Lego Air Turbine: Generating Power From Thin Air!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
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See my latest experiments and behind-the-scenes footage!
Can we turn compressed air into electricity using Lego? Let’s find out! In this video, I experiment with a couple different methods of generating movement and energy from compressed air. Which is better, and what gadgets can we power?
The first method is a standard piston-based lego pneumatic engine. This takes compressed air, and turns it into rotational energy via a lego pneumatic cylinder. This then drives a magnetic flywheel, which rotates within some copper wires, generating a small current. This is reasonably reliable, but needs more pistons to drive smoothly. Otherwise it’s quite prone to stalling when a significant load is added (e.g., a high-power light).
What excites me however is the prospect of an air-powered lego turbine. If we can spin some fins fast enough, even though the torque is small, we can use a gear-reduction mechanism to output a much greater torque, albeit at a slower rotation. I like this idea, because this setup allows us to spin the magnetic flywheel up to a great speed before a load starts drawing power at its required voltage. This means we can keep the generator from stalling, and we can force more air into the system to power gadgets that require more power.
Let’s see what we can power!
#lego #pneumatic #generator #turbine
The turbine would probably work better without the spacers between them, so it's not as easy for the air to escape through the side (probably not a big difference tho)
And the piston engine would be more torquey and smooth with a second cylinder 90° out of phase (so there would be no deadzones without a power stroke)
That's a fair point, I could certainly give that a try. I'd also love to get some advice from better Lego builders than me about how to make a better enclosure for efficiency. Failing that, I reckon 3D printing a Tesla turbine could be a fun (though cheaty) experiment
@@JamiesBrickJamsI’m sure you can find a way to build a Tesla turbine without 3d printing, I’m pretty sure there’s a few lego designs
@@Overseer_Yt.You can build a Tesla turbine with thin sheets of paper actually.
@@CENREAPERYT I thought so, but wouldn’t the paper be to flimsy?
@@Overseer_Yt. Not actually. It'll work just fine because the pressure off air would be the same from all sides. I mean,if you put a sheet of paper on sawmill shaft,it can cut through 16 layers of aluminium foil
The phrase "from thin air" has never been so literal :). Great work, keep it up!
Thanks a lot 😁🙏
Is actually 'from thick air' given that is is compressed to over 1 atm.
Yes because energy can’t be created or destroyed only transfer
i've never thought about using those saw pieces as turbines. that's a neat idea.
Nice video! It seems to work pretty well! I have experienced with making turbines with pneumatics aswell, and one thing I realized is that taking the nozzle from an aerosol can and using it as the nozzle for the turbine helps TREMENDOUSLY. Like, please try it.
Hot damn that's a great idea - I'll give that a try!
@@JamiesBrickJams It literally gives the same power for a lot less air used
From thick air actually.
🤓☝️
@Ourgreatadventure-hd1rtme
@Ourgreatadventure-hd1rt🤓
@Ourgreatadventure-hd1rtme
It's just pneumatic power
I know how how bro can upgrade this just add some uranium 235 and make a nuclear reactor out of it!
He'd need to build a core with control rods, then build a water heater that uses the heat from the core to boil water into steam and make a turbine spin. It would work but radiation, cost and legal troubles are things to consider.
I like your narration in these videos. It's just the right amount for narrating your thought process
Aw thanks a lot! I know it's not for everyone, but I enjoy making the videos this way, so I'm gonna keep this style 😄
Always cool to see your experiments !
Thanks a lot Nico, means a lot coming from you! And likewise - can't wait to see your next inventions
Would like to see your 3 phase generator power a 3 phase brushless motor. Don’t forget to add load so your inrush current doesn’t damage your motor.
Edit: I just discovered your channel. Going back over your other videos, I came across your levitating fan. This might be an excellent candidate for a 3 phase motor. It would eliminate the need for the reed switch altogether. Just in case you don’t want to do the conversion, I posted another suggestion there.
Another excellent idea, thanks for all your suggestions today! That's true, treating the fan as a traditional brushless motor is totally doable. I'll be honest, it does feel like a weird and lossy way to power it, but I sure do love the over-engineered nature of it 😁 Will certainly bear that in mind for some future experiments!
Watching those beefy round magnets spin at such a high RPM after just being pressed into the Lego rectangles made me tense up - I’d be so worried about spinning one of them up and into the ceiling (or my face)
I was worried too at the beginning! Can't believe there wasn't an accident. On the other hand though, they're wedged in REAL tight, so I'm not surprised they didn't budge. Beefing this up any more would need more security though for sure
Wait but wouldn’t that be running on thick air if it was compressed?
