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Laser Engines development.


Jon H

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32 minutes ago, Martin Harris - Moderator said:

It's only after moving from a mobile phone view that the Frankenstein nature of the beast reveals itself!

 

 

You have no idea. The crankcase and backplate are 5 separate pieces all cut from other components using a simple hacksaw. They are then fitted together like a jigsaw and held together using mostly hope and the front housing/backplate screws. We wont mention all the gaps between the jigsaw pieces, but suffices to say if you hold the crankcase up to the light you can see through it!

 

Production examples will be a higher standard i can assure you. 

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10 minutes ago, Jon - Laser Engines said:

 

You have no idea. The crankcase and backplate are 5 separate pieces all cut from other components using a simple hacksaw. They are then fitted together like a jigsaw and held together using mostly hope and the front housing/backplate screws. We wont mention all the gaps between the jigsaw pieces, but suffices to say if you hold the crankcase up to the light you can see through it!

 

Production examples will be a higher standard i can assure you. 

It was the cylinder stagger that made me appreciate what you'd done.  I suppose you're going to tell us that you made a longer crankpin from a spare drill shank? ?

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3 hours ago, Martin Harris - Moderator said:

It was the cylinder stagger that made me appreciate what you'd done.  I suppose you're going to tell us that you made a longer crankpin from a spare drill shank? ?

 

The cylinder stagger is a standard feature of our V twins and all i did was take two V twin cases and cut them in half with a hacksaw. One was cut to give me a front cylinder, and one a rear. The backplate was again made from two V twin backplates, cut into 6 pieces total with a hacksaw and then the 3 i needed were installed. I did toy with the idea of welding the crankcase and backplate pieces together but lost interest as i wanted it done today and couldnt be bothered to wait. It only had to run for long enough to tune it anyway.  

 

The crank is a standard 200/300 crank rescued from a scrap 300v, rods came from the same scrap 300v. one top end came from my 100 test engine, the other head came from the dismantled v4, piston with rings came from a dead 100 as did two of the cams and followers. the other two cams and followers came from a dead 150. i did make a small mistake and installed the wrong cam follower bushes on the left side so modified the followers to suit using an electric drill and a belt sander as it was quicker than drilling out the bushes.  The liner on the left side is a scrap job with chipped cylinder plating as it was a bit short in the skirt. The metal standoff's were scavenged from my box of random things and they used to be bolted to the engine display board we used at shows and supported the display engines back in the 80's! 

 

This view shows the crankcase carnage quite clearly. 

 

 

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I'm reminded of the bit where the Interceptor is introduced in the first Mad Max film.

 

"a piece from here, a piece from there"

 

PS it's been said before, but, will you be able to do this kind of thing with the petrol 30cc just as easily? I'd assume that once you have the 30cc out into main production then the design & implementation of the individual cylinder is set and it is "just" a case of sticking them together with crank hardware... but you know what they say about assumptions...

Edited by Nigel R
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16 hours ago, Martin Harris - Moderator said:

Is that glass cloth/epoxy being applied - good idea as heat soak may affect the printed component depending on the material - it's certainly given me food for thought for improving the ducting I printed to split airflow to each of my 200v cylinders on my Tempest as I used PLA.

Martin its printed in clear PLA.  I will paint with resin as its just tacked in place with CA at present.  I had to flatten the side exit a little so heated with a heat gun (protecting the cowl with cloth and hope!) managed not to melt the cowl. I cant take credit for the CAD enlisted my enginering student daughter to do that.

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16 hours ago, Nick Somerville said:

That looks clever. Is the inflow of air through it going to end up in front of a baffle around the front cylinder? I had a Pilot Extra 330 with a side mounted Laser 180 and simply blocked the useless side intake, though it didn’t look great even when painted black.

As per Jon's suggestion the air will be directed to the upper right side of the engine bay and exhaust psat some minimal baffleng around the engine.  Left upper cowl will be blocked off hence the need for the duct.

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36 minutes ago, Nigel R said:

I'm reminded of the bit where the Interceptor is introduced in the first Mad Max film.

