See-Through Carburetor Gives A Clear Demonstration

Carburetors have been largely phased out on most automobiles, but for a century they were the standard, and still are on many smaller engines. Armed with a high-speed camera and with the help of his father, [Smarter Every Day] investigates these devices by experimenting with a DIY see-through carburetor connected to a real engine.

The purpose of a carburetor is to mix gasoline and oxygen to the correct ratio for combustion inside the engine. Gasoline flow from the tank to the bowl, from where gets sucked into the venturi. The choke valve adjusts the amount of air entering the carb, while the throttle controls the amount of air-fuel mixture entering the engine. It appears that the carburetor was made from a resin 3D printed body and manifold, with an acrylic cover and PLA throttle and choke valves. It was attached to a single-cylinder engine.

The high-speed footage is incredible, and clearly shows the operation of the carburetor and makes it incredibly easy to understand. If you’re interested, he also uploaded a second video with almost 80 minutes of detailed footage.

[Smarter Every Day]’s infectious curiosity has led to numerous fascinating projects, including a supersonic baseball canon and the backward bicycle.

19 thoughts on “See-Through Carburetor Gives A Clear Demonstration

        1. I love his content but I’m still flabbergasted that the end of every video has a bible quote. How can a man be so into science and theory and figuring things out for himself and STILL be so deep into religion?

          1. Historically, there have been many great scientists who were also devout so I’m not sure where you’re going with this. Being devout and being a scientist are not mutually exclusive. You can be both.

          2. As scientists push farther and farther back into the studies of origin, even a statistician ought to admit that there’s a 50% chance that science and everything in existence evolved from nothing, (seems unlikely to me,) and a 50% chance that God invented the stuff to make said primordial soup, and, thinking ahead, the void to stick it in.

            I have trouble trying to wrap my head around what is required to create a void. Creating the parts and rules to form electrons in just 14 billion years, takes some smarts. How do you invent a void? Voids just don’t form all by themselves when there is no “nothing” to create nothing from. I love science and respect its Inventor. Remember when we knew of the 4 elements? Then we discovered 100+ AND later, what they were ALL made of. And now we know that atomic particles are yet made of even smaller things! We can make gold from other things. But I bet we will never make a void. Making something out of nothing seem hard? How about making nothing? Creating empty space? It evolved? From what? Imagine, if you can, when space did not exist.

  1. Meh. He had a chance to call string trimmers by their proper name and a yet he went with weed eater.
    So no sympathy from me if he loses a few sponsor pennies.

  2. That’s how indexing sites like Hackaday work. Short intro and a link to the full project if you’re interested. Good for the aggregator site (Hackaday gets some revenue through the ads) and good for the project site that gets some extra attention. For “Smarter every day” at 10M subscribers that’s irrelevant, but some of the niche projects get most of the attention by being featured here. Or at least that’s how I see it.

  3. A simple description of how a carburetor works isn’t protected in any way. The value in Destin’s video is the novel visual demonstration that brilliantly conveys exactly what is happening, which you still have to watch the video to get.

    This is dramatically different from a lot of videos that just bury a few lines of explanation in ten minutes of blather.

    1. ‘Round these parts, a brush cutter has a sawblade on it. What others seem to call a ‘string trimmer’, us fellas down under call a whipper snipper.
      Suma youse blokes needta learn how ta talk propah!

  4. On a side note for trimmers.
    IF you’re having troubles with the line welding itself together in the head?
    Two things that work well for me.
    1st: Keep the line in a container of water. An old coffee creamer jug works well.
    But wash the jug thoroughly first!
    Dump out and change the water a couple times each summer so it doesn’t get gross.

    2nd: Resist the urge to “stuff” the spool when you re-wind it.
    The bottom layers of line gets dry and compressed before you use it, if the spool is wound to being packed.
    I’ve been doing this for a few years now and no tangles as long as you don’t stuff the spool tight.

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