You need a Louver or a Strata cap which prevents debris from entering the fan with a tornado effect expelling the debris & dirt to the sides. They are used in aftermarket car car intake boxes for off-road vehicles. A topspin would work too. Check out Donaldson Filtering solutions. You may be able to 3D print one. They may even sell one small enough for your application. essentially they are pre filters but work with centrifugal force of air spinning like a tornado rather than a mechanical filter which can clog.
I think that you did a much better job with your choice of location for this experiment compared to the previous video. This time it was much more suitable for your experiment. And this time the difference in grip was very noticeable despite your clumsy handling and steering 😉 So my compliments for that. 😋 Sorry for you loss of the camera. Small tip, maybe next time you can turn that round track into an oval with some cones, creating a straight on the track, which gives you more data and more challenging conditions.
A firmer suspension could give you more downforce without dragging the skirt. Also for active downforce management you could increase the fanspeed when steering (if you can program that)
Actually, as you start to draw a vacuum, you will draw less power, as it's doing less actual work, so you could make a smart controller that indirectly senses how much of a vacuum you are pulling by monitoring draw, and automatically controls the throttle to try to always pull slightly less than the maximum vacuum, which should hopefully translate into the skirt riding just above the ground.
@@Nevir202 that's right, but needs a lot more engineering. I don't think my suggestion is a perfect solution, but it could improve the rideabiljty with little changes.
Dynamically controlling the fan speed based on laterally forces and / or skirt height may be fun. I would consider adding some small air inlets near the front of the skirt to keep it from sealing completely as the fan loses much of it’s suction when the air flow is reduced to near zero. Also a centrifugal fan would do well in this use case. Fun vid, Hope to see more on this topic.
Having a microcontroller that takes an input from an accelerometer and then varies the speed of the suction motor based on the lateral G's would mean that when the suspension in unloaded, the suction falls off allowing the car to attain higher velocity due to lower friction and then when the G's rise up (in a turn), the fan speed ramps up, increasing suction and pulling the car down and loading the suspension up providing more traction.
With a digital programmable remote control he can simply make the steering action also control the fan speed. With each steering input the fan speed goes up, regardless if it is steering to the left or the right. And with less steering action the input will be lower so there will be less fan speed. So there is no need for gravity sensors or an accelerometer at all.
@@insAneTunA That is a good idea, I did not know you could do that with controllers. The only downside is there are times where you do not want suction but you do want high steering angles. Such as low speed turning just to name one instance.
The trick to making that vacuum skirt work is to attach it to the wheel uprights, not the chassis so it stays at a fixed height above the ground no matter how much the car rolls/pitches. It'll let you run a softer suspension as well, which is almost always better.
Wouldn't doing that mean that the chassis of the car needs to be able to move up and down and tilt sideways inside the skirt? which in turn means you would have to make the skirt seal all around the chassis while not being attached to the chassis itself.... feels daunting to me :)
@@kenvanpassen9247 No the skirt that he's built would be the same, just attached to the wheel uprights rather than the chassis. But yes with softer suspension he's have to lift the chassis up a few mm's so it'd keep clear of the skirt in bumps.
By looking on the video, I have a feeling that you configured EDFs to suck air, but making them rotate "backwards" instead of mounting them reversely. Remember, blades have their shape and angle of attack to provide maximum thrust when they rotate in the direction they were designed to. So, by mounting them correctly, and powering according tho their natural direction of rotation they will produce much more thrust/suction :)
@@JMMC1005 Somehow I completely forgot to mention that this was intentional: I still got more than enough thrust/suction from the fans with the blades the less-optimal way around (only needed about 30% throttle) while still having the EDF blades visible, so it looks cool for the thumbnail (important for RUclips, let's be real!). Nice one for noticing though!
@@JMMC1005 Believe in JESUS today, confess and repent of your sins. No one goes to heaven for doing good but by believing in JESUS who died for our sins. Hell isn't fun. GOD loves you soo much unconditional❤🙌❤😌
@@Project-Air Are you planning to implement huge wings together with this fan on an RC car, and maybe a modified body shape ask as to improve airflow speed and smoothness. Also, as other comment threads have mentioned, being able to programme the fan speeds would be beneficial.
The Chaparral 2j had skirts that were stiff but moved. They worked with the suspension to keep a set height from the ground. Also you could have the tray adjustable for and aft to balance down force. Too much push? Move it forward. Fan cars are great concepts but require unrealistic flat and clean surfaces.
yeah, i thought he was gonna mention the 2j, the absolute beast of a car that could probably generate enough downforce to stop upside down... too bad it was unreliable as heck
I think it would be worth looking at the fan as a mechanism to move air over diffusers and venturi tunnels under the car at a faster rate of speed than the car is moving. This is the actual primary purpose of blown diffusers and of the bt46b's fan. It wasn't designed to be a static pressure device like a vacuum. Think of the design more as an upside wing in a wind tunnel. The wing will produce lift, or in this case downforce, even when stationary by having the air pulled past it by a fan. It makes for much more efficient, meaning more downforce to drag ratio, than a vacuum design.
