Is it Possible to 3D Print WORKING AXIAL COMPRESSOR? - (Testing different blade designs) 

Hey, I'm the original designer of this compressor. Very cool to see it featured! Just a couple of things: this was designed with a very low pressure ratio, high flow working condition in mind. If you restrict the outlet area or apply too much backpressure it will stall badly, as you've noticed. For your application your best bet will probably be a radial compressor, as you've already hinted. Also, you're right the coupler and legs are trash! :D If I were to redesign this, I would probably at least change the coupler to a solid TPU shaft. Very curious to see part 2 of this!

I love that, "printed in yellow to increase the performance even more". What a hoot!

The smoke tests actually showed everything you needed to know - in the first test, the air was being forced back out of the intake whereas the second one you got good airflow into the inlet. Therefore the first trial did not have a good pressure differential between the inlet and exhaust (probably compressor stall) but the second performed much better.

Part of your issue is the space between stator and rotor, another part is the shape of the rotor blades. They should be dished to accekkerate the air backwards. The final point is rotor diameter. Each stage should have a blade slightly smaller than the previous dependant on compressor ratio. IE if stage 1 compresses the air by 5% then stage 2 should be 5% smaller. The J79 engine had 17 compressor stages with variable stators and had a compression ratio of less than 12 to 1 and early jut engines without variable stators were as little as 3.5 to 1 off 12 stages. My recommendation is therefor to use 4 stages, reduce the gap between stator and rotor and use dished rotor blades.

If you had painted the rotors red to maximize performance, and picked a yellow balloon which are the weakest, it would've worked.

This model is designed to high airflow, and low preasure. You need low flow and high preasure setup.

Brilliant work, dude! Nicely done! 😃 Looking forward to the next projects! Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

You painted the compressor stages yellow "to increase the performance even more," haha, nice!

Oooh, very excited to see the next attempts!

Really looking forward to the next video!

Turbines have very high frequency vibrations. They need lots of smaller screws/bolts to hold them together rather than fewer larges ones. That's how real Jet engines work.

Really interesting project! I'd love some day to see your take on a rotary atomizer (for creating very fine mist), those things are both expensive if bought off-the-shelf and interesting to make 3D printed

I’ve been looking into studying to be an A&P mechanic and recently learned about lockwire or safety wire. The bolts holding the main connection vibrated loose so fast, it would be interesting to implement it in some way for a guaranteed secure fastener and an added layer of realism

Great video, thanks. Looking forward to next one.

There's so so much resistance in this man, I'm not surprised your coupler constantly broke

I’d think that adding more stages in progressively decreasing sizes may help increase the compression ratio. More RPM would help, but you’re limited by the materials used. Not to mention that heat of compression will be a limiting factor for those materials, as you increase the output pressure. Take a look at stationary turbo/centrifugal compressors. They use interstage cooling to mitigate this problem. But that’s getting into apple vs oranges territory.

I liked and subscribed. Now I want to see you take these gas turbines to their logical end conclusion

In the next video you should test with the 3D printed parts and once everything 'is perfect then do a clear part from pcb way! Great video!!

9:26 AYE, YELLOW GOEZ FASTAH!

The shaft that broke,,,,, did you print it lieng down or standing up... ?

Очень впечатляюще. Пожалуйста, продолжайте.

If i was this guy friend i would help him to improve his axial compressor ive got a knowledge and he got a tools.

I took interest in 3D modelling and was wonder what program you use.

is axial better tan augmenting the radius of the turbine?

Great video: Now, with that said: perhaps you might want to try 3D printing some flexible filament designed gaskets to restrict air leakage that may also increase the needed air pressure that would inflate that balloon.

Did you will add a pressure sensor next time to get some metrics?

Would this model benefit from a torque box?

One thing you could have tried with the turbine blades would have been a shrink fit. Basically put them in the refrigerator for a bit, then press fit them in.

Does it feel balanced when it spins? It stops kind of quick for having bearings in it. I also wonder if it needs thrust bearings. Just my thoughts on your next build but you already got it this far! Looking good!