 

"a piece from here, a piece from there"

 

PS it's been said before, but, will you be able to do this kind of thing with the petrol 30cc just as easily? I'd assume that once you have the 30cc out into main production then the design & implementation of the individual cylinder is set and it is "just" a case of sticking them together with crank hardware... but you know what they say about assumptions...

 

In theory it would be easy to make a 60cc flat using the 360v and 30cc petrol as a base. Provided those parts also balance well enough with the single throw crank. 

 

Its also easy to use the same recipe of parts from the inline/v4 to make 320 and 400 flat 4' provided they operate on two rear mounted carbs, and if the 60cc version worked out even a 120cc flat. The same would be true for 60cc inline and 120cc v4. 

 

None of this is difficult and i already have all the designs mapped out. I just have to convince the boss its worth doing. As i cant even get parts for the standard range of engines, let alone the V twins, its going to be hard work. 

 

Then there are the radials. Designed them nearly 9 years ago, no progress. 

 

I also have a design for a new exhaust for singles, twins and for the flat. I did it all 6 months ago and have asked for it to be sorted out. No progress on that. 

 

While we are at it, i have been asking for parts to finish a batch of petrol engines. 5 months now, no progress there either.

 

Is anyone else noticing a trend?  

 

Folk have been asking for flat twins for over 30 years. It took me half a day to design and build a working prototype. If we got on with it, this could be production ready in under a week. Why it takes so long to achieve nothing is quite beyond me. 

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I haven’t got a spare fuselage to put the flat twin into at the moment and would need some rearranging of my collection to put it in so it might be some while before I could test it . 

 

However if you are looking for people to buy them to make it worth a production run please put my name down for a 200FT. 
 

I would really like to try it in an Extra or similar aerobatic plane.  A black and silver anodised look like your 200i would be fantastic ?
 

 

 

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I can see how frustrating the apparent lack of active engagement with the Laser engine business must be for Jon. I guess originally when Neil started the Laser business the owners of AGC were friends of Neil's and the machining work was done as a 'favour' when the machines were idle between contracts. I assume that AGC's business is short run precision component machining for which they have one or more CNC machining centres. Changing from one contract to another is simply a case of loading the appropriate computer CNC file, perhaps loading the appropriate bar stock and pressing GO. The other processes such as hardening and plating is carried out by another business. Given reasonable pauses  between contracts making Laser engines is a nice and profitable way of filling the gaps between much more profitable contracts. Given an up turn in the core business the Laser business is obviously going to take a back seat, there are fewer production gaps. If my guess work is correct would not a possible solution be for Laser to be a standalone business and buy its components from AGC albeit they share premises. The likely down side would be Laser engine prices would rise but the be nefits would b e a stesdy supply of engines and an end to development of new products. The risks of course would b e borne entirely by Laser engines. Prices would in evitably rise. OK Jon how good is my guess work??

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4 hours ago, Andy Stephenson said:

Jon,

Does your boss read this forum?

 

I hope not. Im likely to be executed. I should probably keep my trap shut but bottling it just winds me up as i am always bombarded with questions and well meaning customers telling me things i already know. I am not being critical of them or their frustration, its just i already know what needs to be done and hearing the same 'advice' 4 or 5 times a day sometimes gets quite draining. 

 

In any case, i dont want to get any further into the internal situation. Frankly, its a bit broken record at this point and i am doing what i can. 

 

On the bright side, i am almost finished with the drawing needed to get the case and backplate on the machines. I also have a new inlet cam timing to test on the engine which is more in line with our V twins and i corrected an installation error on one of the exhaust cams as well. 

 

so not only was the thing a frankenstein like mess, it also had 3 of its 4 cams in the wrong place and it still ran like a train. remarkable really. 

 

If the new timing works as expected im hoping for another 500rpm or so on the same prop. 

 

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Just scratching at a scab. Sorry, tell me to go away, and I will. I mean this, last gouge.
Your cost to build the motor, firm’s cost to make the parts. 
Why is a Laser cheaper than an OS motor? Are you underpaid, or is the company undervaluing the earning capacity of parts. 
I appreciate a motor has no value until all the parts are on the bench..And there are a lot of parts.

But it still sells way cheaper than an OS. 

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