Pulse Jet Tea Kettle

[Colin Furze] is just showing off in this picture. His pulse jet tea kettle is built well enough to get by without help from a blow torch, but who can blame his showmanship? In fact, once it’s running there’s no flame to be seen. That’s because the combustion happens at an earlier stage of that pipe, heating a segment that is submerged in water so that you may have your tea in no time.

Once this thing is tuned up it roars like a robotic lion. [Colin] yells his commentary at the camera, but it is picked up as nothing more than a blip of distortion. Pressurized propane and air both feed into the jet. they’re regulated by the two knobs on the base of the unit (that enclosure is actually just a pie tin). There is also a 9V battery-powered igniter built into the base. You can see how the unit was built in the video after the break.

[Thanks Manicphase]

24 thoughts on “Pulse Jet Tea Kettle

  1. This guy is hilarious! A few childish jokes that turned into great inventions and hacks, and the rest of the videos involve destruction, fire, crashes and laughs! He actually got in a bit of trouble for his flame-throwing scooter, check that one out on his channel :)

  2. Does anyone have some practical experience with pulse jet furnaces/water heaters? I am curious if it would be possible to use a pulse jet to power a DIY foundry kiln to do some aluminum work.

      1. There is at least one company in the US using them for heating and hot water. The Jettle demo showed the exact outcome I was looking for: A bright orange iron piece. That’s the kind of heat I want for melting aluminum.

    1. Probably it wouldn’t really be any better than a regular burner. The only think the pulse jet really buys you over a simple burner is the thrust, and if you’re not putting that to work, you’d just be loosing energy.

      If all you’re trying to do is heat up a little box, it’s probably overkill. If anything, the waste thrust from the pulse jet would probably steal energy from your foundry (the energy for the thrust has to come from somewhere)

      Furthermore, a burner is a lot easier/cheaper to make than a pulse jet which is more picky about sizes and dimensions (I gather).

      My impression is that foundry efficiency is mostly about insulation and thermal mass. Better insulated and less thermal mass == better foundry. Unless you’re blowing uncombusted fuel out the exhaust of your foundry, you’re going to be getting just about all the heat you can.

      If you had an operation like home heat or water, where you could use the mechanical energy of the thrust (through a turbine perhaps) to do some other work you needed to do (like pumping hot air/water) or to generate electricity in a combined heat/power setup – there I think you might really have one.

      That said, I’m no jet expert, maybe the compression in the pulse jet helps you squeeze extra useful joules of heat out of the fuel?

  3. Two things:

    1) Colin has good choice in china (technically stoneware). That stuff was Denby. It’s good.

    2) He brewed the tea with milk already in the mug! The muppet! Horrible way of making tea. Milk always goes in last.

    1. I never did quite understand why black coffee is considered manly. I prefer mine with milk & sugar.

      Though I am known to drink four shots of espresso, straight. With cream in the summer.

      So who cares.

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