I have commented about quite a few similar suggestions so I think I'll leave this post here in case your great mind is thinking alike! 1) Golf Ball Dimples / Shark-Skin or otherwise textured coatings for reduction of air drag: Golf balls work by increasing viscous drag but decreasing pressure drag by more (put very simply here, many good vids out there). Since my tops don't experience pressure drag, adding texture would only increase viscous drag. So far, I've found that a perfectly polished surface is best, however it is certainly an area for innovation so do leave other ideas! 2) Ruby/Sapphire jewel tips/bases: Tungsten carbide, like I use, is harder! And easier to get in a spiked form which benefits more from lubrication. 3) Polycrystaline Diamond/Cubic Boron Nitride tips/bases: These are harder, but very abrasive. If only used for the tip, it would cause drilling. If only used for the base, it would rapidly blunten the tip. If used for both ... I'll admit I haven't tried yet but I suspect both would occur. 4) Uranium/Osmium/Platinum etc flywheel: (Apart from uranium) I would LOVE this, however I am not a millionaire so this is completely out of my price range. Pure tungsten would be the densest viable option (almost 20g/cm^3) however I have struggled to machine it in the past. Hence, Mk.22 used a 90-10 alloy (16.75 g/cm^3) which is softer.
@EuroWarsOrg I actually put something similar on for the full spin video! I just took it off the top in this video to make it more pretty but I am looking into aerodynamic ways of making the spin more visible :)
@@jjb0nks It should spin on some kind of point, either conical, spherical etc. A bearing like that would stop the top from being able to topple, hence it is no longer a spinning top.
@@hiper_tops Does the base have to be static? The base could be another spinning element (with a means to retract when it loses momentum, a centrifugal clutch mechanism or something). That way tip friction could be reduced. The base element could have a shell around the top's doughnut (to shield it from drag). The thinking is to have something like multistage rocket, but with like mechanical parts acting as boundary layer separators to reduce the delta V to the surroundings.
This might be a dumb idea that you've already tried but old mechanical watches used ruby jewels to minimise friction and wear, that might help drop the tip friction lower if you want to progress further? IDK, you're the engineer! Such a cool series, thankyou!
@@phiro4305 The contact point is definitely an area for innovation. I (and others) have found that hardness certainly isn't the only factor - cubic boron nitride and polycrystalline diamond for example are highly abrasive. A carbide spiked tip spinning on either can become blunt over the course of a single spin, causing imbalance, more friction and worse performance. If we swapped the base and tip materials, now the spinning top would drill into the base, get stuck in the hole causing vibrations and losses. Also, yes, coeficient of friction when dry (for ball tips) or oiled (for spike/micro-ball tips) is important! The typical solution is to use materials of similar, high hardness for the tip and base. HSS on WCarbide is good for longevity but for a single spin, WCarbide on WCarbide is the best. Interestingly, perhaps due to Mk.22's incredible spin time, I have found that over a single spin WCarbide on WCarbide can cause drilling and vibrations - you will see this in the full spin video. In my testing it has seemed quite consistent that after about 45-50 minutes, some vibrations occur (not due to imbalance but getting stuck in a hole as described above). If you have any suggestions, do give them (regardless of if you are an engineer or not! I am still a student) :) @xzorby for example suggested a DLC coating on the tip which I am now looking into!
I don’t have any suggestions for the top itself but I’d love to see a video delving more into the maths and theory behind your designs. It seems like you did a lot of it to get your formulas for an optimal setup and is honestly the most impressive thing to me from this whole video
Hi I was initially going to have quite a bit more info like this in this video, however when editing, I realised the video would probably suffer (people would click off!). This is because I'm not familiar with editing maths and physics into something enjoyable to watch - however I will try and take inspiration from other youtubers and add more info next time, perhaps a separate video as there is so much.
@@hiper_topsI get what you mean. This is the first video of yours I watched but I’ve since gone back to look at your earlier vids and liked them too because of your style. A separate theory video would be good to have especially for someone like me because as soon as I saw this I wanted to know the thinking behind it and how I could maybe attempt the challenge as well (maybe you don’t want to share your record setting secrets though that’d be understandable).
@@H4PPYx337 Thanks for watching them! I would gladly share the thinking that goes into my tops, but perhaps not the specific formula(s) I have used .. yet! The most challenging part is modelling the air drag as a heads up :)
Okay! haha :) The thing is this product would be quite expensive (very small supply, a lot of skilled manual labour and rare materials) and I want to deliver something amazing! There's a lot of work to do ... but of course I will keep everyone updated😄
You can always offer the poor man's 10 min top :) But, I want one spinning in my office for 30minutes at a time so I can pomodoro between spins @@hiper_tops
why are there so many comments saying "High Performance! xxxx"? it looks really suspect, like hes paying for views or offering "prizes" to people for commenting, i.e. buying views.
@@hiper_tops ahh that clears it up. thanks for making that clear, i was a bit sketched off from the comments. i have removed my dislike though, seeing as there is no shady shit going on.
High performance, seeing this channel for the first time, no bs just straight graphs, beautiful machining and spinning shots and lovely music. Instant sub
I don’t know whether I am more impressed with the math and science of this, or the art. This is some high-performance work right here. Seriously, love this to bits.
Amazing! I imagine getting a top to spin this long teaches you things that are SUPER transferrable to modern engineering. Like, every problem you had to solve probably also exists in electric motors, car engines, etc
This is amazing! To me this is the ultimate in the "unlimited" class of tops, essentially doing anything you want with the geometry. However, I feel a little bit of the essence of the classic top is lost by allowing a recessed tip and elevated stand--as that essentially removes the part that makes most tops fall over: the precession from CG being above the tip, and the effect of the sides of the top contacting the ground if your spin technique isn't perfect. Therefore as a follow on I think it would be cool to see your optimization of the design under a "legacy" class where it has to run on a flat surface (no recessed tip, or cupped holder). I wonder how the design would change.. because you still would want to get the CG as low as possible, but if too low, the sides would contact the ground too easily. So it's a different optimization. Anyway, as an engineer this is where my mind goes. Good work.
This is a good idea, I would love to develop a top optimised for single spin, spinning on a flat surface etc. I should be able to use a lot of the formulas etc I've found so far, but it would be an interesting new set of design challenges!
A spectacular feat of precision engineering for a self taught teenager. It looks simply beautiful. You have navigated the complexities of physics and mathematics very well. Congratulations HiPer Tops.
James, I think I saw an old video of your some years ago but happened across this one today. Unbelieveable! Truly a High-performance spinning top. A few points / questions: 1) Please fix your CAD! I saw you had made it in a public Onshape document so I had a look, and you're making life so difficult for youself. a. Model the whole top in a single part studio! There's no need to create a seperate document for every part. Think of documents as binders which hold everything related to something. They can have parts, assemblies, drawings, etc inside. It will make your life so much easier modifying the design and keeping interfaces working between parts. b. Some of your parts aren't fully defined (blue vs black sketch segments) which may cause you headaches down the line if you accidentally adjust something and attempt to make it again. c. Your assembly is floating in space, and has no relation to the origin. Move the point of the tip to the origin, and then aling everything about the Z axis. Then when you measure CoG of the assembly its coordinates will be in relation to the point of the tip. d. I couldn't help myself and re-modelled the Mk.23 shown in the video. If you go to Onshape > Public Documents and search for "James Goh - MK.23 Clean" You should find it. 2) I noticed in your CAD that the brass appears to be an interference fit, if so, how do you ensure that it bottoms out or at least gets extremely close, as if it doesn't bottom out correctly you'll raise the CoG up inadvertently. 3) As others have said, I would watch the hell out of a multi-part, multi-hour detailing of the math and design you've put into the iterations. It's truly remarkable.
