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As a tremendous fan of myth busters, Adam, Tested, I even went to brain candy live… I want to say thank you for continuing to create and share your creations with us! I’ve been a fan of Adam Savage for about 2 decades now!
a little physics and a full mechanical advantage from the ground to flywheel and back ... would be a god start .... dont forget to test with a set weight to get the same force used to push it every time
(I'm writing this @ 49:30) This is a very well thought out, & nicely executed, thingy (If John Lennon were with us today, I believe he'd agree). Unfortunately the results are pretty crap-tacular Brother.
I think the reason the larger one doesn't work is a issue with scale. The main problem is that Adam has scaled up the device without scaling up it's power source, because Adam is the power source. Take the tiny toy car, which we know works fine. Imagine how hard a 6 inch tall Adam would struggle to get it up to speed. Better handles would help you push the car faster, and multiple times the length of the car. But imagine a giant Adam pressing the car multiple feet across the floor, multiple times in rapid succession. Replicating that is going the be very hard for a regular sized Adam. Perhaps a long pole that slots in at an angle. Run behind the car until it's up to speed and pull the pole out and let the car go. Or hold the drive wheels off the ground and use a drill to get the flywheel up to speed before letting go? The more I think about it, the more I think that the solution is to Imagine what a six-inch tall Adam would do to get a 1 inch car up to speed, then scale up mini-Adam's solution to one foot car size. Several other problems were suggested, and some might help to some degree. Increase tire size. Since each rotation of the wheel moves the vehicle forward by the circumference of the wheel or 2pi times the radius of the wheel, so doubling the radius of the wheel would double the speed. (This is why putting oversized tires on a vehicle makes the speedometer read low, your car doesn't actually have a way to measure its speed, it measures wheel rotations and calculates speed.) That may help some. The sound does indicate some friction loss in the gears. That may be the best problem to tackle. I disagree with those who've said to remove weight from the gears. Each gear is essentially just another flywheel, albeit a flywheel with less mechanical advantage than the largest one. Every part of that machine that spins is subject to the conservation of angular momentum, so removing mass from the gears is removing mass from secondary or tertiary flywheels. But all of these are just going to help at the margins. What we need is a 70 foot tall Agam to get it up to speed.
I've said it before on other maker's channels but it's worth repeating. I appreciate the videos showing projects that don't work out quite like you wanted, or are even outright failures. If someone as experienced and accomplished as Adam can mess up a project, I guess it's ok if mine don't always work out like they do on RU-vid. It's really easy for us watching at home to set the bar too high when it's always perfect on the screen.
The shot of Adam at 49:41, hit home for me on such a high level. Its that feeling of coming up with a brilliant idea, mocking it up, building it and finally seeing the final product of all your work, that hits you in the face like a brick because you are so disappointed that it didn't turn out how you envisioned it.
Heating the female and freezing the male makes press fitting SOOO much easier. Take a look at how mechanics put bearings into engine cases for reference. Just a tip, since I didn't hear it mentioned in the episode!
Didn't want to comment on that press fit, because I am not an ME expert. However, once upon a time, I had a 67 MGB, with a bad ring gear. Was told to buy a new ring gear. "Whadda I do then?", I ask. "Stick the ring gear in the oven on max heat and the flywheel in the freezer....and wait". I waited, (patiently for once), and took the flywheel out of the freezer and smoking ring gear out of the oven. Threw the ring gear on the flywheel..... AND the ring gear literally FELL onto the flywheel.........with probably 1 mm of clearance! But, When everything cooled, it would have taken a sawzall to get that ring gear off (like the bad one that I sawed off, originally)!
@@charles401 - ice water and a casserole of hot oil for the other would be more than enough to make the components fit, I think. After all, there would be a temperature difference of 60-80 degrees Centigrade at least, and that should ease the pass and make it easier.
While absolutely, yes, that'd help, the surface area of the fit here is not nearly large enough to warrant the extra effort. Sure, it makes it easier, but you'll manage anyway even without needing a dedicated press, considering the small diameters, the relatively small difference between the two components and the overall length. I'm a trained CNC mechanic and during my apprenticeship I did all sorts of things, even lathed two pressfit components once. These had a difference of 0.04mm (so relatively large) on a 120mm diameter with a depth of 40mm. There was no way you could've pressed these two together without the temperature difference. Took half a day to cool the male down though, doubt that's extra time Adam has in these one day builds.
