This Piston Engine Does Not Exist in Real Life But It Can Generate Insane Speeds!

Today we're back in Scrap Mechanic with a crazy piston powered engine design! This is an engine design from the Kein designs who is the master of the piston powered challenge pack! Of course this is only my first attempt at building a design like this so obviously it might need some adjustments but it is insanely fast!
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#scrapmechanic #kangaming

[@kANGaming]

So there are design flaws with this engine I think but let me know if you have suggestions after seeing what I did!

[@Berynn9]

make more survival vids

[@thecoolguy1233]

maybe there is some way to lock up the pistons like you can do to your crankshaft in an inline 4 to prevent unwanted give. You're going to need the torque to move a car.

[@cheesiestmaster879]

tip for the timing gauge, since the dyno uses the modpack, you can replace the analog gauge with an xometer and a digital display, and get decimal precise angles

[@Trouble_2X]

Your engine has each of the pistons on 2. The crank only has to move 2 blocks to go 180 degrees so with 2 pistons placed correctly you can set them to 1 (although risk piston jitters). To do this the horizontal pistons can both stay and be set to 1 and the vertical pistons would instead be stacked in the same direction instead of opposite. Feel free to correct me if I'm missing something as I haven't tried my own version of this yet.

[@Electrodoc1968]

At the @3:00 mark you had good rotation by sequencing switch order 3, 2, 1, 3, 2, 1.. Isn't that only one / two block detection as opposed to the "L" shaped timing block.?

[@keinanderer9930]

This should hopefully cover all the basics. Their timing is like an I4 with 90° offsets, where the 2 opposed pistons fire at opposed timing. I believe you did that correctly, but still mentioning it to clarify. These engines can do ~600rpm max with that stroke. What really unlocks their potential (and what will also allow you to spawn the engine with the crankpin in the center) is a variable stroke. That can boost speeds up to ~4k rpm (at least with what Ive seen). The concept is to put an arm on an offcenter bearing to spawn the crankpin in the center and move it out with an angle. Since its outside the grid you can move the stroke inbetween blocks and even =2k will definitely be too inpractical for most application. With power you can get up to ~40hp/piston (they are one of the most power efficient designs), but making power can be quite tricky due to stall and fps sensitivity and since you have 2 variables to mess with. And yeah, torque wise you can expect around half at best of the engines youre used to. I hope this isnt too much info at once, there is quite a bit that can be covered (and a lot I still left out). Happy youre getting back to this type of content. Also thanks for the compliments 👍 Btw, you can pronounce my name as "kaihn", its basically german pronounciation.

[@apersunthathasaridiculousl1890]

4K rpm?!?

[@Psycorde]

@@apersunthathasaridiculousl1890 We're going plaid with this

[@keinanderer9930]

@@apersunthathasaridiculousl1890 Thats basically with peak weight reduction and using the old pistons that create much less force but more speed. It is possible, but you really dont wanna go >=2k rpm for anything practical.

[@Antal-te6rj]

To me the engine mechanism looks kind of similar to a radial engine, but with... less pistons? Idk it seems to work pretty well tho. Creative design regardless

[@cacanovotny]

Never played any scrap mechanic, but generaly I think you should have stayed with the 2 piston motor and instead of trying to have the default position centered, have it in one corner (basically move the horizontal piston one block aside) so tat it can always generate torque expanding and compressing past the midpoint. I'm quite surprised, you didn't catch that considering your engineering background.

[@PhilCoati]

Yep, redesign the crank for the 45deg offset then have a bearing so it an push through the edges. Much better for torque

[@tavern.keeper]

I think it's because he wants the pistons to only move 2 units so he can get more rpm.

[@keinanderer9930]

The 45° offset doesnt work well, as it will never be at top dead center for both at any time (if you think of it as a circle). Doing stacked pistons is the correct way and it also has some huge efficiency benefits with speed and power.

[@_miobrot_603]

wont work. Try to visualize it a bit more... the crank will be too long in the other part of its cycle.

