gasoline

15 Articles

Printed Gas Can Accessories Make Refueling A Little Neater

April 26, 2023 by 44 Comments

No matter what your position is on internal combustion engines, it’s pretty safe to assume everyone is on the same page regarding wasting fossil fuels: it’s a bad thing. And nothing is as frustrating as spilling even a drop of the precious stuff before you even get a chance to burn it.

Unfortunately, the design of gas cans, at least here in North America, seems to have been optimized for fuel spillage. Not willing to settle for that, [avishekcode] came up with a 3D-printable replacement nozzle that should make dispensing gas a bit neater. It’s designed to fit one of the more popular brands of gasoline jugs available here in the States, and rather than the complicated stock nozzle, which includes a spring-operated interlock that has to be physically forced into a filler neck to open the valve, the replacement is just a slender tube with a built-in air vent. The vent keeps a vacuum from forming in the gas can and makes for a smooth, easy-to-control flow of gas and less spillage. The video below shows it in action.

The obvious issue here is chemical compatibility, since gasoline doesn’t work and play well with all plastics. [avishekcode] reports that both PLA and PETG versions of the nozzle have performed well for up to two years before cracking enough to need replacement. And then, of course, the solution is just to print another one. There may be legal issues, too — some localities have ordinances regarding gasoline storage and dispensing, so it’s best to check before you print.

Of course, one way to avoid the problems associated with storing and dispensing gasoline is to convert to electric power tools and vehicles. But as we’ve seen, that presents other problems.

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Rotary Valve Engine Gets A Second Chance, Smokes The Competition

February 21, 2022 by 42 Comments

It’s a dedicated hacker who has the patience to build an engine from scratch. And it’s a borderline obsessed hacker who does it twice. [Meanwhile In the Garage] is of the second ilk, and in the video below the break, he takes a failed engine design and musters up the oomph to get it running.

The whole build began with an idea for a different kind of intake and exhaust valve. [Meanwhile In the Garage] dreamed up a design that does away with the traditional poppet valve. Instead of valves that open by being pushed away from their seat by a camshaft, this design uses a cylinder that is scooped so that as it rotates, its ports are exposed to either the intake or the exhaust.

Four Stroke Cycle with Poppet valves. Courtesy Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0

During the compression stroke, the valve cylinder becomes part of the combustion chamber, with both ports facing away from the piston. If you read the comments, you’ll find that multiple people have come up with the idea through the years. With his mill, lathe, and know-how, [Meanwhile In the Garage] made it happen. But not without some trouble.

The first iteration resisted all valiant attempts at getting it started. The hour-long video preceding this one ended up in a no-start. Despite his beautiful machine work and a well thought out design, it wasn’t to be. Fire came from the engine either through the exhaust or the carburetor, but it never ran. In this version, several parts have been re-worked and the effect is immediate! The engine fired up nicely and even seems to rev up pretty well. Being a first-generation prototype, it lacks seals and other fancy parts to keep oil out of the combustion chamber. Normal engine oil has been added to the fuel as a precaution as well. The fact that it smokes quite badly isn’t a surprise and only proves that the design will benefit from another iteration. Isn’t that true for most prototypes, though?

Home-grown engines aren’t a new thing at Hackaday, and one of This Author’s favorite jet turbines used a toilet paper holder. Yes, really.  Thanks to [Keith] for the Tip!

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Running Methanol RC Engines On Gasoline

January 22, 2022 by 33 Comments

Methanol is a popular fuel for small engines used in radio-controlled models, but comes at a higher price than gasoline. It’s also harder to source and can be a mite corrosive, too. Gasoline comes with some benefits, but running it in a methanol engine usually requires some mods. [David] and [Bert] worked together to build a mixture controller for just this purpose.

The controller uses a solenoid to control the flow of gasoline to a conventional methanol-tuned carburetor for a small RC engine, allowing it to be accurately tuned to run gasoline well across the whole RPM range. Having gone through many revisions, all documented in a big forum thread, the latest version uses a Seeduino Xiao controller and a BMP280 pressure and temperature sensor for determining the right fuel/air mixture for the conditions. A small OLED screen can optionally be fitted to help with configuration of the mixture controller.

The system has worked well in testing, with [David] and [Bert] reporting that they have “converted engines as small as 0.3 CID up to large radials with this system.” It’s a promising tool that could be handy to have in the RC modeller’s arsenal.

These tiny engines have other applications too; they can make for one crazy power drill, that’s for sure!