Thank you for these notes! My CAD skills definitely need work haha - I'm more used to solid works but working on a mac at the moment. I found your document - thank you! Regarding 2), I believe that may be an error as the tapered tip holder uses a friction fit. And for 3) I am working on something along these lines but it may take a while as I am back at uni now.
So this is the only video I’ve seen of this series so I have not learned all that you have in this process and I do not know what rules you have for yourself or what the hp-top community has, but the first things that come to mind without changing the top/base itself is just changes to the overall system: eliminating drag altogether via vacuum, and; changing the temperature of the system (i hypothesize decreasing the Temperature of the top and the base would work best). As for the top itself, (again I’ve not experimented and learned for 7 years like you have), there’s a new material in the making - carbon nitride - and I think it boasts some decent potential as a tip/base material, should be between cubic boron nitride and diamond in hardness, some say it surpasses diamond in some areas, I think compressive strength. idk it’s lattice structure tho I think there’s a handful they’re trying. It’ll probably be an expensive material to experiment with but maybe in junction with a diamond tip/base or a a cubic BN tip/base it’ll fair well. I also don’t know your lubrication methods/results but a low viscosity lubricant may fair well, but it’ll have some form of drag on the system, but by making a thinner tip for the spinner you may be able to reduce frictional drag from the lubricant, but that’s probably diminishing returns. I can imagine there’s some effect that can be taken advantage of my mind kinda goes to magnetism or superconductors but I feel like those would be somewhat cheating/violating the “rules.” Maybe somewhere in the universe there’s a non-Newtonian lubricant with the ideal properties for a lubricant. The only other suggestions I could make design wise would be along the lines of reducing surface area near the center of the spinning area (the big flat disc shaped area) to be 2+ aerodynamic rods connecting the tip and handle to the outer ring. There’s a handful of other experimentals id do but I’m about to pass out and I’m partially regretting going to college for business seeing as I love this stuff so much.
High performance! For aerodynamics it would be really cool to see smoke stream testing on this. I think the geometry of the base may actually be pretty significant. For the top itself, maybe a blade around the center of the top better direct the top and bottom air flows as they come together? On the friction side of things it may be worth going back to a dual material or hollow design. It would complicate your analysis there, but it may be worth it to bring mass down without affecting inertia too much
The thing that got me the most was how gently the top slowed down to its final rotation. It kept seeming like it was going to stop at any moment, but somehow its *Performance* continued. Also, forgive the tangent, but this was the first time I've seen 999 thumbs up on a video, allowing me to be the 1,000th. Maybe not a *High* point in my digital existence, but kinda cool.
High-Performance! Love this - I'd definitely buy one of these, so I'm looking forward to when they are ready for sale. Edit: scratch the below, I'm not the first person to ask this! Also, I have question: I'm curious, would a dimpled pattern, akin to a golf ball, make for a more efficient grip? In the case of the golf ball, this helps to keep the flow of air more tightly bound to the ball, so there's a smaller pocket of low pressure behind it, but in the case of a rotating object, I don't know if the dimples would be of any use, or if it would make drag worse due to the turbulence. I suppose you may have already considered this, given the number of iterations. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on it.
@@tebla2074 Good point. I'm curious how much it would affect the time. It would quantify roughly how much drag there is compared to friction. Could give insight onto further improvements.
@@rebeccarivers4797 You are right, this data would be very useful. And @tebla2074 is right about how it can be achieved. I just need to get access to a suitable vacuum chamber, however I suspect making one myself may be easier as what I'm looking for is quite an unusual shape. I'll see what I can do!
What a beautiful piece of art you have created and such high-performance to boot!! I and my autistic grandson would love to have something like this in our collection. Thank you for sharing your passion with us all!! 😎💜
What an amazing video. What tops it for me is seeing you build it in your shop. I can only imagine the stress of making the pieces with such nice materials. Truly high performance!
Thank you! Yes some of it was made on a lathe at my university as it cuts harder materials like tungsten better. However most was done on my mini-lathe in my bedroom!
It's a cool idea but unfortunately not! Golf ball dimples help by increasing viscous (skin friction) drag but decreasing pressure drag (by more!). Since spinning tops don't experience pressure drag and only viscous drag, dimples would be counter productive. You may find this video interesting: czcams.com/video/g_LTJTaOxCs/video.html&ab_channel=BilletSPIN Note the best top has internal dimples, however the change in airflow in this region is unlikely to be the helping factor; but rather light-weighting to reduce tip friction.
Great machinig ! I love to see how you used a conventional late and not a CNC. i have some thoughts... 1. Ballpoint Pen-style Tip and a shallow concave graphite disc or brass and steel is self-lubricant...but brass is quite soft, i wonder what would happen if you shoot or press a hardened polished steel ball on a brass block, and then cut out the "cup" , i guess with the right force, it hardens the brass, so less friction, less abrasion, and still lubricant...idk 2. "shark-skin" surface, less drag 3. "close" the bottom to a certain diameter with a thin disc, skirt, to prevent to much airflow (vortex) underneath 4. make sure there is no induction created from the combined materials just some ideas and thoghts...idk if practical and useful for this physical artwork. keep it going, spin your head round (baby) round round.... greetings from Switzerland
High-Performance! Congrats on hitting 1 hour, if you haven't already, you should see if you can get an official world record with Guinness. I'm not sure how that works personally, but if it interests you, then I'm sure you can figure it out. Good luck with that, and/or with your future tops.
@@prdoyle Yes a Hand done no machine run top should have own category as the 27 hour top has one of the magnet flywheel engines inside so machine can go for a very long time. Also, a big spinning item that uses earth rotation and is still spinning was once considered a top before Guinness World Records changed it into a time category.
I have never had the thought to create a world class spinning top. But, I sure appreciate the dedication and precision you have shown toward your craft. Congratulations on your achievement!
This is so cool! I'd love this as a *high performance* desk toy! Yo could spin it and be like "cool, i will focus until this stops spinning and then take a break"
The shots of the top spinning could literally be from a critically acclaimed film and I wouldn’t know the difference (except for how long they are). Such good choices for backgrounds!!!
A suggestion: You can add some permanent magnet to counteract weight. You cannot do levitation with magnets but you can lower force on the pointy tip and therefore lower friction. But rotating metal next to a magnet will lose energy thanks to eddy currents, so you will need to use something nonconductive.
@@neptarclepuffin Usually this rotates only several minutes. I guess because of eddy currents so you need to use ferrites. I think partial weight compensation will work better cause levitating may lose stability at low speed, dissipate energy via vibration, etc (and it looks kinda like cheating).
