Posted June 30, 201212 yr On his Brickshelf gallery, Filus posted 10 closeup pictures of his Lego Technic "Pseudo" Rotary Engine. It has 16 cylinders in two sets (at the 12-o'clock, 1:30, 3:00, 4:30, 6:00, 7:30, 9:00, and 10:30 positions). There is enough revealed that you could possibly build one yourself, to fit in a Lego Technic piston aircraft.
June 30, 201212 yr It's for sure not a true rotary engine. It is merely 4 sets of 4 cylinder engines geared together. Also, I've never seen a dual layer rotary engine, but that does not mean they don't exist. It's cool, but it's not really accurate.
June 30, 201212 yr i think this is suppossed to be a radial not a rotary... they are completely different... radial= all cylinders are centered around a central point... rotary the piston is shaped as a triangle with curved sides that rotates inside of a cylinder... Radial rotary My link
July 1, 201212 yr Pretty neat looking engine. I like the crankshaft design. i think this is suppossed to be a radial not a rotary... they are completely different... radial= all cylinders are centered around a central point... rotary the piston is shaped as a triangle with curved sides that rotates inside of a cylinder... Radial rotary My link You're right, it looks more like a radial. I think the rotary engine you are referring to is the Wankel type rotary engine. Some early radial engines spun with the prop to keep cool. These spinning radials were also called rotary engines. They are a fascinating type of motor. The Sopwith Camel and Fokker Tri-plane were two examples of airplanes with rotary engines. It's for sure not a true rotary engine. It is merely 4 sets of 4 cylinder engines geared together. Also, I've never seen a dual layer rotary engine, but that does not mean they don't exist. It's cool, but it's not really accurate. Gnome built a double row 14 cylinder rotary, but I don't think it was used much.
July 1, 201212 yr I don't think it would be all that hard to build a tri-cylinder radial engine with one of those triangle-like joiner pieces. Finding a way to attach all the pistons to the crankshaft would be a problem, though... perhaps a four-cylinder would be best. The big issue with the Lego cylinders for this project is the fact that you can really only have two cylinders hooked up to the same portion of the crankshaft, unless there's a special part I'm unaware of.
July 1, 201212 yr After seeing this, I decided to try make my own. My first try is a 6 cylinder radial, using the "Technic Wedge Belt Wheel (Pulley)" It does have a sweep of two units though, because I haven't figured out an easy way to make a 1/2 unit offset for the central axle yet. It is a bit clunky, and a 1/2 offset rather than 1 would fix that problem, plus figuring out a way to build it using something other than the wedge belt wheel so there is a pinhole in the middle would help a lot too. sorry for the bad quality, I must have had my flash settings too high. I know that radial engines are supposed to have an odd number of cylinders, so my next test will probably be 9 cylinders, which apart from 3 would be the easiest odd number to build. I could also try 2 or 4 lots of 3 in a row.
July 1, 201212 yr i think this is suppossed to be a radial not a rotary... they are completely different... radial= all cylinders are centered around a central point... rotary the piston is shaped as a triangle with curved sides that rotates inside of a cylinder... Radial rotary My link Well, oops. I meant to say that it was radial, but typed out rotary Ah well, nobody's perfect. @Matt The Tuba Guy: That's one spiffy true radial. Here's a couple of tips on impovement: try using one of those old model team wheel hubs. the pin hole layout is identical, except for the center, which is a pin hole. Be warned, however, that the hubs are really hard to remove from the wheels, and are much wider and thicker than the wedge belt whee Edit: accursed phone makes me double post again. Edited July 1, 201212 yr by Saberwing40k
July 1, 201212 yr After seeing this, I decided to try make my own. My first try is a 6 cylinder radial, using the "Technic Wedge Belt Wheel (Pulley)" It does have a sweep of two units though, because I haven't figured out an easy way to make a 1/2 unit offset for the central axle yet. It is a bit clunky, and a 1/2 offset rather than 1 would fix that problem, plus figuring out a way to build it using something other than the wedge belt wheel so there is a pinhole in the middle would help a lot too. I know that radial engines are supposed to have an odd number of cylinders, so my next test will probably be 9 cylinders, which apart from 3 would be the easiest odd number to build. I could also try 2 or 4 lots of 3 in a row. That's a really nice design, and I like how you built the connecting rods. 6 cylinder radials do exist, and they were built with two rows of 3 cylinders. The back row was only a couple inches behind the front row, so the row offset wasn't as noticeable as the 14 or 18 cylinder engines. Again, nice job on those connecting rods. A 9 cylinder engine would be very nice. Here's a 16 cylinder radial engine I built: The connecting rods are 1x7 thin liftarms. It's not ideal, but It works surprisingly well. Edited July 1, 201212 yr by dhc6twinotter
July 2, 201212 yr @Matt The Tuba Guy: That's one spiffy true radial. Here's a couple of tips on impovement: try using one of those old model team wheel hubs. the pin hole layout is identical, except for the center, which is a pin hole. Be warned, however, that the hubs are really hard to remove from the wheels, and are much wider and thicker than the wedge belt whee you mean this part? Great idea, except I don't have any model team sets. I might try using three of the 5 long thin beams, and use 3 long beams to connect them at the ends. It will be a little bit bigger, but it will have a pinhole in the middle.
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