tomstanton posts
Posts: 68
Files: 84
Turbine Dragster
After nearly 6 years of air engine development, it's time to start exploring turbines more! There's still a lot of development and testing to do, but with the new dynomometer, I'm determined to find a turbine that'll out perform my air powered plane record!
V22 Testing
I'm in the process of building another VTOL, but this time it's going to be a scale V22 Osprey with swashplateless helicopter rotor heads (one of these on each wingtip https://youtu.be/d80oXSCcHTk). I believe it's the first time a swashplateless rotor head had been built with 3 blades and it works surprisingly well. Only issue is currently the frame/wing spar has a resonant frequency w...
I'm building a new VTOL
After building 4 previous bicopter style VTOL aircraft, I thought I'd give it another go with some pretty significant upgrades. This is the first test hover using a new flight controller made from a Teensy 4.0 and an MPU6050 running arduino based code called dRehmFlight (https://github.com/nickrehm/dRehmFlight). It was created by Nick Rehm and so far I'm very impressed with the performance...
Flywheel Trebuchet Release Mechanism
A few have asked about the release mechanism, so here it is! The release is consistent and the timing doesn't vary much over the rotational speed range. The final slow mo launch was 56m/s (125mph), which is just over the fastest speed my old trebuchet could fire!
Flywheel Trebuchet First Test
Hope everyone is well! This project has been on my list for a long time and I've finally built it!! The flywheel is 0.8m in diameter and weighs 1.9kg. Including the weight of all the arms, the total moment of inertia is about 1.1kgm ² . I've carried out a few physics simulations and think I can launch the tennis ball at 200mph (89m/s) with it spinning at 270rpm. I can only spin it up to a...
Swashplateless Helicopter
Hope everyone is well! I've been busy working on a helicopter that uses a single motor for control. Conventional helicopters require servo controlled swashplates to adjust the blade angle during it's rotation. However, this setup varies the motor torque causing the blades to lead/lag, which adjusts the blade angle due to the 45 degree hinge. It's taken a lot of problem solving to get t...
Flywheel Projectile
Hope everyone is well! Apologies for the lack of uploads recently. I've made this available for all Patrons as a thanks for the continued support!
Drone Pendulum Fallacy
Apologies for the lack of updates recently, the gas thruster drone project left me with no spare time to think of the next project. I think I might start alternating between complex hardware projects (such as the gas thruster drone) and simpler theory projects (such as this and the trebuchet parachute video).For my next project, I want to experiment with the Coanda effect. I'm not sure exactly...
Gas Thruster RCS Drone - Update
As you can probably tell from the title, I've been working on a drone which is controlled using compressed air!It's main source of lift is produced by the two propellers in the central blue duct, which only provides yaw control. The pitch and roll are controlled by exhausting compressed air from 3 nozzles positioned at the tips of each arm.I was going to make an update video of the setup, ...
Bicycle Anti-lock Braking System Test!
It's been a busy weekend getting this anti-lock braking system ready for testing, but it's finally getting there! I haven't got the time to make a full update video because I'd like to get the finalised video out this week.In terms of the testing, I've tried three different methods of brake release triggering. The first was to release the brake when the wheel speed equals zero,...
Update - Bicycle Anti-lock brakes
Research paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1474667016379174
Reaction wheels and more - Update
Hope everyone has had a merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!Over the holidays, I've become a bit obsessed with reaction wheels and am working on a reaction wheel drone. I was planning on making a progress video for you guys last week, but I'm still waiting for parts.Reaction wheels are used in small satellites for attitude control and work by accelerating a high inertia wheel to rotate a c...
Vacuum or Atmosphere powered car?
I've been working on a small car that is powered by pulling a vacuum inside of a syringe and using it as a pneumatic spring. This then drives the wheels in the same way a mouse trap car works.Here is a demo video of it working: https://youtu.be/I4fbJHpS3E0As fluids (air) flow from high pressure zones to low pressure zones, it's actually the atmosphere pushing the piston towards the nozzle ...
SpaceX Starship!
Just landed on the surface of Mars... and there seems to be grass and trees!
SpaceX BFS project
I'm currently in the process of designing a radio control SpaceX BFS (Big Falcon Ship), which is the second stage of the BFR. Essentially what I'm aiming to do is test how the fins will be used to control the craft on decent. They work similar to how my RC wingsuit guy 'worked', where the fins won't rotate like an aircraft's control surfaces, but instead pivot about the par...
RC VTOL V4!
Writing code is surprising enjoyable (when it works), especially when it enables a plane to take off and land with zero forward velocity! This weeks video is a complicated one, but hopefully interesting and informative!
Lift at zero velocity
Can anyone guess which wing concept I am testing here?HINT: The propeller is sucking air through the red 3D printed part and is producing lift.
Ebike 4.0 CAD files
A few have requested the ebike 4.0 CAD files and I'm not sure the best way to share them. So I've exported the whole model as .iges and .step. Hope this is of use to some of you! Please be safe if you want to build your own ebike and as a disclaimer: these files are only to be used for legal electric bike setups depending on your region. Using these files with illegal electric bike compone...