Amazing, what if you placed the flywheel extremely low to lower the center of mass even farther? Another Idea is covering the surface in dimples like a golf ball or another precise surface texture/detail to create a turbulent boundary layer surrounding it which would serve a similar purpose as the shroud used by Iacopo. It would not be a shroud so it would still be considered in your catagory. The only flaw would be how to create the dimples geometrically perfect with precise weight distribution.
Interesting ideas! Regarding the flywheel, if it was any lower, the cog would be below the tip and the top would no longer topple but stay upright (at which point it is no longer a true “spinning top”). Iacopo’s shroud works differently to dimples - it keeps a circular flow of air around the flywheel which reduces the velocity gradient and hence drag. Dimples on the other hand would certainly grab more air but the velocity gradient would not be reduced. See some other comments for more info :)
The function of dimples on a golf ball is to avoid flow separation caused by form of the ball travelling through the air, flow separation is not relevant for the spinning tops because their form is stationary, the most important thing is to reduce surface friction because most of the loss of energy is lost by the air sticking to the surface and being pulled to the edge of the top before being spun away
Just found out about this channel, it's a super cool engineering effort! One thing I'd like to add: I don't like fragile + specific machines, particularly it needing a specific base and hand cranked multiple times. If you can optimize a version for the average desk surface + one finger-length of spin, would be awesome! and also fruitful for you if you decide to commercialize it. Also, personal preference: Using a hard rock as a material would be such a statement of "This is just a rock, but we engineered the hell out of it!"
Regarding rare/expensive materials, you might try reaching out to viewers: it’s not uncommon to reach someone who has castoff or scrap materials that are usable for other applications. I can’t think of any industries where they machine osmium, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one, and even if you don’t get any useful material leads, you might get some inspiration. On the subject of new things to try, it sounds like your primary method of friction reduction for the tip contact patch is to minimize the area as much as possible through precise machining of a sharp point and use of extremely hard material to reduce dulling; have you done any experiments with self-lubricating, ablative, or nano-lubricating materials? I’m far from a subject matter expert myself, but I find myself wondering about what would happen if you used a synthetic diamond tip on a dense graphite base lightly coated in fullerene. Or, perhaps a fullerene lubricated copper base? The idea would be to try to get more rolling friction than sliding friction, and using a softer material for the base might allow the harder tip to form an indentation which could help capture more lubricants. Another idea might be to use a graphite/graphene tip: I’m given to understand that those thin carbon structures don’t have a lot of friction, though it might be hard to properly take advantage of that due to the inevitable off-axis loading during spin up. Obviously, I recommend staying as far away as possible from any suggestion to use depleted uranium as a flywheel material, or any chemically or radiologically active materials: in addition to the obvious hazards, many of those materials present additional hazards to machinists, as well as additional challenges in the machining process (idk if you’ve talked to anyone who’s worked with beryllium parts, but take the ptsd from amateur titanium machinists and multiply it by hypergolic chemistry).
High performance! The fact you have made it past the one hour mark is amazing! So many factors that keep a top/gyroscope spinning is due to friction from the air and the tip and being able to reduce them to the lowest point is already evident in this video. The tip of the point is the only thing that can ruin the longest run, and the hardest materials need to be a small, but round element, in order to keep the drilling of a hole that ruins the anvil for the tip. And the support for the round tip needs to be able to conduct heat away from the tip to keep the tip from galling. Silver and copper are number 2 and 3 in heat conduction, with diamond being number one, which is also the hardest! So a diamond ball, set into a silver mount, would be the best for conducting any heat from the tip, and having it ride on a carbon nitride anvil, which is actually tougher than diamond, could be the best for long duration attempts!
"High Performance" Reminds me of the levels of precision with the rails of the Shinkansen (bullet train) in Japan. You'd be able to look out your window, at the next track over, line up the rail with the bottom of the window, and for a moment, it would just look like the rail was stationary, sitting just outside the window. It was that still to the eye.
My only suggestion is to try impregnate the tip and base with Tungsten disulfide (w2s), I think its on of the best dry lubricants out there. I've never used it personally but from what Iv'e researched it can be almost 'buffed' into metal surfaces and it will adhere itself and then form a very slippery surface. I'm not sure how long it would last, potentially even just a small portion of the spin before wearing off. Would be cool to try.
You could make bank selling these for obscene prices to wealthy corporate types, these people love this kind of stuff. I’d ask at least $15K, give it some backstory about something or another that sounds profound, build a super exclusive and refined website for it, and bam! Big money! Excellent achievement, that’s some dope ass engineering shit right there.
1. Maybe placing the top base on a scientifically flat and stable surface, like a granite surface plate? 2. Another suggestion of mine would be to really carefully control temperature and any breeze or gusts. So like surrounding it in an acrylic box, and finding a way to spin it without introducing body heat or ambient temperature change. 3. My final suggestion would be to lose the knurling.
To further refine and optimize your equation, do tests under vacuum to isolate the component of friction and get empirical data to inform your simulation This might be a lot to implement, but you could also do the inverse by building an assembly using magnetic bearings to isolate the air drag. If that finds its way into the final product, you could be in the 3+ hr range
I wonder if magnets could be incorporated into the top and base to reduce the pressure on the tip. Of course you would then be sacrificing a little bit of mass on the top, so maybe it would do more harm than good. Imperfections in the magnets would also create small eddy currents in the top and base which would further sap energy away from the top. It could be worth a try though. It would be interesting to test this top in a vacuum chamber to see how much longer it can spin without the effects of drag. That would allow you to prioritize further improvements.
Good work! I dont know which physical phenomena is more fascinating, magnetism or rotating mass. There is a reason why both capture your attention at a very early age. Some accept they will never understand it, others are driven to madness trying. Mad on good sir. Might I suggest more extreme numbers, particularly at the low rpm end of the spectrum? Everything is more forgiving when performed at a more leisurely, although none less respectable pace. At some point toward the extremity, relative friction losses can be reduced to near nil.
I havent watched many of your videos so this might have been tried at some point but have you considered an air bearing? You could make the bottom of the top a ball bearing. Set it in a presicion machined matching base and blow air up through the base to reduce the material friction
I believe 1hour 30min may be around the soft limit for spinning tops of this type. I am hopeful that 1hour 10min will be broken by a design similar to Mk.22 :)
I’m no engineer so excuse this if it’s dumb, but what if you were to somehow turn the issue of air drag into a force for longer/extra/retained “spin”? Some type of machined holes that act as airfoils, which generate lift. Either upward lift, which reduces the practical weight of the top, reducing friction of the tip at contact while retaining mass, thus longer spin time as inertia is still preserved. Or some sort of “horizontal lift” that redirects air around and through the top, to promote or retain RPMs longer. I’m not sure if either of those concepts would be possible from a physics standpoint. If so, I guess you’d need some sort of fluid dynamics simulator on a computer. And I imagine any simulated benefit would result in yet more complex machining. Maybe that’s a good thing, hah. Was wondering why everyone was commenting high performance til I figured it out lol.