I was thinking the same thing! The shot being kinda grainy in a fairly bland hallway makes it feel like me in that shot. That still of him looking at his car in contemplation is one of the most true and consistent feelings I have when I'm making! I felt that contemplative stare from Adam in my core...
When Adam stops his train of thought to figure out what he's doing, never before has the expression "you can see the gears turning" been more on point.
I hope you get this a lot, but thank you for showing projects that don't really work out, as well as mistakes. I found it so hard to make things until I watched the flamethrower build and it taught me that even experts mess up. Immediately removed that thought of "No one's perfect... except for me, I have to be perfect." From Mythbusters to Tested, thank you for helping me build!!!
We all make mistakes, the key is to take the time and understand what went wrong and why it happened, then take that knowledge and be equipped with it for future projects. The greatest people in any field have messed up a lot and from learning from their mistakes have grown. Something about being humbled by the loses and mistakes makes you an even better person.
gotta work backwards from what wheel speed you want and then do some calculations to see what flywheel speed and gear ratios you would need. i thing with a few tweaks it could be great.
Gotta say, kudos to the editor. they've edited this in such a natural way that we don't even notice that there's any edits, but they've made the flow feel so natural, but also not so heavily edited that it doesn't feel like you're not spending a day building it.
That look embodied my day yesterday perfectly. I finished glassing up a fender that took me the better part of the day. Turned around very satisfied with my job, just to see the cap full of catalyst hardener that was supposed to be in the resin…
the wheel diameter is too small, So you are not getting as much distance out of every turn of the flywheel. If you look at the original the flywheel to drive wheel ratio is almost 1:1 and your enlarged model the drive wheel is much smaller compared to the flywheel. I think that will get you a better result.
Yup, I'd say that's exactly the problem he has. Furthermore, it looks like he has quite some friction torque slowing down the whole system way too quickly.
@@schizophrenicenthusiast Also the weight in his design vs the size is significant. If he skeletonized the from with thinner stock, and skeletonized the gears, would reduce weight significantly.
Making a test harness for it would be good step in that direction… if the flywheel won’t stay in motion very long when it is mounted “in the air” then it definitely won’t go very on the ground
Yeah a part 2 would be amazing. I think where Adams thinking didn't take a corner is the wheel size. On the original car the wheels seem much bigger in ratio to the gears. That's another ratio that largely determines the speed. Try that maybe...great build though..
Adam playing the lock picking lawyer made my day. Could have only been better if he showed just his hands. And thank you for buidling stuff (and showing it). Your calm way is such a pleasure watching and resting your mind after a long day or to dream about and start forming your next project in your mind. I know, who watching mythbuster would have ever thought adam would one day be described as calm
Bigger wheels and lighter weight transmission gears, wheel diameter is as (or more) important than internal gear ratios - looks awesome as always keep them coming!
I wondered the same things about the wheels. The ratio of the wheel size to gear size in the toy car seem much bigger than the wheel size on the finished car.
@@jeffmarden9502 also the flywheel to wheel ratio seemed a bit bigger on the small one...but different gearing ratio and relative flywheel weight so that ratio might not mean much
I disagree with removing weight from the gears. Each gear is essentially just another flywheel, albeit a flywheel with less mechanical advantage than the largest one. Every part of that machine that spins is subject to the conservation of angular momentum, so removing mass from the gears is removing mass from secondary or tertiary flywheels. The problem is the power source. Imagine a giant Adam pressing the car multiple feet across the floor, multiple times in rapid succession. Replicating that is going the be very hard for a regular sized Adam. The main problem is that Adam has scaled up the device without scaling up it's power source, because Adam is the power source. Take the tiny toy car, which we know works fine. Imagine how hard a 6 inch tall Adam would struggle to get it up to speed. Perhaps a six foot long pole that slots in at an angle. Run behind the car until it's up to speed and pull the pole out and let the car go. The more I think about it, the more I think that solution is to Imagine what a six-inch tall Adam would do to get a 1 inch car up to speed, then regular Adam can scale up mini-Adam's solution.