[@blueflame_sm]

As the others pointed out, regardless of where on the circle you start there is always a part of it which is before where one of the 2 pistons starts. Thus you need at least 1 double stack and thus for balancing reasons the other needs to be a 2 stack too.

[@daniilvolkov8790]

Might I suggest opposing pistons pushing and pulling on the same inverted switch? Or instead of a driveshaft 180 degrees apart, maybe a 90 degree connection and somehow utilize the other driveshaft connection too. Bonus points if you manage both :D

[@SteffedPepper]

I like to think that this all just long R&D for the piston challenge. Should compile all of these together including when you started the challenge and when you inevitably go back to it.

[@alexdiloreto8770]

Hi ! I was pumping out Duolingo but this notification popped up and i gotta watch it.

[@pandapip1]

I'd love to see an explosive engine using the smart cannons that were used in the artillery battle!

[@jakelake8113]

Id love to see a hybrid of both engines maybe a 2 piston standard engine with it's own timing attached to this engine. Maybe you could hybrid the torque and speed of both?

[@CubeR4t]

Challenge: make a piston engine that is only 1 or 2 blocks wide that is stackable indefinitely.

[@padalan2504]

This does exist in real life, you've essentially replicated how train wheels are driven, but due to your solution being done with length changing pistons rather than a bending lever the system can apply force to itself.

[@Rullstolsboken]

I would love to see someone like maybe integza build an air engine based on this concept

[@abas656thegodemperor9]

does the process include tomatoes in any way, shape, or form?

[@kornaros96]

​@@abas656thegodemperor9if they get destroyed then yes!

[@whodisbrody]

Watching this made me think a quap style race would be cool, you could build a piston engine with no encoder wheel so the pistons only move with button presses, it would be funny to watch y'all try to do the piston timing through button presses for each piston. You could race kazmo.

[@devakadex9588]

Crazy to think that no matter how frantic and crazy fast these look, theyre just running at regular idle rpms 😂😂 man the more i think about it engines are insane, my honda revs to almost 7k from the factory thats crazy to me

[@blueflame_sm]

Well, your Honda isn't limited to 120fps or whatever kANs ingame framerate is ;) Real life engines have a much smaller stroke. If you compare the torque to real engines the SM engines outclass most real ones instead.

[@devakadex9588]

@blueflame_sm i know im not saying its bad im saying its crazy to think about how impressive real engines are, these rpm numbers are impressive for scrap mechanic, its just funny to me that we are blown away by idle rpms

[@blueflame_sm]

@@devakadex9588 yea I didn't want to sound rude but somehow it came out like that xD

[@DigitalJedi]

Modern engines and motors are engineering marvels. I've got an old Suzuki bike that does 14k rpm and some brushless motors that can push 6 figure rpm.

[@blacktownshadow1325]

You always have two pistons active, i know there is a tick delay but the controler can compensate for it, add logic gates to each of the pistons and wire each of the sensors to two logic gates and have the decoding wheel coloured on just one side. And FYI 12:10 Alexander was not alive the 1700`s haha. Nice video tho. edit: sorry im just more of a machine than a human, my humor is not in existanse sometimes.

[@Temporary_yesyes]

a very similar thing happens in the poly bridge hydraulics community as we have created some of the most useless mechanisms, such as a 180º rotator that also goes up 2 meters which is useless everywhere except for one over engineered solve on one level

[@adolphchao8143]

This feels like the basic concept of a star engine

[@nathanw6579]

Hi. I believe I have the design for the fastest possible piston engine in Scrap Mechanic. The trick is to get a stroke shorter than 1 block - figure that out, and you can attain much higher speeds (several times what you can get otherwise). Then, using multiple pistons, you can compensate for the torque you lose with a shorter stroke.

[@fs2000]

I think your encoder wheel was sitting one block too high. In the start position (all pistons retracted) the crank would be exactly in the middle. Somehow one piston needs to start in extended state.

