Shop work: September 2020 Part 2/2 Posted on October 9, 2020 by hakasays Sep15 Well now that the website's up it's time to head back to the shop.🔧Doing a couple initial tests towards building a flash steam boiler by dripping water into a superheated tube filled with aluminum chips.Resulting steam is at least 150c because it readily melts PLA filament🙂 pic.twitter.com/kCqiIY2haS— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 15, 2020 Sep16 Tesla Turbine tends to become more efficient at higher flows, higher nozzle velocities, and lower loads.I've not done the specific torque-testing yet but I'd estimate for 3in rotors at around 10krpm, a conventional turbine is at least twice as efficient for the same input air. pic.twitter.com/ODNAjUi5bG— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 16, 2020 I haven't made a flash steam boiler before, but this looks like it might work.Got the required tubing and fittings, gluing it all together today.At the very least it should serve as a practical source of steam to quantitatively test different kind of turbines.#TeslaTurbine pic.twitter.com/7a5o90aTCB— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 16, 2020 Now that I'm starting work with steam power, I'll need a more airtight turbine setup to test it with.Making another simpler single-rotor turbine with what I learned on the last two iterations.Should only take another day or so to finish.🔧🙂#TeslaTurbine pic.twitter.com/7qtYY8IEA9— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 16, 2020 The low-gradient experiments are more interesting right now too because it would porentially make a solar hot-water-powered engine practical.A 1-4kw steam turbine would be much cheaper with evacuated pipes than with 4kw worth of photovoltaic panels.— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 17, 2020 Sep17 ASMR Machining🔧 pic.twitter.com/AfNJeU7v5W— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 17, 2020 Flash steam boiler update for the turbine project(s).No pressure yet, but it does make steam🤓 pic.twitter.com/nijAzjZAKD— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 17, 2020 Machining the other cap for the mini-turbine, few mounting screws and a spot to fit the bearings.I accidentally countersunk the mounting screws on the wrong side, which I ended up cobbling a fix for that worked alright.https://t.co/7Faeyi6fHh pic.twitter.com/U08CXqbdE2— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 17, 2020 New mini turbine's just about finished. I'll machine the inlet+outlet ports tomorrow and should be able to test it just after that.I'm making this new one instead of hacking the V2 build because this one is designed to be completely air-tight.https://t.co/YYaVys27ti pic.twitter.com/VX7cMpx2w5— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 18, 2020 https://t.co/YYaVys27ti pic.twitter.com/pLyp7rNN5R— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 18, 2020 Depending how much luck I have here, a multistage radial turbine looks like an interesting project in the future as well.It's one of the few types of turbines that can be made with relatively loose tolerances on a very basic CNC mill.🧐https://t.co/R65ZyU3wIq pic.twitter.com/2UW1spAs3L— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 18, 2020 Sep18 RIP little end mill. Your death will be avenged🔧 pic.twitter.com/ok9MTAtsKE— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 18, 2020 Fixing the outlet to the turbine project. The question is to glue, braze, or weld?Welding is ideal but is so thick it may not work well (and my Aluminum welding skills are not… 'ideal')Leaning toward brazing to get the best of both worlds pic.twitter.com/4LP5VlyAdR— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 18, 2020 I went with aluminum brazing. Air-tight, nice and strong👍https://t.co/FVwcDPdONK pic.twitter.com/igDhHEHy9t— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 18, 2020 And the finished unit.Pretty poor performance with this rotor.🤨 The left-handed rotor works better if powered with compressed air from the outer rim,but I think maybe the blade size would be better for liquid than for air (more inertia).https://t.co/NyBpptOM8R pic.twitter.com/Qiyel2fl6d— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 18, 2020 I'm also thinking this blade-shape works better as a pump than as a turbine.It's not the direction I'm focused at the moment, but maybe I'll check to see how far it will sling a jet of water. https://t.co/C8yGX8S85j— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 18, 2020 Sep19 Today's turbine tinkerings: pic.twitter.com/YmrDz1TPTv— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 19, 2020 Up to 14,000rpm on my last bench test— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 19, 2020 Trying a 3d-printed plastic rotor with more smaller blades. Result is vastly improved performance. Spins