I would have resin printed the coupler after it breaks for the 3rd or 4th time, try it again with 100% infill next, and finally, if all those fail I would have inserted a metal pin(nail works as well) or screw into the middle of the coupler to give it more sheer strength since the coupler had too much axial load and rotational stress to deal with at such high RPMs. For your Clear shroud parts from PCB way and all your 3D printed parts that require metal screws to hold the 3D parts together ill suggest you use brass inserts and buy a whole kit of them and use the ones that you need in your projects. I am suggesting a Kit so that you have a few Brass inserts of all sizes for all your different project needs. This allows you to see which brass inserts work best for your 3D project needs, allowing you to order specific brass inserts in higher Quantities that you frequently need. Use a soldering iron to heat up the Brass inserts and let them get placed into their spots as the plastic melts into the brass inserts and secures them into your 3D project pieces even your clear 3D shroud parts can be salvaged for future use.

Haha, at least you got it to blow up and POP the hand-shaped "balloons," so that's cool! Keepi'goin'!

Also try smaller bearings, your fraction is obviously much too high, crousile for high speed. Should solve the battery issue as well. Im wondering if smaller turbine diameter would work better. Great job at all 👍 Regards from the radial side! 😋

You should try a tesla turbine as a centrifugal compressor. Sure it may not be as good as a bladed one but it's easier to manufacture and balance. So with DIY machining it may out perform a bladed centrifugal one just because it's easier to get higher quality. From my experience CNCing the discs (and spacing washers) out of

I've not read all the comments. But. The leading question I would have is 1. assuming you build the side walls closer to the rotors how long do you think that the rotors' would hold up in operation?

There's one big problem - the stages of the compressor and the shaft are not balanced. The noise and vibrations clearly show that. You're losing efficiency with that. For static balancing I'm recommending using a propeller balancer from RC model shop. Dynamic balancing, required for turbines like that is more complex topic. But even static balancing would improve the performance. Another topic - gaps between walls and blades. It's related to the speed (because blades elongate on higher speeds). And the gaps should be as close as possible. One way of achieving that - print larger blades and try to wear them down to the maximum allowable diameter. But balancing is #1 thing you need to do.

very much power :)

Probably getting compressor stall over blades. Real axial flow compressors in gas turbine engines bleed only a bit of air but also have variable guide vanes to account for the different flow rates through the compressor, avoiding stall. By stall I mean it in a aerodynamic way like an aircraft wing. If the angle of attack of the blades relative to air flow exceeds near 30º the laminar flow becomes turbulent and no more compression across stage. So in your glove example it takes a bit to get it started but once the flow starts, blades are no longer stalled and it pumps much more efficiently. The radial compressor might handle this better.

considered magnetic bearings?

It would be cool to make a hydrid compressor, which would be an axial stage and a centrifugal impeller

Interesting to see your new designs incorporating vortex dynamics. Are you familiar with the work of Viktor Schauberger? Also, did I hear an Oompah band in the background? ;-)

"I redesigned this 7 times." Wow, you had 8 designs before finding the one that would work really well. But at least it wasn't anything like 100 or 1000, ha!

next time measure the pressure and wind speed, would be easier to improve the design with actual numbers to go by :) also I'm mind blown by the pcbway resin print! never thought it could be this clear

What is your blue/Grey Pla?

I wonder if I could use this on my kayak to run around in the river

I am not a licensed airdynamics designer, but I see one, imho, flaw in this turbine rotor: the blades' incident angle is the same for the primary and the secondary stage. Whereas it seems the secondary prop operates in a faster flow and hence should have a larger incident angle of the blades. At least this is obviously an area to improve, as we see comparing the first and the second rotor design.

Why are those smaller batteries more powerful even though they're smaller?

I am so impressed! This would it be a very useful tool for firing an oil burner on my Forge.

The reason you centripetal compressor failed and rubbed the housing was because you need to use a thrust bearing to stop the shaft from moving forward as pressure increases.

at 6:20 it is clearly turbine surging since it blowes air out the wrong way

Why are the fan making so much noise in very low rpm senario? You must loose a lot of energy there just because of it.