[@luckyterror5756]

With piston engines it would be funny to see someone try and make a manual transition

[@planetearth8044]

I think if you tried that your gpu would pop like a firecracker, even with a high-end pc

[@CaptainS0305]

Kan: says that piston speed isn’t actually speed Also Kan: says that speed is how long it takes to go a distance. Which is the literal formula for speed.

[@Anonymouzor]

i do think that a bigger timing wheel may be good because you would get better resolution on your timing.

[@tombuster]

It seems like the piston that was on button 1 at around 6:30 had its length set too long, and that was causing that stall point. It should have been set to one block instead of two since it has to move the crank by only one block - its default position is in the middle of the stroke so you just need half of the stroke's width worth of offset done by that piston. The piston opposite to it has to match that one block distance. The vertical pistons have to get their length set at 2 blocks because their default position is at bottom dead center, and to reach top dead center they need to offset the crank by two blocks

[@puipuixproduction]

I wonder if it's possible to get it running with only 2 piston, that would be cheaper for survival. Maybe it's possibly by putting both piston vertically, connecting them with one bearing, connecting the bottom piston to the body with a bearing aligned with the piston, and the top piston connected to the top of the axle. Then if you rotate both bearing by 90 degrees, they should be good... maybe ?

[@benjaminfranklin329]

If you could centre the design around the shaft you could stack them off each other so the second one is adding to the spin of the first... No idea if it's possible though.

[@luciferhellhound]

The easiest way for pistons to be stacked would mean having the crank (with a extension of 2) centered perfectly between 4 block spaces, so either lose rpm by using a stroke of 3 or use another method to break the build grid as mentioned in at least one comment

[@nemasisdemarini8339]

Kan the way you described the piston speed being wrong is literally how we calculate speed. It's the distance traveled over a certain period of time, hence we describe it as miles per hour or kilometers per hour. I think you are thinking of velocity, which is, as far as I can remember and tell, the rate at which something moves in a given direction. It is definitely doing something weird in it's speed and velocity calculations, that's for certain, but I just wanted to point that out cause I found it funny.

[@JamiePineappleWyatt]

Instead of individual gears, it'd be nice for someone to make a gearbox. These enginges seem like theyd practically require one to remain optimal at all.

[@nikolaskuklis5925]

I wonder, what are the best wasd converters? fast and reliable. I don't remember seeing those in while

[@jeetaghara_official]

Hey I am currently watching your crash lander survival, my suggestion would be to try this piston engine for alternator …… that would be really cool

[@timhensley3695]

Merry early Christmas bud (Hensley gaming)

[@Baer1990]

10:10 I feel like it would work better with logic. I know the timingwheel is everything with pistonengines but the pistonpairs are literally opposites. And the main issue is that lateral starts in the neutral position but up and down starts on one side because of the building grid

[@keinanderer9930]

Logic gates will add significant delay at higher speeds, enough to reduce power efficiency and reliability by noticable amounts.

[@Baer1990]

@@keinanderer9930 Yeah I know. Having the same number of logic gates for every piston helps but not as much as a timingwheel

[@radiicall]

the audio is slightly louder on the right, if i put the audio track into audacity i have to mix it about 16% to the left channel to make your voice actually centered

[@shaggy5777]

Idea, try making the timing wheel two blocks bigger and move sensors out two blocks. I was thinking one block but there wouldn't be a center point. By building the 5x5 the outer 8 one color and 8 another color making them equal.

[@benjaminfranklin329]

It's equal at the moment 4 each... A 3x3 ring has 8 blocks around the outside

[@NILLANEAB]

in theory you could make this irl with minimal changes, you would need a bend it the shaft it rotates so that the piston doesn’t hit it.

[@snowybyrdd]

You should go back and play railroads Online again they might have made some changes. plus it was a fun game to watch you play.some of us wood like to see you play the game again please

[@186scott]

Kan the button pressing order you have done is the alternative firing order for an actual 4 cylinder engine so on a 4 cylinder engine the order is 1-3-4-2 and the alternative and not commonly seen is 1-3-2-4

[@jonathonchristensen3279]

Wonder how this would do as a redial motor.

