What other challenges should we try in Scrap Mechanic?

I know absolutly nothing about piston engines but you could use a longer stroke to increase leverage on the crankshaft.

Hello, the creator of the challenge pack here. Like the video, hope you would try more out in the future. Just a few tips from my end for the challenges. For the plus that slots into the large wheels, you can just place the engine directly infront of the input and build the plus out from the engine into it. That way you dont get the issue of lining it up with your engine. Or you can just look your engine with an extra controller bearing and remove it just before you start. The easiest torque challenge requires ~4-8k Nm from your engines, so I suggest to increase the stroke length by as much as you can. You will also need to lock your crankshaft controller bearings, as they cant widthstand this amount of torque. Technologies like locking crankshafts would be needed on this basically. I should also point out that the torque challenge wheels all have a counterweight on the bottom, so it does actually require more torque to spin the wheel as it gets moved to 90°. Also, may be nice to know for you what the yellow button does. Those are challenge skip buttons, to allow you to move to different challenges if you are unable to complete them. These challenges do get a lot harder and if you just wanna get to the speed and traction challenges, feel free to use those. Hope my tips could help you out on this one. I am also available if you need some guidance for improving your engines, even on discord. Feel free to ask me anytime.

Hi kan! I'm actually quite good friends with Kein Anderer and did lots of testing on the speed and torque levels, so I can give a few tips: The main things with building engines for torque is stroke length and crank reinforcement. Controller bearings by themselves can only withstand a torque of 4000Nm before they essentially turn into free bearings, so on your crankshaft offsets, try to reinforce the offsets with blocks, so collisions actually hold the crank in place as well as the controller bearings. For stroke length, just try to make it as large as you can without hitting anything, and you should be all good. For your timing scenario, I think the main issue was that your sensors were on your pistons, and things were blocking their view, to combat this, try to arrange them on one section at the end of the engine just before the painted section. For the painted section itself it should resemble an L shape, so exactly half of the wheel is painted. Also your pistons should be on maximum speed as it does increase the force that they output. One note for speed, try to play around with decreasing your engine stroke so its actually less than a block by using various linkage geometries with controller bearings, this will result in much faster speeds, and its definitely essential for the speed challenges as the first challenge requires you to be faster than a maxed out gas car on 5 x 2 wheels. I also love the fact that your are revisiting piston engines, I'm loving the videos so far and I wish you the best of luck in your future piston engine endeavours.

if you want power you need longer cranks, that would probably make a smoother timing as well.

I would absolutely love to see more piston engine contnet, this was super fun to watch

This is the kind of challenge you need, lol! On a more helpful note, try doing a twin setup. The reason your engine couldn't push through was the terrible leverage, but if it pushes from both sides you'll get better leverage on 1 of the sides the whole time it runs. So it should perform better.

I’m 13 and I know a lot about ICEs (internal combustion engines) so I clicked on this video faster than most videos I’ve ever clicked on Edit: the power stroke timing for an I4 (the torque engine) for four stroke should be 4,3,1,2(back, middle back, front, middle front) but I’m not sure what it would be for a two stroke (the one you built) so if anyone who knows would like to chime in, in the replies that would be great.

You can easily double the torque by doubeling the stroke. There is also a way to get perfect timing from exactly top dead center to bottom dead center and it's really easy. It only works for slower engines but the torgue is insane

I wonder how well a single-cylinder "engine" would work with this to remove the controller bearings. It'd be essentially what you made first, but only one cylinder and all the pistons would be on it. I don't know if there'd be a bearing or something that might be overstressed tho

Piston engines gain more torque from stroke length but you had enough parts to pull off a gear reduction system to offset the need for power, you were also on the right track with doubling up pistons to improve power output but like everyone else is saying stroke length and crankshaft reinforcement

I wouldn't call myself an expert on piston engines, but I have built a few smooth, compact and fast piston engine. For torque like most people said, longer stroke length. The techniques for building small piston engines are hard to put into words, you need an example with it. Either through some1 showing how to build one or looking at a bunch of examples. The former would be the best of course because they could tell you why certain piston engines work so well. P.S. I'd love to show of my piston engine "skills" (more like trial and error) ;)

I am no expert on scrap mechanic or building piston engines in it, but I would try to separate the distributor from the pistons, put the 4 sensors where they can see the timing wheel all the the time (like mount them to the frame at the end looking back at the wheel)

You could add an extra piston or two in a ratchet format to help the engine get off the line, I’ve never played sm, but that’s my idea, and locate the pistons away from the crank to give more leverage, also try to start one set of pistons at 90 degrees, so that they start with the most torque. Maybe an opposing or radial setup would work better?

