this is a train made from everyday items
designed to break the scale sound
barrier I originally wanted to see how
fast a scaled down train could go using
pneumatics which involved using an
interesting system of a vacuum tube a
piston and magnetic couplings to pull a
train along using only air pressure as
it would happen though things soon got
out of hand and I ended up accidentally
building a hyperloop that would
transverse point A to point B in just a
couple of seconds that was ridiculous
oh getting these trains to work smoothly
though ended up being quite the
challenge and there would be multiple
issues to solve before I got to see just
how fast my vacuum trains would travel
along a 50-foot test track I knew if I
could draw on my experience of other
high-speed projects I had a good chance
of one of these trains breaking the
scale speed of sound which even for one
of these 148 size scale models is still
very ambitious so how would I build a
vacuum-powered train well it's quite
simple really the idea is to build a
train track above a vacuum tube and this
has a piston in it which basically moves
up and down due to differing air
pressures and this piston or thrust
Carriage if you want to call it that can
be coupled to a train above the tracks
using high strength magnets so this
concept is actually a really old idea
but due to limitations in technology it
never really caught on in a big way
however just before getting started on
building my vacuum tray I found out
about a company in California called
flight rail who are doing pretty much
exactly the same thing
as I still had many questions about
magnetic couplings sealing the tube and
how to control the trains I traveled all
the way over to the US to learn from the
experts in the hope that I could steal
some of their secrets John who worked
for flight rail was very kind to show us
all over the facility which is also a
Vineyard and let me have an up close
look at their 1 6 scale model train
built to demonstrate what vacuum powered
trains can do we're using air pressure
or a partial vacuum to either pull or
push a piston through a seal too and
then we have the passenger modules which
are coupled to that piston magnetically
and one of the advantages of this system
is because there's no Reliance on
traction it can climb grades that are
steeper than any conventional train
[Music]
the trains operates using a remote
control that actuates stationary air
pumps along the track and it can also
apply the Train's brakes although the
trains can be atmospherically brakes as
well which as you'll see later is a
pretty cool side effect of controlling
your train with air the trains use high
strength neodylium magnets on both the
thrust carriage and the passenger cars
themselves and are finally set up to run
along the track with minimum drag
right well that was interesting let's go
and build a small version back at my
workshop returning to the UK I was
excited to finally get cracking on the
build
firstly I need you to figure out what I
was going to use as the vacuum tube for
the tube I thought about using PVC
tubing but instead opted for clear
acrylic so that I could see what was
going on on the inside then I got to
work designing and 3D printing some
supports that could hold the tubes up
for the rails I used some aluminum that
would be spaced apart for some O gauge
sized trains oh gauge trains are scaled
to 1 48 scale so to do a scale 100 miles
an hour a train of this size would have
to travel just over 1 meters a second
our Target was over 700 miles an hour so
we'd need to build some more track later
on but this was a good start the next
thing is to design the Piston which is
going to go inside the tube up to this
point I don't actually know whether this
is going to work so I need to build this
thing and get it working as quickly as
possible there's no point building more
of the train itself or anything else or
more track until we've proved that I can
at least pull this thing along with a
vacuum cleaner
oh that's not a nice noise I'm glad I
made these wheels adjustable as I really
need to tune this thing to fit just
perfectly into the tube okay we've got
one of these carriages it's got some
magnets on it if we put it on the rails
it is now connected to the thrust
Carriage well it all seemed quite
promising at this point let's see if we
can actually move a carriage using air
pressure alone using me as the power
source
[Laughter]
all right well it seems to be working
why don't we try and hook a vacuum up to
this thing so you suck it along rather
than blow it along
that thing really moved this is really
making me excited about the rest of the
project
[Music]
instead of Simply propelling any old O
gauge Carriage down the track I wanted
to build a custom high speed train from
scratch so I started by assembling some
wheels and axles from random components
I had lying around next I bolted these
to some more aluminum and soon I had a
rolling train that could be pushed along
the track there was a big problem though
well I suppose I'm going to have to fix
this I found out that although these
flange Wheels certainly look like train
Wheels they had a key difference which
makes them absolutely useless for a
high-speed train you see train Wheels
actually have a carefully designed
geometry to them so the flanges almost
never rub against the rail instead as
the train moves the center of gravity
combined with this tapered shape
self-centers the wheels so they can be
super efficient and have a super small
contact area with some new 3D printed
Wheels the train chassis now ran much
more smoothly
[Music]
next I finish the train with a body to
turn it into a proper train not
forgetting to add the names of my
patreon supporters as a thanks for
helping to supply all of the materials
for this build if you want to join my
little patreon team in the description
down below then you can do so and help
me to build bigger and bigger projects
and
thank you very much time for
time for the what needed improving and
yes unfortunately I found out I need to
do quite a bit more work although
initially the Piston design looks
promising it turned out with the high
tolerances I'd built into the 3D printed
seals to the tube there was way too much
friction as this thrust Carriage kept
rubbing against the sides of the tube I
adjusted the wheels and tried different
magnet combinations but often the
magnetic coupling would release as the
train passed over the joints in the
acrylic tubes so this is the join here
this is going to be a bit of a problem I
think
I think what I'll do is just come back
tomorrow with a fresh start and design
something completely different with
regards to thrust Carriage because what
we've got now isn't really working we
need a different approach I ended up
redesigning the ends of the thrust
Carriage to be more tapered and actually
decreased the overall diameter to have
less of a Tight Seal with the tube this
would result in a more inefficient
design with more air being able to pass
around the Piston but it's just an
example of one of those times in
engineering where you have to make
compromise
hey yes
well I finally got this thing working
just about although I hadn't made enough
track yet to really let this train