That flywheel is not optimized. It's not meant to be, it's a hand wheel. The space between the spokes robs the wheel of mass and therefore momentum. A thick solid flywheel has more mass density than a spoked wheel.
Really appreciate this video. It’s reassuring to see a maker video where all the planning and shop time isn’t edited down to nothing. The toxic illusion of RU-vid is that making good things is easy and quick, so it’s great to see a role model just diligently working through a whole project!
Thank you for showing not only the successes but even the mishaps along the way. This is often something people don't see. Thank you for all the wonderful work you do and sharing it with all of us!
Really rad little contraption you made. Being a machinist and fabricator myself i think the gearing is spot on if not pretty close. Most of the issue I'd imagine is with the flywheel having so much more mass and taking alot more to get it spinning and keeping the centrifugal motion.
Recently I had a complete project failure and I'm glad to see the same look on Adam's face I had. Adam is my HERO. Even HEROES aren't perfect but they are still HEROES to me. KEEP BEING YOU!
The result of this is absolutely fantastic! He just goes to show that the best makers in the world don’t always initially realize their goal. I have the upmost confidence the Adam will accomplish this lifelong dream!
I would definitely drill out the gears and take some of the weight off of them. Youre losing alot of the power through having to spin the heavy gears. I imagine if if you can cut 75% or more of the weight off the gears youll see a tremendous improvement on performance.
Think the flywheel needs to be heavier...could check how heavy the small toys flywheel is compared to the overall weight, and compare that ratio to the ratio of the weight of the flywheel/overall weight of the bigger version. I'd be willing to bet the small toy flywheel is heavier in comparison, and the bigger one needs more mass.
I dont think you guys are right. Its about the gearing ratio. It requires the flywheel to achieve crazy speeds to travel with decent speed. There are crazy losses on all the friction and least of it in the rotational friction in the bearings (they do work very well, always). Most is air and gear to gear friction. IMO wheels on the car get crazy torque and low speed, thats all, while there is tonne of friction losses.
Adam the issue actually is the fact that when you scale up the wheels the friction becomes much larger. Also flywheels are inefficient when they are of a small diameter since the reason they have spokes in the first place is to place a lighter ring of metal far away from the center storing more energy in a lighter object (compared to a smaller more solid wheel which would be too high fricition due to the weight. Ball bearings should solve the problem since friction forces of ball bearings is constant therefor they are more suitable to heavier wheels since the win is larger than on small wheels. Reason why clock gears that are small dont need a ball bearing is because they are so light that the static force of the bearing rubbing against the retainers would be larger than the wheel just spinning by itself. Solution is larger flywheel and ballbearings on all gears including flywheel and a lower gear ratio and bigger rubberwheels.
I'd love to see another video analyzing why it didn't work as expected. If I had to hazard a guess, it has to do with a scaling problem. Some things go up linearly with size, some things go up as the cube of size. A physics toy like the original flywheel car depends on all sorts of ratios to work, and it woud be interesting ot figure out how you'd have to scale each of the different pieces to maintain the ratios so that the car woud work supersized.
i'd think for one it's the ration of wheel to flywheel: the wheels on the toy car are way too small. second thing is the distance traveled to load up the fly wheel. imagine you'd only push the toy car a carlength forward, then it would also not run far. upscaling he would probably need to push the car around 5-10m within maybe 1-2 seconds (imagine moving the smaller toy car with your hand around 50-100cm to build up momentum). the flywheel needs to run at crazy speeds for this concept to work.
@@moos5221 I agree, too much torque, too little speed. Also, the flywheel is skeletonized so it does not carry as much momentum as it could have. The gears also seem too heavy and they make a weird clicking sound while moving so they probably consume unnecessary amounts of energy.
@@moos5221 The wheels are okay. Larger wheels just give you slightly less rolling resistance but those wheels should be fine. The most glaring issues I see are that the flywheel not only doesn't have bearings, the shaft is just sitting directly on the side panels and is clamped down, and the gears are obviously not meshing correctly. Gear spacing probably needs to be changed, all moving parts need bearings, and the bearings should be solvent cleaned of lubricant and not sealed like his are. Shielded would be better but no seals or shields would be best. You can tell when he puts the first two gears on that it has a lot of resistance already.