Hello! Firstly, might I mention, the CZcams algorithms are just marvellous. Never ever have I been interested in such a thing as spinning top science, but this is just fantastic and I am glad that it came to my feed. Secondly, could you please give some brief information for a newbie on the following: a) As we see at the end of the video, the whole construction is at the outside and the wind is blowing hard. Could the wind somehow impact the spinning physics, or the gyro effect is stronger? b) You start this thing by hand. Is this a necessary thing to 'participate' in this competition or is there something else? Why not use the screwdriver to give it a start spin of over 9000 rpm? c) Why not use a vacuum chamber to completely eliminate the air drag effect? Is this a condition of a competition too? Sorry if I'm asking questions that you have adressed earlier in the earlier vids or wherever else, I'm just very curious as I stumbled on this vid randomly and it amazed me. Oh, and, for sure, this is really high-performance and I wish you all the luck in breaking new barriers and horizons. Thanks!
The harder the material at contact is, the less wearing it will have and the longer a polished surface will last and function... What if you were to use something like a tungsten carbide tip on a tungsten surface so it wouldn't be able to eat itself. Theoretically diamond would be perfect, but I find metals easier to work with in production. Well done breaking that record there!
Since the carbide is harder than the tungsten, it would drill into the base. In practice, a slightly harder base material is best. I think carbide on monocrystaline diamond would be ideal but it is very expensive and hard to find!!
High, performance This may have already been suggested but maybe a one way keyed top part (the bit that interfaces with your fingers) that's removable would help with center of gravity and air drag since it can be completely taken off. By one way keyed im talking about those old helicopter toys where you pull a string really fast that latches onto a T shaped thing but once the blades spin faster than launcher it doesnt grab anymore.
This is absolutely true! However not allowed in the category I'm specialise in. I would have to change the geometry of the flywheel to make best use of the higher launch speed so its really a different problem to optimise :)
Would it make a noticable difference if you completely polished the handle aswell and then used some other material with a high drag coefficient to spin it? My idea for that would be some sort of small rubber mat used for the drag and then the string around that. I would guess that avoiding knurling would not only reduce air drag but also get it centered more and make it less tumbly.
Hello! In terms of performance, I think the gains would be hard to notice. However from a manufacturing standpoint, I quite like this idea and would like to try it!
Cool hobby you have here. The back drop was instantly recognizable but I had to check street view to confirm. It’s been many years since I’ve seen it 😁
Not sure if these have been tried yet: 1. Spirals going inward to pull air towards centre. Counteract energy loss of pushing air outwards. 2. Dimples on the outer rim for less air fiction. 3 using schlieren effect to observe aerodynamic behaviour.
Is using a lubricant allowed? For example a crankshaft bearing (which sometime don’t even use a bearing at all…just engine oil) they survice a countless violent rotation when the car moving around
Just fascinating! I have had a desire to make a long spin top for so long, yet I didn’t know of your channel. perhaps when my workshop is finished I can make something that will spin for 10min! It’s funny about your pinned comment. My first thought was golf ball dimples then micro dimples (but seeing your comment these woukd be useless!) and then finally uranium! I’ve actually wanted some for so long. I have searched how to buy uranium so many times I’m probably on a watchlist, apparently older aircraft counterweights used to be uranium.
This may have been suggested ... a magnetic bearing is feasible and would greatly decrease the frictional loss. In this method there is no physical contact between the rotor and base.
I have nothing to do with spinning tops other than this random video which was recommended, but after visiting the record page and seeing the previous record holder, I have to say I was slightly more impressed with Iacopo Simonelli's run. The single twist start and the trueness of his top throughout, at least until 40mins of 51 was a touch more mesmerising to me. You're top seemed to start going through various wobble phases from 35mins on, maybe tip wear? None the less hats off for the determination and thanks for the interesting entertainment👍
I agree Iacopo’s tops are incredible! They have been an inspiration since the start. I aspire to achieve the seemingly perfect balance his tops have. Regarding the single spin, this really ought to be a separate category (and I think he would hold the record)
Thank you, @antichicmusic. I don't think it's tip wear. Tungsten alloys have disomogeneous density so tops made with these materials are almost always less or more badly unbalanced, there can be also couple unbalance, not only static unbalance, so it takes some patience and knowledge to balance them perfectly.
Interestingly, it only spins for about 1.5hrs in a near vacuum. Although the vacuum eliminates half the power loss (air/tip breaking torque = 1), due to tip power loss being proportional to angular velocity squared, the time is not doubled.
Optimizing something outwardly so simple is clearly extremely challenging. I've read through some comments and you mention drilling at the tip being and issue, I did have a thought about whether it's possible to deliberately add surface imperfections to the base making the tip move around just a little however at this scale all the minute losses might be offset somewhere else. Could be something to try if you do get some vacuum chamber time.
@@mrln247 I think your idea has promise, if there was a subtle way to stop the top from drilling down in one spot, this could reduce tip drag quite significantly. However I don't think a texture is a way to go. Perhaps a different base geometry could help, such as a flat surface with a lip to stop the top falling off.
@@hiper_tops I think I miss described my thinking with texture, geometry would be the way to go I was thinking if it could trace a figure 8 I was caught up with isochronal curves the other day although I think that's not relevant here. Think I thought texture since I expect your machining tolerances are down in the mircons.
@@mrln247 Yes tracing a figure 8 would be good, and yes the base surface is all the way down at 0.5 microns from diamond lapping pastes. I wonder how I could make the top move in such a way though..
@@hiper_tops Möbius strip or magic? There are some funny geometries out there with things the the 3D printed shapes that roll even though they look like they shouldn't.
I have commented about quite a few similar suggestions so I think I'll leave this post here in case your great mind is thinking alike!
1) Golf Ball Dimples / Shark-Skin or otherwise textured coatings for reduction of air drag:
Golf balls work by increasing viscous drag but decreasing pressure drag by more (put very simply here, many good vids out there). Since my tops don't experience pressure drag, adding texture would only increase viscous drag. So far, I've found that a perfectly polished surface is best, however it is certainly an area for innovation so do leave other ideas!
2) Ruby/Sapphire jewel tips/bases:
Tungsten carbide, like I use, is harder! And easier to get in a spiked form which benefits more from lubrication.
3) Polycrystaline Diamond/Cubic Boron Nitride tips/bases:
These are harder, but very abrasive. If only used for the tip, it would cause drilling. If only used for the base, it would rapidly blunten the tip. If used for both ... I'll admit I haven't tried yet but I suspect both would occur.
4) Uranium/Osmium/Platinum etc flywheel:
(Apart from uranium) I would LOVE this, however I am not a millionaire so this is completely out of my price range. Pure tungsten would be the densest viable option (almost 20g/cm^3) however I have struggled to machine it in the past. Hence, Mk.22 used a 90-10 alloy (16.75 g/cm^3) which is softer.
@EuroWarsOrg I actually put something similar on for the full spin video! I just took it off the top in this video to make it more pretty but I am looking into aerodynamic ways of making the spin more visible :)
that cog being half a cunt hair above the contact point.. well played sir.
What about hydrodynamic bearings? Or does a top have to spin on a point?
@@jjb0nks It should spin on some kind of point, either conical, spherical etc. A bearing like that would stop the top from being able to topple, hence it is no longer a spinning top.
