My Father sniffs the oil in his cars to see if it needs to be changed. He's a Stanford Civil Engineering grad, and had a 30+ year career in Aerospace, including the Lockheed L-1011. You're (IMHO) in good company using aromatic diagnostic techniques.
@@DashzRight Many designs are viable now due to advances in material science and miniaturization of components. Hypernormalizing this into “it probably sucks” isn’t a good way to get anywhere.
Because of the larger "rotor area/wing area" I feel like these could be more efficient, but because of the mechanical complexity will require more maintenance.
Great job comparing their performance! Cycloidal rotor will need a lot of optimization to reach a propeller performance. So for me it looks interesting as a concept, but is far from be worth due its complexity and inherent multiple failure modes.
It's great to see your progress! It looks like you had some amazing sustained flights. Much better than my little glide. 😂 I never realized that the one airfoil acts like a wing during forward flight, but that makes sense now. That and probably the higher airflow for the bottom rotor (the one with lots of helpful virtual camber) gives something like a 36% decrease in power consumption at higher speeds. I'll hopefully get my third attempt at a cycloplane flying in the coming months; It'll be interesting to see if it has the same general flight characteristics as yours (hopefully excluding the exploding rotor). Good luck on future projects, I can't wait to see the cool things that you come up with.
Honestly, it could be something else than the blades themselves: it could be all of the stuff built around to control their angle of attack. Nice work anyway, that's a lovely dev, thank you for the video!
It was noted that at 7:28 in the video "catastrophic unscheduled disassembly", otherwise known as "re-kitting" was experienced. Further testing is indicated.
A flatter/flat wing with ailerons will give you much better roll control, then you can use rudder for ground steering (without the roll) and banknyank for flight control.
I found you again… The cyclo plane is really cool but I just watched your drone cyclo copter and I said do not give up you are not allowed… Well seriously this type of propulsion is the most beautiful of all you must continue. Like a majestic paddleboat in the South Mississippi River this is the most beautiful concept… I will not allow you to give up… Go go go yea… The coolest ever
Usually one such rotor is divided into two. In order to arrange the blades in a checkerboard pattern. It is very difficult to make a blade that bends at the desired angle. It is difficult to make the blades herringbone. It is difficult to put the blades in a spiral..This is a challenging puzzle.
2:16 that is what good experimenting will do. Love it, keep at it ! 3:40 that’s correct. Don’t base your work on comparisons. You will find different values of performance to be sure, as you are finding out. 6:50 try serpentine belts , toothed belts will rip apart if they jump the teeth, or over load the shafting, slipping a bit will let you bring it home at least .😊
Great video! this is an interesting project. I'm now wondering if these rotors could be built in/incorporated into a wing where the rotors "tuck in"/"rotate in" to the wing when/where they would be perpendicular to the direction of travel/where they are creating drag and not lift. I'll add this to the endless list of projects I want to get to.
I like your jovial response to calamity and disaster Nicholas! And thanks for sharing this research. I'll be checking out your link to Jude Schauer and coming back to see what else you have been doing. Subscribed!
It'd make a decent vtol candidate, right? Because it has nearly infinitely variable thrust angles from straight up to straight forward, without having to pivot motors at all. Also, great work and thanks for sharing. Sorry it detonated, but... Science!
When it spins. The flaps, even though position slim, causes wind vortex friction. Perhaps a quarter circle frame beam, could shield the return rotation of the fins from the drag of open exposed atmosphere. This only requires a rotate 1/4th circle frame.
5:24 Noise can also be based on the shape of a propeller There are ways to quiet normal propellers but that's tedious and normal people don't want to do that
This seems very similar to the Voith Schneider Propeller. These are used on tug boats and have the amazing ability to maneuver the tug in any direction.
hi nicholas, i wrote to jude also, that this drive (like the voith-schneider prop on ships) gives different performance with number of blades, length of blades, length to breadth ratio of the blades. the voith-schneider played a lot in water. i imagine in air have other numbers
@Nicholas Rehm Try using a notched belt so tension / slippage isn't so much of an issue. Besides the tension could torque the frame causing it to twist as more thrust is being applied.
I may be premature and giving a suggestion I flew RC helicopters back in the 70s we didn’t have gyros back then but we did have coged belts or timing belt, I think it will help you greatly. Keep up the good work my friend you have amazing ideas
By not reading other comments, intriguing but rule of engineering thumb more moving parts creates higher risk of failure, this is why the basic fan, propeller is still used today in planes and ships.
I would consider experimenting with different shaped blades, e.g. with more curvature. Maybe inflatable would be good for easy changes making testing a lot faster.