🤔
Yes. As you squeeze air into a small area, it eventually gets to the point where there is not enough space, so the air resorts to squishing together, leaving more space for air to enter, creating what you call “thick air”
This is so cool! Lego power supply powering a lego speaker playing a radio! Love your vids man!
Really appreciate it, thanks for your lovely comment 😁
9:23 The Mother of all full bridge rectifiers...
😂
I had never thought that more electricity that the output needs would effect the magnet-copper resistance! Thanks!
Yup! Work is work. If you want greater output, you always need greater input. No such thing as free work 😊
you are always impressing me with your mechanisms
Aw appreciate it, cheers!
You casually whipping out that Lego speaker was fun haha, awesome builds
Haha cheers, that one was a lot of fun to build - v easy for folks to make at home themselves!
This guy would be amazing to have on your side in the apocalypse. He could make a generator out of legos scavenged from a store lmao.
I think It's cool that electrical resistance works its way back to mechanical resistance
I was there!😃Love it James. Especially the news broadcast on the radio. Way to go sir.
You were! Could barely navigate the apartment with all the damn air bottles 😅 Cheers Luke 😁
Great idea and execution! One idea for improvement: Remove the spacers between those turbine wheels. You are losing airflow there that you could use more efficiently if the gap between the turbine wheels was a small as possible.
I've heard that suggestion a few times now, so I suspect you're likely right - I'll give that a try in a future update! Thanks for the suggestion 😁
@@JamiesBrickJamsmake an wind mill and and compasiter and try to add solar panels
I was teally enjoying this video, and then when you turned on the radio at the end i heard news about the Oireachtas!!! Didn't realize you were Irish too! Fair play, keep up the good work
Haha class, good to see some fellow Irish here! 👊 I was wondering if anyone from Ireland would pick up on the radio bit
This guy can literally do a car motor out of the spin (I think) which isn’t the easiest thing in the world 😮
ah, an example of peak kettle harnessing technology, but applied to wind rather than steam
Use a MPPT chip to gather as much power as you can!
You can charge up a LiIon cell, and probably expand your lighting time at least a bit.
The passive AC to DC is lossy, and you waste ennergy by not using all the voltage and current when available.
An MPPT chip will help you with that = )
Also, the flying wheel was like a mechanical capacitor, it would improve stability a bit too (even is your last design is "heavy", so it probably don't need it).
So, yeah, nice video, thank you!
I was tryna fiddle arround with a couple lego tecnic bricks and i made a perfect steering system lesgo
This is great information for someone who lives in South Africa
I’m certain Gueilmo Marconi NEVER envisioned this! A LEGO radio! 📻
Wouldnt it technically be thick air?
You might need to modify the Pneumatic Pistons, simply lubing and redrilling the holes will increase smoothness and better rpms
I'd love to make one with modified components! Green Gekho has some incredible engine designs. My dream would be to collab with him to make a pneumatic engine generator using his latest powerful designs
@JamiesBrickJams I only know this from another TH-camr, he did a bunch of Pneumatic Engine Designs and wanted to see the max rpms he could get. He didn't go into depth about it, he doesn't speak in the vids lol, but he showed a point where it appeared he took apart the piston and lubed and I think drilled but it may have been smoothing out the edges that go around the piston. Afterwords it had a sizable increase in movement and rpms. Once I have the money I'm going to be checking out some of these sets myself.
8:33 altho there were 3 coils, not 1. But anyways the fact that you can make energy just with bricks and air is insane
Light an incandescent heat lamp and I’ll be impressed.
From now on, this shall be called an air battery
That's actually a pretty good description of it 🙌
I would add a gearbox to make it able to spin faster, as the rotor acts like a flywheel. I would also make it water based as water is heavier and cannot be compressed, making it unable to lose power that way.
But overall, nice work!
Originally I had planned to use a gearbox, but to be honest, the efficiency losses due to the mechanical setup of Lego gearboxes made it a very poor performer. But I'll certainly try a gearbox for a future more powerful cylinder-driven generator!
@JamiesBrickJams..more deal with gear less RPM you'll get...
Its kinda possible to create a generator from spinning a bike wheel thing, like just attach a big gearbox to it (obviously not a lego one) and connect it to these magnets in a bigger circumference and a bit more of the wire, and you have a big voltage generator!
