Well it's been a while since i have done anything here as i have been working on saving some funds so i can get some more done on the jetluge. it does make things a little hard when your doing it on your own dollar, so you'll have to forgive my slow updates. so this will just be a quick update to let you know what has been going on. i have been working hard getting the shop going as some of you may have noticed and this will be a primary source of income to fund this challenge. so buy up as much as you can i got a huge loan to pay off for some reason haha.
More importantly what you have actually really started reading this thread for is.......i have finally been able to start working on getting the fuel tank made. so i can mount both engines and then run both of them together. Yup, so it's not long now that i will have the jet luge together enough that i will be able to do some testing. this means actually rolling under power via the turbines. this is going to be so fun....not to mention loud haha. stay tuned as i will be posting photos of the build as usual. not to mention the first video of the very first start up. feel free to go shop at the store also. every dollar helps guys and thanks for checking in and reading. A day of questions. A day of problems. And no one has any answers! If you take the curve of the circumference of a cylinder... of, oh say a jet engine... and you then tilt it at 45 degree angle... what's that new curve? Anyone? Anybody? That's how I spent the day. These are the problems when building a fuel tank with no resources. These are some of the crazy problems when building a jet luge. A massive thanks to my mate, Phil Champion (a real champ) for bringing tools and an extra brain along for problem solving. We drank beer, cheers! I paid three trips to a certain big (with a capital B) hardware store and then an office supply store to come up with the necessary materials to build a mock fuel tank. (No one at these stores knew how to answer that particular geometry question, either. i think i just asked out of some sick joke as i needed the laugh hehe).
The plan was to make a cylinder with cardboard paper and then cut that at the desired angle... After fiddling with it for more time than I'd like to admit I said "Stuff it!" and eye-balled the thing. Take a look at the fuel tank mock up and lemme know what you think. What a busy busy week we have all had, specially Brett from austjets.com. he has been tirelessly working on the wiring to get the first of both engines running. I seriously don't know where i'd be without him he is an amazing man when it comes to turbines and not to mention wiring. below you can see the first test of the start sequence Brett has setup for the engines, we will be playing it safe with running the engines as we are still not fully aware of their full potential so i will run them at about 80% to begin with till we have a better feel of what they can do. Oh! did i mention that i maybe running a radio controlled accelerator, believe it or not it will be making the board less cluttered and have less wiring all over the place, i will also be running a radio controlled shut down, this means that one person can stand and watch me as i do my pass and if they see something wrong that i don't they can shut the engines down by flicking a switch on a radio transmitter.
Please stay tuned as a test fire of the engines is not far away, just to add i have also been a busy boy with trying to get the record attempt some attention, one thing i have done is decked out my van to make it the new official Jet Luge mobile, with a huge thanks going to the guys down at TopTen Tyres for putting some tough looking 20 inch wheels on the van. i hope you like it and if you see it about town feel free to come and say hi.
What a busy week i have had this week, with allot of it taken up with messing around with turbines, not a bad way to spend some time. well this weekend saw Brett from ausjets.com and myself balancing the turbines, most would assume this would have been done in the factory and in most cases it would, one was already balanced and tested but due to the MASSIVE delay the only way to retain some form of reasonable time line was to send the other motor out untested and not balanced, this was ok with me as we had agreed that we would balance them our selves once they arrived anyway, balancing is is one of the single most important things we can do for the turbines, it will prolong the life of the engine as well as the bearings, it also helps stop the engine from ripping it's self apart. below you can see one of the turbines being spun up to find out where the imbalance is. you can see in the picture below that the target on the left is the rear turbine and the target on the right is the front. picture looking at the turbine head on or from directly behind, the dot is showing where there is an imbalance in the turbine and impeller. In this case the rear turbine needs 3.79 grams taken out of it, while the front only needs 153 milligrams taken from it to get it just right. The 220 and 209 degrees at the bottom is not temperature, it is actually showing how far around front top dead center you need to remove weight, in this case it is 220 deg of 360 deg on the rear turbine and 209 deg on the front. Below you will see Brett as he shows me where we need to take some weight out of to have the turbine spinning true. this is simply done with a marker and then grinding it out. below you can see as Brett takes out some meat from the rear turbine to help with the balance of the engine. That line you see on the center nut is reflective tape and helps us tell where top dead center is, it also reflects a laser top help us tell what speed we are spinning the motor up to while balancing it.