I had many thoughts about the same scheme, but with the rotors placed instead of tail elevator & stabilizer. Some kind of combined pusher & active thrust vectoring.
Great job on the project. In the slow motion shot it appears the right rotor exploded before the plane rolled to the left and caused the left rotor to hit the ground. Can you determine if it was a structural failure or did it hit something? I'm looking forward to your next adventure!
1:25 The patents for the flying car are from Austria not Russia and the "Voith Schneider Propeller" comes from Germany. The patent was filed in 1927 but was mainly used in shipping
"I need to take a break from Cyclorotors..." ...since its bad to end up like a homicidal maniac... "...but I learned alot..!" ...about my patience limits 😆 Good show, that spray of parts was truly epic... reminds me when I gave up on RC airplanes.
The gearing ratio definitely has the motor at the right side of the torque/power plot. Probably would benefit from a higher gearing ratio in the next iteration
Would adding or subtracting blades on the rotors help? Adding more blades to be like a turbine engine or blower motor fan in an automobile or taking away and going to three to save on weight?
love the concept! but if I could ask for something: it would be really interesting to compare different numbers of blades on these, specifically three and six would be something i'd wish to see!
one question- If you scale that up to a larger design does the weight and centrifugal force start to create adverse vibrations and other related issues?
Great question that I don’t know the exact answer to yet. It will need to be lightweight for sure to keep forces down. Vibrations can probably be managed once they’re better understood
This concept works very well under a tugboat in the Voith-Schneider cycloidal drive. That’s because the weight and strength of the components is not a restrictive factor. Your project is wonderfully fascinating, but will always be fragile, I fear. 🤜🤛
Some of the thrust readings might be affected by it being a static test. Some chance it could be a bit more efficient on the actual aircraft if it's in moving air. Other than that, perhaps figuring out how to make some "bird cage" type thing to go over it. That's a lot of work to have break rather quickly, so if the weight penalty isn't too steep that could make some mistakes less expensive regarding the time put into it. (Shows one advantage of props, if those break - slapping on new ones can be done in under a minute.)
So, traditional props have a speed limit, if you don't want the tips to produce a continuous sonic boom. With the cyclorotor, you could spin it up to mach 0.9, and then increase the length if more thrust is desired. That would be interesting to see.
You're the much less pedantic Tom Stanton with a great repository of interesting projects! I'm sure you'll take off, if you can excuse that pun lol. When you come back to cyclo rotors again I'd really like to see a discussion on tip vortices in the vanes, it's something that a lot of people don't talk about and it seems a little bit harder to solve than the traditional tapered and twisted propeller. I have seen some cyclo rotors with disks bonded the frame but I'm wondering if that hurts the performance of the lower blade significantly.
Hey hey we love Tom around here I think the disks would improve tip effects but hurt inflow, so not sure if it would be a net positive or not. Only one way to find out
@@NicholasRehm didn't mean to shade tom too much! I think he aims for a younger audience but I've been subscribed to him ever since he did the paramotor :P
Science!!! Nicely done. I wonder how much efficiency is lost through pitching the blades through a full cycle/rotation? Have you experimented with moving the pivot point?
Try different blades specs such as flexible blades with hinged secondary section: the main section of the blade is attached to the blade driver and the second part is attached to the first blade via a light weight hinges. Were you able to try other sizes of blades, such as width and length? Those dimensions will certainly result in totally different thrust for flight.
Beautiful project ! cant wait to see more cool cycloidal projects taking off. Is it possible to release just the view only cad file, so I can learn how to build this type of engine please?
@@NicholasRehm Thanks Nicholas, Ive been wanting to build a cycloidal engines for a few years now but I just cant grasp the mechanism parts of it etc. Even some pictures close up like where the bearings are where the rods need to be etc and I can take it from there. Just dont want to take your idea and hard work, also I would like to build it myself because I have different diameter of bearings so itll be much easier to put together.
Haha, I've often sniffed an airplane to diagnose the problem. Great job as always Nick! Impressive project to pull off.
Thanks James! Cycloidal rotor boat? I’ve got some .stls with your name on them
@@NicholasRehm Great idea! Feel free to send them over!
My Father sniffs the oil in his cars to see if it needs to be changed. He's a Stanford Civil Engineering grad, and had a 30+ year career in Aerospace, including the Lockheed L-1011. You're (IMHO) in good company using aromatic diagnostic techniques.
collab pls
This is a super interesting idea, I really do like how good projects from the early 1900´s can have a better research with today technologies
Lemme know if there’s any other cool designs I should try
If the design was left 100 years ago, it means it sucks. Simply.