This is what I was thinking. The whole point is to take advantage of ground effect, which he acknowledges, but never actually makes any attempts to use...
That's what i thought too. The fan car in f1 would suck in air through the front and blow it out the back to make the air underneath move faster, creating a low pressure zone.
Hey bro, just wanted to say how professional your videos are now. Great sound and lighting. Youre more calm and confident, with great shots and editing. Just like on TV. If youre doing this all yourself well done. Wish you well on your career. All the best Kieron
Im a photographer ... so would be interested in your gear - which camera, led lighting, mic you use please. oh, maybe a link to locked google sheet in the description perhaps. That would be cool.
I’m sure you got inspiration from f1 including the last car video. I’m a huge F1 fan and all I can say is great job trying to make a ground affect car!
Awesome build! What about testing attaching wings directly to the wheel hubs like they did before they banned it. This keeps the pressure directly on the tires so you can run softer suspension and have more mechanical grip.
Maybe just carry forward the trend & add stuff like bargeboards, venturi tunnels, diffusers etc like a F1 car? Would be awesome to see you make something that has them all working together Edit: Active suspension & active aerodynamics would be so cool as well
Chaparral 2j used this same concept. Their skirt used cables and pullies to maintain a specific height independent of the body of the car. Cool video!!
Suggestion - add an inertial switch or accelerometer linked to the fan speed - increase grip from skirt when cornering, decrease drag from skirt on straights
Believe in JESUS today, confess and repent of your sins. No one goes to heaven for doing good but by believing in JESUS who died for our sins. Hell isn't fun. GOD loves you soo much unconditional❤🙌❤😌
If 23 years as a airline aircraft engineer and crazy micro jet engine home builder has taught me one thing...its that you've installed the fans backwards and are running them in reverse. They'd work a lot better installed and running in the right direction. I am impressed none the less. 🙂🇦🇺
Would be informative to show the lap times with and without suction. Also why not to disable the fan - do the lap - enable the fan - do the lap, so the testing is more accurate
Believe in JESUS today, confess and repent of your sins. No one goes to heaven for doing good but by believing in JESUS who died for our sins. Hell isn't fun. GOD loves you soo much unconditional❤🙌❤😌
The test would just show how the mods affected the car's performance from stock. Added data but nothing that would help the project far as I understand. I'm not the engineer type to tell how this would be applicable.
They still have blades as im sure your aware based on the quotation marks. The air would still have to travel through the blades so the same problem still exists.
There was a car in GT6 that had this technology too called the Chaparral 2J '70. The design wasn’t allowed after a couple races irl because any driver caught behind it literally has to eat road dust.
It would be very interesting to see a sensor used to sense the distance to the ground and the Gs on the car to drive a PID control of the fan to get maximum grip when needed without having the skirt contact the ground. You could also designs a skirt that used a Teflon material in a guide that is free to move up and down to create a near perfect low friction seal.
This new generation of F1 cars also use ground effect to generate downforce. It’s really interesting to see the different designs and strategies they use to seal de underfloor to preven purposing. I’m loving this aero centered videos. They help to understand this concepts and have a bit of a better view when watching races
edit: I see this was already recommended :p A thought: Depending on the hysteresis between fan power and fan rpm, if you could have the fan run relative to steering input (the more you steer, the more the fan ramps up) you could perhaps gain some more straight-line speed and maybe get some better battery life as well. That is, only use the fan when it is needed.
I recently thought of building a similar RC car! And I would never have guessed about the dust problem just by thinking about it😂Thank you for the wisdom!
Hey Im in 12th grade and as my final, im building a similar car and i will conduct several experiments researching the effect different factors have on grip. One of the thing i want to try out is how downforce affects grip. I have some questions: - How much power did your edf use? - How big was the battery powering the fan? / how long did the fan run? - Did you use the same battery to power both the fan and the car itself? Any help is much apprechiated Thanks
It seems like the past of formula 1 was a big list of trying things, new modes, projects, concepts and thank you to this videos everybody can watch that, and learn, thank you Guys!! 👍
Doubt a cyclone would work , but with a bit of trickery you might accomplish the effect. Since power and efficiency of the fan aren't major concerns, baffle the suction such that it's spread among multiple points, and the suction is parallel to the bottom of the car. With no direct upwards suction, it would be hard to lift anything off the ground. You could also make the inlets small enough slits that you aren't worried about anything big enough to cause damage passing through them, say 3mm openings or something like that?
The original was the Chaparral Fan Car - 2J in sports car racing. The engineering behind these cars is nuts! Not just a fan on the back way more than that
The EDFs are the wrong way round. They are much more efficient when driven in the right direction. And maybe a blower style would be better for this purpose because EDFs have such low static pressure.
