YouTuber Builds Working 3D-Printed Turbojet Engine and Tests It in His Attic | Hacker News Reader

YouTuber Builds Working 3D-Printed Turbojet Engine and Tests It in His Attic

thedrive.com

171 pointsclouddrover57 comments

I feel like claiming it is "working" and "3d printed" are tenuous at best.

It did work... for several seconds before it melted.

It was 3d printed... except for the turbine, shaft, bearings, and combustion chamber which were made of metal, and the structural components which were cast from ceramic.

Also, FWIW, the description of the how the turbojet came to be at the beginning is pretty grossly incorrect. It is sort of like how in grade school they say that planes fly due to the Bernoulli's principle. If you are interested to learn about how jet engines actually work and the technical details that go into them on youtube, I highly recommend AgentJayZ [1]

If you want to see a youtuber make an actually good turbojet, check out these channels:

-Игорь Негода [2] His videos are in russian, but are by far the most technically advanced and performant. I watch them with the auto generated/translated subtitles

-Tech Ingredients [3] This is a traditional turbocharger based design, but is presented in a wonderful way packed full of interesting tech details

-Colin Furze [4] The turbojet that inspired this video. Much more focused on presentation than tech details, but worth watching for the comedy at least!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/c/AgentJayZ/playlists

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7GFAbtsQKs&list=PLyyfwUFI3X...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzwfzgfJiJ4

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh34A0b8MrE

His entire point is trying to get stuff working (even for a few seconds) using cheap hobbyist printers and not requiring skills in metal fabrication or any special equipment.

With that goal in mind, I think he does incredibly well on his projects.

Of course other people can do better with CNCs and years of engineering/fabrication skills. That's like saying it's not worth playing with DIY "anything" because other people can do it better than you.

it works in the sense that a thrown brick flys.

Definitely not. A turbojet is not something you can make work by just brute force.

This isn't a usable turbojet engine, but it did work, for a short while, and that is a real achievement.

Yeah. And if the maker here does a few more iterations of the engine it should become much more refined. :)

Then the news article should have mentioned that point.

But the news article very much arouses the impression that that is not his point, that his point is something other, and that he succeeded at said other point, he never endeavored to succeed at.

That Russian channel came to mind instantly when you mentioned "youtuber make an actually good turbojet" --- he even builds a plane for it, and flies it too. Extremely impressive.

In one of his videos, if not mistaken, he use angle grinder to build turbo jet engine, from scratch. He also connected jet engine(s) to a car, that actually worked.

Honestly, the Turbojet video is one of the less interesting videos on his channel in my opinion. The others are MUCH better.

What are your realistic expectations of a 3D printed proof of concept turbojet built in a basement by a guy who had to learn to MIG weld a few weeks prior?

> It did work... for several seconds before it melted.

To be fair, the Me-262 turbojet engines only worked a few hours before they melted, too.

Thanks for the videos... Osamagirl69, it seems you know about relatively-obscure quality stuff on youtube, Do you have per any chance more recommendations (it does not have to be on this topic)

One mans obscure find is another mans daily bread, but...

Marco Reps[1] has a lot of interesting maker stuff, along with some (IMHO) great humor.

I've been enjoying Robert Feranecs[2] channel for some detailed PCB design stuff. Has had some great interviews and deep dives.

CuriousMarc[3] has some really great stuff on restoring the Apollo Guidance Computer, with explanations of the hardware and what they have to do to try to reverse engineer it and so on.

I've also enjoyed a lot of what Robert Baruch[4] has put out. He had some great explanation and practical demonstration of line termination, as well as got me into FPGAs.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1O0jDlG51N3jGf6_9t-9mw

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJQkHVpk3A8bgDmPlJlOJOA

[3]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3bosUr3WlKYm4sBaLs-Adw

[4]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBcljXmuXPok9kT_VGA3adg

The original posted video is a classic case of something that's impressive to someone who is ignorant of the field.

As someone who sat beside a 33k lb thrust engine with a laptop attached as they dry started it, this is impressive.

I loathe how everything on the internet has become this worldwide competition. Somebody does something, and immediately everyone says, well, this other person did this much better.

Like, who cares? This guy built something, made fun videos about it, and apparently people like to watch him. Who cares if someone else made something better?

Because that’s how we develop scientifically and technologically as a species?

I do. These are not "my friend John". These are professional YouTubers that compete for attention to make revenue out of ads and sponsorship. Just as you compare car manufacturers, so the best gets most revenue, it makes perfect sense to compare YouTubers.

Also, please don't forget to like my comment and hit that subscribe button.

> These are professional YouTubers

when everyone becomes "professional", no one is anymore

Doesn’t professional just mean it makes them money?

not in my mother tongue at least

In my circles, professional has a very clear definition: 80% of your revenue comes from your profession.

Absolutely never heard that. For me, being professional only ever meant that you are qualified to do something because you conform to the professionalism rules in a given community. e.g. a music band can be super professional by how they behave and not make a single paid gig.

A quick WP check seems to confirm my definition:

> A professional is a member of a profession or any person who earns their living from a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skills necessary to perform their specific role within that profession.

We could skip the "earn their living" part, but then we would all end up being professionals. :)

I wanted to comment on this idea of 'professional YouTubers' and 'ad revenue' as it relates to content creators.

Despite all of the problems around YouTube, advertising, and the algorithms which promote questionable content (top of mind I'm thinking about the NYT Rabbit Hole program which discusses the problem in broad strokes), YouTube has the lowest barrier for content creators to a "world" audience there has ever been for video content.