@@DashzRight Many designs are viable now due to advances in material science and miniaturization of components. Hypernormalizing this into “it probably sucks” isn’t a good way to get anywhere.
@@DashzRight and that's why we don't use AC or DC current anymore, right? Or radio signals?
@@evanbarnes9984 Yeah but we didn't "leave" those like was said either.
I love the style and pacing of this video. Solid designs and solid testing! Excited for more!
Very much appreciated Michael. This video took way longer than it should have lol
Genius in engineering, I’m very impressed!
that is the next level. fusion of plane, heli, and drone.
It's amazing to see a man like you trying to make a revolution! God bless you! I really hope you can make it!
Because of the larger "rotor area/wing area" I feel like these could be more efficient, but because of the mechanical complexity will require more maintenance.
Great job comparing their performance! Cycloidal rotor will need a lot of optimization to reach a propeller performance. So for me it looks interesting as a concept, but is far from be worth due its complexity and inherent multiple failure modes.
I definitely agree that it’ll take some more iterating and optimizing. Appreciate your comment!
I do not understand any of this but I admire your enthusiasm.
That method will increase the effect on a vertical wind power. Very interesting. Good work. Take care.
Thanks Goran!
It's great to see your progress! It looks like you had some amazing sustained flights. Much better than my little glide. 😂 I never realized that the one airfoil acts like a wing during forward flight, but that makes sense now. That and probably the higher airflow for the bottom rotor (the one with lots of helpful virtual camber) gives something like a 36% decrease in power consumption at higher speeds. I'll hopefully get my third attempt at a cycloplane flying in the coming months; It'll be interesting to see if it has the same general flight characteristics as yours (hopefully excluding the exploding rotor).
Good luck on future projects, I can't wait to see the cool things that you come up with.
Subscribed to your channel! Wish you good luck!
Great video! That 'unexpected result' has got to be one of the funniest ever!
Very Nice. I don't have any practical knowledge of the cyclo rotor but I just learnt a lot from your video. Thank you very much.
Your builds are awesome, thanks for the comment
@@NicholasRehm wow! Thank you very much.
Honestly, it could be something else than the blades themselves: it could be all of the stuff built around to control their angle of attack. Nice work anyway, that's a lovely dev, thank you for the video!
Surprisingly with the blades and linkages removed, it only draws something like 5% more power than an unloaded motor
It was noted that at 7:28 in the video "catastrophic unscheduled disassembly", otherwise known as "re-kitting" was experienced. Further testing is indicated.
The next time you make this prototype, put your engine higher by about 6 inches.
This looks awesome! Congratulations, and well done!
A flatter/flat wing with ailerons will give you much better roll control, then you can use rudder for ground steering (without the roll) and banknyank for flight control.
I found you again… The cyclo plane is really cool but I just watched your drone cyclo copter and I said do not give up you are not allowed… Well seriously this type of propulsion is the most beautiful of all you must continue. Like a majestic paddleboat in the South Mississippi River this is the most beautiful concept… I will not allow you to give up… Go go go yea… The coolest ever
Impressive project. What a sad ending
7:21 the BUILD UP. the SILENCE. I’m dead hahaha awesome work
Usually one such rotor is divided into two. In order to arrange the blades in a checkerboard pattern. It is very difficult to make a blade that bends at the desired angle. It is difficult to make the blades herringbone. It is difficult to put the blades in a spiral..This is a challenging puzzle.
You did a good job there, well done.
You efforts are so useful and rewarding.
Thanks very much, great to see you’re still working on the f-35
2:16 that is what good experimenting will do. Love it, keep at it !
3:40 that’s correct. Don’t base your work on comparisons. You will find different values of performance to be sure, as you are finding out.
6:50 try serpentine belts , toothed belts will rip apart if they jump the teeth, or over load the shafting, slipping a bit will let you bring it home at least .😊
cool idea ..fun stuff
Thanks!
Great video! this is an interesting project. I'm now wondering if these rotors could be built in/incorporated into a wing where the rotors "tuck in"/"rotate in" to the wing when/where they would be perpendicular to the direction of travel/where they are creating drag and not lift. I'll add this to the endless list of projects I want to get to.
4:03 You may see propeller thrust but I see your subscriber trend
I like your jovial response to calamity and disaster Nicholas! And thanks for sharing this research.
I'll be checking out your link to Jude Schauer and coming back to see what else you have been doing. Subscribed!
I Love This! I'm almost done with mine, I can't wait to show y'all!