The pressure from the system is pushing down your rear wheels more than your front ones. Put the air intake closer to the front of the car and it will push the wheels that actually steer into the ground harder, and will help under steer. A front bumper mounted spoiler will also help push them into the ground. You can help prevent the skirt from hitting the ground by setting limits on the suspension end points. Hope this helps _ automotive project manager, JD Power :)
I enjoy these videos so much. I’m probably like 20 years older than you, but I’m constantly learning from all these amazing experiments. I wish I had as much creativity (I’d be happy with one tenth of it!) :)
I appreciate that your plug for NordVPN didn't play into the "it makes your data more secure!" nonsense, but focused on the benefit of being able to access other regions' streaming materials. Cool cars by the way 🙂
7:43 this was a big problem with the Brabham fan cars and part of why the other teams wanted them banned. The debris they sucked up created a major safety issue for the drivers behind them; think what happened to Felipe Massa.
Very cool- I think the biggest short-term gains would be fixing the skirts up. You're already printing it, so some printed sliding skirts with small flat springs could work well. This would make it a lot more versatile Suspension is another one- maybe stiffen it up a bit so you don't have so much travel for the skirt to contend with The ultimate solution is mounting the vacuum plate unsprung. This needs to be able to flex with suspension travel, and still have a bit of movement to cope with imperfect surfaces, but takes the soft suspension out of the equation entirely. If ytou wanted to take it to the extreme something like a 1/12 pan car could be ideal. They're already very low, have lots of surface area, and nearly locked out suspension
you might consider a circuit to tye the fan in with the turning only. or increase pressure in the trurns, and decrease it on the straightaways. cool video, great job!
Very cool little project. I'd suggest to enlarge the area of the mesh and maybe tinker with the center of suction as needed. But the biggest potential I guess is in skirts that can slide up and down to allow for proper working suspension and minimized drag from the skirts. Cheers
in f1 they used skirts that allowed for suspension travel with ground-effect, and they also used them in the chaparral 2j which is more like what you have here. I think your experience with worse times with minimal gains came down to the fact that you do not have those skirts, and the assembly for the vacuum hitting the ground too quickly. You could fix this by lifting the vacuum assembly and adding those to allow for more travel, and possibly stiffer springs.
You should try blowing air past the hole and creating a low pressure area. This is used in garden vacuums to suck debris up into the bags. The plus of this is that your fan won’t get clogged as you are not sucking via the fan.
the ideal adjustment to this would be to have a gear which turns from like 10% to 100% to that wheel which controls the fan speed, which you would change for gears and a motor turning them with another cog. This could be controlled remotely to allow faster straight line speed and to be turned up before breaking for corners.
One thing worth noting was the the bt46 and lotus cars only use skirts on ether side of the car to increase the vinture effect (sorry for spelling). You might be able to increase performance by making it narrow in the middle of the floor and wider at each end as well as using a rubber skirt on both sides
in a future iteration id recommend opening the front of the skirts and the back of the skirts part of the downforce comes from the air creating that low pressure zone which is easier at the front without the skirt would add less surface friction when the skirts glide across the surface
Multiple of the 70's F1 cars used thickly set bristles as skirts. They were stiff enough to allow creating a somewhat permeable membrane, but soft enough to bend back when contacting the ground. They were probalby the best middle-ground solution between optimal downforce and creating too much downforce, increasing rolling or even drag resistance.
IIRC the BT46 initially had the same problem of sucking itself down to the track and rubbing, but they solved it attached the vacuum chamber to the wheel hubs instead of the chassis. That way the suspension wasn't compressed by the vacuum.
You need a Louver or a Strata cap which prevents debris from entering the fan with a pre filter tornado effect expelling the debris & dirt to the sides. They are used in aftermarket car car intake boxes for off-road vehicles. A topspin would work too. Check out Donaldson Filtering solutions. You may be able to 3D print one. They may even sell one small enough for your application. essentially they are pre filters but work with centrifugal force of air spinning like a tornado rather than a mechanical filter which can clog.
IDK how much time you spend reading comments from non-paying customers, but here goes!- Adjusting the downward suction to reduce drag is folly. You’ll never find a sweet spot that way; only a disappointing compromise. What you need to do is keep the shocks from traveling beyond the point where it’s just about to touch the ground. This principle should help in all kinds of situations. Good luck, (and thanks for providing videos that me AND my wife enjoy!) 😇
I’ve watched a fair amount of Gordon Murray videos. My takeaway is the fan in his fan cars weren’t directly sucking the car to the ground. Instead they were designed to augment aerodynamics by managing turbulent airflow and discarding it out the back. The fan in his T.33 hypercar runs at relatively low speeds to accomplish this. People assume his cars are vacuuming themselves to the tarmac but if that were true the drag this creates would make the racing cars too slow to be competitive. The fan is about managing airflow.
