# Horizontal Single



## cfellows (May 27, 2008)

I'm drawing up plans for the horizontal single I just rebuilt and am at a bit of loss as to how and where to post them. At this point I plan to save them as PNG files as shown in the accompanying link. Anybody got any other ideas?


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## Brass_Machine (May 27, 2008)

Did you try the upload/download section? If that doesn't work, I can host them for you.

Eric


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## Bogstandard (May 27, 2008)

If I could make a suggestion Chuck.

When all the plans are completed, Zip or Rar all the files together, and as Eric suggested, post it in the downloads/uploads section.

Doing it that way ensures whoever wants to build, can get all the pages in one go, and not have the discomfort of finding and downloading individual pages.

John


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## shred (May 27, 2008)

I will be happy to convert them to PDF if you want as well.


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## cfellows (May 27, 2008)

John, I'll take your suggestion and compile all the drawings into a single document when I'm finished. 

Shred, I may take you up on your offer to convert it to PDF.

In the meantime, I will continue to post single pages here as I complete them. That way people can be scrounging for material and/or starting a build without waiting for the completed document, which could take awhile. 

Here is the Cylinder. Pretty simple...


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## cfellows (May 30, 2008)

Here are the drawings of the valve assembly. I'm sure most of you realize by now that I'm not a draftsman by trade! These drawings are are little busy and I'm sure they're not even close to standard drafting protocol. I guess I would as if they are good enough to build the assembly from... Any constructive feedback would be appreciated.






Most of the dimensions are not real critical.

Chuck


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## Bogstandard (May 31, 2008)

Your spoiling 'em Chuck.

Just do rough sketches like I do, make them work for it.

But honestly, nice job on the plans, you can never have too much information showing.

I gather the valve seat could be almost any angle.

John


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## chuck foster (May 31, 2008)

chuck: nothing wrong with the look of these drawings, and thanks for posting them here for all to enjoy ;D 8)

chuck foster


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## cfellows (Jun 5, 2008)

Here is the drawing of the engine frame. Any preference as to what I draw up next?


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## tel (Jun 6, 2008)

Not really Chuck, you do 'em as it suits you and we'll all tag along behind. ;D


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## cfellows (Jun 7, 2008)

Here's the crankshaft






Chuck


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## Brian Rupnow (Jun 8, 2008)

Chuck---I just finished my first ever steam engine, a simple wobbler. I may try and build the engine covered in this thread next. I see other people making reference to the sound of the poppet valve. Do you have a video/audio clip of this engine running somewhere?--Brian


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## cfellows (Jun 8, 2008)

Brian, here's the video:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXH2nNLmBXo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXH2nNLmBXo[/ame]

There are also a bunch of pictures here:

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=2088.0

Chuck


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## Brian Rupnow (Jun 8, 2008)

Fantastic!!! I love it. This will definitly be my next build. Thank you for the video.---Brian


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## cfellows (Jun 9, 2008)

Here is a drawing of an idea I had for a hit n miss governor setup for a compressed air engine. On a traditional internal combustion hit n miss engine, the governor has to hold the valve open when the engine is freewheeling.

On a compressed air engine, the governor has to hold the (inlet) valve closed when the engine is freewheeling. With this design, most of the governor mechanism is the same as those found on a traditional internal combustion engine. However, the sliding sleeve has a tongue (boss?) which engages a slot in the primary timing gear when the engine is to fire. When the engine is freewheeling, the governor pulls the sleeve to the left, disengaging the boss from the slot in the primary timing gear. Since the primary timing gear is not pinned to the crankshaft, it should stop turning as soon as the push rod comes up against the bottom of the spring loaded valve. 

When the engine slows enough, springs pull the flyballs back in and pushe the sleeve to the right, engaging the primary timing gear. This cause the cam gears to turn and the cam to push the pushrod up opening the inlet valve. The sliding sleeve would have to be keyed to the crankshaft. Anybody see any issues with this approach?


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## Bogstandard (Jun 9, 2008)

Chuck,

Not much of an opinion, but that definitely should work. You are just using the one locating pawl to keep the timing correct?