Tip: Build longer strokes and if parts allow build an reduction box. Example for long stroke build, on the engine piston as a whole, you should have like 2 or 3 pistons (extend it, make it 30+ blocks) then you can play and possibly double it up or triple them in stacks, like on one engine piston you should have let's say 3 pistons and then 3 more extended for longer stroke (make sure during rotation that block between them doesn't collide during operation. Also try to make an engine with only 2 pistons or even 3 in a 60 degree offset and feel free to use that concrete 3 to build an flywheel on opposite side of the engine, it should help with the torque as well. Make the engine spin slower with the long stroke design and it will gain more power for sure on low RPM's. Hope to see more of the piston engines challenges Keep up great content and channel kAN, hope this helps a little bit

I think a boxer style piston arrangement with a planar crank might also help. That way you can simply build a flat crankshaft with no bearings in the middle. You can set it up to have one piston pulling and one pushing, so you have push both directions, but that would require the "block" to have controllers to set the piston frames at the correct position on start, which gives that overtorque issue more reign in the design. The dual pusher is likely the best method.

Doing some testing myself, with my even worse lack of knowledge on piston powered engines. Increasing the stroke length makes a huge difference. Normally, when you build a piston engine, which is the same way I learned it (from you lol), you put the sesors right above the crankshaft. If you put them even one block higher up, so that the pistons have to extend 4 blocks instead of 3, you can cut your time at least in half in this challenge. My setup was a inline 5 with a stroke length of 4 blocks instead of 3 and 2 of those trammel gears from your most recent scrap mechanic video about them, for a 4 to 1 ratio. Wasn't as fast as your ratchet but not far off at 2:01:650. And automatic instead of manual too lol

Star type engine with pistons on all 4 sides of the single crank I think would be sufficient

Love this stuff, some of my favourite vids of yours back on the day were piston engines and gears and magnet powered electric motors and stuff 👌

i love Piston Power and any mechanical stuff

You can use the momentum of the flywheel to keep the rachet going. Just pull the pistons back earlier. You lose some of the stroke but you can get going faster that way.

It looks like alot of the power is being lost in the bearings within the crankshaft

Maybe one idea to try, is balancing out the torque for the piston "engine". Like a real engine. How your first and last piston are usually close to TDC at the same time, and the two middle pistons are at TDC at the same time. Maybe balancing out the torque evenly instead of linear is the way to go? I don't have scrap mechanic yet, and don't exactly know their physics, but could be worth a shot? or try a inline 6?

Ive built many piston engines and i discovered the best one for torque is the boxer configuration. So maybe you can give it a try

me being the absolute gigachad who doesnt know how to build almost anything despite having over 1000 hours i would just make an insane gear ration hooked up to a controller on loop

You gotta remember the difference of torque and horsepower (torque is rotation so use a type of engine that rotates bigger, not faster)

maybe if you gave the timing wheel a larger diameter you can be more precise with it.

This is pretty interesting, I would definitely love to see you work on piston engines more.

you don't need any clipping blocks for the crank you can use straight pipes and your pistion providing power is what will clip through any ways

There's this game called "Besiege". You should really try it out as it gives the player insane freedom of building (engines included).

1) Considering those pistons deliver power both up and down, you technically only need two sets rotated by 90 deg for constant power delivery. this also would help with flexing joints 2) Additionally a very big thing is how much leverage you have, in your piston engine you put 1 block offset which is great for rotational speed, but terrible for torque. larger size would also help you to better time it.

take the sensors off of the pistons and spin the sensed blocks where they are with sensors behind them

alot of cool piston engine designs. also some super fast ones but its impossible to see how it works. pure witch craft

The best shape i found for a timing wheel was by using 45 blocks on all the corners, this makes the power come on slightly later, and turn off slightly earlier, like a diamond with 6 sides

9:04 Nice! I'll be sure to watch it when it comes out! 😀

I too, want to try to design some piston engines I love them.