I've never had issues 3D printing perfect threads of all different sizes on my Ender 3 Pro (modified with a direct drive extruder).

Awesome.

Could you explain more about your compressor design technique, especially the centrifugal compressors? And instead of using a coupler that transmits with friction, try making a wave pattern and tightening on both sides to transmit without slipping.

You need more compressor stages to improve its performance, meaning its output pressure.

The cone is really necessary for it to work! 😂

More stages!

Hi, I noticed that your batteries seem to be bloated. I suggest you replace them, because bloating means a battery is starting to break up, and a bloated battery is very likely to catch fire and even explode at some point!

Submit this to the fan showdown 😂

Yeah, I kind of didn't think very few blades would work well. Why didn't you try doing a lot of blades like a commercial jet engine right from the start?

I'll never get tired of 3D printed compressor videos. There's an annoying lack of DIY axial compressor videos. everything else is usually centrifugal type compressors.

With Metal 3D printing becoming easier and cheaper with materials like aluminum, titanium, nickel alloys and other exotic alloys it should be possible to produce a hot (combustion) turbine with 3D printing plastic as prototyping like you're doing. I've been thinking about this for years. Increase the fuel efficiency of small turbines and use those to make a real jet pack that has a longer flight time and for less expensive than what's available now.

Aren't your bearing bit to heavy for the task ? Not an mecanical engeenier here, but since a part of the bearing is rotating having the minium amount of weight could be beneficial. For exemple less inertia could have saved some of your couplers ;)

reduce the distance between the blades and the stators blades in the compressor.

If your standard is M4 so you changed the design, then why didn't you just design for M4 right from the start?

Add packing gland shaft seal.

Brother why don't you try to put steam nozzle at output of compressor 💡

The reason behind the compressor can't blow the balloon is because I think the air is bleeding because the blades are not perfectly sealed to the outershell

The next one will pop that balloon 👍💪✌

I wonder how much heat is generated inside this compressor, great experiment Sir.

🔥

Can I put this in my Honda?

'shoulda be paintin thing in red, cuz red make thing go fasder' a 40k Ork, somewhere. WAAAAAHG

I know painting the rotor yellow to increase performance was a joke but it might have a smother finish witch will actually increase performance.

it was as limp as it can get, bad seal i suppose?

Your conpressor was working at surge condition, it better to change to large discharge nozzle

why not print piston type compressor with steel plate valves? your challenge woulbe heat and ring fit.

next video: 3D printing an airplane turbine

Очень круто. В металле реализовать надо.

A double acting piston compressor is way better for pressure.

Now attach this to the printed turbine, and you have free energy😎

you need to ad more stages, first stage les blades last stage more blades mid stage betwen 1 and 3

ohhh man , U got " Let's Print " channel and ur print quality for mechanical parts is kind of bad, I would fix it asap ( I am also 3D print guy so I just notice some details ). Please don't get me wrong, you got decent content , I like to watch it.

Again just like with Turbine you made the rotating part incorrectly Stator blades need to have opposite twist of rotor blades

which is better for 3d printing noob. Creality k1 max or bambu lab? I for sure want abs good prints

Your batteries also look like they're about to blow up too. :S

The video should be called, I made a noise maker.

👍⭐

Try to inflate the balloon with some other pump to break initial balloon "first time inflation" strength and the it should work 🙂

it s nice, supercharger for car

I feel like there is way more noise than there should be

Hello, great video! Just here to say that I had a really good luck 3d printing turbo impellers which I used in mini jet engines. I will make a full video about impeller geometry and performance as they are quite decent. Fell free to check it out on my channel :)

Yellow spins faster!

To do a smoke test the easy way, use vape 😉

Sounds like it needs balancing.

Those poor batteries have gone a hard way…

that's a dual bladed ducted fan sir.. try again.

impotent red balloon😅

Haha, "seeable"! Why not just "visible"?

your stator blades are the wrong angles.

No, 3D Print is simply to describe real model.