Because there is very little load on the firing gear train, maybe to keep the wear to a minimum, and keep the extraction friction to as low as possible, I personally would try a pawl with a half round end to it, with only a small straight sided drive area.

Just a suggestion.

John


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## GailInNM (Jun 9, 2008)

Chuck,
Dog clutches work best when they either fully engaged or disengaged so anything you can do to improve this will be helpful. I have designed a few and here are a couple of things that have helped.

Make the slot in the timing gear much wider than the tongue on the sleeve. Maybe even to the point that the slot is most of the way around the gear with only a tongue sticking out to engage the other tongue. It is only driving one one face anyway so this will not change the operation. This allows time for the tongue to engage the slot more fully. 

Keep the edges of the slot and tongue sharp with only a very slight breaking of the edge for wear purposes. This reduces the tendency for the sleeve and gear to cam away from each other. Harden the tongue and slot to reduce wear.

Dog clutches really like a digital, on-off, type input and not a slow analog input like the movement of the flyballs varying with RPM. Anything you can do to provide a break-over-center action in the movement of the sleeve will be helpful. One way to visualize this is to extent the pawl that engages the groove in the sliding sleeve on the opposite side of the bearing that the flyball arm pivots on. Hook a compression spring between these two extensions. When the flyballs are in mid position the spring will be at it's maximum extension and exerting no torque on the flyball arms. If the flyballs move either outward or inward the spring will try to move them in that direction. This is of course in addition to the regular springs in the governor. This is not a good working solution as the mass of the flyballs will slow the action down, but might work on a low speed engine if it could be fitted in. A much better solution would to make the groove wide and apply the break-over-center action to only the sleeve. What I described was only to visualize the desired action.

One other possible problem is if the clutch disengages part way through the cycle, say when the inlet valve is open. The valve would then stay open until the engine slowed down, shortly I am sure, before the clutch would reengage and allow the valve to close. 

Chuck,I am not trying to be negative about it. I think it will work, but that it may get a little more complicated to work the way you want it to.

Gail in NM


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## cfellows (Jun 9, 2008)

Gail, thanks for all the good input. You've made a lot of good points.

Chuck


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## GailInNM (Jun 9, 2008)

Chuck,
I have designed five,I think, dog clutches so all that I know about it is the mistakes that you can make on five designs. 

I just looked at my old punch press (1938 model) that uses a dog clutch to engage the crank to a free running energy storage flywheel. It has the same problem that operating a valve would have in that it must always stop the crank, think cam, with the punch at the uppermost part of the ram travel. On it the dog is retracted by a cam on the crankshaft at the uppermost point. If in continuous mode the dog is allowed to reengage during the next 1/4 revolution if the operating lever is held down. In single stroke mode the operating lever is disengaged until the lever is released and then it reengages when the lever is is again depressed. 

If the flyballs only engaged the dog clutch and a cam disengaged the clutch somewhere around bottom dead center then the valve would never be held open except when desired. The disengagement cam could just be a ramp that the tongue could ride up on if the tongue were extended beyond the diameter of slotted hub of the valve gear with the slot in it. 

I know, it gets complicated in a hurry. Easy for me to talk about it as I am not the one building it.

Gail in NM


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## cfellows (Jun 18, 2008)

Here's another installment. This shows the Connecting Rod and the Piston. The piston doesn't require a ring and it really doesn't need to be all that snug a fit in the cylinder. A thou under the ID of the cylinder would be fine.


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## cfellows (Jun 18, 2008)

If anyone is having problems reading the drawings, left click on the image and pick Properties. This will give you the link to Photobucket where you can see the full size drawing.

Thx...
Chuck


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## cfellows (Jun 19, 2008)




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## cfellows (Jun 23, 2008)

I think I'm about through with the drawings unless anyone needs details on something I haven't done so far. Let me know.