the pistons need to push, pull, and rest. what you have here is the pistons pushing on white and resetting as soon as they exit. the piston needs to stay at length as it passes the bottom, then it needs to raise back up (pull) after it reaches the next side, and then hold at rest until it starts again. the way you are doing it, with only push and pull, either makes the pistons keep pushing as they cross the bottom, or start pulling back up as soon as they reach it. for most of the video it is the latter, they stop moving down before they reach maximum extention and start trying to pull back in reverse. this was what was causing the twitching. other times they did pass the bottom before they started pulling back, but for a little bit they were working against the ones that already were pulling. theoretically you could remove the rest sections, but you would need to have exactly half the wheel colored white, starting at 0 (top)and ending at 180 (bottom). with the square blocks you are using, this is impossible. plus, you need the piston connection points to be offset from the bar itself (without the bar getting in the way), otherwise the pistons are mostly just pushing into the bar. you can do this by putting an S in the bar, like this: | / | Piston \ | \ | Piston / |

Just a guess btw I think the reason why there are component kits in the material list here and that piston-powered monowheel used a component kit as transmission a few videos back is that maybe component kit will not glitch into each other sometimes? IDK I don't have the ability to go on Scrap Mechanic and experiment it myself right now.

The timing for the pistons can be done easier and more effective if the sensor isnt on the crank but picks up the crank and it allows you to adjust the sensors on any angle you want to really fine tune the piston strokes. Love the vids too Kan.

This, this is the content I miss from kAn.

You don't need to put the sensors on the pistons themselves. You can make a cluster of 4 to 8 sensors that spin with the shaft right next to the timing plate. (I suggest color coding it to match the piston it goes to.) That way they'll never be blocked. With a 2 stroke piston, like they have in scrap mechanic, half your pistons should always be active. I like boxer engines, but if space isn't a premium, inline engines work fine.

You could have put the piston row on a bearing that was free spinning so it would lift up as it spun around the retract. That way you would not loose any momentum and you could likely automate it.

i developed a funny sensor technic i just have sensors on the bottom that are looking at the bottom rotation of a piston and making another piston extend it works smooth as butter

I like these technical/logic videos

You need to be driving the piston into a larger lever to increase your torque (imagine the piston being on the long side of an uneven see-saw, and the output shaft being on the short side). You want to multiply the output force of the shaft, and to do that you need to give the piston a bigger lever to drive than the wheel that it has to rotate. Try piston extensions out to 8 blocks or more and design the rig to suit.

hey kan, nice video, you need a longer stroke for it to have more torque.

I want to see some more of these challenges! Maybe after one video where you get back on track with piston engines!

maybe try changing the key into a shape that grips the key hole like its a door knob?

the canadians also did the american way with engines back before the imports. like the few mercury models that were canadian only cars. also yall made over half of all the v8 built in the world

Instead of puting each sensor on each piston, you can make a wheel 2 flywheels of sensors offset by 45 degrees at the end of the crank, then tie each piston to a sensor, now you can have an 8 cylinder iirc it works up to 3 flywheels to make a 12 cylinder engine, its just longer by 3 blocks

yeah you are going to need a lot of power for this one xD

I WANT TI SEE MORE PISTON ENGINE CONTENT

@kAN: I'm pretty sure you want the white/uncolored and uncolored/white transitions aligned vertically. I.e You need 4 white blocks and the optimal angle for the encoder wheel is arctan(1/2)=26.56°. (Because the point where the sensor passes that block boundary is 1 block up from the rotation axis and 1/2 block over.)

noticed that more pistons at a time generated more torque. I think one way to upgrade this is have 2 pushing up and 2 pushing down. This will in theory apply 4 piston power per cycle. In your set up at 13:20 you have 2 piston power per cycle. I don't think you could get away with a 2 cylinder but I'm not sure. Keep up the great work my dude !

gotta say, you said "kein anderer" better then i expected! it means "no one else" in german

I'm no SM expert but would stroke length would increase torque

Kan is one of the most intelligent when it comes to building even if he is not an expert still u a beast

Dont know if this will work but try adding a impact driver which should increase torque

you should try space engineers it is a great game for the stuff you are trying to do in scrap mechanic

I think what the person meant by timing was the timing which piston goes off when. A typical engine has a timing of piston 1 , 3, 2, and then 4, for an inline 4. Try this for your next piston engine and see how it works in scrap mechanic physics!

