of the solenoids… If they stay open, you get eaten valves (and like others mentioned you probably need springs to close them), if the valves all snap closed then bad things happen…

At least a camshaft leaves the valves in predictable positions if it stops rotating…

Posted at 3:49 am on Jun 25th, 2009 by octelcogopod

Yes, springs, solenoid-only are too slow and chunky to be useful, as you say – solenoid controlled hydraulics are much faster but the hydro pressure pump takes quite a bit of energy to drive. Incidentally, the air-springs also have resonance problems but, IIRC, they are at very high RPMs:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3458/3381035764_14ab40a9f4_b.jpg

Posted at 3:51 am on Jun 25th, 2009 by James

@James:thanks for the picture. I’m wondering if the pressure in the pneumatic springs can be adjusted, so it rises with rpm. Also, I have run calculations for the forces which would be required in a solenoid to open the valves and keep them opened at max long enough in the exhaust stroke (for a 500 cc cylinder, a compression ratio of 11.5 and a 0.5 cm lift, 2 exhaust valves with a 1 cm radius) would be about 14 Kg force as far as I can remember. I just couldn’t find a solenoid big enough.

Posted at 5:08 am on Jun 25th, 2009 by Nutria

@jim slipper @ Nubie… your a dumb shit
———
YOU’RE a dumb shit…

Posted at 6:01 am on Jun 25th, 2009 by Chris

zing

Posted at 6:52 am on Jun 25th, 2009 by nubie

@bigbob
I would trust a typical engine over one run by a couple of solenoids any day…

…er… you mean like fuel-injected engines? :)

Posted at 8:09 am on Jun 25th, 2009 by Roly

the solenoids are almost as big as the cylinder!
sure its cool, sure it runs, but I think they proved it woun’t realy work.

Posted at 8:52 am on Jun 25th, 2009 by chris

> “can skip power cycles which are not needed”

Idling in a breakbeat rhythm. That’d be cool.

Posted at 9:58 am on Jun 25th, 2009 by F.

Can’t you skip a power cycle on a fuel injected engine by not putting in fuel? What happens if you compress and don’t inject fuel and close the valves for compress/combust phases?

Anyway, regarding the generator comment, the 12.5cc engine used probably generates less than 0.5 HP even at peak (10k rpm) whereas even with a 45% duty cycle (open slightly less than the whole intake and exhaust phases), the two draw ~265W (0.35HP).

Posted at 11:00 am on Jun 25th, 2009 by tw

@tw – probably not much of nothing, I drove on 3 cylinders on an old honda civic for a coupla weeks when the cam started to fail. I could get up to highway speeds easily enought, 60/70 mph (not much faster)

You’d probably loose energy – obviously you’re not gaining anything by compressing air, but the friction of the piston rings on the cylinder would cause losses as well.

Posted at 11:20 am on Jun 25th, 2009 by David Hagler

Solenoids have springs and thus have a resonant frequency to which they will float also. Whats more you have the extra problems of inductive resonance and inductive impedance. Perhaps this is negligible and can be overcome by using a springless solenoid with a low enough reactance.

Posted at 11:20 am on Jun 25th, 2009 by nanomonkey

I wonder if anyone has ever considered the use of piezoelectric materials as actuators for engine valves. Depending on the material and the actuator architecture, I would expect very fast actuation times, a decent amount of actuation power, relative indifference to high temperatures, and so forth.

Posted at 1:47 pm on Jun 25th, 2009 by ac7zl

sorry guys but all of you that said in F1 it was only pneumatic spring are wrong, there was a concept going with Renault (BMW and Fiat too) that did’t go on the track becos of the new rule that follow the year of development, here are some link for you that should do some research befor saying someone is wrong…Renault was suppose to race in F1 back in the days with a V12 twin charger and full camless (electro) valve control. Why they didn’t after… simple they did’t need to…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_valve_actuation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camless

Posted at 2:37 pm on Jun 25th, 2009 by Mick

@ac7zl

I like the piezo idea. Would there be insane problems with heat and vibration, though, or are there piezo products that are insulated well enough for those purposes?

Posted at 5:41 pm on Jun 25th, 2009 by sol

I like the idea behind all of this. But it is impractical for much heavy usage. I did notice that some kids at Bristol University converted a 50cc Honda engine to use this idea. http://home.cogeco.ca/~davebowesevic/Student%20Projects.html
But I have not found anything that tells of their success or failure.

Posted at 9:31 pm on Jun 25th, 2009 by Enahs

@ roly

ah, very good point. I should have been more specific. The force required by the solenoids if implemented on a larger engine (say a modern 5.7 liter v8) would be much larger than that to regulate/allow fuel flow. The springs used to control valves exert an amazing force, especially when in high performance/horse power/rpm engines. These solenoids would be enduring tons of abuse in this application.

In addition, if a fuel delivery solenoid/injector fails there is just no fuel delivered, but if one of these fails when controlling a valve there could be catastrophic issues due to the compression present within the cylinder. Granted that there are solenoids that are designed to fail in an open or closed state, with the heat and speed they would be operating at it would still worry me.

I’m not saying that I don’t think it will ever be implemented, because I truly believe that this is an extremely viable technology. I just think that there needs to be testing done on a larger scale.

I do have a bias though :) my daily driver is a ‘71 el-camino that my father and I rebuilt from the ground up. No computers in that bad boy!

really though, amazing project that I would love to give a shot trying out. How about trying to implement it on something like a lawn mower or small go-cart as a next step…

Posted at 9:37 pm on Jun 25th, 2009 by bigbob

I am the designer of the EVIC engines. They have been my hobby for nearly 10 years. I am a retired electrical engineer and I would like to make a few comments:
My solenoid failure rate has been very low, 1 in 10 years. I have had some wear problems on the solenoid shafts.
The valves on my engines are closed by valve springs. Electrical damping is used to softly land the valves on the valve seats.
The solenoid power is about 4% to 6% of the engine’s output, increasing with engine speed. The valve train on a typical car requires about 5% of the engine’s output, a racing engine can use double this amount.
It is, as some have speculated, easier to do this on a small engine than on an automotive size engine.
The F1 rules do not allow solenoid actuated valves.
BMW, Ford, Fiat and others have built prototype engines with solenoid actuated valves. Fiat has recently announced production of their Multiair system with solenoid actuated intake valves. Intake valves are far easier than exhaust valves.
I sell a plan book for the engine shown in the video. I also sell a Student Guide CD to those who want to learn about the technology.

I have used my engines to power radio controlled model boats and model airplanes. My latest 17cc single powers an 8′ wingspan Turbo beaver and puts out about 0.8 hp at 8,000 rpm.

I am pleased that you folks are enjoying what I have done.

Dave Bowes, EVIC designer.

Posted at 4:54 pm on Jun 26th, 2009 by Dave Bowes

dave, thats some awesome designing there, great job :D

Posted at 8:02 am on Jun 28th, 2009 by d00m3d