Small Chuck's Single Hit & Miss

[dreeves]

Chuck,
Will a weaker spring pressure or a storng spring. make the engine run better?

 

[cfellows]

Chuck,
Will a weaker spring pressure or a storng spring. make the engine run better?

Generally speaking, a stronger spring of .020" - .026" wire is preferred. You want the slave exhaust valve to open as quickly as possible after the inlet valve closes. This keeps the back pressure at a minimum on the exhaust stroke and is particularly important when running in hit n miss mode.

A weaker spring, of .015" - .019" wire is really only practical for running the engine on lower pressure and at slow speeds in continuous mode.

Chuck

 

[Superfast]

Nice Little Engine Arv !

It sounds pretty good to me. If you want to change the sharpness of the hits, try Chucks idea and put a little stronger spring on the exhaust valve. You can also try playing with the governor spring a little. What I found with mine, if I lighten the spring tension on the weights and increase the air pressure I can get the hits to spread out alittle more. The increased air pressure really gets the flywheels moving when it hits and the weaker spring will allow it to "miss" for a little longer period of time.

The whistle you are hearing is most likely the exhaust during the missed cycles. Mine was doing the same thing, the air moving in and out of the valve so fast caused it to whistle slightly. I enlarged the exhaust port a little (as much as the spring would allow) and it went away.

Great looking little engine! Do you have any picc of it sitting still? Kinda wanted to check out your flyweights!

Scott

 

[cfellows]

One other thing you might want to play with is the valve timing. You want to make sure the inlet valve closes well before bottom dead center.

Chuck

 

[putputman]

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the tip on the whistle. I'll give it a try.

I did change the governor a bit, mainly because I ran out of room. One of the first things I make for any engine is the crank. I guess once that is made, the rest can be made to fit it. Chuck's design for the crank was made for the original engine. The governor was added later. I didn't allow for this. Rather than make another crank, I came up with this design.

Here are some photos of the engine & governor.

This is the governor. I recessed the governor mount into the flywheel. The fly weight mounts and the drive system is part of the main piece. One of the advantages of this design is that there is little or no wear on the weights or movable piece. The actuator rotates with the flywheel.

I use the same cam feature that you used. The spring moves the actuator into a trip position and the weights pull it back out of trip postion. I used several springs before I got it to where it is today.

 

[johnlaudano]

I'm New to this forum and recently read about the air engines. I'm very impressed. Can you tell me how to get a copy of the plans? Ive tried the link in the posts but it seems not to work (it could just be my unfamiliarity with how to use it).
thanks.
John

 

[kjk]

The link is dead for whatever reason, but you can get Brian Rupnow's excellent drawings here:

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=get199

There are a number of excellent build threads for this engine as well, such as this one:

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=4761.75

Be aware that every builder puts their own stamp on the engine and details may vary.

 

[johnlaudano]

Thanks but that link appears dead also.
John

 

[kjk]

Just tested them and both are good.

The first is an archive of many pdfs and the second is a link to MetalButcher's build thread.

If you like you can do a google search inserting this into the search field:

"Chuck's single" site:www.homemodelenginemachinist.com

 

[dreeves]

What ever happened to superfast? I was looking for photos of his modified engine and the links several pages back are bad now.

Dave

 

[Engine maker]

I agree the links are all dead.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

I just went to the file hosting site "MediaFire" where I had posted many of my plans for people to download. The site seems to have been overwhelmed by viruses, and I am unable to download the plans myself!!!---Brian Rupnow

 

[Brian Rupnow]

I was able to find my plans on this forum under downloads, and I downloaded a zip file of .pdf's and it worked for me. I have tried to figure out how to post the link here, but can't figure out how.
Go to the download area on this site and in the search box, type "plans"---this will take you to a page full of different headings.--Find the one that says" Another Chuck Fellows engine as built by Brian Rupnow" and click it. This will open another window from which you can download the zip file of pdf's titled UPDATED_HIT_AND_MISS_STEAM_ENGINE_PLANS.ZIP

 

[dreeves]

Im looking for the pictures of his engine. he modified it to look like bob shores little angel. I wanted to take a close look at it.

Dave

 

[Bromanelli]

Here it is, my small Chuck's Horizontal Single with added flyweight governor. At first I didn't know if it would work but a few suggestions by Chuck and Gail got it running!

Here is the video, see what you think:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4KHmDs-iN4

The engine is still in the "rough" but now that it is running pretty well I need to get rid of some tooling marks!

Scott

My name is Bob Romanelli.
I am the apprenticeship coordinator at the Max Daetwyler Corp. I run an apprenticeship program here at Daetylwer and we are in partnership with 8 other companies offering a 4 year program to rising seniors in and around theCharlotte NC area. http://apprenticeship2000.com/

My apprentices go through a 4 year program that includes school and at work training. It is a very selective process and one that is very rewarding for the students as they graduate from it. Never the less I am always looking for good projects and after speaking to one of my graduated apprentices who is into hit and miss engines he suggested something like a hit and miss engine as a project. One of the motors I believe was a Chuck Fellows design but I cannot seem to find any prints on it as a starting place. If I could understand how the parts work I could machine it but for now my plan is to have working prints if I can and then have my apprentices go through and redraw it and maybe scale it up. Once that is complete we could machine the parts as they get to the machine shop and then weld up a base for it when they get to the welding shop and then do some paint when they get to assembly.
I think these projects would be wonderful for my apprentices to build, fabricate,machine and see work. They would also get to keep it at the end of their graduation. If there is any way I could get a full set of your drawings then that would help me to get this idea in the works. I’d love to see some other video to understand how the counter weight is actuated and how the mechanism actually functions.
Once again thankyou in advance for any information you might be able to provide.


Best regards,

BobRomanelli
Apprenticeship Coordinator
Max DaetwylerCorporation
13420Reese Blvd. West
Huntersville, NC 28078

 

[cfellows]

Hi Bob,

I designed that that particular engine and I do have some drawings of it without the Hit n Miss mechanism. I believe I recall, or at least can find, how his Hit n Miss setup worked.

I have designed and built numerous small engines as a hobby, over 20 I think. Here is a link to my youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/cffellows?feature=mhee

If you would send me your email in a personal message, I'd be happy to provide you what I have and work with you on further developing plans.

Chuck

 

[Bromanelli]

Hi Bob,

I designed that that particular engine and I do have some drawings of it without the Hit n Miss mechanism. I believe I recall, or at least can find, how his Hit n Miss setup worked.

I have designed and built numerous small engines as a hobby, over 20 I think. Here is a link to my youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/cffellows?feature=mhee

If you would send me your email in a personal message, I'd be happy to provide you what I have and work with you on further developing plans.

Chuck

Chuck
This is an honor for me. Thank you so much for contatcting me. My email address is [email protected]. I would reall enjoy seeing your designs and passing them along as projects to my apprenticies. As I stated I run an apprenticship program at the Max Daetwyler Corp. I have been a tool maker for 44 years and now its my time and pleasure to give back a little of what I have learned. Some of the stuff I have I have seen of yours would be sheer magic as projects for these young individuals and a joy for me to teach how to make. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I look forward to getting a good look at the plans and planning how we will accomplish the task.
Thank you
Bob Romanelli