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Duration: 0:35

This beam engine runs on compressed air. It has two decks, the top deck holds the flywheel, the beam, and the top of the cylinder. The bottom deck houses the bottom of the cylinder and the air inlet and outlet valve. The air inlet and outlet valve is operated with a lever that is attached to the crank pin. It works a bit like a Scotch Yoke. The cylinder is made from 10mm aluminium pipe from B&Q. The cylinder sits on top of the air control valve. The piston was made from plumber's micro copper pipe. It was a tight fit in the cylinder and had to be turned down in the drill press so that it just slid down the cylinder. A bolt was fitted in the top of the piston to take the connecting rod and then the piston was filled with 151 epoxy adhesive. The beam came from an old hard drive; as did the flywheel. The air control valve allows compressed air to enter the cylinder when the piston is at bottom dead centre, thus pushing the piston up and turning the flywheel. When the piston reaches top dead centre, the control valve shuts off the compressed air and vents the air in the cylinder. Due to inertia the flywheel continues to turn pushing the piston back down the cylinder. Once the piston reaches bottom dead centre, the control valve closes the vent, and allows compressed air to enter the cylinder once more. This process continues until the compressed air is shut off. To run the engine, a small bicycle pump was connected to the back of a plastic pop bottle, (which acts as an air reservoir), the top of the bottle was connected to the engine. This engine runs well, with very little air pressed.