Four Vanes done
Started at 10:00 am finished up at 10:15 pm. I made two new vane blanks on the Lathe, and played with feeds and speeds on the mill. Then I milled 4 good vanes. It takes about 1.5 hours each just for milling them down to thickness. Anything faster than that and they bend.
In anycase I have four good vanes and one actuator mount. Two of them were loose enough to press onto the bearings. Two required the freezer and heat gun approach.
Monday night I should finish the four actuator mounts and get it all put together. (I still hate stainless).
posted by Paul Breed at 11:13 PM
6 Comments:
I'm still amazed by how tiny the whole thing is... But given that you're expecting (or, at least, OK with) double-digit Isp numbers, I guess the size makes sense...
In any case, it looks good! I too am amazed how fast this vehicle seems to be coming together. Thanks for allowing us all to come along for the ride!
Good stuff Paul, it looks like you are making very fast progress, despite the setbacks. :)
How much heat do you expect to travel down the shaft of each vane? From the picture it looks like that there is an actuator on the end of it, with what looks like a plastic casing.
Stainless is a poor heat conductor, and the stainless shafts are hollow to minimize that. How hot is one of the questions we need to answer.
I'm more worried about reflected steam on takeoff and landing and after flight heat soak. I'm using the RX-64 Dynamixel actuator and they are good to 85C and have have internal temp sensors, so I should be able to measure the temp.
Worst case scenario we only need 2 of the three legs for permangenate tanks... third leg becomes water misting spray.
Had a bit of a whacky idea...If you do end up needing some sort of cooling perhaps simple lightweight ducting could be setup around each actuator with an opening at the top and the other opening at almost 90 degrees to the exhaust just past the nozzle. That way you could use the venturi effect to suck air past the actuator. No moving parts or control necessary.
To address reflected steam... insulate the actuators with some fiberglass & duct tape.
It cannot really have success, I suppose so.
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