Something always has to go wrong 🔥😂 Looking forward to building off this initial experiment with a much improved MK2 car in a future video. Leave any questions here and I'll answer with an FAQ edit to this pin!
Hehe, it's a great first start. Although the carbon tubes I think are too flexible. Also without suspension you will never be able to keep straight at high speed. But still looked like a fun project.
Agreed! Didn't realise how much flex you'd get with them, but clearly the next one needs to be made much, much stiffer and have some sort of suspension. :)
We used to run model dragsters along a tight string. This car might go a bit far for a string guide? But it worked very well in the day, before remote controls.
My dad built me a very similar rc rocket car 25 years ago, we got a multi page feature with it in 'RCMC' magazine. He used 2 shallow shelf brackets side by side as the main part of the chassis for rigidity, with the elecronics inbetween. Its a jet dragster design with a funnycar body for aero. We used 2x D-12 to start with then moved on to a single 5 second burn distress flare rocket motor. It also has full suspension and servo activated parachutes. We ran it at santa pod dragstrip after dark (usually getting a few runs in before getting kicked off) and although we had no timing equipment, we estimated well over 120mph. I still have it and plan to get it going again sometime soon. May I suggest mounting your rocket/s in front/over the rear axle and angling your rocket exhaust upward a few degrees to give instant downforce and increased stability
Maybe also put the rockets on the front...? I'm not an expert or anything, but on cars it is a lot easier to lose control on rear wheel drive cars than in front wheel cars, so maybe this can be applied to rockets.
Very interesting projects you do. Hats off. For a while I have been experimenting with rc cars with the drive directly attached to transversely mounted electric motors. One for each rear wheel. I mount the motors on swing arms with expansion springs for the suspension medium. So the suspension is swing axle, which is fun. Standard size high torque 550 motors as used in crawlers work with small road car wheels. Going up in size 775 industrial motors such as used for replacement electric drill motors work fine for larger wheels, though experimentation for the optimum size wheel is needed. Im using two 775 motors with 3 inch wheels. The lack of a differential can be an issue on bitumen or firm surfaces, and I have made a steering operated micro switch and relay affair which idles the inside wheel to reduce engine strain and understeer. I am working on a simpler in hub supermagnet clutch for the same reason. The wheel attached to motor without gears creates a very silent rc car with, according to wheel size used, great acceleration or top speed. I have tried a quite large 895 industrial motor which a large amount of torque, however it draws a lot of current and surprisingly they are easy to burn out. At the moment the 775 seems to be the best brushed motor to use. The use of industrial rather than rc dedicated motors makes it cheaper - and easier to set up than brushless motors. I'll supply photos soon. I use 18 volt makita batteries, again lots more bang for buck esp if one uses cheap chinese makita copies. I'm a cheap skate, and I figure I'm not the only one. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XpEmHajlCt4.html
James, Hello from Florida. You are living the dream that I wanted to do when I was young. I am 72 years old and now have watched several of your videos. Even at 72 it makes me feel great to see the thing you come up with. I know what you mean by a wet country because I was there in 1967 and thought I was going to grow a set of gills to breath. I live in Florida and we also have wet weather during the summer along with some serious thunder storms. Also you may try a bigger set of wheels and a bit wider with a foam rubber on the rims. Those gravels in the road make that car jump around and hard to control. Just a thought thrown your way... Thanks for the video Dave
Although your intention wasn’t to create a little crash and fire, the result was truly spectacular! It’s always a great video when even the little disasters make spectacular viewing!
So happy to see your channel growing and your content quality continuing to increase! I've been hangin out since back when you were working for Flite Test, and I'm enjoying your videos ever since. Keep it up!
Great experimentation! And yes: An intake lip on the EDF will make a big difference! In my own static tests you lose about 40% thrust without an inlet lip ring.
In your comment regarding 40% thrust loss without an intake lip, are you referring to the stock lip ring that comes with most plastic EDFs? Or something specialized?