@@hiper_tops Does the base have to be static? The base could be another spinning element (with a means to retract when it loses momentum, a centrifugal clutch mechanism or something). That way tip friction could be reduced. The base element could have a shell around the top's doughnut (to shield it from drag). The thinking is to have something like multistage rocket, but with like mechanical parts acting as boundary layer separators to reduce the delta V to the surroundings.
This might be a dumb idea that you've already tried but old mechanical watches used ruby jewels to minimise friction and wear, that might help drop the tip friction lower if you want to progress further? IDK, you're the engineer! Such a cool series, thankyou!
Diamond has an even lower coefficient of friction!
Has already been tried, the previous iteration used a changable ball bearing as the tip, and one material mentioned was ruby
Modern mechanical watches use ruby berrings as well.
@@DisorderedArraycan confirm polycrystalline diamond is the way to go
@@phiro4305 The contact point is definitely an area for innovation. I (and others) have found that hardness certainly isn't the only factor - cubic boron nitride and polycrystalline diamond for example are highly abrasive. A carbide spiked tip spinning on either can become blunt over the course of a single spin, causing imbalance, more friction and worse performance. If we swapped the base and tip materials, now the spinning top would drill into the base, get stuck in the hole causing vibrations and losses. Also, yes, coeficient of friction when dry (for ball tips) or oiled (for spike/micro-ball tips) is important!
The typical solution is to use materials of similar, high hardness for the tip and base. HSS on WCarbide is good for longevity but for a single spin, WCarbide on WCarbide is the best. Interestingly, perhaps due to Mk.22's incredible spin time, I have found that over a single spin WCarbide on WCarbide can cause drilling and vibrations - you will see this in the full spin video. In my testing it has seemed quite consistent that after about 45-50 minutes, some vibrations occur (not due to imbalance but getting stuck in a hole as described above).
If you have any suggestions, do give them (regardless of if you are an engineer or not! I am still a student) :) @xzorby for example suggested a DLC coating on the tip which I am now looking into!
I don’t have any suggestions for the top itself but I’d love to see a video delving more into the maths and theory behind your designs. It seems like you did a lot of it to get your formulas for an optimal setup and is honestly the most impressive thing to me from this whole video
Hi I was initially going to have quite a bit more info like this in this video, however when editing, I realised the video would probably suffer (people would click off!). This is because I'm not familiar with editing maths and physics into something enjoyable to watch - however I will try and take inspiration from other youtubers and add more info next time, perhaps a separate video as there is so much.
@@hiper_topsI get what you mean. This is the first video of yours I watched but I’ve since gone back to look at your earlier vids and liked them too because of your style. A separate theory video would be good to have especially for someone like me because as soon as I saw this I wanted to know the thinking behind it and how I could maybe attempt the challenge as well (maybe you don’t want to share your record setting secrets though that’d be understandable).
@@hiper_tops a separate video would be great! and you can take inspiration from kurzgesagt, AlphaPhoenix, minute physics, etc!
@@H4PPYx337 Thanks for watching them! I would gladly share the thinking that goes into my tops, but perhaps not the specific formula(s) I have used .. yet! The most challenging part is modelling the air drag as a heads up :)
@@hiper_tops Please do this. As an engineering student I eat that shit up. AND would love to have a far more in depth look through!
Just found this High-performance project. The stability at slow speeds is insane. Well done!
Thank you very much!
And here I am impressed by Euler's disc spinning for a couple of minutes. This is on another level. You could say it's... high-performance.
That’s pretty sweet! Would it mess with the timing at all to use a sharpie or something to add a small marker to make it easier to see spinning?
he did that in the vid... 3:38
at that rpm the mark is just a blur
Take our money! Commercialize that bad boy ASAP!
Okay! haha :) The thing is this product would be quite expensive (very small supply, a lot of skilled manual labour and rare materials) and I want to deliver something amazing! There's a lot of work to do ... but of course I will keep everyone updated😄
You can always offer the poor man's 10 min top :) But, I want one spinning in my office for 30minutes at a time so I can pomodoro between spins @@hiper_tops
@@hiper_topsEven with a high price tag I would love to have one of these. But no pressure, hobbies don’t need to be commercialized.
@@hiper_tops If you're hesitant to produce them, maybe release the blueprints so machinists can make them on their own.. ??
High performance is an understatement! Well done
Thank you very much :)
why are there so many comments saying "High Performance! xxxx"? it looks really suspect, like hes paying for views or offering "prizes" to people for commenting, i.e. buying views.
@@FingerinUrDaughter Have a look at 4:57😄
@@hiper_tops ahh that clears it up. thanks for making that clear, i was a bit sketched off from the comments. i have removed my dislike though, seeing as there is no shady shit going on.
High performance, seeing this channel for the first time, no bs just straight graphs, beautiful machining and spinning shots and lovely music. Instant sub
Thank you! I always aim for quality uploads :)
to me, theres nothing more satisfying than taking what is a simple directive to its utmost limit. bravo
Something about the high-performance from a hand-spun top is... magical. Your choice of music makes it just as glorious as it ought to be.
I don’t know whether I am more impressed with the math and science of this, or the art. This is some high-performance work right here. Seriously, love this to bits.
High-Performance! I appreciate the time you've invested in this project to fit your design objectives and constraints!
Amazing! I imagine getting a top to spin this long teaches you things that are SUPER transferrable to modern engineering. Like, every problem you had to solve probably also exists in electric motors, car engines, etc
I like to think so! It's definitely opened doors for me haha
This is amazing! To me this is the ultimate in the "unlimited" class of tops, essentially doing anything you want with the geometry. However, I feel a little bit of the essence of the classic top is lost by allowing a recessed tip and elevated stand--as that essentially removes the part that makes most tops fall over: the precession from CG being above the tip, and the effect of the sides of the top contacting the ground if your spin technique isn't perfect. Therefore as a follow on I think it would be cool to see your optimization of the design under a "legacy" class where it has to run on a flat surface (no recessed tip, or cupped holder). I wonder how the design would change.. because you still would want to get the CG as low as possible, but if too low, the sides would contact the ground too easily. So it's a different optimization. Anyway, as an engineer this is where my mind goes. Good work.
This is a good idea, I would love to develop a top optimised for single spin, spinning on a flat surface etc. I should be able to use a lot of the formulas etc I've found so far, but it would be an interesting new set of design challenges!
A spectacular feat of precision engineering for a self taught teenager. It looks simply beautiful. You have navigated the complexities of physics and mathematics very well. Congratulations HiPer Tops.
This means a lot! Thank you :)
Congratulations
Thank you very much :)
Perfect example that anything can be developed even further. Anything, even something as simple as a tabletop. It just need a bright mind! Great work
Never thought that an hour was even a possibility, I always considered a minute as impressive.
James, I think I saw an old video of your some years ago but happened across this one today. Unbelieveable! Truly a High-performance spinning top.