Maybe already commented: I believe your downforce is being reacted on the rigid "skirts" rather than going on to the wheels to generate grip. Skirts are supposed to slide up and down so that they don't transfer vertical force (so it doesn't take it away from the wheels, grip). Right now it looks like you do have some additional grip because you have some additional compression on the suspension but then you bottom out the "skirts" (it's really just the body of the car) and you dont get any more grip, just more drag because any additional suction goes to the skirt/body (not the wheels). This is why you found a happy medium in the fan speed. If you remove this limitation you could increase grip further. You could try stiffer springs so more load goes to the wheels, higher "unsuctioned" ride height or inplementing and actual sliding skirt. Awesome video, really like the experiment!
I've seen a few people mention this, but I want to say it again just so you hopefully see it. Right now your suction device is connected to the chassis of the car... which... there is nothing wrong with that... it works, but this relies on the suspension being the perfect height and spring rate to keep the skirt just a hair off the ground at all times to keep suction going. This is very difficult to do, and, if the solid skirt bottoms out on the floor, then you don't have the full force of the suction giving you traction, but you only have whatever the spring rate of the suspension is giving you for traction. Instead you need to figure out how to connect the skirt to the uprights of the tires in some way. This way the suction force is directed directly to the tires of the vehicle without effecting the suspension at all. This will also mean maintaining the proper height for the skirt will be much easier as well as it won't move with the chassis of the vehicle. Once this is done, you should have maximum traction from a very good suction along with a much improved ride quality (not that that matters too much for an RC car, but still)
That’s great, could you adjust fan speed in the straights then turn it up full when going into a corner? Maybe connect fan control to an accelerometer to some how adjust down force automatically.
you could do what the mini vaccum attachment has and put some brushes around the edge of the sieve, the dust would be pushed along with the brushes and mostly stay out of the grill area..
Every time I see someone do this, I'm always reminded of the line follower robot competitions in Japan; the winners always use four quad props, in reverse, so it's essentially blasting air upwards and creating downforce. At least it won't be vacuum clener anymore.
Big shout out to Engineering After Hours - his fan cars are some of the fastest electric vehicles in the world! ruclips.net/user/EngineeringAfterHours
Great work on this one! I love the direction comparison as well.
You need a Louver or a Strata cap which prevents debris from entering the fan with a tornado effect expelling the debris & dirt to the sides. They are used in aftermarket car car intake boxes for off-road vehicles. A topspin would work too. Check out Donaldson Filtering solutions. You may be able to 3D print one. They may even sell one small enough for your application. essentially they are pre filters but work with centrifugal force of air spinning like a tornado rather than a mechanical filter which can clog.
try to fix the cam, lock easy
I think that you did a much better job with your choice of location for this experiment compared to the previous video. This time it was much more suitable for your experiment. And this time the difference in grip was very noticeable despite your clumsy handling and steering 😉 So my compliments for that. 😋 Sorry for you loss of the camera. Small tip, maybe next time you can turn that round track into an oval with some cones, creating a straight on the track, which gives you more data and more challenging conditions.
Could you build more rockets? Those are very fun videos to watch and you do a good job on them.
Early testing seems to have revealed you were on track to create the worlds fastest roomba haha
You just now need to explore how Dyson keep their suction constant and free of obstruction.
@@xdragon2k They use a secondary vacuum chamber with a tornado effect to bring the debris to the edge.
Also known as a VROOM-ba
@@masterimbecile vroomba go brrr
@@JusticePreyHDM attach a remote explosive and you got a boomba
A firmer suspension could give you more downforce without dragging the skirt.
Also for active downforce management you could increase the fanspeed when steering (if you can program that)
^ this one! Please take it further!
Actually, as you start to draw a vacuum, you will draw less power, as it's doing less actual work, so you could make a smart controller that indirectly senses how much of a vacuum you are pulling by monitoring draw, and automatically controls the throttle to try to always pull slightly less than the maximum vacuum, which should hopefully translate into the skirt riding just above the ground.
@@Nevir202 that's right, but needs a lot more engineering. I don't think my suggestion is a perfect solution, but it could improve the rideabiljty with little changes.
Dynamically controlling the fan speed based on laterally forces and / or skirt height may be fun.
I would consider adding some small air inlets near the front of the skirt to keep it from sealing completely as the fan loses much of it’s suction when the air flow is reduced to near zero.
Also a centrifugal fan would do well in this use case.
Fun vid, Hope to see more on this topic.
further to this making the skirt and aero unsprung to you can run the fan at max without any risk of grounding out
Having a microcontroller that takes an input from an accelerometer and then varies the speed of the suction motor based on the lateral G's would mean that when the suspension in unloaded, the suction falls off allowing the car to attain higher velocity due to lower friction and then when the G's rise up (in a turn), the fan speed ramps up, increasing suction and pulling the car down and loading the suspension up providing more traction.
Turbo lag may be a problem. How fast can the fan spin up? The car needs down force at the start of a turn.
It could just use stearing input with suction, More steer
I wonder if an adjustable vent could help with spin up delays.
