First steam engine----Building a Wobbler

[Bogstandard]

Well done Brian.

Now you know how we all feel when we get an engine running. Grinning like a Cheshire cat and punching the air in jubilation. That feeling never stops, whether it is your first or hundredth engine.

Maybe to get it running on lower air pressure, try slackiening the spring tension until the air blows the cylinder off the face and then just tweak it back to just reseal. That will be your least friction running setting.

Again, very well done.

John

 

[Divided He ad]

Good stuff Brian ;D

Now where's the video??


I hope to be joining in with the running steam engine smile brigade very soon.... well a few weeks maybe? :




Ralph.

 

[kvom]

Only a couple of weeks since you posted you were starting. That's a fast learning curve :bow: Congrats!

 

[Brian Rupnow]

I get that tremendous rush with every machine that I design, when I see it built and operating. Of course, this is special, because its something that I actually machined and built myself. People ask me---Why do you get so excited about something that you have been doing for 43 years, designing prototype machinery. I tell them---Every time is like my very first time!!! Every machine I design is something new, that never existed before. I know the absolute jubilation that goes with seeing something I created draw its first breath and actually run as I intended. I also know the despair and frustration that comes when they don't work. Of course, everything works eventually, if you throw enough time and money at it, but when that happens, its not just me that is affected. I have to deal with irate customers who want to know why they just spent all that money to have something designed that doesn't work 100% first time, every time. thank the good Lord that I don't have that happen very often.---Brian

 

[Philjoe5]

Nice going Brian. I know the rush of watching an engine run for the first time. Happened to me not long ago....it's what keeps us going, eh? :big:

Cheers,
Phil

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Here is a rather horrible video of the machine running, taken with my digital camera (I have never actually done that before). It is not going to win the Cannes film festival, but it does show the machine running.

View attachment vido-3e002.MPG

 

[Divided He ad]

Good enough Brian... It sure is a runner ;D
If you do a bit less dancing around with all that excitement the camera might stay focused :big:

I've just had a catastrophic failure of my phone (life in a box) so I'm going to have to take my camera out to the shop with me.... This I don't like doing cause it gets dirty in there! Oh well ces't la vie!!

Thank you for the vid... always good to see a runner running ;D


Ralph.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Ralph---I have found a 1/4"-20 tapped hole in the base of my old digital camera---it must be for a tripod mount. My first thought was to screw in a bolt, set the camera up in my vice, then focus it properly and make a "hands off" video of the steam engine. But---Right now I am in the middle of a design for a prototype cookie dough manufacturing machine---which is based on parts salvaged from a now defunct strip-dough rolling machine that my customer bought out of California. My work table (and my garage as well) are totally covered in peices of "cookie dough machine". In order to create the design for a new machine, I must take all of the existing parts which will be re-used, completely disassemble them, then measure and create dimensionally accurate 3D solid models of them to use in the design of a new machine. So---The crummy video is all Iwill post today.---Brian

 

[chuck foster]

brian, that engine looks great.................who cares about the video not being perfect ???

now that you are hooked on this engine building whats your next project going to be??? :big:

if you go to cookstown steam show bring the little engine with you...........then i can see it first hand!!!

chuck

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Not sure Chuck. I was so impressed with owning a lathe that I ran out and ordered a small Busy Bee mill. Not the smallest--the next size up. Still 120 Volt, but with dial read outs. Its supposed to arrive here at the end of this month, so I'll probably wait untill its set up before I tackle another project. Next project will be steam, but not a turbine nor an oscillator. Probably either a beam engine or a horizontal fixed cylinder engine.

 

[kvom]

Brian's desription of his excitement at seeing the engine run, even though he's been designing machines for years, made me think that the feeling applies elsewhere as well.

I used to develop and manage development of complex software, and even after 30 years I would get the same excited/satiefied feeling the first time a new program worked, even partially.

No doubt the same could be said in many other fields where creative effort yields results.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

I ran my new engine on and off over the last 4 days. One of my silver solder joints let go, where the crankshaft throw attaches to the crankshaft counterbalance. I took it apart and resoldered that. It ran okay after that fix, but it didn't want to run at anything much below 20 PSI of air pressure. (It never did.) In an attempt to get it to run at a lower pressure, I machined a larger, heavier flywheel. Even with the larger flywheel it doesn't want to run on anything less than 20PSI. I have been working all day on the computer, and the engine has been chugging away all day next door in the garage. I am pleased with the engine, and for a "first ever" I judge it to be a success. Hopefully, when I get my new mill, and get better at holding parallelity and tolerances, I will eventually build an engine that will spin on lung power.

 

[mklotz]

It would be interesting to know what a human being, acting as an air compressor, can produce.

Frankly, I'd be surprised if a human could generate 1 psi at any sort of flow commensurate with turning an engine over.

Also, consider that, with a wobbler, you're fighting the not inconsiderable friction provided by the spring holding the cylinder against the frame.

Personally, I wouldn't expect any but the tiniest wobblers to be capable of being breath driven.

 

[Bogstandard]

Marv,

When I was doing my training we did an experiment on how much puff we have.

If I remember rightly as your figure states, the average person can do a normal blow around 1 psi, and by forcing it a bit by getting bulging eyes and a red face they could sometimes reach around 2psi. We also had another group to experiment on, namely trumpeters and bagpipe murderers.

These showed that the trumpet person normally generates 1.5psi with no problem, but a piper with a couple of years practice regularly reached 2.5 psi.

So this shows that if you want to take to running engines on lung power, take up a wind instrument at the same time.

It doesn't really depend on the pressure, that can be overcome by having a grossly oversquare engine, it is the volume required that makes your eyes bulge.

Breathless Bogs.

 

[mklotz]

About what I expected. A human can do about 1 psi. (I refuse to believe that bagpipers are truly of our species.)

And, yes, of course, it's the flow that will get you.

Definition of a gentleman: Someone who can play the bagpipes, but doesn't.

 

[Divided He ad]

Brian,

I was not taking the Michael... just making a joke of the erratic movie style that you used :big:
I did say I liked it too! ;D

I like the sound of your job... Not thinking I'd know where to start with such a venture! ???

Marv,

Didn't you display your tiny huff n puff engine last week? ( the one I gave up on due to lack of talent last year!)
surely you could measure the PSI required to run that little beastie?


Ralph.


P.S. I love the sound of bagpipes....Makes the hairs on my neck stand up when I hear them....... must be some ancient ancestral psychic thing??!! ??? ;D

 

[kvom]

"The best thing that can be said for bagpipes, is that they do not smell." -- Oscar Wilde

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Divided Head---I too love the sound of bagpipes. All the hair on the back of my neck stands up, I get a shiver in my spine, and it just makes me feel good. Really Good!!! Then again, it might be some ancestral thing. My moms family came from Ireland (McMullens), and Scotland (Christie). My dads family, as far as we know, came from Russia or Prussia about 6 generations back. I believe my name originally had a v, not a w at the end of it.

 

[Divided He ad]

Brian,

I've got pale skin, freckles and red hair... I might have been born in the middle of England but I am most certain my roots are further north!

My dad has been tracing our family tree... still waiting for the northern connection to arrive :big:

and if we're quoting things....
"The Irish gave the bagpipes to the Scott's as a joke, but the Scott's haven't seen the joke yet."
Oliver Herford

Do you think your mum's family had anything to do with this? :big:


Ralph.

 

[CrewCab]

Brian ........... I'm sure I can see the glow around your house from here ............. only 3000 miles away :bow:

Congratulations an your first "runner" ............. and well done, I hope to join that club before too long, time permitting.

CC ..... aka Dave