Unusual/Interesting Engines/Motors

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Re: Unusual/Interesting Engines

Post by white exec »

Oh my gosh. What a splendidly made piece of pin-sharp video.
Machines making machines, over and over again, and what a contrast to old Leyland days!

Did like the manual use of the analogue oil-can at several stages: lovely.

Having been involved with German industrial production (printing plates), we had to salute their ability to manufacture product with extraordinary consistency and precision. Unfortunately, that also applied to mistakes being made, which could be replicated faithfully on a huge scale. Getting things put right was interesting: the Belgian end of the business would rectify a mistake within hours and immediately supply replacement product. At the German factories, it could take days (sometimes weeks) for "procedures" to be re-written, so that the error was brought to an end. When it was, though, it never happened again.
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Re: Unusual/Interesting Engines

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Its not surprising that one of the largest container ships in the world the Emma Maersk as I posted up on POTD should have a pretty large engine, and that it was likely to be a diesel.

But I did get a surprise when I discover that it was a 2-Stroke, and that many of the large container ships are also powered by large 2-stroke diesels.
Wiki Article Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C

The Wärtsilä RT-flex96C is a two-stroke turbocharged low-speed diesel engine designed by the Finnish manufacturer Wärtsilä. It is designed for large container ships that run on heavy fuel oil. Its largest 14-cylinder version is 13.5 metres (44 ft) high, 26.59 m (87 ft) long, weighs over 2,300 tons, and produces 80,080 kW (107,390 hp). The engine is the largest reciprocating engine in the world.


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Re: Unusual/Interesting Engines

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Could have gone in the What do you know about Norfolk thread?



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Re: Unusual/Interesting Engines

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Well this engine achieved some positive feedback 100 years ago today, well before the internet age, so the Post Office had to oblige with a telegram :-D
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Re: Unusual/Interesting Engines

Post by mickthemaverick »

In my earlier reckless days I bought a Messerschmitt KR200 three wheeler. It was fitted with a gravity fed 200cc Sachs engine. I cannot remember whether it was 2 or 4 stroke but the interesting thing was that it was timed at TDC. This meant the engine could run clockwise or anti-clockwise giving 4 forward and 4 reverse gears, quite hairy when going backwards with a fixed "front" wheel and two steering "rear" wheels. To change direction you had to switch off the engine and then press in and turn the ignition key to start the engine "backwards". Great fun if you pressed a little too hard when starting normally as you would declutch, put it in gear release the clutch and shoot back into the garage!! Those were the days!! :-D :-D :-D
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Re: Unusual/Interesting Engines

Post by Gibbo2286 »

Two stroke Mick, quite common in the boating world in Egypt when I was out there, they started the engine to run backwards to reverse the boat.
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Re: Unusual/Interesting Engines

Post by Richard_C »

Ah, someone I was at school with had one, albeit briefly. Battleship grey - maybe they all were. I think his father was a Methodist minister. If I recall, it had sequential gearchange, push lever forwards to change up, with an 'instant neutral' so you never quite knew which gear it would be in. I remember kneeling in the rear footwell all scrunched up and looking backwards so I could pass instructions to the driver as we set off down the A361 to set a reverse speed record. Outriders/escort of myriad Vespas and Lambrettas. I think we, or it, gave up before doing any serious harm.

Rumour was that the canopies were left over airplane bits but I think that was utter rubbish.
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Re: Unusual/Interesting Engines

Post by mickthemaverick »

Glad I wasn't the only looney in those days!! :-D Mine was canary yellow (all sorts of colours were available) with an ally frame and canvas roof rather than the all glass cockpit style globe. The little dicky seat for the passenger was basically a board on top of the battery and you leant back onto the fuel tank, which was housed in the boot lid, so I guess the idea might have come from the kamikaze squadrons :-D The other unique but rather clever idea was the heater. The engine was air cooled and the cooling air having run across the head was piped into the tubular chassis to warm the car. To turn it off you had two butterfly flaps either side of the engine compartment, no temperature control as such, you just set the airflow as you thought before closing the boot and jumping into the car. The butterflies directed the air into the car or back to the rear vents according to your wishes :-D Our biggest adventure came when a truck pulled out straight in front of me from the M1 sliproad at Junction 6. I swerved to the right, hit the kerb which flipped the car into the offside of the offending truck. Luckily for us the impact was minor, resulting in a rip in the canvas and a couple of bent hoops. My mate in the back's first words were "Why didn't you brake?" I had to tell him that I knew the brakes were hopeless :twisted: That was the last time he joined me on a maiden drive for some reason #-o
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Re: Unusual/Interesting Engines

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

From Messerschmitt to Messerschmitt and plenty of interesting reading in this wiki article on the jet engines of the Me262. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262.

In those early days they had problems with finding a metal alloy which would withstand the heat of the jet.

"One particularly acute problem arose with the lack of an alloy with a melting point high enough to endure the high temperatures involved, a problem that by the end of the war had not been adequately resolved. The aircraft made its first successful flight entirely on jet power on 18 July 1942, powered by a pair of Jumo 004 engines, after a November 1941 flight (with BMW 003s) ended in a double flameout."

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Re: Unusual/Interesting Engines

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

This popped up as an option following watching the VW electric car speed record at the Nürburgring posted up by Simon when the video finished. Mildly intrigued I started to watch it. Yes I thought Hydrogen/ Oxygen would be the rocket fuel of choice but this video had the title...

"Is Space X's Raptor Engine The King Of Rocket Engines" and it runs on Methane.

It is rocket science and goes on for 40 plus mins, but is well illustrated and explained, and if you want to know a little bit about Rocket Engines, it is worth a watch even just a small dip in.



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Re: Unusual/Interesting Engines

Post by bobins »

There was a problem with (I think) the Mk. 9 Javeling aircraft whereby if you were flying at high throttle and entered dense cloud, the engine casing around the compressor blades would cool and contract quicker than the compressor blades causing one to contact the other - usually with fairly terminal results. After much head scratching, a solution relied upon putting an abrasive edge onto the compressor blades to allow them to file down to size when contacting the engine casing :shock: Both ingenious and extremely worrying in equal measures :lol:
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Re: Unusual/Interesting Engines

Post by myglaren »

A Music Engine?

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Re: Unusual/Interesting Engines

Post by mickthemaverick »

:lol: :lol: That is fantastic, great find Steve, especially the duck taped ball catching tube from the drum. Those guys have certainly got balls!! :-D :-D
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Re: Unusual/Interesting Engines

Post by myglaren »

mickthemaverick wrote: 03 Jul 2019, 06:51 :lol: :lol: That is fantastic, great find Steve, especially the duck taped ball catching tube from the drum. Those guys have certainly got balls!! :-D :-D


They also have a previous model, a bit less of an 'engine'




A similar thing that comes up but I first saw years ago is the Strandbeest



and the one I first found



Which always reminds me of Iain M Banks' Hydrogen Symphony
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Re: Unusual/Interesting Engines

Post by Hell Razor5543 »

I think the Marble Conveyor Belt is feeding the instruments in Animusic "Pipe Dream";

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