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1-4-04 - I have not done much with the website recenty. I have taken a new interest in building motorcycles.
The engine did all it could so I lost interest, there is not really much practicality to the engine... I will continue to
host this webpage so that it might be a help to others whom have like interest, also I hope to add a section on the mini chopper
I have been building.
9-25-03 - I've been very busy, and not speding very much time on the website. The afterburner is working, but the engine
still needs some tweaking, see the new video...
4-20-03 - Welded up compressor discharge tube, and made an air starter to get the turbo spinning faster before ignition.
No more hot starts... Tachometer works great, (thank you Terry Young), and I have achieved 100% RPM, or 73,000 RPM's. Nick
Haddock has a calculator on his web-site that will tell this speed. It uses the compressor diameter in milla meters (mm), using
a 450 Meters per second max tip velocity. There is a link to Nick's site in my links page. I hope to have some more video
up soon. The engine throttles and runs great. I have upgraded to a 6.0 gallon per hour nozzle from the original 4.0.
3-20-03 - Since the compressor discharge pipe which was made from PVC decided to blow off on the last run, I am
fabricating a steel one made from three inch exhaust tube, hopefully this will be ready in the next day or so. The PVC
had actually started to warp a little on the compressor side, the only reason for this would be the air heating up from
compression. The burner can end, which houses the fuel nozzle and ignitor are also being re-worked. There was a good
deal of air leaking by, and I hope to seal this. I am going to a glow plug ignition just due to the simplicity. My flasher
burned out, and I was having to use A.C. for ignition from lack of funds. I had an old glow plug given to me by
one of the instructors here - I don't know where you could find one though... Thank's Terry Young once again for all of the
time he is putting forth on the project.
3-17-03 - Finally got the videos on the new videos page, Terry Young is putting forth a lot of effort to get the Tachometer
to work, he says it works, but we haven't tried it with the engine yet.
2-28-03 - Video of Mark II in operation to be on site very soon, engine runs great, I am making a stand, and a way to
measure thrust with a cheap pair of scales at the moment. A few things have changed, the old A.P.U. died and I had to get
another engine, but Justin Roth (a friend at school) donated one. All attemptes at using a power steering pump as a fuel pump
were un-successful, and I ended up using the original fuel pump for the furnace, which was originally driven by a windsheild
wiper motor on the Mark I, and by-passing the regulator. Now have over 200 pounds of pressure, I don't have a gauge to measure
more, and the needle will wind well past the 200# stop pin...
2-19-02 - Finished the electrically controlled variable exhaust nozzle up last Monday, one of my crazy ideas, hopefully
it will work when it gets hot. Pictures to come...
2-15-03 - I wish I had more time to work on my turbine, and to spend on my webpage, so many enjoy it. I am going on ten
thousand hits. Hello to all my enthousiast friends out there!
2-12-03 - Ran Turbine for the first time in month's. New APU worked great and turbine did better than ever. Pictures,
video, and more news to come (hopefully within the next week or so). Flapper valve on intake worked awesome, no more holding
the leaf blower, pvc failed at about twenty pounds of pressure, but didn't hardly phase engine. I am in the midst of building
a variable exhaust nozzle so that I can make an afterburner and get maximum thrust during a.b. and non a.b., still no
measurement on thrust or engine speed. It is louder than ever...
12-30-02 - My father passed away on December the 7th 2002, he had been battling Brain Cancer for a little over a year,
he was one of the most respectable men I have ever known. He had always raised me with a great deal of mechanical intrigue,
and tought me from a very young age about electricity and science. He was an Electron Microscopist at Lockheed Martin, formerly
Martin Marietta in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. At one time he ran the worlds most powerful electron microscope. His sickness has
stressed me and my family very intensely. I miss him very much. He never got to see my engine run in person, but he did see
the video and was very estatic. He was only forty nine years old.
12-30-02 - I have made a tachometer circuit from the schematic on the yahoo gas turbine d.i.y. list, and aquired an ohm
meter that measures frequency, I am anxious to try it. One of my friends says that he can help me change the output frequency
to a variable voltage with a simple circuit so that I can use a regular analog volt meter as a percent rpm
gauge.
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