I can’t think of much other then like making it get more leverage and maybe alittle bit better timing and a solid crank

I have a version of a rotary engine on the work shop, similar principles to the ratchet mechanism you made but, automated and smoother

Hey, next time you could try a Steam piston design. Like in a Steam boat

You should reach out to the technical SM servers. Kein Anderer and Ben Bingo can help you improve your skill

So this is true to life too. I4s will have a skip in them (if not tuned) The best to have no tune and no skip is an i5, when at least one piston will be making a down stroke.

if you hold shift of control i cant remember witch while adjusting the controller that sets the rotation of the timing wheel you can fine tune the timing some times you need single number changes to smooth out the engine timing

Would an opposed engine help with the timing issue?

Would you be able to build a rudimentary gear box with the engine to get more torque with more movement on the engine? I feel you could use pipes to essentially downshift.

i think a 1 cylinder engine would work fine. Just make a single cylinder out of all your pistons. Works like the ratchet you made, but better. The giant wheel will act like a flywheel, causing it to keep its momentum. Just use a controller to force the crank shaft 90 degrees out of phase when it spawns in to give it an initial kick.

Kan the hangup seems to be coming from the glitch in the pistons under the controls

What about angular momentum? Big flywheel and drop your engagement. Like dropping a clutch at 5000 rpm.

The way i make my piston engines is by placing all the sensors at the end on a separate plate, and have all the pistons attached at 1 side and have them right next to each other so there's less strain on the shaft. Thats how i make em

seeing that first engine with the pistons wasted in the shaft when the drive pistons could literally phase through it anyway hurts my soul a little bit

maybe make the timing circle bigger so that its more accurate, plus try 3 piston per "Engine piston"

I always mount the sensor on top of the engine facing down one block to the side. when the piston i in front of the sensor it will activate.

You should really try to make a contious ratchet based piston motor and measure it on the dyno

Would a V engine be better than an inline? Vs are better at torque in ICEs.

That is cool

I made a piston engine a while ago and I made the pistons only move vertically instead of being dynamic like how you do your pistons and that made it considerably fast and smooth so maybe give something like that a try?

what would happen if you put the piston offset one block of the cranshaft ?? also, you already tested if the length of each shaft connected to the 'crankshaft' has any change in the power ? instead of a longer stroke, just a 'optimal' leverage point

In real engines they slightly offset the crankshaft from the vertical of the cylinder. This makes it so the cylinder has a better angle of push. I think this might work for you too. It will keep the pistons from pushing directly into the driveshaft when vertical, which gives no power. It just tries to rip your creation apart.

you should make the part that extends out from the main shaft longer it will give a mecanical advantage

Imagine the pistons are legs and shafts are pedals in bike make sure to put torque when they are at best leverage and when they are at opposite site to disable them

Please do more with piston engines

5:18 piston powered people 😂😂

im a bit late watching this but my thoughts on fixing ur 4 cyl engine was make it a 5 cyl. that extra pistion or 2 should push past that clunk

Why not try making some gears for the torque challenge?

is it possible to downgear in SM? Because that would increase torque, but reduce speed. idk never played SM

Not sure if Scrap Mechanic physics work like this (and if it's possible with the limited parts in this challenge) but maybe you could try building a clutch and transmission so you could get the engine spinning and then engage the clutch just like when you wanna get going with a car with manual transmission. And when the flywheel gets to a decent speed you could change the gear ratio to make it move faster if you need to

You should used the rachet as a starter for the piston engine

Damm Kan beat me to it XD

idae, what if you tried a piston engine where the pistons weren't connected to the actual shaft? similar to the one you made at the end, but actually timed so it would do it at the right time

I made a few piston engines i was proud of a few years ago, i was always hoping kAN would check out my V12, flat 12 and I6 designs

Yesterday I was wondering how to make on of these lol

Les go!

my piston engines always run better backwards the only way to get them to run smoothly is backwards, and if I flip it around it runs the other backwards

Could you make a different version of an impact drill/ hammer ratcheting system

When I looked at the pistons of the engine it looked like the back one got pulled out and then the effects of the pushing appeared. Maybe that could be a reason for it to not work idk

Could you continue with the more pistons per position? my thought being doing the three cylinder set with 4 pistons per cylinder. that would give more push at each phase.

kAN I won’t pretend I know anything about piston engines but all I can suggest is try a flywheel and maybe make a V4 engine instead of an inline?