You’ve heard of wind tunnels– get some airflow going over a thingy, put some some smoke on, and voila! Flow visualization. How hard could it be? Well, as always, the devil is in the details and [toast] is down in there with him with this Hot-Wheels sized wind tunnel video.

To get good, laminar flow inside of a wind tunnel, there are important ratios to be followed– the inlet and outlet diameters must relate to the interior size to get the correct slope on the contraction and exhaust cones. You need a flow straightener on both ends. All of it can be easily 3D printed, as [toast] shows, but you have to know those design rules and pay attention to, which [toast] does… this time. One of his “don’t do this” examples in this video is previous build of his where he did not follow all the rules, and the difference is clear.

Now, unless you’re hooked on flow visualizations —guilty— or are a Hot-Wheels aficionado, since that’s what this wind tunnel is sized for, you probably won’t rush to gumroad to buy [toast]’s STLs. On the other hand, if you pay attention to the lessons [toast] has learned in this video you can apply them to wind tunnels of whatever size and construction technique you need, be it cardboard or junk box plastic and get a more stable result.