Chuck


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## Brass_Machine (Jun 23, 2008)

cfellows  said:
			
		

> I think I'm about through with the drawings unless anyone needs details on something I haven't done so far. Let me know.
> 
> Chuck



I believe we are going to build this as our next team build. So as long as it is OK with you, be prepared to answer questions about it. ;D

Eric


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## cfellows (Jun 24, 2008)

Happy to answer questions. Also happy to provide any other drawings if members have questions or are vague on anything...

Chuck


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## bretk (Jun 24, 2008)

Chuck,

Do you have anything on the cam and follower/keeper/fork rod item?

Thanks, Bret


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## CrewCab (Jun 24, 2008)

I've just been browsing through the drawings and was about to ask a similar question , cheers Bret

Chuck, thanks for taking the time to post all the drawings and photos, it's really informative, however at present I'm struggling to grasp the workings of the cam and timing mechanism etc, I believe I'm OK with the principle ..... "a la' IC engine" ...... inlet opens briefly, a nad's after TDC following the exhaust stroke to produce the next revolution, then exhaust stroke again and the mass of the flywheel keeps the whole thing spinning (please forgive the complete idiot's explanation) ....... I'm just not quite visualising the actual "nuts and bolts" of it  ............ sorry about all the questions btw.

It's a great looking (and sounding) engine 8) and I'm determined to have a go at one in the future, but, as a complete novice I think I'd better start with something simple ???

CC


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## cfellows (Jun 26, 2008)

bretk  said:
			
		

> Chuck,
> 
> Do you have anything on the cam and follower/keeper/fork rod item?
> 
> Thanks, Bret



Bret,

I'll try to post some drawings / pictures this evening. The cam arrangement isn't the best and I've been thinking about some way to improve it. What kind of gears did you get (pitch and number of teeth)?

Chuck


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## cfellows (Jun 26, 2008)

CrewCab  said:
			
		

> however at present I'm struggling to grasp the workings of the cam and timing mechanism etc, I believe I'm OK with the principle ..... "a la' IC engine" ...... inlet opens briefly, a nad's after TDC following the exhaust stroke to produce the next revolution, then exhaust stroke again and the mass of the flywheel keeps the whole thing spinning (please forgive the complete idiot's explanation) ....... I'm just not quite visualising the actual "nuts and bolts" of it  ............ sorry about all the questions btw.
> 
> It's a great looking (and sounding) engine 8) and I'm determined to have a go at one in the future, but, as a complete novice I think I'd better start with something simple ???
> 
> CC



No problem on the questions, ask as many as you'd like. 

The cam gears and timing are set up so the engine will run and sound like a four stroke IC engine, "firing" every other revolution. When the piston passes top dead center on the firing stroke, the cam opens the air inlet poppet valve. The incoming high pressure air pushes a sliding piston valve in the head to one side, closing off the exhaust port and letting the high pressure air into the cylinder. Just before bottom dead center, the air inlet valve closes, shutting off the high pressure air. A spring returns the sliding piston valve in the head to the other side, opening up the cylinder to the exhaust port. The engine then exhausts the compressed air. As long as the air inlet valve, which is driven by the cam, stays closed, the engine will be in exhaust mode and will freewheel as long as the flywheel keeps it going.

Here is the engine in freewheeling, exhaust mode:






And here as the cam begins to open the inlet valve. At this point, the sliding piston valve is in motion, sliding to the right:






Finally, here the air inlet valve is fully open and the sliding piston valve is pushed fully to the right, completely closing off the exhaust port:


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## bretk (Jun 26, 2008)

Chuck,

Gears are stainless steel, from you suggested supplier. 20 teeth on the pinon and 40 on the cam gear. 3/16 shaft on the cam gear. 48 diametrical pitch 20 degree pressure angle.

I am thinking of using the setscrew hole as my cam lobe by locktiting and bottoming a screw and rounding over the head to give a rough cam shape, what do you think?