Can't wait!!
it's always great to see someone doing research like this. Great work!
You do the stuff I imagine Samm Sheperd would do if he were still alive. I'm glad I found your channel.
Rest easy, Samm. This is such an amazing comment to receive, thank you.
It'd make a decent vtol candidate, right? Because it has nearly infinitely variable thrust angles from straight up to straight forward, without having to pivot motors at all.
Also, great work and thanks for sharing. Sorry it detonated, but... Science!
Hahaha, thanks. Yea I’m very interested in the control authority it offers for a higher speed vtol through transition. Baby steps until we get there!
Wider front wheels might have prevented that. But either way that first flight was successful even though the second one wasn't. Brilliant job
Looking forward to your upcoming videos. This is hyper cool stuff!
Thanks!
When it spins. The flaps, even though position slim, causes wind vortex friction. Perhaps a quarter circle frame beam, could shield the return rotation of the fins from the drag of open exposed atmosphere. This only requires a rotate 1/4th circle frame.
Fascinating concept. Thanks for building it!
5:24
Noise can also be based on the shape of a propeller
There are ways to quiet normal propellers but that's tedious and normal people don't want to do that
Admirable work-through of a funny idea!
This seems very similar to the Voith Schneider Propeller. These are used on tug boats and have the amazing ability to maneuver the tug in any direction.
hi nicholas, i wrote to jude also, that this drive (like the voith-schneider prop on ships) gives different performance with number of blades, length of blades, length to breadth ratio of the blades. the voith-schneider played a lot in water. i imagine in air have other numbers
I love your projects, thanks X3 for sharing it, I kind of impersonate the young experience ; ) and knowledgeable science, I enjoyed it thoroughly
I saw this rotor design in a old documentary video about helicopter history! If I remembered correctly I think it was from 1930 or something
Reminds of that old black and white vintage video of the cycloroter that flew apart a everyone running away!
@Nicholas Rehm Try using a notched belt so tension / slippage isn't so much of an issue. Besides the tension could torque the frame causing it to twist as more thrust is being applied.
I may be premature and giving a suggestion I flew RC helicopters back in the 70s we didn’t have gyros back then but we did have coged belts or timing belt, I think it will help you greatly. Keep up the good work my friend you have amazing ideas
I particularly like the part where you make a small confetti cannon in the parking lot. Literally LOL'd
"Please work."
*giggles. Immediately clicks subscribe*
By not reading other comments, intriguing but rule of engineering thumb more moving parts creates higher risk of failure, this is why the basic fan, propeller is still used today in planes and ships.
5:34 would be interesting to see noise difference at the same thrust for both systems.
I did my best to match thrust for that test actually
@@NicholasRehm oh, nice!
I would consider experimenting with different shaped blades, e.g. with more curvature. Maybe inflatable would be good for easy changes making testing a lot faster.
Interesting project, may take years if not decades to perfect. 👍
I had many thoughts about the same scheme, but with the rotors placed instead of tail elevator & stabilizer. Some kind of combined pusher & active thrust vectoring.
Great job on the project. In the slow motion shot it appears the right rotor exploded before the plane rolled to the left and caused the left rotor to hit the ground. Can you determine if it was a structural failure or did it hit something? I'm looking forward to your next adventure!
Hmmm very good catch. The right rotor did suffer a little mishap off camera that needed repairs. Poor left rotor was collateral damage it seems
1:25 The patents for the flying car are from Austria not Russia and the "Voith Schneider Propeller" comes from Germany. The patent was filed in 1927 but was mainly used in shipping
The video was from someone in Russia tho
Thanks very innovative and learn a lot from you!
Sounds a lot more peaceful when it flies
Reinventing the propeller sounds as good as an idea as reinventing the wheel imo.
2nd attempt to take of is gorgeous...
You genius SOB ! Awsome!
"I need to take a break from Cyclorotors..." ...since its bad to end up like a homicidal maniac... "...but I learned alot..!" ...about my patience limits 😆
Good show, that spray of parts was truly epic... reminds me when I gave up on RC airplanes.
this mechanism is also used in some very unique tug boats as well. Could make a boat vs. a plane. :-)
Excellent idea
I expect some of the efficiency tapering off is due to the motor running out of steam and torque at the high end
The gearing ratio definitely has the motor at the right side of the torque/power plot. Probably would benefit from a higher gearing ratio in the next iteration
The prop makes 3x more noise -
but gives 3x more thrust ^^
Would adding or subtracting blades on the rotors help? Adding more blades to be like a turbine engine or blower motor fan in an automobile or taking away and going to three to save on weight?