stretch its Wheels I set up the train
outside to see what sort of scale speeds
it could get up to with the power Turner
the train ran decently enough but it
seemed a little sluggish and I soon
realized what might be the reason I
completely forgotten to change the bag
on the vacuum cleaner since using it to
clean my workshop and let's just say the
difference when empty was quite extreme
the Piston was now detaching from the
train as the magnets weren't strong
enough to deal with the sudden power of
the vacuum maybe we're going to have to
throttle this thing a little bit so that
piston on its own was pretty fast and
this gave me an idea of how I could take
this whole vacuum-powered train to the
next level I wanted to build a second
train that would fit within the tube
turning the vacuum Railway into a sort
of hyperloop I put together another
thrust Carriage but this time gave it
some angled ends and Drew on some
windows to make it look the part next I
added an fpv camera so I'd be able to
drive the train along from a first
person perspective using a pair of video
goggles this camera is the sort of thing
that you get on drones and can
wirelessly transmit video signals to a
screen fitted inside a headset so you
can see exactly what the train sees next
I wanted to solve the problem of needing
to throttle the train to make starting
and stopping a bit more gentle so I made
a simple train controller using a valve
that could be opened and closed smoothly
to have greater control over the air
pressure within the 2. this would also
allow me to do something pretty cool and
use atmospheric braking to rapidly
de-accelerate the train right now we
have loads and loads and loads and loads
of track all set up in here because it's
a bit rainy outside now but I have the
hyperloop car and we've put it inside
the tube and I just want to do a quick
test with the new train controller no me
I'm going to break something with the
new controller it was now super easy to
start and stop the vehicle in the tube
and the atmospheric braking worked like
a dream
so this was all looking very promising
but how fast would each train go with
the power turned up to full on an even
longer test track set up outside what
eye-watering scale speeds could they
achieve and would either of the trains
go supersonic right before we give this
thing a test you might have been
wondering how do I design all of the 3D
printed parts for my projects well I've
actually been using SolidWorks recently
and helpfully they are actually the
sponsor of this week's video I designed
all of the 3D printed parts for this
project in SolidWorks and it's probably
perfect for bringing your projects to
life too what's really cool is that
SolidWorks is now providing a special
software for makers with professional
grade tools for your hobbies and
personal projects and it's just 99 a
year or 9.99 a month for this you'll get
both their locally installed and online
design software with online tools for
Designing fabricating and rendering and
much more there's also an active online
design Community where you can connect
with fellow makers share your work learn
and get inspired tired as you explore
the maker offer you'll have access to a
dedicated online support Community to
help with any questions you may have
please note that 3D experience
SolidWorks for makers is not for
commercial use though and is limited to
a maximum of 2 000 US Dollars profit per
year elevates your maker game on your
terms without compromise and within your
means see the links in the video
description below to save 20 and learn
more about the maker offer alright
thanks SolidWorks now let's push this
thing to the Limit and see how fast it
can really go I wanted to see what the
top speed of both the standard train and
the hyperloop would be on maximum power
we've got trains got my GoPro but first
we needed to make sure that they work
smoothly on the newly set up track which
was a little hard to get straight we now
have an extra four meters of track so
that makes this whole thing 14 meters
[Applause]
suddenly a huge potentially fatal
problem for this project emerged the
train kept derailing
yeah what if it's expanding because of
the heat yeah maybe the heat is actually
affecting the distance of the Rails we
did some investigating and discovered
what was the culprit it's a bit annoying
the sun was heating the black 3D printed
rail tie Parts which was actually
warping the rails and changing the
distance between them
yeah it just keeps falling in
it's falling into the rails
a little fully in between the rails
repeated tests showed the train would
travel along fall between the rails and
this would cause the Piston to become
uncoupled
so this was pretty frustrating maybe 3D
printing these parts was a bad idea for
now we altered the spacing of the rail
ties and tried again until we've got
some more success
[Applause]
hahaha
well at least we got to the end of the
track so how fast was it looking had we
got a decent speed well it wasn't
looking too impressive but we'd have to
do some analysis later on after testing
the hyperloop to work out the results of
both trains now let's see how the
hyperloot camera works and whether I can
control the hyperloop using the fpv
goggles okay ready three two one
[Applause]
I just saw all of these like pillars
just go wow that was super cool that was
like I just entered a wormhole or
something now it was time to push it up
to the max would it be the scale sound
barrier all right we've got Mike here
who's helping yep you're going to be
holding the hyperloop just at the end
right just at the end just so we can
build up the section until there's
enough pressure and then we'll see if
that gives it a couple of extra miles an
hour yeah
increasing the thrust now
oh
[Music]
yeah that seemed pretty good there's
quite a lot of pull back in the office
we analyzed the footage
848 miles an hour scale speed wow is
that the fastest train ever yeah
so we've done it in a testament to the
power of a vacuum the scale hyperloop
hit a scale speed of over 761 miles per
hour nice becoming probably the fastest
DIY hyperloop in the world
the more conventional train didn't fare
quite as well at just 362 miles an hour
but this was still way more than most
real world trains so I'd count this as a
success especially with some pretty
major problems of the distorted rails
holding it back which I imagine would
probably be quite a serious problem on a
full-size train
well I'm not sure if I'm going to be
building a real hyperloop anytime soon
and I'm not sure if anyone is either at
that rate but I certainly enjoyed
building this one a very big thanks to
flightrail for their help with this
project and there's a link down in the
description if you want to find out more
about them there's also a link down
there for my patreon so if you want to
get your name in every single one of my
videos on each vehicle that I built then
you can sign up to my patreon with a
link in the description as well of
course big thanks to SolidWorks for
sponsoring the whole video and if you
want to see another project Air Video
then here's one right here that I think
you might be interested in if you got to
the end of this video so thanks for
watching and I'll see you on the next
one