A few points / questions:
1) Please fix your CAD! I saw you had made it in a public Onshape document so I had a look, and you're making life so difficult for youself.
a. Model the whole top in a single part studio! There's no need to create a seperate document for every part. Think of documents as binders which hold everything related to something. They can have parts, assemblies, drawings, etc inside. It will make your life so much easier modifying the design and keeping interfaces working between parts.
b. Some of your parts aren't fully defined (blue vs black sketch segments) which may cause you headaches down the line if you accidentally adjust something and attempt to make it again.
c. Your assembly is floating in space, and has no relation to the origin. Move the point of the tip to the origin, and then aling everything about the Z axis. Then when you measure CoG of the assembly its coordinates will be in relation to the point of the tip.
d. I couldn't help myself and re-modelled the Mk.23 shown in the video. If you go to Onshape > Public Documents and search for "James Goh - MK.23 Clean" You should find it.
2) I noticed in your CAD that the brass appears to be an interference fit, if so, how do you ensure that it bottoms out or at least gets extremely close, as if it doesn't bottom out correctly you'll raise the CoG up inadvertently.
3) As others have said, I would watch the hell out of a multi-part, multi-hour detailing of the math and design you've put into the iterations. It's truly remarkable.
Thank you for these notes! My CAD skills definitely need work haha - I'm more used to solid works but working on a mac at the moment. I found your document - thank you! Regarding 2), I believe that may be an error as the tapered tip holder uses a friction fit. And for 3) I am working on something along these lines but it may take a while as I am back at uni now.
Beautiful high-performance object mate, crazy how it doesn't stop even after touching the ground
There sure is a lot of angular momentum in that flywheel - thank you very much
So this is the only video I’ve seen of this series so I have not learned all that you have in this process and I do not know what rules you have for yourself or what the hp-top community has, but the first things that come to mind without changing the top/base itself is just changes to the overall system:
eliminating drag altogether via vacuum, and;
changing the temperature of the system (i hypothesize decreasing the Temperature of the top and the base would work best).
As for the top itself, (again I’ve not experimented and learned for 7 years like you have), there’s a new material in the making - carbon nitride - and I think it boasts some decent potential as a tip/base material, should be between cubic boron nitride and diamond in hardness, some say it surpasses diamond in some areas, I think compressive strength. idk it’s lattice structure tho I think there’s a handful they’re trying. It’ll probably be an expensive material to experiment with but maybe in junction with a diamond tip/base or a a cubic BN tip/base it’ll fair well.
I also don’t know your lubrication methods/results but a low viscosity lubricant may fair well, but it’ll have some form of drag on the system, but by making a thinner tip for the spinner you may be able to reduce frictional drag from the lubricant, but that’s probably diminishing returns.
I can imagine there’s some effect that can be taken advantage of my mind kinda goes to magnetism or superconductors but I feel like those would be somewhat cheating/violating the “rules.” Maybe somewhere in the universe there’s a non-Newtonian lubricant with the ideal properties for a lubricant.
The only other suggestions I could make design wise would be along the lines of reducing surface area near the center of the spinning area (the big flat disc shaped area) to be 2+ aerodynamic rods connecting the tip and handle to the outer ring.
There’s a handful of other experimentals id do but I’m about to pass out and I’m partially regretting going to college for business seeing as I love this stuff so much.
High performance! For aerodynamics it would be really cool to see smoke stream testing on this. I think the geometry of the base may actually be pretty significant. For the top itself, maybe a blade around the center of the top better direct the top and bottom air flows as they come together? On the friction side of things it may be worth going back to a dual material or hollow design. It would complicate your analysis there, but it may be worth it to bring mass down without affecting inertia too much
czcams.com/video/oKxrP7-QXpk/video.html at 11m 51s
The thing that got me the most was how gently the top slowed down to its final rotation. It kept seeming like it was going to stop at any moment, but somehow its *Performance* continued.
Also, forgive the tangent, but this was the first time I've seen 999 thumbs up on a video, allowing me to be the 1,000th. Maybe not a *High* point in my digital existence, but kinda cool.
High-Performance! Love this - I'd definitely buy one of these, so I'm looking forward to when they are ready for sale.
Edit: scratch the below, I'm not the first person to ask this!
Also, I have question: I'm curious, would a dimpled pattern, akin to a golf ball, make for a more efficient grip? In the case of the golf ball, this helps to keep the flow of air more tightly bound to the ball, so there's a smaller pocket of low pressure behind it, but in the case of a rotating object, I don't know if the dimples would be of any use, or if it would make drag worse due to the turbulence. I suppose you may have already considered this, given the number of iterations. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on it.
Thank you very much! It's good thinking but as you would have read me explain, not the best approach in this case :)
For anyone wondering, background music is Liebestraum No 3 by Franz Liszt
thank you
I really want to see this spin in a vacuum chamber, but i don’t know how you’d get it started
since it spins for an hour in air, could probably get it going then pull a vacuum. Would be interesting
@@tebla2074 Good point. I'm curious how much it would affect the time. It would quantify roughly how much drag there is compared to friction. Could give insight onto further improvements.
@@rebeccarivers4797 You are right, this data would be very useful. And @tebla2074 is right about how it can be achieved. I just need to get access to a suitable vacuum chamber, however I suspect making one myself may be easier as what I'm looking for is quite an unusual shape. I'll see what I can do!
Epoxy resin vacuum chamber perfect shape and size
@rebeccarivers4797 also, have you ever spun this up with a motor? Would be interesting to see how long it can go with higher starting rpm
What a beautiful piece of art you have created and such high-performance to boot!! I and my autistic grandson would love to have something like this in our collection.
Thank you for sharing your passion with us all!! 😎💜
Thank you for the kind words! I’m glad you two enjoyed the video :)
High-Performance! That was absolutely fantastic. Congratulations on your success, that was beautiful to watch
Thank you very much! :)
Congratulations James! What a fantastic achievement, well done.
Thank you!😄
What an amazing video. What tops it for me is seeing you build it in your shop. I can only imagine the stress of making the pieces with such nice materials. Truly high performance!
Thank you! Yes some of it was made on a lathe at my university as it cuts harder materials like tungsten better. However most was done on my mini-lathe in my bedroom!
High performance, would golf ball dimples help with drag?
It's a cool idea but unfortunately not! Golf ball dimples help by increasing viscous (skin friction) drag but decreasing pressure drag (by more!). Since spinning tops don't experience pressure drag and only viscous drag, dimples would be counter productive. You may find this video interesting:
czcams.com/video/g_LTJTaOxCs/video.html&ab_channel=BilletSPIN
Note the best top has internal dimples, however the change in airflow in this region is unlikely to be the helping factor; but rather light-weighting to reduce tip friction.
Great machinig ! I love to see how you used a conventional late and not a CNC.
i have some thoughts...
1. Ballpoint Pen-style Tip and a shallow concave graphite disc
or brass and steel is self-lubricant...but brass is quite soft, i wonder what would happen if you shoot or press a hardened polished steel ball on a brass block, and then cut out the "cup" , i guess with the right force, it hardens the brass, so less friction, less abrasion, and still lubricant...idk
2. "shark-skin" surface, less drag
3. "close" the bottom to a certain diameter with a thin disc, skirt, to prevent to much airflow (vortex) underneath
4. make sure there is no induction created from the combined materials
just some ideas and thoghts...idk if practical and useful for this physical artwork.
keep it going, spin your head round (baby) round round....
greetings from Switzerland
Magnificent !! Beautiful art, beautiful effort. Well done.