@@nigeypants5500 You don't seem to understand my point. WIth the regular sized toy you spin the wheels around 50-100x the full wheelturn distance to charge it and with the oversized toy you spin it around 5-10x the wheelturn distance. that's the main issue here imo.
@@moos5221 That's why he scoots along on his knees and gives it many pushes. He's clearly putting a lot of energy into it. The issue is that energy is being wasted. We all know it doesn't take much energy for those wheels to roll on that very flat surface. The energy is being wasted extremely fast. That's the issue. However it is geared, he's still putting a lot of energy into it and that energy should ideally only be wasted by the rolling friction of the wheels, and the air resistance of the fly wheel, but there's a ton more friction in the drive chain that is wasting it.
11:50, that's a bit risky depending on the fit. This seemed to work out but you could break a vise if the loads creep up too far in a press fit. Heating up the large gear with a torch or in a toaster oven and/or cooling the smaller one in the freezer might make that easier and protect your vise. :)
@@bmxscape perhaps, but I bet any failure that occurred would have a decent chance of turning into a Really Bad Day. Methinks Adam would benefit from investing in a fly press or something. There are some compact presses that could be much easier and faster to use... and, importantly, safer -- for equipment and operator (and camera crew) alike.
Hi Adam, Loving the project! couple of tips for you that may help in the future. When you were reaming the small gear you reamed then chamfered the gear, if you chamfer first before reaming it will help the reamer centralise nicely and also means you ream out any burr where the chamfer meets the ream. Also when parting off something with a hole in like that its MUCH safer to hold a screwdriver/bit of bar stock etc in the part rather than try and catch the outside as it comes off, its very easy to catch your thumb into the tool post, as my old colegue 9 finger dave can attest lol. Also, dont get too disheartened at the end result, maybe it isnt what your expecting but I bet even by now you have multiple ideas in your head as to what went 'wrong' or could be improved. Thats even before mentioning the skills that youve learned over this project! Making gears from scratch is no simple task so props to you dude!
If you're going to do a bunch of this, you need an arbor press. You'll be surprised how useful it is in the shop. And now that I've gotten to the end, thanks for showing off such a delightful fail. Savage on his knees in the hall watching the underwhelming performance... We have all been there.
Love that you do for fun basically what a lot of folks do for work. You called your micrometer a caliper and your calipers a micrometer but your usage of each for its intended purpose was spot on.
its just mesmerizing watching you slide around in your own workshop like a little mad genius as comfortable as can be. Can relate so much to the feelings you show and express and just the aura of happiness and joy you have around you when you "Work" if you can call it work when you do something you are so passionate about. My workshop is my sanctuary when I'm mad, tired, happy, or just crestfallen. And no matter what I do in my workshop, I always feel good excited, and happy while there. I wish and hope everybody can have the luxury of having such a place where people can be who they are, and not be judged by the outside world. Thank you for sharing you, and your just amazing and inspiring personality. Always made great shows, but this when you can fully be you doing what you love is Top Notch. ❤❤❤ So thanks again. //Love from the deep forests of sweden.
a common trick for setting gear spacing is to put a piece of paper between them. That and bigger wheels will really change it. You may want to consider a ratchetting gear that you can drive with some hex stock mounted in a drill to charge the flywheel instead of pushing it
I think the weight and mechanical friction of those very thick gears might be fighting you too, the smaller one had blurry thin gears, less drag to fight against- like you mentioned, if gears are making noise they’re not being efficient
Passion, excitement, craftsmanship, tremendous amounts of time and then, the anticlimax. But you know what, I loved it. Failure is the only way towards succes.
Watching Adam create things is just so Zen... Seriously relaxing yet at the same time entertaining and educational.. Thank you, ohh master of Myths and machines for making yet another creation of wonderment.
Seems like some sort of handle or grip on the backside would also be helpful to run it up to speed before letting it go, being that you can't hold it like the smaller one. Looking forward to the next version!
I recently got a job at a machine shop and sometime struggle because I'm always moving around to different machine stations, and hard for me to build up one skill, but seeing you use the mill, Lathe, reaming, and tapping makes me more confident observing you do all of this. Even at the end when you doubt yourself, but keep your head up knowing you'll learn more and not give up, this is very important mind set. Thanks for the inspiration.
