Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2021/01/02/aerium-the-air-powered-steampunk-motorcycle.html
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Its a nice project but I would have put the tank on the bike. Made it more integrated.
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Five minutes on a nice day, longer in a Phoenix August. With the added benefit of cooling the rider.
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Maybe if you just ate a bunch of beans…
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I was trying to find a video of it in action, but I couldn’t. He made it clear it has a slow, jerky motion, so it’s probably awkward and weird enough I understand why they wouldn’t want to showcase that, but it would be interesting to see it actually moving, even if the real beauty is in the design.
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That could have been fixed. They’ve chosen to use a piston and valve layout from an internal combustion engine, which is strange. If they’d used a steam engine layout (single piston, shuttle valve, sealed at both ends) it would have made the same power (double acting steam engines have 4x as many power strokes) and been smooth running. I guess they wanted that specific look, which makes it very deep in the “art piece” camp.
For anyone who’s interested in genuinely rideable versions of this idea, steam motorcycles are a thing that people build. There are several excellent examples on YouTube. I still wouldn’t call them “practical” in any sense, since building steam takes an hour and a coal fired boiler is a beast to manage. Not for the faint of heart. But, genuinely rideable around the neighborhood, at least.
ETA links:
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I got the impression from the interview that he’d originally chosen that part for another purpose entirely, where it was being used purely for the aesthetics, but it worked so he couldn’t resist adding it here… so yeah, it seems every piece of it was chosen for looks (and novelty) over function, which is why it’s so awkward. It’s a miracle it works at all, really.
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The interesting thing about steam (aka air, aka compressed gas) engines is how forgiving they are. If your valve timing is even remotely in the ballpark, they will run, even if all your seals and tolerances are garbage and your geometry is wrong (as in this case). They are not like internal combustion engines, which have to be basically perfect or they don’t run at all (and probably self destruct in the process). This is why steam engines enabled the industrial revolution- they could be built and work reasonably well with the poor materials and machining capabilities of the time. Anyways, I love this stuff, so don’t get me started. 
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It is a bit like scaling down the hypersonic baseball launcher, without all the launching baseballs behind you or bouncing them off the pavement as you drive.
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The second video has lots more info. The modified copper tank (for a steampunk look) is used to hide the 2900 psig 12 Liter scuba tank that powers his bike. He vowed to never don the tank again, it being very uncomfortable, but that he’ll build a suitable sidecar in which he’ll carry along a larger tank (or tanks) for longer runs.
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The tank doubles as a steampunk jetpack.
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In the longer video he makes it clear the tank was unwearable without pain and he said he’d never put it on again. Probably explains why there’s no video of it in action after nobody recorded it the first and one and only time he rode it.
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Yeah, he did mention that it wasn’t even functional at that point. I suspect the reason no one had video of it during its one time on the road (nor any previous tests) is because it was pretty awkward in motion.
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