With a digital programmable remote control he can simply make the steering action also control the fan speed. With each steering input the fan speed goes up, regardless if it is steering to the left or the right. And with less steering action the input will be lower so there will be less fan speed. So there is no need for gravity sensors or an accelerometer at all.
@@insAneTunA That is a good idea, I did not know you could do that with controllers. The only downside is there are times where you do not want suction but you do want high steering angles. Such as low speed turning just to name one instance.
Map a button on your controller to spin the fan in the opposite direction. This helps in disposing the dirt getting stuck.
sky effect
And In bonus, make the car fly!
He’s gonna have to change the whole ESC to do that
@@MatthewNovoselskiy most escs support reverse just have to program it.
69th like. Nice
The trick to making that vacuum skirt work is to attach it to the wheel uprights, not the chassis so it stays at a fixed height above the ground no matter how much the car rolls/pitches. It'll let you run a softer suspension as well, which is almost always better.
Wouldn't doing that mean that the chassis of the car needs to be able to move up and down and tilt sideways inside the skirt? which in turn means you would have to make the skirt seal all around the chassis while not being attached to the chassis itself.... feels daunting to me :)
@@kenvanpassen9247 No the skirt that he's built would be the same, just attached to the wheel uprights rather than the chassis. But yes with softer suspension he's have to lift the chassis up a few mm's so it'd keep clear of the skirt in bumps.
By looking on the video, I have a feeling that you configured EDFs to suck air, but making them rotate "backwards" instead of mounting them reversely. Remember, blades have their shape and angle of attack to provide maximum thrust when they rotate in the direction they were designed to. So, by mounting them correctly, and powering according tho their natural direction of rotation they will produce much more thrust/suction :)
This! He was losing so much efficiency by doing this. I'd be surprised if he was getting more than 50% of the EDF's normal performance.
@@JMMC1005 Somehow I completely forgot to mention that this was intentional: I still got more than enough thrust/suction from the fans with the blades the less-optimal way around (only needed about 30% throttle) while still having the EDF blades visible, so it looks cool for the thumbnail (important for RUclips, let's be real!). Nice one for noticing though!
@@JMMC1005 Believe in JESUS today, confess and repent of your sins. No one goes to heaven for doing good but by believing in JESUS who died for our sins. Hell isn't fun. GOD loves you soo much unconditional❤🙌❤😌
@@Project-Air Are you planning to implement huge wings together with this fan on an RC car, and maybe a modified body shape ask as to improve airflow speed and smoothness. Also, as other comment threads have mentioned, being able to programme the fan speeds would be beneficial.
@@Project-Air Also yeah, while it's true that it would look better on the thumbnail, the sacrifice of performance is kind off off putting.
The Chaparral 2j had skirts that were stiff but moved. They worked with the suspension to keep a set height from the ground.
Also you could have the tray adjustable for and aft to balance down force. Too much push? Move it forward.
Fan cars are great concepts but require unrealistic flat and clean surfaces.
yeah, i thought he was gonna mention the 2j, the absolute beast of a car that could probably generate enough downforce to stop upside down... too bad it was unreliable as heck
@@akhil_kasiram and ass backwards to drive if it's anything like the Gordon Murray cars
I think it would be worth looking at the fan as a mechanism to move air over diffusers and venturi tunnels under the car at a faster rate of speed than the car is moving. This is the actual primary purpose of blown diffusers and of the bt46b's fan. It wasn't designed to be a static pressure device like a vacuum. Think of the design more as an upside wing in a wind tunnel. The wing will produce lift, or in this case downforce, even when stationary by having the air pulled past it by a fan. It makes for much more efficient, meaning more downforce to drag ratio, than a vacuum design.
This is what I was thinking. The whole point is to take advantage of ground effect, which he acknowledges, but never actually makes any attempts to use...
That's what i thought too. The fan car in f1 would suck in air through the front and blow it out the back to make the air underneath move faster, creating a low pressure zone.
Your workmanship is brilliant. The sieve install was testament to your attention to detail. Awesome to watch!
Hey bro, just wanted to say how professional your videos are now. Great sound and lighting. Youre more calm and confident, with great shots and editing. Just like on TV. If youre doing this all yourself well done. Wish you well on your career. All the best Kieron
Thank you Kieron
Im a photographer ... so would be interested in your gear - which camera, led lighting, mic you use please. oh, maybe a link to locked google sheet in the description perhaps. That would be cool.
ah piss!!! feel your pain on that camera smash
I’m sure you got inspiration from f1 including the last car video. I’m a huge F1 fan and all I can say is great job trying to make a ground affect car!
*Sad Chaparral Noise*
Can't fortget the 2j
Id love to know if it could drive on a ceiling [a flat one of course]
You could race it at the Guggenheim in New York!
There are RC cars that do this for very cheap on amazon :)
Awesome build! What about testing attaching wings directly to the wheel hubs like they did before they banned it. This keeps the pressure directly on the tires so you can run softer suspension and have more mechanical grip.