[@martyr1134]

if you eliminate the third piston pushing it back and put that on the post holding the bearings to offset it, then you would only need 2 pistons to turn it.

[@Greg1096]

Im kinda sad he didnt put it in that chassis he has been testing the engines on

[@TarisSinclair]

So random thoughts as I'm watching this for the first time. 1. I don't claim to be "first", so no dice. 2. Using multiple pistons in parallel limits your torque because they'll be wasting their pushing power on each other - as one retracts, the other is wasting its expansion on making up for the "squishiness".. It also might be a cause for some unwanted "stall points" because the serial pistons can't extend full 2 units because their baseplate is not a fixed point.. basically they need to push in both directions. You'd need to build opposing pistons instead of connecting them in series to get max torque. Basically a horizontal boxer setup that moves a connected vertical boxer setup.

[@benjaminfranklin329]

Having them in series is what's allowing it to spin past the 300rpm limit though.

[@TarisSinclair]

@@benjaminfranklin329 TBH I don't think that's what allows to go past the 300rpm limit. I think the 300rpm limit is broken by the perpendicular and opposing piston action. Each piston only controls one static vector, so for example if the crank needs to go left, a piston pushes it to the left. If the crank needs to go to the right, another piston pushes it to the right. By not making it the same piston, you can trigger them faster than if you had to wait for the same piston to start retracting. If my theory is correct, it should be possible to build an equally fast engine in boxer configuration.

[@benjaminfranklin329]

@@TarisSinclair yeah ok, think I get what your saying now, and now that I think about my comment doesn't make any sense, because they are still travelling the same distance regardless of the mounting

[@TarisSinclair]

@@benjaminfranklin329 I'm not sure if I'd discard your comment like that. I might just as well be wrong in my assumptions. :) The only way to find out is to test it.

[@RedsCast]

might need to space 1 of the white blocks out for the skip maybe

[@TheGrandePiano]

can't the encoder wheel be made out of the wire frame blocks (no collision blocks) that are painted? I'm pretty sure sensors don't care whether the block is transparent or not.

[@justinpatterson5291]

Have you tried using one set of pistons as level 4 and the other two as level 5's? A maxed out level 5 will always beat a level 4.

[@nikolaskuklis5925]

I think doing a chart like (made up example) Piston num length activ arpox 1 ⬜⬜⬛⬛⬛⬛⬜⬜ 2⬛⬜⬜⬛⬛⬜⬜ 3⬛⬛⬜⬜⬛⬛⬜⬜ 4⬛⬛⬛⬜⬜⬜⬜ So that you can write down the sequence to know which are active relative to other pistons

[@alchgaming2959]

U need something lile vvt(so the higher the rpm, the higher the timing)

[@mihalydozsa2254]

you should try this engine t work lke the dű nothing machine, So the opposing pistons are pushing and pulling against each other without loosing tourqe.

[@Braveplantt]

bruh, this piston engine works the same irl steam locos

[@ShawnF6FHellcat]

Tried and true Scrap Mechanic solution: Double or Nothing

[@supbro3878]

i made that engine with 2 pistons by making it an offset and got 2 horsepower with 120 peak rpm

[@haliac7117]

Even shorter stoke engines have more torque at lower rpm than the longer stroke counter parts

[@ducewags]

@haliac7117 Let's ask a ships engine about that idea, with a max crank speed of 100rpm, and a 30 foot long connecting rod. Or we could talk to any oil burner engine about that one also, like a CAT engine.

[@MarkkuS]

13:00 You got it in reverse its speed and not time. It clearly takes more time to go to 15 than to 2.

[@ericsternwood9812]

Why four pistons and not just two though?