Great start. I really enjoy these ProjectAir vids. About 30 years ago we built a rocket car in school which used a single Estes' engine. The biggest difference is that we ran a long wire on the ground (fishing line maybe??) and the underside of the car had 2 or 3 eye hooks for the line to thread thru. This kept the car going perfectly straight. This is was more than 30 years ago, so I don't recall too many particulars like did the line burn? What happened when the ejection charge fired? etc. However, I do recall it sure was a lot of fun for us kids in the schoolyard. (no way would they allow this in school today)
Absolute vintage Project Air! "It looks worse than it was" but "the whole car was written off." Keep working on these projects - love them. There's nothing else on YT quite like this channel!
Wow, that thing looks almost identical to the rocket cars I would make as a kid. Mine weren't remote controlled, you just ignite and hope for the best haha. Made them with model rockets, rc car and plane parts and the most important part of all, erector sets!!! I was like 10 and this was long before 3D printers were a thing (94 or so), so this one is tad more elegant haha But the over all design is seriously about the same. Funny stuff. Brought me back in time.
Get a Gyro and get some rocket motors without ejection charge. They are mostly indicated by having a number like B10-P with the P standing for plugged. So the top is plugged and there is no ejection charge. The -0 engines have a 0 second delay time and more often than not don't have an ejection charge. Check the description.
@@xerosfs I adjusted it. Should have said -P instead of -0. I got it mixed up due to almost every -0 engine I can get my hands on not having anvejection charge. Booster only. And as far as thing exploding, if the engine has been properly capped it isn't a problem to use -0 engines with an ejection charge. The effect is the same as using an engine with an delayed ejection charge like he did now. Only the ejection comes straight after the thrust of the engine and not when the car is coasting for a couple of seconds. Should be easier to control.
@@xerosfs -0 motors are fine to use so long as you plug them yourself, which can pretty easily be accomplished by a small 3d printed slug or just a layer of epoxy over the top of the grain
@@brain8484 Seat belts and or harnesses do not make a car fast, Also not hating. I love little Mini's and it is a nice looking car, and way faster then stock, just joking around
I lost you for awhile, but just found your channel again today. I really loved watching your single rocket motor test run, Actually ILMAO !! I'll be watching for more laughs. Love your channel and builds.
Interesting idea with the electric fan for a rolling start. When I was a kid I made a much simpler version of this just rockets. I found if you angle the rockets down a bit so the thrust shoots a little upward it keeps it from getting airborne at top speed. Also put a brick behind the motors at launch and it will have ridiculously fast acceleration.
The end of the nozzle for the EDF literally looks like your average F-15 Afterburner nozzle lol Love ur content, hope you achieve even greater heights ❤
If you wanna make some thing similar to this again, that’s going to be going that fast I would suggest buying a receiver with a Gyro, which, as you probably may know, helps to keep your RC car going straight by communicating with the servo, and they are pretty expensive. I think the cheapest one would be over $100 but I have a Traxxas one that I don’t use so maybe if you ever make a PO Box I’ll send it to you
Well, it was a successful test of the machine's crashworthiness. With the long tube behind the edf, that also tapers, it helps to slot in some intake vents after the fan to increase the volume and flow. I love the projects, mate, they're always fun. Looking forward to your next vid, Cheers!
I built a rocket rc car when I was in high-school. I used some thin metal pipe with to elbows to angle the parashoot charge backwards and actually made drag shoots. Kept the flames away from the guts of the car and provided a bit of brakes. I also used modified rc plane foam wheels with bearings instead of plastic ones. Sadly on my 5th run with it one of the rocket motors for got how to rocked and decided it was a bomb instead and blew the car apart. I would have loved a 3d printer on that build but it was the 90's
I think you should add a front splitter, because the wing at the back is acting as a lever, i.e, it's pulling the front of the car up, making it uncontrollable. A front splitter, with nearly equal downforce to the wing, will make the car aerodynamicaly balanced. Wider front and rear tyres should help too, so that you have more steering control, and the car doesn't spin out on a turn. Also, a lower center of gravity might help too. (Does the wing even generate downforce ?)