up to almost 19,000rpm😳 https://t.co/y02N73IZtp pic.twitter.com/NIPvvEUewM— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 19, 2020 It seems that for <50kw turbines that pelton wheels are often the go-to choice, but then the nozzle geometry becomes critical.I think I'm gonna try for one more design with a variable injector-nozzle before moving on to another directionhttps://t.co/5TlPniy1O9 pic.twitter.com/4lMxRI1Myr— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 19, 2020 Theoretically it is possible to combine a heat pump (all modern refrigerators use this) with a turbine to create an engine that runs off ambient heat.Tesla's 'ambient heat engine'.You still need to supply calories to keep it running, but the only byproduct is refrigeration.😁 pic.twitter.com/RtoBUqouYr— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 19, 2020 Sep20 Today's workshop agenda, try to find or machine a needle valve to serve as a variable injector, and try out a pelton wheel-style rotor for the turbine project.https://t.co/9J0S8CxdFF pic.twitter.com/4TFvHiJi9h— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 20, 2020 Needle-valve injector built today, lots of lathe-work later.🥱You know how when you put your thumb over a garden hose that the water stream shoots out with less flow but more force?This is the same principle except it drives a turbine with it.https://t.co/8MrQxe8WE0 pic.twitter.com/AYg7gIyUY9— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 20, 2020 Tried out the homemade turbine rotor as a water pump instead of as a turbine.Not a bad result for an ~800rpm drill.🔧😁It might be strong enough to use as the compressor pump for a heat engine or just as some kind of transfer pump if the need ever arose. pic.twitter.com/64zQnMqWw1— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 20, 2020 20min rotor machining condensed into 2.You can push these machines MUCH harder than this, but if you're only making one of something it's not usually worth it.A fully-optimized HAAS mill could probably do the whole thing in under 2min flat.😳https://t.co/8MrQxe8WE0 pic.twitter.com/JrpH4J7c4R— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 20, 2020 Sep21 Testing the variable air injector today (for the turbine project)🤓It works pretty well but will take some work to fix it to the turbine bodyhttps://t.co/1EmFT4jbBZ pic.twitter.com/KrSuJF0u98— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 21, 2020 Sep26 Testing an RC brushless motor to use as a potential turbine generator.It works OK. Current is good but the voltage is quite low. <6v output under load means I would probably have to use something to step it up to a usable voltage. pic.twitter.com/a4G3ZbQG1V— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 26, 2020 Also working on the injector portion for the turbine today.Needed to bore out the chassis, and this time I'm using JB weld to fit it to the body.That'll pretty much call it a day while I wait for the epoxy to cure.I should really clean up the shop in the meantime.. pic.twitter.com/WLnCLcU7cH— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 26, 2020 I also tried another brushless RC motor (not pictured) but it performed pretty horribly.I doubt it would even produce 10 watts at 10,000 There seems to be a pretty big difference between these motors as generators, even when they look the same pic.twitter.com/VLacQgnAlt— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 26, 2020 Sep27 Yep.I've been getting fairly poor results with Tesla Turbines compared to regular ones, but the principle is the same in either case.The goal is to combine a heat pump with heat engine to create a very efficient method of refrigeration or power generation. pic.twitter.com/TcmfyjJdiL— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 27, 2020 Homemade Turbine project update.😁🔧With what I've learned in the past few weeks I finally got the turbine up past 22,000rpm. Rotor blade-tip velocity over 200mph.😳I'm still working on a good generator to drive with it, maybe over the next week?#TeslaTurbine #Engineering pic.twitter.com/PTooVBypRS— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 27, 2020 Sep28 I'm indirectly working towards both a heat engine and a replication of Tesla's proposed 'self-acting engine'.It's not a 'free energy' design but it could make for an EXTREMELY efficient heat pump (COP >80?)Easy to mass-produce as well😁https://t.co/l9ZNCHCy4H pic.twitter.com/dFdxVjYtV1— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 28, 2020 Machined a backplate for the centrifugal turbine rotor.Gluing them together overnight as well as a few small leaks in the main turbine housing.https://t.co/3xJCANRARJ pic.twitter.com/DdDfu3ZCy2— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 28, 2020 Sep30 Solar electric vs solar thermal: https://t.co/qFIKsRg82z— Hakasays (@Hakasays) September 30, 2020