[@thecoolguy1233]

this should be possible with 2 pistons but kan went straight to 4

[@outandabout259]

@@thecoolguy1233 kein engine has one piston for each of the four directions, I believe that stacks the piston speeds. A properly made normal kein engine, so the one kan was trying to make, can get over 700 rpm. Add a couple of extra blocks and a controller bearing between the crank and piston attachment point and you have a variable stroke kein engine that can go past 1200 rpm. They are basically the most lag-efficient design and close to highest power per piston there is in scrap mechanic.

[@thighgamingalexo28]

But looking at your build, there’s still a single piston covering the entire up and down movement of 3 blocks. You’re just moving the pivot point left and right basically. Where the single piston would normally be attached to the frame and swivel on a bearing, you know?

[@yolandemeyer542]

Bolt a piston power helicopter in scrap mechanic

[@crustybomb115]

out of curiosity, what would happen if you tried making this design into a V and added even more pistons to do the same sort of thing but on the 2nd arm of the shaft?

[@Till-B]

Please don’t forget to test the engine in the car next time. Thx

[@Chuggermcgrugger]

Very random and might not work but maybe add 1 more white block to make a ‘U’

[@mamamia4458]

Kan what if you double it

[@Berynn9]

hi kAN

[@MrMattkid]

I think a couple of improvements you can make is to first make sure the piston assembly doesn't overlap the shaft. With your current orientation the vertical pistons go up and overlap the shaft, but if they were going down instead it would still function the same way but would allow the shaft to be built going out both directions. Also, you could put the sensors on the timing wheel instead of on the frame and incorporate them into the fly wheel. Then, you use wedges to make the activation plate more accurate as the dividing line will align with the axel, and because the activation plate isn't on the shaft, it no longer needs to be symmetrical.

[@MrMattkid]

Optionally, you could build the whole piston assembly above the shaft and connect it to a top pivot point. It's essentially the same; it's just rotated to be up instead of down.

[@cyber92943]

Hi

[@bread0237]

bread

[@jspug3]

hello!

[@bassfear_9952]

next sm video be mm pls

[@________________________9]

what happened with zeepkeist?

[@ducewags]

What happened to Dapper, and the cheese builds?

[@furyx9439]

lets say one oiston goes 10 meters per second then 2 that go half as far go in a total of 20 meters per second so why dont you build a normal piston engine that just uses multiple pistons on top of each other and there is also a bug

[@Sailingspeedat9kn]

Now put it in a can and or a train

[@welltypedwitch]

Oh fun! I built something similar recently! The trick I used was that you don't actually need two opposing pistons to be firing at the same time. You can just permanently extend one and lock it in place with a block so that your pivot thingy sits at a 45° angle when fully retracted. You then just have two pistons that don't interfere with each other and can actually deliver a ton of torque.

[@CheekoRe]

First

[@Berynn9]

make more survival vids

[@xEternalSaltx]

yo wtf

[@mechan1c132]

Now this, is a brushless electric enging basically, exept the EMC or whatever it was called is integrated into the motor. Thats the basic idea

[@Darthalamus]

10:00 engines smoking, think it overheated... More coolant?

[@excream1920]

Secondest

[@Kp-jz4iw]

thirteenth

[@antoinespadone7834]

First and no life

[@AxelFougues]

What you said: "I just assume the information you feed me is right" is deeply wrong. As someone with a lot of reach and influence the least you should be doing is fact checking the information you spread. Not just out of respect for the dedicated people you mention but also to not normalize this horrible mindset that is the root of nowadays misinformation problem. Just trying to be constructive btw, I like your content and hearing you say stuff like that is saddening.

[@ig-rd5923]

13:26 that is a common misconception. This is only true on controllers. The speed slider really is a speed (and force for some reason) slider, and the length slider really is a length slider. If you put two or more pistons next to each other with different legths at the same speed, you will easily see what is going on; A piston with 3 length will reach 3 blocks slightly faster than a piston at 15 length. if 15 length actually was the fastest, all piston engines would use it (which controller-piston engines do), but because it works slightly the opposite way, you always want the shortest length that can make a full rotation.