Posted on 11/29/2011 9:51:46 AM PST by Tom Hawks
Anyone who appreciates the precision art of engine design ought to get a kick out of this offering from a Spanish engineer named Patelo. Starting with hunks of aluminum, bronze and stainless steel, he spent over 1200 hours designing, milling, turning and drilling what he claims is "probably" the world's smallest V12 engine. Powered by compressed air injection (0.1kg/sq cm), this little marvel boasts a total displacement of 12 cubic centimeters from its twelve 11.3 mm diameter pistons and works like a charm.
Built primarily for educational purposes, Patelo has no plans for selling the mini-motors. In fact, seemingly to prove this lengthy exercise in metallic accuracy was truly a labor of love, he dedicated the engine to his four grandchildren. He crafted all 261 pieces of the engine from scratch, but drew the line with the 222 screws, which he purchased, presumably so he'd have at least a little time to spend with the grandkids.
Follow the link below to see the video of the
Worlds Tiniest V-12 Engine Hand Made
That is spectacularly neat but it doesn’t seem to actually run - where are the spark plugs? Where is the fuel?
Here is one that actually works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9zt3SF_Flc&feature=related
What is the oiling system? Oil entrained in the compressed air?
From what I understand, and I am guessing from what I learned from another site that had a thread on the engine, but I believe it’s like an R/C car, or diesel engine in that the lubricant is in the fuel. So I guess it would be compressed air with some oil?
As I said, I may not be right, but I gleaned that from another site.
It runs on compressed air, not any fuel/air detonation.
calling it an engine is kinda vague, a model yes.
Check out this dude’s fully operational 5.65 CID supercharged v-8. One of the coolest things I have ever seen!
http://www.weberprecision.com/
This reminds me of one of the books by Neville Shute, I believe was Trustee from the Toolroom. This was a story about an engineer who fabricated a gasoline-powered miniature engine and used it on his world travels.
Nothing like dredging up some decade old material to generate some blog hits, eh? At least it seems that long since I first saw that, cool as it may be.
That’s strange, because if you do a google search you will see that the news about this littlwe gadget hit just a few days ago.
But I would not want facts get in the way of you bashing someone for posting an article from a blog.
So what is your real bitch, that Tom Hawks beat you to posting it?
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