Others have touched on it, but you're losing quite a bit of momentum via the gear mass. Take apart your reference, and find the weight ratio to shoot for. Also, a wonderful tip for press-fitting, freeze the smaller component before mating. Always enjoy your content. Thanks Adam!
In the future, if you ever revisit this or a project like this, your mechanical advantage is great, but you either need a vastly heavier flywheel (impractical because you have to move the thing yourself) or larger drive wheels. I will say while I've done a fair bit of machining in my life, you're clearly far better than me, I struggle to get press fits that nice and am thoroughly impressed by the outstanding job you did.
One of the best videos I've seen. A beautiful bulld and indeed aesthetically gorgeous. But the cherry on this pudding is Adam's playtime with it. Disappointment mixed with anticipation is such an ironic dynamic. Fantastic video!
Love the editing :) I am sure it has too much internal mechanical loss, the noise is a perfect indicator. Any noise a mechanical device makes is a loss of energy. But surely, a different gear ratio would help. Also, you could build a quick contact for a drill, with you can spin up the flywheel super fast, then release and let it drive :)
Yeah, the rhythmic sound it was making is not a good sign… something is not turning exactly on center, perhaps? I expected him to put a gauge on the gears before boring them out… slapping them into the chuck and drilling felt rushed. WWCSD… what would click spring do?
I have been watching your work for a long time and I can say with confidence that you are a real enthusiast who is changing the world for the better! Thank you so much Adam Savage.
This was an astounding success! Congratulations on another successful project! Actually taking action to start something is hard, and persevering to finish something you've started is even harder. But the true test is not how the results turned out, but how you handled the outcome regardless if it ends up working or not. If you've made something that works then it's a bonus, but if it didn't work and you accept that it was a failed attempt, then you'll have even more insight on what and why it failed so you'll have to continue improving it. That is a big success on any project at any scale. This wasn't even a failure, the damn thing actually works!
First of all Adam: Thank you for making my childhood what it was with Mythbusters! It really played a huge role in my interest of making stuff, engineering and fixing or trying to Fix everything❤️ thank You! Second: do you still make cool stuff for movies etc?🤩 Love the channel mate, Best regards from Norway😊
Yet Adam is the only one every mythbuster fan care about now long after the team split up and there is only youngsters on that show, I love these series he making it’s a bit nostalgic as mythbusters was my favorite show when I was younger,
The last scene where you sit on the floor is EPIC! Recall that feeling after building something and the result didn't land as expected.... Thank you for charing!
That's cool. I wonder if making the gears less massive would make it work better. I bet the flywheel is losing a ton of energy turning those. Ps: that shot of Adam kneeling in the hallway looking at the car is priceless. It seems like he's in some really deep thoughts. Probably something like "damn thing! Why aren't you working?" 🙂
love the video as always but please move the tool post further away when filing on a lathe. If that file snags and drags your forearm through your cutter you're gonna have a bad time. We love you Adam, be safe out there :D
Did... did he garble up him saying "Alexa" so that it wouldn't set off any of the devices of people watching out loud?? This man's attention to detail is astounding!
I want to learn to be as happy about the little things, this is inspiring. Brings out two metal plates: "Ha, look at what I have! It's amazing!" Good feels all around.
I think taking weight out of the gears and maybe more in the flywheel. I would love to see you use some sort of high rpm tool against the flywheel to get it spinning before letting it go.
Figuring out a clutch and spinning up the flywheel to immense speeds with an electric motor would be cool to see. Or just go all out and use the flywheels from the panjantrum or whatever that beach clearing thing from ww2 you built was called
This is where a hydraulic shop press would come in real handy. Also heating the undersized part, and cooling the oversized part does wonders. When it's done right, you can drop a cold interference fit pin into a heated bore without any pressing tool needed. Liquid nitrogen does a great job cooling parts.