4:49 "A strong, high tolerance subassembly" Five minutes later... 9:20 A small pile of small pieces of a very strong, high tolerance subassembly. That's what I love about these videos, you take on a project, you do just enough research to be able to build a prototype, you use the worst possible way to manufacture the parts and then just go for it, all the while knowing that it's ging to fail because 3d-printed parts are never ever strong enough and you kind of already know that before you start printing. :-)
I built a rocket car with sugar rockets in middle school and i had similar issues. Very fast, but hard to get it to go straight and it burnt itself pretty good. Its cool to see a high-tech version
As someone who has launched 1000s of rocket powered cars in my tima as a physics teacher may I make a few suggestions.... You need to stack the 3 rocket motors vertically on the centre line. This will stop any yawing moment from imbalanced thrust as the motors burn at different rates and burn out at different times. (They have a range of impulses in D class i think it is between 10 and 20 Ns if I remember correctly). The vertical stacked rockets will also provide some pitching moment to keep the nose wheels planted on the ground as they currentlybounce up off the ground quite often with an your current design due to no suspension damping and a springy chassis. Perhaps also add some toe in angle to your rear set of wheels for directional stability.
Love the ingenuity but maybe go airborne. The rc car market has far less expensive over the counter electric cars that are miles ahead. But I am totally subscribing to watch more. Your awesome
I would like to see you take this project to the next level. Traxxas claims their XO-1 is fastest RC Car. Their specs "0-60 in 2.3 seconds. 0-100 in 4.92 seconds. Top speed over 100mph". You just need MORE ROCKETS!!!!
Another thing you can copy from F1/your RC car is the completely flat panel on the underside of the car. It uses ground effect to create negative relative pressure between the ground and the bottom of the car to create more down force.
I recommend getting a Nitro car. Gas powered are DO MUCH FUN. I have a Schumacher on/off road truck that goes to 100mph. It's SO MUCH FUN. Very cool video buddy
I made a replica of this in SimplePlanes and Can surprisingly fly with only the two horizontal stabilizer things in the back albeit poorly. I added wings and it flies nicely
Also maybe orient your thrust stack vertically instead of horizontally so you don't get any dissymmetry from unavoidable slightly varying ignition and burn times.
When you get around to building the turbojet car make sure to be wary of debris being sucked into it. On the scale your working with the little pebbles and stuff may be small enough to get pulled in with very little trouble.
My thoughts and suggestions: 1) Bin the steering all together and opt for low friction, low mass wheels with a Spektrum as3x flight stabilization RX (bare with) to gyroscopically maintain steering control and allow a dynamic vertical stabilizer to keep you dead ahead at all speeds. You can use tiny linear actuators instead of micro servos to save even more weight. 2) Critically evaluate you thrust to weight ratio and pour it on mate, that feeble ducted fan is a hold up and not a selling point. You are shooting for 2:1 bare minimum, ideally exceeding 6:1. Are you or are you not going for speed? Don't over look this physics fundamental and somehow come to imagine low friction and an odd setup will gain you anything. 3) Go high voltage. Try a 6s or 12s HV lipo system and thank me later. You can still use smallish cells to keep the mass down because you are doing short runs, just make certain your entire powertrain from the bus out can handle the increased current load.
I did one of these years ago when I was in college, you should consider using homemade sugar engines they have a lot more power then Estes engines and are alot cheaper. You also won't need the turbine that just adds a lot of weight and high center of gravity.
i would also suggest that you add more downforce options for the car. similar to how F1 cars run. I would imagine it helping with steering and allow for higher speeds while maintaining stability as well.
Aaaaaaand this is why rocket sleds are normally run on a rail system. Lots of fun though, good job! I think one of you adventurous boffins should design a laser based electronic rail system that could then be tracked by a simple automated detector/steering system. Place the laser at the finish line, line up the vehicle and let her rip!
a little off topic but, concerning your safety belts in your Mini, you need a cross bar to raise the point at which they turn down towards the rear mount points. the belts should turn down at a height equal or slightly higher than your shoulders. if your shoulder is the downturn point, in an accident your back will be compressed severely. enjoyed the video. cheers
I love your peg board in your room, I'm stealing that idea. I have too many controllers, head phones, soldering irons, etc. Guy stuff. LMAO That first car crashed so bad it was to scale.
Just a few things for your next setup on your chassis if your going to try three motors. 1) increase the forward track on the axle and add a wee bit of camber. 2) slow the steering response down to very minor increments, faster you go the less input needed. 3) massive flat parking lot with no curbs lol