Hyper-Satisfying - Major kudos .. I'm not a big top person, but fully appreciate the obsession with this.
High-performance!
Thats some amazing work you've done
I would love to buy that spinning top! The high performance craftsmanship and spin time is amazing
Thank you! If you would like to join the mailing list to be updated when one is ready to sell, fill out the google form in the description :)
High-Performance! Congrats on hitting 1 hour, if you haven't already, you should see if you can get an official world record with Guinness. I'm not sure how that works personally, but if it interests you, then I'm sure you can figure it out. Good luck with that, and/or with your future tops.
Would have to have a standardised starting rpm
@@prich0382 Why? isn't starting RPM something people could compete on? As long as it's spun up by hand.
@@prdoyle Yes a Hand done no machine run top should have own category as the 27 hour top has one of the magnet flywheel engines inside so machine can go for a very long time. Also, a big spinning item that uses earth rotation and is still spinning was once considered a top before Guinness World Records changed it into a time category.
I don't know how the fuck I got here, I passed out watching a nature documentary, but holy shit am I invested now.
High performance! What a beautiful combination of engineering, science, manufacturing and determination. You should be very proud.
Thank you :)
High performance! Thank you CZcams algorithm for chucking this one at me. And thank you for your dedication to a somewhat niche subject.
I have never had the thought to create a world class spinning top. But, I sure appreciate the dedication and precision you have shown toward your craft. Congratulations on your achievement!
This is so cool! I'd love this as a *high performance* desk toy! Yo could spin it and be like "cool, i will focus until this stops spinning and then take a break"
I’m impressed by the high performance level of dedication you’ve put into designing these wonderful tops!
What a high performance.., can't believe i've watched this high performance video entirely
Especially pove the music you chose... Always gives me a feeling of nostalgia.
This channel is true dedication to a hobby. Kudos on your amazing spinning tops. Looking forward to mk 23.
The shots of the top spinning could literally be from a critically acclaimed film and I wouldn’t know the difference (except for how long they are). Such good choices for backgrounds!!!
Thank you very much :)
Very zen video. I never thought I'd be so interested in a custom high-performance spinning top.
A suggestion: You can add some permanent magnet to counteract weight. You cannot do levitation with magnets but you can lower force on the pointy tip and therefore lower friction. But rotating metal next to a magnet will lose energy thanks to eddy currents, so you will need to use something nonconductive.
So you want to *almost* levitate it?
#active levitating top
@@neptarclepuffin Usually this rotates only several minutes. I guess because of eddy currents so you need to use ferrites. I think partial weight compensation will work better cause levitating may lose stability at low speed, dissipate energy via vibration, etc (and it looks kinda like cheating).
High Performance! As a junior in Mech E, it's nice to see a fun application of the math I'm learning!
Amazing, what if you placed the flywheel extremely low to lower the center of mass even farther? Another Idea is covering the surface in dimples like a golf ball or another precise surface texture/detail to create a turbulent boundary layer surrounding it which would serve a similar purpose as the shroud used by Iacopo. It would not be a shroud so it would still be considered in your catagory. The only flaw would be how to create the dimples geometrically perfect with precise weight distribution.
Interesting ideas! Regarding the flywheel, if it was any lower, the cog would be below the tip and the top would no longer topple but stay upright (at which point it is no longer a true “spinning top”). Iacopo’s shroud works differently to dimples - it keeps a circular flow of air around the flywheel which reduces the velocity gradient and hence drag. Dimples on the other hand would certainly grab more air but the velocity gradient would not be reduced. See some other comments for more info :)
The function of dimples on a golf ball is to avoid flow separation caused by form of the ball travelling through the air, flow separation is not relevant for the spinning tops because their form is stationary, the most important thing is to reduce surface friction because most of the loss of energy is lost by the air sticking to the surface and being pulled to the edge of the top before being spun away
This looks like one of the most futuristic designs I have seen in a long time! Out of this world!
But I have no idea why!?
Just found out about this channel, it's a super cool engineering effort!
One thing I'd like to add: I don't like fragile + specific machines, particularly it needing a specific base and hand cranked multiple times.
If you can optimize a version for the average desk surface + one finger-length of spin, would be awesome! and also fruitful for you if you decide to commercialize it.
Also, personal preference: Using a hard rock as a material would be such a statement of "This is just a rock, but we engineered the hell out of it!"
The specific base is massively important in both endurance and reliability of the top
High-Performance! Thank you for introducing me to the world of long duration tops, can't wait to see the full spin vid.
Thanks for watching!😄
Regarding rare/expensive materials, you might try reaching out to viewers: it’s not uncommon to reach someone who has castoff or scrap materials that are usable for other applications. I can’t think of any industries where they machine osmium, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one, and even if you don’t get any useful material leads, you might get some inspiration. On the subject of new things to try, it sounds like your primary method of friction reduction for the tip contact patch is to minimize the area as much as possible through precise machining of a sharp point and use of extremely hard material to reduce dulling; have you done any experiments with self-lubricating, ablative, or nano-lubricating materials? I’m far from a subject matter expert myself, but I find myself wondering about what would happen if you used a synthetic diamond tip on a dense graphite base lightly coated in fullerene. Or, perhaps a fullerene lubricated copper base? The idea would be to try to get more rolling friction than sliding friction, and using a softer material for the base might allow the harder tip to form an indentation which could help capture more lubricants. Another idea might be to use a graphite/graphene tip: I’m given to understand that those thin carbon structures don’t have a lot of friction, though it might be hard to properly take advantage of that due to the inevitable off-axis loading during spin up. Obviously, I recommend staying as far away as possible from any suggestion to use depleted uranium as a flywheel material, or any chemically or radiologically active materials: in addition to the obvious hazards, many of those materials present additional hazards to machinists, as well as additional challenges in the machining process (idk if you’ve talked to anyone who’s worked with beryllium parts, but take the ptsd from amateur titanium machinists and multiply it by hypergolic chemistry).
High performance!
The fact you have made it past the one hour mark is amazing!
So many factors that keep a top/gyroscope spinning is due to friction from the air and the tip and being able to reduce them to the lowest point is already evident in this video.
The tip of the point is the only thing that can ruin the longest run, and the hardest materials need to be a small, but round element, in order to keep the drilling of a hole that ruins the anvil for the tip. And the support for the round tip needs to be able to conduct heat away from the tip to keep the tip from galling.
Silver and copper are number 2 and 3 in heat conduction, with diamond being number one, which is also the hardest! So a diamond ball, set into a silver mount, would be the best for conducting any heat from the tip, and having it ride on a carbon nitride anvil, which is actually tougher than diamond, could be the best for long duration attempts!
"High Performance" Reminds me of the levels of precision with the rails of the Shinkansen (bullet train) in Japan. You'd be able to look out your window, at the next track over, line up the rail with the bottom of the window, and for a moment, it would just look like the rail was stationary, sitting just outside the window. It was that still to the eye.
My only suggestion is to try impregnate the tip and base with Tungsten disulfide (w2s), I think its on of the best dry lubricants out there. I've never used it personally but from what Iv'e researched it can be almost 'buffed' into metal surfaces and it will adhere itself and then form a very slippery surface. I'm not sure how long it would last, potentially even just a small portion of the spin before wearing off. Would be cool to try.