It might be the least efficient way, but it is 100% eco-friendly!! (except for the materials maybe)
Who cares
@@sigmamale4147 I do, and if i was you i would shut up, based on your name your 8 or something.
at this point i expect a nuclear reactor made of legos
True
Excellent! *Now power it with live steam instead of an air tank*
If steam didn't melt Lego that'd be an awesome project 😉
"they still work well with a single coil" proceeds to show them with 3 coils xd
I noticed that earlier - I think I filmed that out of sequence 😅 It only used 1 coil to the breadboard though! So the result is still accurate for one coil
When the magnet thing spins it sounds like if kirby was trying to consume something 😂😂😂
8:43 The moment I've been waiting for the whole video. Putting the god damn capacitor :D
Glad you got your bit eventually 😉
wow impresivve
Cool
Honestly that rotor makes me scared for your magnets. If it falls apart while spinning, the magnets could collide and maybe destroy each other or something in between them.
Ha yeah me too, the first few times I was pretty nervous. But they seem to hold in place quite tightly. I wouldn't advise other folks do this though!
Please make a wind turbine using one of the generators and big blades
A wind generator is certainly on my list 😉
You should put coils a bit further from the centre so the magnets pass in front of them completely.
The position was carefully done so they do pass perfectly in front of the coils - perhaps the camera angle didn't show that off well enough. But you're still right in a sense - positioning them further out could potentially increase output slightly as they'd be moving faster against the coils
Imagine have this generator and radio in apocalypse
I'm sure there's a way to harness zombies for power ...
8:30 works well with one coil.
I have a video idea for you that doubles as something useful as a diy project for your audience, can you make a hand crank powered usb phone charging port out of Lego? Preferrably with some kind of internal power storage so you don't have to worry about your phone getting a stutter charge if you aren't cranking right or get tired before your phone is charged?
Love a good crank generator! I actually already have a video on a hand crank generator that uses a voltage regulator to stabilise the output at 5v, pretending to be a USB, and was used to charge my phone. But will likely do something like that again in the future
I’d be interested what lpe powers engine could achieve
I'm pretty confident a powerful LPE (like green geckos latest ones) would produce a very significant output. I'll likely test that out in due course
@@JamiesBrickJams Bro then redo you research, there’s still a lot more torque able to be produced, just google lpe power
you should make a town and make some of those engines so you can power the town!
Ha that'd be a cool idea
You should do a vid we’re you do 6 coils
You should try to make a turbine powered lego boat
What a cool idea
Put more magnets and core in coils.
Oh my god, we can now save the earth!
That’s actually a one-to-one gear ratio known as a direct drive. Did you take out both gears from the generator and the engine you will get an actual direct drive
You're right, not the smartest idea - it would have been better designed if I removed the gearing for that one rather than losing efficiency through the gearing. But a future version will run much better!
This is real inspiring . Looks cool and is a 8.25 the Ricter fun scale. .
Appreciate it, cheers for the comment ☺️
Generating power from *thick* air. Lol nice video.
Can you make some instructions on how to make it please.
Use Brick Technology's V8 air-powered engines to see if you could generate even more torque for more electricity.
Good suggestion - I love his engines! My dream would be to do a video with one of Green Gecko's modified engines to see how hard it can be pushed with a generator attached
Bro removing the flywheel was the worst mistske. I litrelly died insideö
Put a crank on it. A big one. Perfect for power outages
Which is exactly what we need in Ireland right now after this storm knocked out a chunk of our power grid!
Hi, I really like your videos, just one question, what did you studied? Have you studied electronic?
Hey, I studied research neuroscience, but my dad was an electronics engineer and got me interested in electronics tinkering at a young age 😁
Build a never ending motor. Make it make enough electricity to power the motor fast enough to keep it running if you can understand what I said
RPMs=power to motor=RPMs
Now power a Christmas tree with that
I did in another video 😁
Try making a pump that eats electrycity from generator to get more air in the bottle almost infinite electricity
0:46 never turn LED’S on with them in the case it can heat up and potentially damage half the roll
I've got thousands of these things lying around - more than happy to sacrifice a few of them 😉
@@JamiesBrickJams alright my bad then, as long as your having fun that's worth it 😁
making a farm of those be like is like making a energy generator
The thought of filling up that many compressed air bottles is giving me PTSD 😅
Next video "can we make a fusion reactor with Lego"
Haha we'll have to see
And next the whomping willow please
6:43 thats a boing 747 engine right there
Haha yeah I was getting a little apprehensive about that thing at full speed 😅
Epic video! Instant subscriber!
