Electrified Yard Equipment Hauls Grass

October 2, 2013 by Adam Fabio 45 Comments

mower2

[AmpEater] spent the summer converting yard equipment from internal combustion to electric power. The conversions run from a relatively tame Wheel Horse, to an insane Cub Cadet. The Wheel Horse lost its Kohler engine in favor of a hydraulic pump motor from a crown forklift. 48 volt power is supplied by MK lead acid gel cells. An Alltrax 300 amp controller keeps this horse reigned in.

On his Reddit thread, [AmpEater] says he is especially proud of his Cub Cadet zero turn ride on mower. For those who aren’t up on lawn implement terminology, a “zero turn” means a mower with zero turning radius. Zero turn mowers use two large wheels and tank style steering to turn within their own radius. We bet this style mower would also make a pretty good robot conversion, however [AmpEater’s] zero turn is still setup for cutting the grass.

After pulling the V-twin motor the 48 volt Motenergy ME-1004 was put in place. Batteries are 3 x Enerdel 48V 33 amp hour lithium ion packs. The packs are wired in series to provide 144V nominal. Right about here is where our brain started to melt. A 48V motor on 144V has to mean magic smoke, right? This is where the motor controller magic comes in.

Continue reading “Electrified Yard Equipment Hauls Grass” →

DIY 250 Lb Thrust Liquid Oxygen/Kerosene Rocket

October 1, 2013 by James Hobson 28 Comments

Robert’s Rocket Project has been going on for a long time. It has been around so long that you can go all the way back to posts from 2001, where he talks about getting his first digital camera! The site is dedicated to his pursuit of liquid fueled rocket engine building. It’s a great project log and he has finally come to the point where he will be testing his first flight vehicle soon.

His latest project is a 250lbf regeneratively cooled engine. It uses kerosene as the fuel, and liquid oxygen as the oxidizer. The neat thing is he utilizes the temperature change of the liquid oxygen expanding to cool the chamber and nozzle before being burned. This allows for a very efficient and powerful combustion of the fuel. He has some videos of testing it on his site, we just wonder why he doesn’t host them on YouTube or something…

Anyhow, there’s more than enough info on his site to try and recreate some of his experiments, but perhaps you should start here instead: How to Design, Build and Test Small Liquid-Fuel Rocket Engines.

[Thanks Ray!]

Diesel Bike Build: Round 2

September 4, 2013 by Marsh 32 Comments

alexDieselBike02

[Alex] has been hard at work on his second vegetable-oil-powered diesel bike build. The last time we checked in, he was finishing off work on his Honda CB400. Unfortunately, he felt it wasn’t quite big enough to ride comfortably, and as most first builds go, it was burdened with its share of problems. Now he’s snagged a Yamaha XJ600 off eBay, cleaned it up and started the modifications. [Alex] extended the frame to accommodate a new engine, rebuilt the gearbox, and perhaps most daunting: turned down the pulleys with a vintage 1950’s lathe.

Now that [Alex’s] bike has passed the MOT inspections, he can enjoy cruising around while doing his part to save the environment. His build log details the process, and is packed with enough pictures to keep you busy for a few hours while it walks you through each step. You can watch the bike’s test-run video below. For you off-road types, check out the all-wheel drive motorcycle from last month.

Continue reading “Diesel Bike Build: Round 2” →

Four-stroke Engine With Glass Cylinder Is A 2400 RPM Piece Of Art

August 8, 2013 by Mike Szczys 46 Comments

We know a lot about toggling bits in a register, but only a bit about how engines work. This one inspires us to throw ourselves into the field with reckless abandon. [Huib Visser] built this glass cylinder four-stroke engine and he took great care to make it beautiful. We don’t need our projects to be polished and gleaming, but we have to admit that this the opposite of what we see when popping the hood on our 12-year-old rust bucket out front.

You can’t see it in this image, but just on the other side of the fly-wheel is a smaller wheel with a cord wrapped around it that acts as the pull start. This gets the toothed timing belt going along with the cylinder. As part of the demo video we get a good look at how the rotary intake and exhaust valves work. [Huib] also took the time to demonstrate how the rare earth magnets and ~~hall effect sensor~~ reed switch synchronize the ignition system.

You won’t want to miss the end of the video which show it in action as It burns Coleman fuel (white gas) and is lubricated with WD-40. This is jaw dropping and it works like a charm, but still not that far removed from the concepts seen in [Lou’s] hardware store engine project.

UPDATE: Here’s write up this engine (translated) [Thanks ChalkBored]

Continue reading “Four-stroke Engine With Glass Cylinder Is A 2400 RPM Piece Of Art” →

Building An Internal Combustion Engine From Hardware Store Parts

July 26, 2013 by Mike Szczys 69 Comments

~~[MacGyver]~~ [Lou Wozniak] is on a mission to build an internal combustion engine using only hardware store parts. What you see above is his third attempt at it. Depending on your hardware store this may have ventured outside of what they sell because [Lou] switched over to using gasoline. But the first two attempts were powered by a propane torch fuel canister.

Unfortunately it still isn’t running. But the demo below makes us think that he’s really close. Timing is always touchy and that seems to be what is causing the problems. He makes use of a lot of plumbing fixtures. At the right you can see the parts (including a peanut butter jar) which make his carburetor with a valve pointing straight up as the choke. The fuel and air mixture moves down through the pipe to the cylinder and valve assembly where it is ignited by the black grill igniter module. His custom cut plywood gear moves with the fly-wheel. It triggers his improvised spark plug by using a bit of wire to pull on the leaf switch.

We feel like he’s so close to getting this up and running. If you have any advice on where he might be going wrong [Lou] welcomes your input.

Continue reading “Building An Internal Combustion Engine From Hardware Store Parts” →

1,200 Hours Of Work Results In The Smallest V12 Engine

June 9, 2013 by Caleb Kraft 41 Comments

[José Manuel Hermo Barreiro] has spent many many hours crafting these tiny engines from hand. Every single piece is custom made specifically for the engine it is going onto. He has created aircraft engines, car engines, and marine engines that all actually run and are the smallest of their kind in the world.

At one point in this video he stands in a room with several engines lined up, all running smoothly and considers that there are possibly over 15,000 hours of work right there in front of him.

Here’s a video specifically about the 12 cylinder construction.

[Thanks Staskazz]

Second Grade Science Project: A Steam Engine

March 20, 2013 by Mike Szczys 30 Comments

2nd-grade-steam-engine

If you’re looking for a way to let the kids get hand-ons with science this is a perfect example of how to do it. [Erich] wanted to help out with his 7-year-old’s science project. They decided to build a working model of a steam engine but couldn’t find online instructions appropriate for the age group. So the two of them not only pulled off the build, but then they wrote a guide for others to follow. The thing about it is, you really have to understand a concept to teach it to someone else. So we think the write-up is equally important to having actually done the experiment.

Steam can scald you if you’re not careful. But you don’t really need steam to explore the concepts of a steam engine. The main reason to use steam is that it’s a fairly rudimentary way to build pressure which can be converted to motion. For this demonstration the blue balloon provides that pressure. It’s feeding a reservoir that connects to the valve built out of straws. A plastic piston inside pushes against the crank shaft, spinning the cardboard wheel on the left. When the piston travels past the valve opening it releases the air pressure until the machine makes a revolution and is in place for the next push. This is well demonstrated in the clip after the break.

Continue reading “Second Grade Science Project: A Steam Engine” →