Maybe just carry forward the trend & add stuff like bargeboards, venturi tunnels, diffusers etc like a F1 car? Would be awesome to see you make something that has them all working together
Edit: Active suspension & active aerodynamics would be so cool as well
or sex wheels
I own those rc cars. Stiffening the suspension by twisting the screws on the shocks sona helps alot. Also putting thicker oil in the shocks.
Awesome! Love the timing with f1 starting last week!
Chaparral 2j used this same concept. Their skirt used cables and pullies to maintain a specific height independent of the body of the car. Cool video!!
Suggestion - add an inertial switch or accelerometer linked to the fan speed - increase grip from skirt when cornering, decrease drag from skirt on straights
Believe in JESUS today, confess and repent of your sins. No one goes to heaven for doing good but by believing in JESUS who died for our sins. Hell isn't fun. GOD loves you soo much unconditional❤🙌❤😌
That would be so cool!!!
If 23 years as a airline aircraft engineer and crazy micro jet engine home builder has taught me one thing...its that you've installed the fans backwards and are running them in reverse.
They'd work a lot better installed and running in the right direction.
I am impressed none the less. 🙂🇦🇺
Would be informative to show the lap times with and without suction. Also why not to disable the fan - do the lap - enable the fan - do the lap, so the testing is more accurate
Believe in JESUS today, confess and repent of your sins. No one goes to heaven for doing good but by believing in JESUS who died for our sins. Hell isn't fun. GOD loves you soo much unconditional❤🙌❤😌
The test would just show how the mods affected the car's performance from stock. Added data but nothing that would help the project far as I understand. I'm not the engineer type to tell how this would be applicable.
6:09 The car went "Into the Nutzz!"
Love your Mini man! It looks perfectly modified
I love how you demonstrate these scientific theories and calculations in real life experiments!
Love the video!
You could try a "bladeless" fan to solve you're blade snaping problem.
Like the Dyson fan? Complicated but good idea
They still have blades as im sure your aware based on the quotation marks. The air would still have to travel through the blades so the same problem still exists.
There was a car in GT6 that had this technology too called the Chaparral 2J '70. The design wasn’t allowed after a couple races irl because any driver caught behind it literally has to eat road dust.
The fastest vacuum cleaner I've ever seen.
*Chaparral 2j has entered the chat*
The fastest roomba
@@daeshawnr2595 lotus 79 leaves the chat
Great work on this one
It would be very interesting to see a sensor used to sense the distance to the ground and the Gs on the car to drive a PID control of the fan to get maximum grip when needed without having the skirt contact the ground. You could also designs a skirt that used a Teflon material in a guide that is free to move up and down to create a near perfect low friction seal.
Probably easier to use a barometer than a height sensor.
4:42 I'm diggin the old iron you got there. None of this plastic disposable garbage, just an honest little Mini.
This new generation of F1 cars also use ground effect to generate downforce. It’s really interesting to see the different designs and strategies they use to seal de underfloor to preven purposing. I’m loving this aero centered videos. They help to understand this concepts and have a bit of a better view when watching races
So did the 70s ones and they abused it to near comedic effect lol
Dude, I am HARDCORE jealous of that classic mini! SO COOL!!! Those old minis are super hard to find here in the US.
edit: I see this was already recommended :p
A thought: Depending on the hysteresis between fan power and fan rpm, if you could have the fan run relative to steering input (the more you steer, the more the fan ramps up) you could perhaps gain some more straight-line speed and maybe get some better battery life as well.
That is, only use the fan when it is needed.
I recently thought of building a similar RC car! And I would never have guessed about the dust problem just by thinking about it😂Thank you for the wisdom!
Hey
Im in 12th grade and as my final, im building a similar car and i will conduct several experiments researching the effect different factors have on grip. One of the thing i want to try out is how downforce affects grip. I have some questions:
- How much power did your edf use?
- How big was the battery powering the fan? / how long did the fan run?
- Did you use the same battery to power both the fan and the car itself?
Any help is much apprechiated
Thanks
It seems like the past of formula 1 was a big list of trying things, new modes, projects, concepts and thank you to this videos everybody can watch that, and learn, thank you Guys!! 👍
Could you avoid the need for a sieve mesh by using a cyclone?
Doubt a cyclone would work , but with a bit of trickery you might accomplish the effect.
Since power and efficiency of the fan aren't major concerns, baffle the suction such that it's spread among multiple points, and the suction is parallel to the bottom of the car. With no direct upwards suction, it would be hard to lift anything off the ground. You could also make the inlets small enough slits that you aren't worried about anything big enough to cause damage passing through them, say 3mm openings or something like that?
An eductor type system like the Dyson "bladeless" fans would work great in this regard.
The dyson bladeless just has the fan in the bottom of the device. They want to maximize surface area, and reduce pressure.
Amaizing project! We really like it! 🤩
The Fan Blades rotating backwards is bothering me alot lol.. would decrease atleast 30% of its efficiency..