LOVE the ending! So bittersweet!! I thought the gear ratios of the two big gears cancelled each other out, but that is just some unskilled hunch, and I immediately discarded that idea knowing to whom I was watching... Maybe the weight of the flywheel? I assume there must be some sort of calculator available on internet somewhere which can off the bet calculate the combo for power and momentum... _People are amazing, thank you for trying and failing Adam! Can't think of something more important than showing the iterative process, which is simply fail often and fail fast (ish) to ultimately succeed!_
I think even just adding a handle so you can push it along the floor without touching either flywheel or wheel directly would allow you to spin it up to a much higher rate, and then let it go. Of course, assuming whatever that rattle is (not-quite-meshed-well gears?? I don't know either, but that's my hypothesis) can take the higher RPMs...
Sure miss excellent builds like this! Episodes like this allow my "inner Nerd" to resurface and "SHINE PROUDLY". Thank you Adam!!! P.S. Why don't you have a 2 Ton Arbor Press in your Shop?
I think 49:40 should be on a T-Shirt on the front, with ‘Failure is always on option’ on the back. Loved this because it wasn’t a resounding success on the first try. Can’t wait to see how you solve the issues, Mr. Savage!!
49:40 You can smell the disappointment through the screen. I felt that, man. But also I'm glad you show this kind of results after a project, sometimes in the quest of learning failure is the only path to success.
I might have missed a similar comment, but I would also consider the mass ratios of the scaled up model gears. It "feels" heavy for the mass of car to the mass of the fly (maybe rout a chanel into the outer fly and fill with lead 708pcf vs. ~490pcf for cast iron).
I think this really just comes down to how you have the gear ratios set up. You basically have a high torque setup when high speed is what would be more satisfying. Mess with your gear setup a bit and you'll have that satisfaction you crave sooner than you might expect
You have not failed! You have learned the unknown, unknowns. My first guesses are you need more mass in your fly wheel and you need more mechanical advantage. I'd love to see you iterate this at least once more.
The Lock Picking Lawyer bit was hilarious. Seeing the look on your face watching your creation only creep a few inches after hours of work was funny but sad. I agree bigger wheels and lightening the gears should perk it up a lot. Love the videos!
Adam - can I call you Adam? I can, I will - this is, weirdly, exactly a project that's been on my mind since Mouse Trap Cars in 7th grade science a couple decades ago. Coincidentally, that was also around the time I started watching Mythbusters, which was a big influence on my engineering path and still brings me a lot of joy today. So while this project is empirically cool, it's also very cool TO ME to see you getting into it. Thanks for doing your thing, thanks for sharing this kind of "what the heck, why not" project with us. I always appreciate your videos; but this one, I appreciate into the past like a whole franchise of Terminators.
Wow Adam, those Wilton's are not cheap, nice tools :) Also my mentor taught me a little trick :) When machining, people always place thier Mic's and Calipers on the lathe or the mill and chips eventually find thier way into them!! He showed me that all you need to do is put a shop rag folded in half down first and always stick your precision measuring tools in the fold to pretect it from flying chips!
Reminds me of an old TMNT drag race car i had as a kid. It had a long pull cord, Something like a flexible rack to pull along a pinion to get the flywheel up to speed.
I can only imagine your disappointment with the function of the car. I was so invested after 1 hr of watching, I could only imagine if I had spent countless hours machining it for it to not live up to expectations.
Hey, Adam! Just wanted to let you know that I love what you do and, I finally joined Tested. I am a Maker as well but, my medium is wood. After watching almost every "One-Day Builds," I'm feeling inspired to branch off into other materials and methods of including them into existing/future projects. I live in Ontario, Canada and my shop isn't heated so, I'm eagerly waiting for the weather to warm up so I can get back to work. Thanks, Adam, for creating this awesome channel that allows everyone to experience Making in all it's splendors. Best wishes ^5
Sorta the same. Hobbyist if that, but worked with wood only for years. Then a couple years ago I bought a $120 welder and a year later a metal lathe from 1898 for $400. They are both kinda garbage, but for what I want to do, just fine. Anyway, been a lot of fun branching out and expanding the scope of what I can make/repair. Mainly stuff to use around the property and Christmas presents.
Thumbs up for showing the learning moments along with the triumphs FWIW ... Your gearing + friction mean you can't get it up to a decent speed before release. If I were you, I'd solve the problem of getting energy into the system alongside getting it out.
Can we have a moment of appreciation for that band saw!! Also, it seems like there's a lot of noise being made from the gears, noise is just wasted energy and if eliminated, I think you will see some difference.