Electric Vehicles, The Gasoline Problem, And Synthetic Fuels

October 18, 2021 by 115 Comments

When you’re standing at the gas station filling up your car, watching those digits on the pump flip by can be a sobering experience. Fuel prices, especially the price of gasoline, have always been keenly watched, so it’s hard to imagine a time when gasoline was a low-value waste product. But kerosene, sold mainly for lighting, was once king of the petroleum industry, at least before the automobile came along, to the extent that the gasoline produced while refining kerosene was simply dumped into streams to get rid of it.

The modern mind perhaps shudders at the thought of an environmental crime of that magnitude, and we can’t imagine how anyone would think that was a good solution to the problem. And yet we now face much the same problem, as the increasing electrification of the world’s fleet of motor vehicles pushes down gasoline demand. To understand why this is a problem, we’ll start off by taking a look at how crude oil is formed, and how decreasing demand for gasoline may actually cause problems that we should think about before we get too far down the road.

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Tech Hidden In Plain Sight: Gas Pumps

November 12, 2020 by 67 Comments

Ask someone who isn’t technically inclined how a TV signal works or how a cell phone works, or even how a two-way switch in a hall light works and you are likely to get either a blank stare or a wildly improbable explanation. But there are some things so commonplace that even the most tech-savvy of us don’t bother thinking about. One of these things is the lowly gas pump.

Gas pumps are everywhere and it’s a safe bet to assume everyone reading this has used one at some point, most of use on a regular basis. But what’s really going on there?

Most of it is pretty easy to figure out. As the name implies, there must be a pump. There’s some way to tell how much is pumping and how much it costs and, today, some way to take the payment. But what about the automatic shut off? It isn’t done with some fancy electronics, that mechanism dates back decades. Plus, we’re talking about highly combustible materials, there has to be more to it then just a big tank of gas and a pump. Safety is paramount and, experientially, we don’t hear about gas stations blowing up two or three times a day, so there must be some pretty stout safety features. Let’s pay homage to those silent safety features and explore the tricks of the gasoline trade.

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Fail Of The Week: How Not To Watercool A PC

June 17, 2020 by 50 Comments

To those who choose to overclock their PCs, it’s often a “no expense spared” deal. Fancy heat sinks, complicated liquid cooling setups, and cool clear cases to show off all the expensive guts are all part of the charm. But not everyone’s pockets are deep enough for off-the-shelf parts, so experimentation with cheaper, alternatives, like using an automotive fuel pump to move the cooling liquid, seems like a good idea. In practice — not so much.

The first thing we thought of when we saw the title of [BoltzBrain]’s video was a long-ago warning from a mechanic to never run out of gas in a fuel-injected car. It turns out that the gasoline acts as a coolant and lubricant for the electric pump, and running the tank dry with the power still applied to the pump quickly burns it out. So while [BoltzBrain] expected to see corrosion on the brushes from his use of water as a working fluid, we expected to see seized bearings as the root cause failure. Looks like we were wrong: at about the 6:30 mark, you can see clear signs of corrosion on the copper wires connecting to the brushes. It almost looks like the Dremel tool cut the wire, but that green copper oxide is the giveaway. We suspect the bearings aren’t in great shape, either, but that’s probably secondary to the wires corroding.

Whatever the root cause, it’s an interesting tour inside a common part, and the level of engineering needed to build a brushed motor that runs bathed in a highly flammable fluid is pretty impressive. We liked the axial arrangement of the brushes and commutator especially. We wonder if fuel pumps could still serve as a PC cooler — perhaps changing to a dielectric fluid would do the trick.

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Old Chainsaw Repurposed For Kitchen Use

August 19, 2019 by 17 Comments

There are many ways to keep critical appliances running during a power outage. Maybe a UPS for a computer, a set of solar panels to charge your phone, or even a generator to keep your refrigerator or air conditioning working. This modification to a standard blender will also let you ride through a power outage while still being able to make delicious beverages. It runs on gasoline.

The build uses an old chainsaw to power the blades of the blender. [Bob] was able to design and build an entirely new drivetrain to get this device to work, starting by removing the chainsaw chain and bar and attaching a sprocket to the main shaft of the motor. A chain connects it to a custom-made bracket holding part of an angle grinder, which supports the blender jar. Add in a chain guard for safety and you’ll have a blender with slightly more power than the average kitchen appliance.

The video of the build is worth watching, even if your boring, electric-powered blender suits your needs already. The shop that [Bob] works in has about every tool we could dream of, including welders, 3D printers, band saws, and even a CNC plasma cutter. It reminds us of [This Old Tony]’s shop.

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