Well with the motors landed and me sitting here waiting for the electronics to be delivered after getting a text saying they are being couriered to me as i type, i decided i had better give you guys an update as to what has been happening for the last 2 weeks. Besides misplacing yet another job hehe, Brett "Smithy" Smith from AusJets.com has been going over the engines to make sure all is well. Both motors have been completely dismantled and every little bolt and nut is being given a good look over. Below you will see a few photos of the inner workings of my motors and with it a sneak peak into what makes a turbine tick. Well actually most of you may know a turbine doesn't tick, it kinda makes a whoooshing roar type noise, but you get the idea right? hehe. Above is the main body of the motor, you can see the intake impeller on the table to the cans left, this engine may look a little different to the ones you see on your standard jet airlines planes as this motor is built purely for thrust and power, where as the airlines engines drive a large fan at the front of the motor, which give them their distinctive look, the combustion or engine is actually much smaller on the airlines motors than you think. see below image. you will see that on the airlines engine the combustion chamber is much smaller than the rest of the engine, this drives the larger fan, these motors are typically known as a turbo fan engine, and are built more for efficiency. Below you will see a better depiction of my engine, my engine is classed as a turbo jet engine, basically similar to the thing people have in their cars to go faster, and built for pure trust. you may notice that the center of both engines look rather similar, that's because they are, you can see the burner (combustion chamber) in my engines in the photos below. after the the air fuel mixture has been combusted it is drawn out though the back with the help of the turbine fan, you will see it on the far left in the below photo. so if i haven't bored you yet and your still reading we will next be balancing the motors, then have them test run on the bench, this will be the fun bit as we don't have any mounts strong enough to hold them yet and i promise a video will be coming of the first start up.
if you have any questions related to my engines feel free to ask via the comment tab at the bottom of this thread and please don't forget to click the like button to help me get this attempt out there. Since having the delivery of one of the engines i have allot of people asking me where am i going to put the other motor? where indeed, since the arrival of this engine i have been working away getting the Jet Luge set up as a roller, well at least it would be if i had enough bearings to go around hehe, but the will be of not concern when HSC Ceramics come through with my delivery, you see i needed so many bearings for my board they have had to do a special order just for me, i can't thank them enough for the support that they are showing me, and knowing the bearings are much better than the top ceramic skate bearings i'm using now, i will have little to worry about when it comes to the spinning of wheels. The best part is i love that they are Australia made and owned.
Back to the board, my board will be much heavier than other boards out there, well i mean to say it will be the heaviest board ever made more than likely hehe, i'm building a board to go 700kph out of my garage and i'm building it the only way i know how, SOLID. Now i know not much survives after a 200kph wipeout but the last thing i need is stress cracks after a couple of slow runs. But without any further a due i will stop rambling on and show you the first shots of board and motor put together. WOW! it has been a long time coming but finally i am happy to say.......THE FIRST ENGINE HAS ARRIVED!!!!!! this thing is BIG, and i love it! i am still coming to the realization that it is actually here, the next one is set to arrive sometime in the next two weeks. in the meantime i will be working on getting this motor truly balanced and eventually fired up. i will also be getting the board more together and now that i have one motor i can work out the best way to mount and fit it. stay tuned for more photos of things to come. Ladies and gentlemen I'd like to be the first.........(and only)........to let you know that the First of the two Jet Engines i will be using to set a new land speed record is on its way, with the second to be shipped on Monday. i will be watching the tracking very closely and making sure that the engine arrives to me safely.
If all goes to plan i should be looking at holding my engine in the next few weeks, allowing customs plenty of time to work out what the hell it is and pull parts off it. Now comes the hard but fun bit and getting everything in place so when it arrives i can get the board rocking in no timestay tuned as with the arrival of the motors things here will most definitely pick up. Could it be the mythical jet engine's we have all been waiting for? Well according to the builder it is. Now this makes month 5 of the overdue calender and yet i am sitting here with alas, no jet engines in front of me. This is the apparent state of my motors as we speak as i have been told "THEY" are getting balanced.........AGAIN.
For the last three months i have been bound in a rather large email battle with the builder. I did manage to speak with him once on the phone when I think he must have picked it up in a moment of weakness, finding me at the other end left him a little lost for words, but what words he did speak were all lies. To cut a short story long, he promised to send them in a week, that was two weeks ago. it was only through threat of legal action and a proposed visit from myself that he has now said he will send them to me by or on the 23rd May, balanced or not. I have advised him to send them regardless as I have a very good friend here who is a Turbine engineer - and the current world record holder for the fastest jet powered radio controlled car - Brett "Smithy" Smith who has said he will balance them. As always I will not be holding my breath as i have come to enjoy living and have lined up some lawyers to see when I head over. Whether I go or not depends on the builder, if he does not make this date I will be booking a flight and seeing him personally. This poses two problems, the money I will be using to head over there is the money I have saved for building the jetluge. So if i head over there the question is, can i complete the jetluge once i get the engines? I guess we'll just have to wait and see. By the way, once all this is over with and I have my motors I will be making all the correspondence with the builder available for you all to read. It is rather entertaining, if not a great joke. here is the first glimpse at just one of the Turbine engines i will be using to break the land speed record, the unfortunate news is the builder has delayed the delivery yet again, for those of you counting this makes it 2 months overdue for delivery after being quoted a 10 week turnaround and delivered on my door step back at the start of October, never trust what's on the box kids hehe.
so now all i can do is get the board up to rolling stage in preparation for the motors and afterburners to arrive, which at this point has an undetermined delivery date, stay tuned for some future news, though things are quiet now i am very busy in the background working on some great news to come. thanks again for checking in and please click the like button below and help |
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