Good job. That's amazing.
Very cool video!👍
Thanks!!
Ojalá que sí veamos este diseño en un futuro cercano
Would a canard configuration with the rotors between the wings be better?
FASCINATING
dude, quite impressive work! thanks for sharing... u r a freaking inventor! great stuff, keep it up! Cheers!
Something new and weird is always good, even if it ends up in bits 😄
Nice report.
Nice job Nick! Couldn't have done it witout Winklemans class...
All thanks to the zener diode
I wonder if you could replace a canard with a cyclorotor and use them as a joint control surface/ lift generator/thrust generator?
Love the paddle steamer plane :D
Keep on going. Investmets are waiting for you
love the concept! but if I could ask for something: it would be really interesting to compare different numbers of blades on these, specifically three and six would be something i'd wish to see!
at 3:14 the cyclorotor sounded almost identical to a Huey, pretty freaking awesome lol
Yea, it has a very thumpy, low frequency profile that's really unique for something so small
one question- If you scale that up to a larger design does the weight and centrifugal force start to create adverse vibrations and other related issues?
Great question that I don’t know the exact answer to yet. It will need to be lightweight for sure to keep forces down. Vibrations can probably be managed once they’re better understood
This concept works very well under a tugboat in the Voith-Schneider cycloidal drive. That’s because the weight and strength of the components is not a restrictive factor. Your project is wonderfully fascinating, but will always be fragile, I fear. 🤜🤛
Some of the thrust readings might be affected by it being a static test. Some chance it could be a bit more efficient on the actual aircraft if it's in moving air.
Other than that, perhaps figuring out how to make some "bird cage" type thing to go over it. That's a lot of work to have break rather quickly, so if the weight penalty isn't too steep that could make some mistakes less expensive regarding the time put into it. (Shows one advantage of props, if those break - slapping on new ones can be done in under a minute.)
looks very smouthe and stabel
The bird screaming when the plane broke was perfect lol 🐦
So would that design catch wind well for a wind generator
will the 3d print parts be releases? I really want to try and make one.
at 8:12, in part, the improperly located lg allowed it to happen.
Very good engineering.
Thanks Michael!
This is Steampunk as hell and I'm here for it
How would that work in a narrower version along the leading edge of the wing
So, traditional props have a speed limit, if you don't want the tips to produce a continuous sonic boom. With the cyclorotor, you could spin it up to mach 0.9, and then increase the length if more thrust is desired. That would be interesting to see.
This was educational, fun and created with care. Definitely worth a sub! So count me in!
You are too kind, very happy you enjoyed
You're the much less pedantic Tom Stanton with a great repository of interesting projects! I'm sure you'll take off, if you can excuse that pun lol. When you come back to cyclo rotors again I'd really like to see a discussion on tip vortices in the vanes, it's something that a lot of people don't talk about and it seems a little bit harder to solve than the traditional tapered and twisted propeller. I have seen some cyclo rotors with disks bonded the frame but I'm wondering if that hurts the performance of the lower blade significantly.
Hey hey we love Tom around here
I think the disks would improve tip effects but hurt inflow, so not sure if it would be a net positive or not. Only one way to find out
@@NicholasRehm didn't mean to shade tom too much! I think he aims for a younger audience but I've been subscribed to him ever since he did the paramotor :P
what is the angle of attack of the foils that generates lift?
Makes me wonder what front wheel drive car engine with a continuous ended crank?
Thoughts on releasing the 3d files?
If the aerofoils were stiff enough in torsion, only a cam on one end would be needed, which could simplify the mechanism
Science!!! Nicely done. I wonder how much efficiency is lost through pitching the blades through a full cycle/rotation? Have you experimented with moving the pivot point?
Try different blades specs such as flexible blades with hinged secondary section: the main section of the blade is attached to the blade driver and the second part is attached to the first blade via a light weight hinges. Were you able to try other sizes of blades, such as width and length? Those dimensions will certainly result in totally different thrust for flight.
Beautiful project ! cant wait to see more cool cycloidal projects taking off. Is it possible to release just the view only cad file, so I can learn how to build this type of engine please?
I’ll try to release something once the kinks are ironed out
@@NicholasRehm Thanks Nicholas, Ive been wanting to build a cycloidal engines for a few years now but I just cant grasp the mechanism parts of it etc. Even some pictures close up like where the bearings are where the rods need to be etc and I can take it from there. Just dont want to take your idea and hard work, also I would like to build it myself because I have different diameter of bearings so itll be much easier to put together.