The original was the Chaparral Fan Car - 2J in sports car racing. The engineering behind these cars is nuts! Not just a fan on the back way more than that
The EDFs are the wrong way round. They are much more efficient when driven in the right direction. And maybe a blower style would be better for this purpose because EDFs have such low static pressure.
He said in another comment that this was intentional because he didn't need much force anyway
@@brrrrrr But it would draw much less power at the same thrust.
this is a great practical demonstration of downforce and ground effect.
The pressure from the system is pushing down your rear wheels more than your front ones. Put the air intake closer to the front of the car and it will push the wheels that actually steer into the ground harder, and will help under steer. A front bumper mounted spoiler will also help push them into the ground.
You can help prevent the skirt from hitting the ground by setting limits on the suspension end points.
Hope this helps _ automotive project manager, JD Power :)
I enjoy these videos so much.
I’m probably like 20 years older than you, but I’m constantly learning from all these amazing experiments. I wish I had as much creativity (I’d be happy with one tenth of it!)
:)
I appreciate that your plug for NordVPN didn't play into the "it makes your data more secure!" nonsense, but focused on the benefit of being able to access other regions' streaming materials. Cool cars by the way 🙂
8:55 love the fact that this sounds like a mini f1 car 🤣👌🏻
Sick! Been waiting for this! Have a good weekend mate :)
I have watched most of your videos but this was for first time I saw your car 4:31 ...loved it just loved it.
9:01 Servo tester: Why are we still here?Just to suffer?
7:43 this was a big problem with the Brabham fan cars and part of why the other teams wanted them banned. The debris they sucked up created a major safety issue for the drivers behind them; think what happened to Felipe Massa.
Very, very impressive concept and project. Im glad to see our generation giving a shit about the history of F1
Love the retro F1 engine noice overlay haha! So much more speeds that way
When I was a kid, RC cars and walkie talkies blew my mind. Now there are drones and cellphones, and I'm kinda jaded about it all.
Sick project and video. So much potential when there are no rules
Mate, congrats for hitting 200k subs, as an engineering addict I really like your videos, keep it up!
Very cool- I think the biggest short-term gains would be fixing the skirts up. You're already printing it, so some printed sliding skirts with small flat springs could work well. This would make it a lot more versatile
Suspension is another one- maybe stiffen it up a bit so you don't have so much travel for the skirt to contend with
The ultimate solution is mounting the vacuum plate unsprung. This needs to be able to flex with suspension travel, and still have a bit of movement to cope with imperfect surfaces, but takes the soft suspension out of the equation entirely.
If ytou wanted to take it to the extreme something like a 1/12 pan car could be ideal. They're already very low, have lots of surface area, and nearly locked out suspension
Extra points for the Mini!! 😃
Awesome Video. ☺️
This Guy is Getting Professional
I love these car aerodynamics videos 🔥
This is one the coolest experiments I've seen in a while thank you for your work and providing this video!
Would love to see a car like this drive on the ceiling! Great project
Total respect for your real car.
Nice choice!
The engineering battle between Jack Brabham and Colin Chapman is legendary. Now we need a RC Lotus Type 88 twin chassis car.
Not only is this guy bright & sharp...but he's funnier than hell!
you might consider a circuit to tye the fan in with the turning only. or increase pressure in the trurns, and decrease it on the straightaways.
cool video, great job!
I love that it sounds like a f-1 car
Wow incredible you’re at 200k subs now. I’ve been watching since the beginning and knew you were gonna be big one day
Very cool little project. I'd suggest to enlarge the area of the mesh and maybe tinker with the center of suction as needed. But the biggest potential I guess is in skirts that can slide up and down to allow for proper working suspension and minimized drag from the skirts. Cheers
The BT46 was a total beast... and it threw any dirt it found on the road right in the face of the ones following it, too.
in f1 they used skirts that allowed for suspension travel with ground-effect, and they also used them in the chaparral 2j which is more like what you have here. I think your experience with worse times with minimal gains came down to the fact that you do not have those skirts, and the assembly for the vacuum hitting the ground too quickly. You could fix this by lifting the vacuum assembly and adding those to allow for more travel, and possibly stiffer springs.
You should try blowing air past the hole and creating a low pressure area. This is used in garden vacuums to suck debris up into the bags. The plus of this is that your fan won’t get clogged as you are not sucking via the fan.
This dude could easily be chief engineer at Haas or Williams right now 👍
the ideal adjustment to this would be to have a gear which turns from like 10% to 100% to that wheel which controls the fan speed, which you would change for gears and a motor turning them with another cog. This could be controlled remotely to allow faster straight line speed and to be turned up before breaking for corners.
