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Author Topic: Pipe Tuning  (Read 2612 times)

Offline FLOYD CARTER

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Pipe Tuning
« on: June 28, 2015, 08:43:57 AM »
I've read the procedure for tuning a pipe.  This involves bench running with and without the pipe.  The correct length is supposed to give an RPM increase, all other things being unchanged.  I have tried this, and I can't detect a consistent RPM difference, even though I have set the pipe + or - the recommended length.

I'm going to try some in-flight pipe tests.  I don't know what I should look for when the pipe is exactly "on".  Or does the correct length give some sort of improvement which is subtle and open to interpretation?

Floyd
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Offline Allan Perret

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Re: Pipe Tuning
« Reply #1 on: June 28, 2015, 09:25:35 AM »
I've read the procedure for tuning a pipe. 
Whose procedure is it ?  Can you post a copy or link ?
Allan Perret
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Offline FLOYD CARTER

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Re: Pipe Tuning
« Reply #2 on: June 28, 2015, 10:37:37 AM »
Tuning procedure is explained at
www.macspro.com under "Tuning Info"

This is the Mac's Products web site.
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Online Brett Buck

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Re: Pipe Tuning
« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2015, 07:09:10 PM »
Tuning procedure is explained at
www.macspro.com under "Tuning Info"

This is the Mac's Products web site.

  This has no relationship to stunt, and is almost certainly not going to yield good results. We are not attempting to improve the power, if anything, it reduces the power for a stunt engine. The intent is to tune it well off-peak in normal level flight, so the pipe operates as a regulator.

    Brett

Offline FLOYD CARTER

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Re: Pipe Tuning
« Reply #4 on: June 28, 2015, 07:35:29 PM »
Good!  Now I don't have to go through that bench-run nonsense!

So I'll set the pipe at the middle of the chart length and go from there.  Only question is: what sort of run should I look for in a properly set pipe length?  If the pipe is wrong, how will it behave?  If it isn't "doing" whatever it should be doing, how do I know to make it longer/shorter (and how much)?

(Just another level of complexity to the trimming headache!)

Floyd
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Offline FLOYD CARTER

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Re: Pipe Tuning
« Reply #5 on: June 28, 2015, 07:56:55 PM »
Not close to flying yet!  This is the extent of my progress so far.  If it looks like it might work, I'll think about building a model for it.
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Offline RandySmith

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Re: Pipe Tuning
« Reply #6 on: June 29, 2015, 10:06:35 AM »
Not close to flying yet!  This is the extent of my progress so far.  If it looks like it might work, I'll think about building a model for it.

Hi

Why don't you just find out the exhaust timing and use the chart pinned on this forum  to set it up, you can call someone whos knows this engine, or better use a protractor and find out yourself

Randy

Online Tim Wescott

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Re: Pipe Tuning
« Reply #7 on: June 29, 2015, 10:55:20 AM »
Floyd, since you're an engineer and a guy who at least knows how to hold a violin, here's the basics as I know them.  Randy or Brett can point out where I'm wrong:

A tuned pipe works pretty much the way the air column on any wind instrument works -- pressure pulses go down the column, reflect off the end, come back, and then interfere either constructively or destructively with the pulses being produced at the head of the column.

In the case of a clarinet, flute, or whatever, the pressure pulses affect the sound being produced.  In the case of a tuned pipe that's tuned for maximum power delivery, the pulses are timed to (hopefully) supercharge the engine both by making a vacuum when the exhaust opens to enhance scavenging, and by making a positive pressure right before the exhaust closes to provide a bit of supercharging.  Adjusted correctly, the pipe is aiding the engine at the intended "best" RPM.

You don't want maximum power delivery.  You want speed regulation, or better yet, you want the engine to speed up under load.  In our case, then, you want the pipe to be adjusted longer than is "correct" for the jittering, excited racer standing next to you.  You want the pipe to be adjusted so that at your desired RPM it's not really helping much at all, but such that if the engine speeds up a bit it actually interferes with the correct engine operation (by delivering pressure on exhaust open and/or vacuum on exhaust close); of course if you do that then if the engine slows down a bit it'll start helping.  Moreover (and I don't understand this bit at all) if you run the right sized (smallish, compared to maximum power output) venturi and run the engine a bit rich, then when the engine gets loaded down the pipe will make it run faster.