In the not-too-distant past the only game in town was a limited number of television channels owned by national corporations acting as "gatekeepers" to their communications platform. And let's not forget that system is still in place today. You need to be part of that system just to get airtime on their platform. Not so with YouTube.

Generally all advertising infuriates me. I have limited time and its constantly interrupted by advertising on these platforms. And that's a different, though not unrelated, problem.

I like this guy's video. He wears a bow tie and yellow polka-dot socks. He does a silly dance when his "jet engine" momentary displays sustained thrust.

It's a wonderful world of content.

I'm not sure what are all the new problems, but I'm sure the problems of content are not with the professional YouTuber.

I re-read my comments, sometimes frequently. I feel uneasy about my last statement. A bridge too far. Content creators are always responsible for their own content. There’s more to say here, and I look forward to more discussion and the possibility I’m wrong.

> Just as you compare car manufacturers, so the best gets most revenue,

What a odd utility function. I'd compare car manufacturers to get a good value for my money.

On Youtube, what do I care that a creator of a fun video I enjoyed gets the ad buyer's money, rather than some "technically superior" creator? Unless they're using the revenue to fund terrorism or oil lobbying or something.

> What a odd utility function. I'd compare car manufacturers to get a good value for my money.

Isn't it the same? On YouTube I "pay" with my limited attention and expect good value. Value can mean different things for different people. Personally, I'd choose "technically superior" first, then "funny".

There is also educational value in having a variety of people trying the same thing in different ways. Here we are in this thread with people talking about engineering details that popped out when contrasting different designs.

There is also the excellent "The Jet Engine" book by Rolls-Royce:

https://hermessuspendeme.com/DOCS/GrevaEdgar/greva%202B/2B/S...

So many times I see people comment about what he could do if this, if that, or they'll say "yeah but it only worked for a few seconds at best." To this I say: Show me the turbojet you built at all using the tools he used.

My own hobby is more fun when I build things or repair things not with unlimited resources, but with intentionally limited resources. Everybody knows that if you have enough money you can buy your way into many hobbies, but this fellow, eccentric as he is, figured out a way to use what he *already has* to build something that would be otherwise impossible with the resources given.

Here is the link to the video directly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsvpU7G5IJg

It's really impressive how he turned to welding and... essentially learned welding in the process?

After watching the original video when it was first released, 3D printing really doesn't play a massive part. Welding is the real winner.

3D printing is still plausible for building jet engines - just not to the average person for now and the foreseeable future. Metal printers (using fine powders) seems quite viable, but they are costing $100k+.

His enthusiasm when he gets it working is really great!

19:30 is where it works

Pretty damn impressive!

BTW, Whittle invented the radial flow turbojet. Ohain invented the axial flow turbojet, from which all modern turbojets descended from.

P.S. Being an old guy, I'd have been pretty concerned about a turbine burst shredding my body.

P.P.S. I would never ever had stood radially from the turbine. Off to one side is much better. At least he wore goggles. I'd also put a thick plate of steel between it and myself, and watched the engine via a mirror. Looks to me like there was no speed control on it, and a lot of power running through it.

I think Whittle's first test run had the turbine overspeed and suffer a catastrophic unplanned disassembly.

He'll lose half his face but at least he'll be able to see that in a mirror!

When I upped the power substantially in my Dodge, I replaced the cast aluminum bell housing with a forged steel one, because I like my feet.

The Whittle story is a little more involved than that. His first run didn't go boom, but it did go out of control, get red-hot, and need to be shut down by cutting off the fuel pump. It didn't stop immediately, though, which is a terrifying failure mode.

It took him a couple of years to sort out the design problem that led to unburnt fuel pooling where it shouldn't.

While there aren’t many 3D printed parts in the end product, he uses several printed jigs for shaping the sheet metal in clever ways. Very cost effective!

Next week: YouTuber burns down home MIG welding in unfinished attic of stick frame house

That looks like a lot of fun. For how simple it is, it seems about on the level of complexity of the sort of thing you could buy at Harbor Freight for about a hundred dollars. If it were that easy, why don't they sell these at Harbor Freight? Is making a reliable turbojet actually harder than it looks, or is there just no market for a small household turbojet engines?

I'm not sure what I'd use one for, other than maybe as a sort of blowtorch.

I think it's the latter, other than powering a plane what else are they good for?

They tend to have a fairly narrow RPM range within which they're more efficient than conventional piston engines. That can make them good for generators, but maintenance can be a pain in a way that it isn't for a 2-stroke (for instance). They've got great power density, though.

-wrong-, misremembered the video.

He tried that, then gave up and switched to a traditional casting process.

Integza is that perfect mix of entertaining and actually-impressive-science. Every video he puts out is doing stuff no one (or very few people) have tried, and his passion for it all shines through regularly.

It’s engineering, not science by the way.

It's not really engineering either because he's not calculating tolerances, generating specs and safety factors. It's still fantastic.

"Integza is known for a few things;"

Dont forget his hate for tomatoes.

I wonder what he could do with a hobbyist CNC mill.

Nothing, because there's no soft high-temperature metals used in turbine engines.

Once again, HN jumps the shark.

I imagine he could do a fair amount of cool stuff with a mill, but his shtick (as far as I can tell) is to push 3d printing as far as he can to implement interesting stuff.

I think I saw his video on a different type of engine that was basically a poor-man's jet engine (I can't remember the name). It was equally impressive, but I didn't appreciate the shtick once parts started melting.

Weird, I submitted this yesterday...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26361523

Cool engine Bizarre safety protocols.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com