Wandel Air Engine

I’m a recent fan of Matthias Wandel (from Youtube), and when I saw his air engine, I had to make it myself…

https://discuss-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/original/3X/1/5/154e1eb2f30f2e38bf2d68ffc0becaefe13d1431.mp4

I purchased the plans from him, imported all of the dimensions into Easel, and let my X-Carve do the magic. I made a few minor changes of my own, in order to make it easier to manufacture, but it’s the same otherwise. I put a handheld tachometer on it and it measured just under 600 RPMs, so I couldn’t be happier.

Now… what should be made to be run by it? I’d love to hear any suggestions!

11 Likes

That is pretty cool. good job

You might have to gear it down a bit, how about a rock tumbler?

Crank that baby up and run a lathe,band saw, and tablesaw. Lol. The sky’s the limit.

Make you a power hack saw.

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My son would love this. May see if he wants to build one now!

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My vote would be to have it crank an air bellows (used in forging). Or how about have it turn a water pump? Or, heck, how about a log splitter hydraulic pump?

Make it really do some work!

:slight_smile:

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How much torque does it have?? VERY VERY COOL! Need to go watch the Matthias video.

Love the ideas, everyone! Unfortunately, the amount of available torque is extremely low for this unit. As the designer himself said - it’s just a toy. Also, I’m not sure I’d get the RPMs to run an end mill effectively. That being said, I like the ideas of running other tools off of it, but similar to how an old steam-powered or waterwheel factory used to run. Connect it to a central shaft and then run other toy-scale items off it using belt drives. The water pump idea is pretty neat too, and something like an Archimede’s screw would be really interesting (not sure how I’d make it on the X-Carve, though). Another idea I had would be to drive a marble machine, but that might be too elaborate.

One other item of note - because this is not my design, I don’t want to publicly share the Easel projects. First of all, there’s a lot that goes into the assembly, and, when you buy the plans, you get very detailed instructions. Also, this is Matthias Wandel’s livelihood, so I wouldn’t want to interfere at all. So, if you want the Easel project links, please direct-message me some kind of proof that you’ve purchased the plans from Mr. Wandel and I’ll send them.

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Looks like this is a good option for motorizing a Whirlygig.