Overall, the effect is that your airplane doesn't necessarily go faster than it would have, but rather that it flies at a more constant speed than it would have otherwise.
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Offline FLOYD CARTER

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Re: Pipe Tuning
« Reply #8 on: June 30, 2015, 01:16:25 PM »
Yeah, Tim.  Well, my training in in electronics, so I understand the physics of resonance and standing waves.  Rather than all the theory, I am looking for "clues" during flight which might tell me if the pipe is correct, or needs to be longer/shorter.

The pipe chart says the length from glo plug to baffle is 17" to 17 1/2", and the exact length is related to RPM.

Maybe the exact length and/or exact launch RPM is more broad in "tuning" than I suspect, so that within those ranges, little difference will be seen.

Not much has been written on the mysteries of tuned pipe operation.  I'm following the trimming articles being written by P. Walker, but he hasn't yet covered use of pipes. 

Floyd
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Online Tim Wescott

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Re: Pipe Tuning
« Reply #9 on: June 30, 2015, 01:53:40 PM »
I've seen Brett Buck say that the first thing you do is set up the pipe the way Randy says, then never touch it.

The basic, over-simplified notion, which I'm just regurgitating from things I've read, is that the motor has a "happy speed" and the pipe has a "happy speed".  If they match, then the pipe will help keep the motor at that speed.  But the pipe doesn't have enough control authority to keep the motor at the pipe's happy speed if that's different from the motor's happy speed -- so if they don't match, then it'll be the motor that's in charge, and the pipe will just be adding weight.
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The problem with electric is that once you get the smoke generator and sound system installed, the plane is too heavy.

Offline FLOYD CARTER

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Re: Pipe Tuning
« Reply #10 on: June 30, 2015, 04:58:52 PM »
My motors are never "happy".  They're just a bunch of grumpy old troublemakers!

F.C.
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Offline bob whitney

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Re: Pipe Tuning
« Reply #11 on: June 30, 2015, 07:21:03 PM »


 no one has mentioned that a pipe for stunt has a much diff defuser cone than a pipe for speed ,for stunt u need a pipe like Randy sells with a short defuser cone  i forget the degree angle  . a speed pipe comes on it just wants to go faster  Randy's pipe acts like a brake by killing the power past a certain RPM to keep it from running away.
rad racer

Offline Jim Kraft

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Re: Pipe Tuning
« Reply #12 on: June 30, 2015, 07:23:07 PM »
When I was flying R/C pattern I always set the pipe longer than everyone else kind of for the same reason you guys do in stunt, only not quite so much. I learned that if you set the pipe close to peak, and then had to pull a long vertical climb, the power would drop off when you needed it most when the engine fell off the pipe so to speak. I also ran more prop than most using a 12-9 APC on a 60 size engine. It worked very well for me and I think I was running well over 18" to the baffle in the Hatori pipe. That old YS 61 would pull like a torque monster. No, it did not have the power of the YS 120 four strokes, but I beat a lot of them by knowing when to turn from a climb and pull over to level flight. That also helped me to stay in the box that we had to fly in.

I have not flown it for about 10 years but did go through the engine and replaced the bearings and gaskets last winter. It is ready to go if I can get the guts to try a 100 mile an hour R/C plane again. Of course there is always the throttle which will help on the MK Joker that I built in 86. Not sure my reflexes are up to the job.

Oops! This is a control line site.
Jim Kraft

Offline Steve Helmick

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Re: Pipe Tuning
« Reply #13 on: June 30, 2015, 10:34:17 PM »
When I flew my Humongus/.46LA/Mac's Muffler, when it was running just right, it sounded "like the wheels were going to fall off". Even with the stock .46LA muffler, they can make the same noise, often mistaken for pre-ignition. But also often running too lean. MUST have some "head room" when toward the top of the hemisphere...meaning, rich enough to not sag lean overhead.

I've heard the same thing with my piped .46VF. Can't say if I recall hearing that with my PA .51 or not. But Dirt wrote about that "knocking" sound  a few times with the dreaded .21FP, if I remember right.  :) Steve
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