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| nearnexus:
Well the beer worked. I extended the brass guide and smoothed out the cam profile a bit. The conrod needle roller cage is actually from a junked Ryobi grass trimmer. So are the two ball races supporting the crank. The piston is quite long and was canting a bit at bottom dead center so I extended the bore/piston travel into the head a bit to get the piston into the cylinder more but with the same stroke. This worked well. Top bit of machining alignment on that one :-) The finned barrel is aluminium with a bronze liner. Cylinder head and piston are mild steel (1 mm wall). The cam rod will have a very thin feeler gauge on the end at 90 degrees to the cylinder. I will bend it so that it is parallel with the inlet port in the head and held there by it's own spring tension. Well that's the idea. I will have to see if that will prevent the cam roller block from twisting in the brass guide. If not then I will put a small guide on it to mate against the side of the upright. Have to rig up a return spring also. The cam is pinned to a spacer and timing can be adjusted with a grub screw. So can the flywheel, which has a slot machined out to counterbalance the conrod. Here's some pictures below of where it's at. |
| madjackghengis:
Hi Near, in looking at your pictures, I'd say you've built your engine very stout, as it would need to be to run steam, when you are dealing with atmospheric pressure, leaving you working for every bit of action. If I were you I'd take a working design, build it as near as possible to dead on according to the designer, and "poppin" is a great design to start with, and in that way get yourself to a running engine as easily as possible, because you will spend lots of time watching it run, and some time playing with it to change its characteristics, and in all this, you will come to see dozens of places which are critical to these very low powered engines, and find your way around their peculiar aspects. I built the Duclos "flame sucker" twenty years ago, spent a bit of time every evening building it, and for some six months trying to get it to run, and ended up putting it in a box, and putting it up. I saw someone build the same engine as a student in a school project, and do a build log, and tore my shop apart to find where I'd put my engine. I had to pull it apart and compare the parts to what I saw in the log, to see my cam was wrong, and realise I had used a radius dimension when I should have used a diameter, and by remaking the crank and cam (one piece design), along with a new cylinder, which I didn't forget the head fins, and a new piston, which fit much nicer, got mine to run, and in doing so, ended up going through some six or seven cylinders, an equal number of different pistons, and found a current form I like, which works well for it, but I still have a cylinder I want to make for it, and a piston to match, expecting a better outcome, after all the other engines in the works. Once I got one that actually ran, I have not been able to stop playing with different aspects, trying to find better ways to get where I want to go. It interferes with my other engine projects, but I am learning to deal with that. I hope I am not insulting you, or disappointing you, and I hope you find a design form you both like, and runs for you. I don't think I would have tried all the different ideas I have, if I hadn't gotten that first failure to actually pull out, and come back to life. If your bearings have seals on them, they alone will keep the engine from running, either open or shielded bearings are the best and for plain bearings, narrow, minimal contact and very light oil are the name of the game. :beer: Cheers, mad jack |
| mklotz:
Hey, Jack... Have you ever heard of the concept of paragraphs? Seriously, I imagine you have some interesting things to say, but trying to read one of those impossibly long, run-on posts is way beyond my (and I suspect other's) patience level. |
| NickG:
Marv, if you really felt the need to pull someone up on their use of English perhaps you could have done it a bit more diplomatically? Jack is a fantastic contributor to the forum and flame lickers are something he's become very passionate about over the last couple of years, first reviving his Duclos one then designing and making quite a few of his own. As you mentioned, he's always got something interesting and useful to say, you don't have to read it but if you want to I'm sure you'll find it's not actually that difficult. I just don't think we should be criticising another member of the forum for something trivial such as this. If it was intended as a bit of friendly advice you should maybe have send him a personal message and done it in a more friendly manner. |
| saw:
NickG Well spoken. :clap: |
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