RIP Original camera, miss ya big man, gone but not forgotten
One thing worth noting was the the bt46 and lotus cars only use skirts on ether side of the car to increase the vinture effect (sorry for spelling). You might be able to increase performance by making it narrow in the middle of the floor and wider at each end as well as using a rubber skirt on both sides
in a future iteration id recommend opening the front of the skirts and the back of the skirts part of the downforce comes from the air creating that low pressure zone which is easier at the front without the skirt would add less surface friction when the skirts glide across the surface
I've waited for this so long
Gordon Murray would have a chub watching this. So would have Lauda. Good work!
Multiple of the 70's F1 cars used thickly set bristles as skirts. They were stiff enough to allow creating a somewhat permeable membrane, but soft enough to bend back when contacting the ground. They were probalby the best middle-ground solution between optimal downforce and creating too much downforce, increasing rolling or even drag resistance.
The Mini is the coolest thing in this video, in my opinion.
Hey, awesome car! It reminds me of Mr. Bean's, what a great guy.
IIRC the BT46 initially had the same problem of sucking itself down to the track and rubbing, but they solved it attached the vacuum chamber to the wheel hubs instead of the chassis. That way the suspension wasn't compressed by the vacuum.
You need a Louver or a Strata cap which prevents debris from entering the fan with a pre filter tornado effect expelling the debris & dirt to the sides. They are used in aftermarket car car intake boxes for off-road vehicles. A topspin would work too. Check out Donaldson Filtering solutions. You may be able to 3D print one. They may even sell one small enough for your application. essentially they are pre filters but work with centrifugal force of air spinning like a tornado rather than a mechanical filter which can clog.
Oh my, I love your mini cooper!
IDK how much time you spend reading comments from non-paying customers, but here goes!-
Adjusting the downward suction to reduce drag is folly. You’ll never find a sweet spot that way; only a disappointing compromise.
What you need to do is keep the shocks from traveling beyond the point where it’s just about to touch the ground.
This principle should help in all kinds of situations.
Good luck, (and thanks for providing videos that me AND my wife enjoy!) 😇
You basicy made an RC hoover.
Luv it
Super underrated channel
I’ve watched a fair amount of Gordon Murray videos. My takeaway is the fan in his fan cars weren’t directly sucking the car to the ground. Instead they were designed to augment aerodynamics by managing turbulent airflow and discarding it out the back. The fan in his T.33 hypercar runs at relatively low speeds to accomplish this. People assume his cars are vacuuming themselves to the tarmac but if that were true the drag this creates would make the racing cars too slow to be competitive. The fan is about managing airflow.
I would love to play rc on my ceiling wall, nice experiment 👍
Thank yo ProjectAir, now i can tell my kid it is fun to vacuum the floor :D
Maybe already commented:
I believe your downforce is being reacted on the rigid "skirts" rather than going on to the wheels to generate grip. Skirts are supposed to slide up and down so that they don't transfer vertical force (so it doesn't take it away from the wheels, grip).
Right now it looks like you do have some additional grip because you have some additional compression on the suspension but then you bottom out the "skirts" (it's really just the body of the car) and you dont get any more grip, just more drag because any additional suction goes to the skirt/body (not the wheels). This is why you found a happy medium in the fan speed. If you remove this limitation you could increase grip further.
You could try stiffer springs so more load goes to the wheels, higher "unsuctioned" ride height or inplementing and actual sliding skirt.
Awesome video, really like the experiment!
This is absolutely amazing! 👍
Very nice to watch, thank you very much! 👍
I've seen a few people mention this, but I want to say it again just so you hopefully see it. Right now your suction device is connected to the chassis of the car... which... there is nothing wrong with that... it works, but this relies on the suspension being the perfect height and spring rate to keep the skirt just a hair off the ground at all times to keep suction going. This is very difficult to do, and, if the solid skirt bottoms out on the floor, then you don't have the full force of the suction giving you traction, but you only have whatever the spring rate of the suspension is giving you for traction.
Instead you need to figure out how to connect the skirt to the uprights of the tires in some way. This way the suction force is directed directly to the tires of the vehicle without effecting the suspension at all. This will also mean maintaining the proper height for the skirt will be much easier as well as it won't move with the chassis of the vehicle. Once this is done, you should have maximum traction from a very good suction along with a much improved ride quality (not that that matters too much for an RC car, but still)
Dude I loved this video! Look forward to some summer water content brotha!!!
Coming soon!
Jim Hall and Chaparral would be proud of you for making a micro 2J.
That’s great, could you adjust fan speed in the straights then turn it up full when going into a corner? Maybe connect fan control to an accelerometer to some how adjust down force automatically.
you could do what the mini vaccum attachment has and put some brushes around the edge of the sieve, the dust would be pushed along with the brushes and mostly stay out of the grill area..
Whodathunk you'd need to bring a bag and a rake after this testing! NIIIIIIIIIIIICE! 😁👍🏎💥
Every time I see someone do this, I'm always reminded of the line follower robot competitions in Japan; the winners always use four quad props, in reverse, so it's essentially blasting air upwards and creating downforce. At least it won't be vacuum clener anymore.