Aw thanks a lot, and cheers for joining 😁
Fan-tastic
0:31 that's what she said
Ayo 😜
Wouldn't those turbines spin better if you lock them up, sealed. So ALL the air acts upon the proppelers? (Yeah i don't know how can you seal them up with legos😂)
I'm pretty sure you're right, that should improve efficiency! I tried a few different designs that mostly sealed it up, but I actually didn't see any increase in speed or output, so I just removed it to make it more interesting to see in action. But I'm sure if it was done properly it would improve output
Be sweet make little lego transformers and have transmission lines to some lights in a set few feet away
Ha cool idea 😉
Science project acquired
This is pretty cool, but maybe consider a design that doesn't need an external source of power to run the generator, perhaps... Hydroelectric? Muah ha ha.
Hydroelectric isn't an external source? I'm totally with you though - both wind and hydro are on the cards 😜
bro can use this in an power outage
That is very effective for houses a Lego electric generator
electricity is created when one goes into the other 💀
Hi Jamie, pleased to watch you. My 6 year old son has been watching you for a while. He is asking that I create a similar setup for the motor. Would you kindly share where to buy material to create the Lego motor and generator and share names of the itmes. Many thanks to you.
amazinng job!
Thanks 🙏😁
or just make a simple vacuum engine if done corectly you can go about 12k rpm and it also sound cool + no refuel
Coming soon 😉
In case of an apocalypse, I'm in Jamie's camp!
Im in another country :(
Tip: Try and modify it with oil
Might try that in a future version!
FANTASTİCCC!
Very cool project. Personally didn’t like the commentary that much, it was kinda stating the obvious most of the time. “Here is a gear” / “a coil” / etc.
That's fair, it's likely not for everyone! But sometimes the concepts (especially the electronics) need a bit of explaining. Cheers for the support all the same 😁
If you stacked it multiple times and linked them together, you could've charged a laptop with it
I guess you could, though you'd need hundreds of bottles of air to make a dent in that battery!
Batteries? We don’t need batteries where we’re going!
Wait a second, hold up… the engine was coming under load because the circuit had too much electrical load, and that was transferred via the magnetic interaction from the magnet and the copper coils? Is that right?
Yup! Any time an electrical load is placed on a generator, you can feel the resistance against the generator input. So for example, if you crank a generator, it'll move easily with no load. Add an electrical load (e.g. a powerful light), and you'll immediately notice the resistance against your hand increase. Same for this pneumatic engine. Add an electrical load, and the engine will take the strain. Sometimes even enough to stall the engine. Kind of like starting a car in 5th gear
9:47 i can smell the burning Plastic 🙃
Mmmmmmm 🤤
make a lenz less generator. need one medal disc rotor from a saw cut away the teeth's then cut the disc similar to a turbine but so that the steel can cover one magnet and one coil with the space of one magnet empty. then place magnet and coil in the stationary frame one magnet and one coil and repeat. place another set on the other side. place the disc rotor in between the two sides of the stationary frame and when you now rotate the disc it will alternate the inductance between the coils and the magnets but in such a way that there is no drag on the load.
Hmm will need to do some research to understand what you're proposing here. But I'd be cautious - there's no way round the conservation of energy. For a generator to output anything (with a load attached), there will always be resistance against it. That's a requirement for energy to be transfered from mechanical input to electrical output.
9:01 "how to make a air raid siren to a generator air raid siren"
Haha 😂
You need to measure it with an oscilloscope and see what the signwave outputs look like.
You can also calculate the wattage of the generator like I did for mine: th-cam.com/video/heFF7Y4RLmQ/w-d-xo.html
I'd love to do that! I don't currently have a scope, but it's on my list. I shudder to think how scrappy the signal would look for this thing, but I'd love to visualise it! Well done on yours - it looks awesome 👌
@@JamiesBrickJamsthose scopes like the one I have are about $50 now, so not too bad. I was wonder how your generator would work if you doubled up the poles and coils.
Oh wow that's a lot cheaper than I was expecting - will see if I can find one. Adding additional coils and magnets works up to a point. But very soon, the main limitation becomes resistance against the generator when you add an appreciate load. Then it becomes a battle against the physical robustness of Lego, and the torque input it can manage
time to store a few in my basement and make free electricity 🤫
Good luck
here cani buy it? my ac is broken ill just use that
idea: make one that works with water!
I like where your mind is at - a water powered thingy is definitely on the menu 😉
What if you powered your whole house via magnets?
I already have enough accidents with large magnets lying around the place 😅
Capasitor would make it smoother
Sure does! I used a bunch in this video, but now got some nice new ones to use in another video
Im thinking that you put the air pump like powerfull one and hook the power into generator and the powerfull pump goes to air bottle and i think it makes infinite electricty btw convert the volt like 7 to (the pump volt requirement)
Ha I wish. Converting power from the pump to air then back to electricity is one of the least efficient ways of energy conversion 😉
wow I am amazed
Aw well thanks 😁🙏