This is the third and final engine contributed by Jan Ridders of the Netherlands, a pressure controlled 2-stroke engine.

I asked Jan to pick his most simple designs in each of 3 categories, Stirling, Flame Eater, and IC.  This set of plans is for his most simple IC design, a pressure controlled 2-stroke engine. If you’d like to see the other two designs shared by Jan, they can be found here: Jan’s Coffee Cup Stirling Engine and Jan’s Flame Sucker. And of course, all of Jan’s other engines can be found by visiting his site, which is written in both English and Dutch.

Here’s an animation and a description of the principle behind Jan’s masterpiece (excerpt from Jan’s site):

A ball valve only opens when the pressure below the ball is higher then above the ball. For the upper valve this is only the case, and for a very short time, when the piston reaches the exhaust port. The pressed gas mix below the piston and between the two ball valves is injected then, filling the cylinder and pushing out the remaining burned gases. Before and shortly after that moment the pressure above the ball in the upper valve is always higher then below the ball. When the piston is moving upwards there is an overpressure above the ball (gas mix compression) and a lower atmospheric pressure  of the sucked-in fresh gas mix below the ball. When the piston is moving downwards there is a high overpressure above the ball due to the combustion (power stroke) and a much lower overpressure of the compressed fresh gas mix below the ball. So also during that power stroke the upper ball valve keeps closed until the piston opens the exhaust port.

So the timing of the process is exactly right and automatically controlled by the alternating pressures in the system. That is why I called this engine the “Pressure controlled Two-stroke”.

Here’s a video of the engine in action:

For more information on this engine (including construction tips and trouble shooting) please visit Jan’s website. Jan also has many other engines on his site and he shares his plans freely with anyone by request.

I’d like to say Thank You one more time to Jan Ridders for sharing multiple sets of plans with this site. By sharing your plans you’ve helped this site grow.

  Pressure_Controlled_2-Stroke_Engine_-_Jan_Ridders.pdf (5.1 MiB, 223 hits)
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[nms: stirling engine]

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I became very interested in making my own cover for my Grizzly G0602 10″x22″ lathe after reading Barry Young’s How-To article on the subject.

I wanted to document the process I went through to make my cover but I didn’t want to rehash what Barry had already written, so instead I made a video of the process. So now you can read the steps (Barry’s article) or watch the steps (my video). Both provide you with a cheap, easy and fool-proof method of protecting every major tool in your shop with a custom-fit cover.

Obviously you can adapt this method to virtually any size or shape of lathe, mill, etc – you’ll just need to buy an appropriately sized tarp to make your pattern.

Here’s the video.

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Material: Aluminum, Steel, and Brass
Units: (in)

If you’re looking for a simple engine to build that runs on compressed air, here’s a nice set of plans for you. Here’s what Rob had to say about his plans:

“This was the semester long project we did in class for Machine Tool Technology at the University of Central Missouri . I would like to hook the engine up to something and do tests.

The base is made out of a 3/4 in thick aluminum and the body and cylinder is mild steel. The flywheel and crank is made out of brass. I used most tools that you would use with metals. Vertical mill, horizontal mill, metal lathe, drill press and grinding machine, thread tap. I even machined the threads on the wrist pin.”

- Rob K.

Here’s a video of the little engine in action:

Thanks for sharing your plans Rob!

  Air_Engine.pdf (1.1 MiB, 299 hits)
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