-Bret


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## CrewCab (Jun 26, 2008)

Many Thanks Chuck 8)

CC (Dave)


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## cfellows (Jun 26, 2008)

bretk  said:
			
		

> Chuck,
> 
> I am thinking of using the setscrew hole as my cam lobe by locktiting and bottoming a screw and rounding over the head to give a rough cam shape, what do you think?
> 
> -Bret



That's a good idea. The push rod has a roller that rides on the cam so any uneveness in the cam surface probably wouldn't hurt anything. You only need about 1/16" of lift on the cam.

Chuck


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## GailInNM (Jun 26, 2008)

You could also make up a cam that slides on the hub with a hole in the low side opposite the lobe for access to the set screw. The you could still have a functional set screw so you could remove or adjust the gear. The cam could be very simple with straight sides to give a very fast lift and be Loctited to the hub.
Gail


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## bretk (Jun 26, 2008)

Gail,

 Actually the intermediate gear freewheels on the shaft so the setscrew hole is superfluous anyhow. This way I put it to some good use 

-Bret


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## GailInNM (Jun 26, 2008)

Right you are Bret. I should think before I type. 
BTW, I think I am OK on springs. Thanks for the offer in another thread. Just for interest, let me what sizes you are using when you have time. 
Gail


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## bretk (Jun 26, 2008)

Gail,

Springs are: OD .218, Wire .018, Length 1.75  
     and OD .218, Wire .023, Length 1.75

Finished a built up crank today, will be putting a .25 ID by .375 OD roller bearing in the large end of the con rod.


-Bret


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## cfellows (Jun 26, 2008)

Here are some pictures of the push rod assembly. This one was built up from a previous set up so it's probably not the way I'd build it again. The brass part is connected to the aluminum part with a 2-56 threaded rod so it's length can be adjusted. Also, the valve end of the brass piece is counter bored so it fits over the valve stem. The forked end of the push rod fits over the cam gear axle which has a head on it.


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## cfellows (Jun 27, 2008)

Here are drawings of the Push Rod:






If you have trouble viewing the drawings here, go to 

http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z195/cffellows/Drawings/PushRod.png

Chuck


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## cfellows (Jan 6, 2009)

I have just about completed a better set of drawings for my horizontal single compressed air engine and should have the PDF file uploaded in the next day or two. It doesn't include Superfast's excellent hit n miss governor, but perhaps he will have drawings for that soon.

Chuck


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## lugnut (Jan 6, 2009)

I had a feeling that you was about to do this, GREAT! :bow: I've been gathering up materials, tools and parts and pieces in anticipation.
Thanks in advance.
Mel


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## cfellows (Jan 7, 2009)

I just uploaded my first go at the Horizontal Single drawings in PDF format. Suggestions, corrections, and constructive criticism welcomed.

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=item82

Chuck


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## SignalFailure (Jan 8, 2009)

Chuck, you've put a lot of work into that.

I'm sure lots of people (me included) will appreciate the clear instructions! The only thing I would ask for (runs for cover) is a metric version but you're guide is good enough to enable the builder to convert units.

 :bow:


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## T70MkIII (Jan 8, 2009)

Thanks, Chuck - this kind of stuff is great for newbies like myself.


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## 4156df (Jan 8, 2009)

Chuck,
Thanks, this is great....also timely since I'm thinking about a new project.
Dennis


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## cfellows (Jan 8, 2009)

I just uploaded a metric version of my compressed air Horizontal Single plans in PDF format. Unfortunately, it's a one to one conversion from inches, so a lot of the metric dimensions will look kind of weird, e.g., 1/8" converts to 3.175mm. 

The plans are drawn in Microsoft Visio, so converting to metric was pretty easy. I did have to go through all the non dimensional references and convert those manually, but not a big deal.

Chuck


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## George_Race (Jul 30, 2011)

Chuck, where can I find the updated drawings of this engine build. I have downloaded your Hit_n_Miss.pdf file but it appears it is missing some of the drawings. I saw somewhere that you had an updated set of drawings that incorporated some of Brian's governor as well.
Will you please give me a link to where I can download them,
Thanks,
George


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## cfellows (Jul 31, 2011)

George, I think you probably want to download Brian's drawings. They can be found in the download section, 

here:

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=item199

Thx...
Chuck


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