This is seriously marvelous ! High performance indeed.
My wet dream is a world where everything is engineered with this amount of love.
Keep it up !
That thing is so beautiful. I am in awe. I wonder what something like this would cost.
High performance!
That is one HIGH PERFORMANCE bit of engineering! Top work 😊😊
You could make bank selling these for obscene prices to wealthy corporate types, these people love this kind of stuff. I’d ask at least $15K, give it some backstory about something or another that sounds profound, build a super exclusive and refined website for it, and bam! Big money!
Excellent achievement, that’s some dope ass engineering shit right there.
1. Maybe placing the top base on a scientifically flat and stable surface, like a granite surface plate?
2. Another suggestion of mine would be to really carefully control temperature and any breeze or gusts. So like surrounding it in an acrylic box, and finding a way to spin it without introducing body heat or ambient temperature change.
3. My final suggestion would be to lose the knurling.
Great lathe and machining work! You have done a really great job. Now, spin it in a vacuum!
High performance!
Honestly, very detailed and precise work. Im sure the satisfaction of breaking that barrier was unmatched.
To further refine and optimize your equation, do tests under vacuum to isolate the component of friction and get empirical data to inform your simulation
This might be a lot to implement, but you could also do the inverse by building an assembly using magnetic bearings to isolate the air drag. If that finds its way into the final product, you could be in the 3+ hr range
Super amazing good work on all the machining by hand
Thank you! Cheers!
Commenting here to improve your engagement. What an achievement. Finding every single variable that you can improve, again and again.
Congratulations!
I appreciate it ;)
Love to see a fellow Hong Konger breaking engineering records!
Ultra High-performance!! Congratulation!! This is an unbelievable achievement!!! Wow!! I just with I could have one. Wow.
You should sell those for people to put and play around on their work desks. Would definitely be very cool to have
I wonder if magnets could be incorporated into the top and base to reduce the pressure on the tip. Of course you would then be sacrificing a little bit of mass on the top, so maybe it would do more harm than good. Imperfections in the magnets would also create small eddy currents in the top and base which would further sap energy away from the top. It could be worth a try though.
It would be interesting to test this top in a vacuum chamber to see how much longer it can spin without the effects of drag. That would allow you to prioritize further improvements.
I just want to stare at it for hours, I am now subscribed.
Good work! I dont know which physical phenomena is more fascinating, magnetism or rotating mass. There is a reason why both capture your attention at a very early age. Some accept they will never understand it, others are driven to madness trying. Mad on good sir.
Might I suggest more extreme numbers, particularly at the low rpm end of the spectrum? Everything is more forgiving when performed at a more leisurely, although none less respectable pace. At some point toward the extremity, relative friction losses can be reduced to near nil.
You sir are an engineer's engineer, with that high performance top.
If so, there is also the engineer's engineer's egineer: czcams.com/channels/6hdkJe42pULEkA7SsVMYag.htmlvideos?view_as=subscriber
I havent watched many of your videos so this might have been tried at some point but have you considered an air bearing? You could make the bottom of the top a ball bearing. Set it in a presicion machined matching base and blow air up through the base to reduce the material friction
High-performance! Never in my life i thought id be so invested in spinning tops but now im EAGERLY following. 2 hour when?
I believe 1hour 30min may be around the soft limit for spinning tops of this type. I am hopeful that 1hour 10min will be broken by a design similar to Mk.22 :)
I’m no engineer so excuse this if it’s dumb, but what if you were to somehow turn the issue of air drag into a force for longer/extra/retained “spin”? Some type of machined holes that act as airfoils, which generate lift. Either upward lift, which reduces the practical weight of the top, reducing friction of the tip at contact while retaining mass, thus longer spin time as inertia is still preserved. Or some sort of “horizontal lift” that redirects air around and through the top, to promote or retain RPMs longer.
I’m not sure if either of those concepts would be possible from a physics standpoint. If so, I guess you’d need some sort of fluid dynamics simulator on a computer. And I imagine any simulated benefit would result in yet more complex machining. Maybe that’s a good thing, hah.
Was wondering why everyone was commenting high performance til I figured it out lol.
Hello!
Firstly, might I mention, the CZcams algorithms are just marvellous. Never ever have I been interested in such a thing as spinning top science, but this is just fantastic and I am glad that it came to my feed.
Secondly, could you please give some brief information for a newbie on the following:
a) As we see at the end of the video, the whole construction is at the outside and the wind is blowing hard. Could the wind somehow impact the spinning physics, or the gyro effect is stronger?
b) You start this thing by hand. Is this a necessary thing to 'participate' in this competition or is there something else? Why not use the screwdriver to give it a start spin of over 9000 rpm?
c) Why not use a vacuum chamber to completely eliminate the air drag effect? Is this a condition of a competition too?
Sorry if I'm asking questions that you have adressed earlier in the earlier vids or wherever else, I'm just very curious as I stumbled on this vid randomly and it amazed me.
Oh, and, for sure, this is really high-performance and I wish you all the luck in breaking new barriers and horizons. Thanks!
The harder the material at contact is, the less wearing it will have and the longer a polished surface will last and function... What if you were to use something like a tungsten carbide tip on a tungsten surface so it wouldn't be able to eat itself. Theoretically diamond would be perfect, but I find metals easier to work with in production. Well done breaking that record there!
Since the carbide is harder than the tungsten, it would drill into the base. In practice, a slightly harder base material is best. I think carbide on monocrystaline diamond would be ideal but it is very expensive and hard to find!!
I like your choice of music. Apart from the milestone you have achieved! Great job!
Thanks haha :)
High, performance
This may have already been suggested but maybe a one way keyed top part (the bit that interfaces with your fingers) that's removable would help with center of gravity and air drag since it can be completely taken off. By one way keyed im talking about those old helicopter toys where you pull a string really fast that latches onto a T shaped thing but once the blades spin faster than launcher it doesnt grab anymore.
This is absolutely true! However not allowed in the category I'm specialise in. I would have to change the geometry of the flywheel to make best use of the higher launch speed so its really a different problem to optimise :)
High-performance spinning tops is not what I expected to be binging😂 thanks for the content!
Would it make a noticable difference if you completely polished the handle aswell and then used some other material with a high drag coefficient to spin it? My idea for that would be some sort of small rubber mat used for the drag and then the string around that. I would guess that avoiding knurling would not only reduce air drag but also get it centered more and make it less tumbly.
Hello! In terms of performance, I think the gains would be hard to notice. However from a manufacturing standpoint, I quite like this idea and would like to try it!
High Performance! Nice job! Form follows function. When a machine does so efficiently it is beautiful! :)
This is a great research and development done! Gret job! Waiting to see you have world record officially!
I now need to see a high performance video on the world record history of tops.
I’m spinning hotwheels wheel on small carbon axle shaft. And having fun moving it up and down on the shaft getting different results
Cool hobby you have here. The back drop was instantly recognizable but I had to check street view to confirm. It’s been many years since I’ve seen it 😁
Not sure if these have been tried yet: 1. Spirals going inward to pull air towards centre. Counteract energy loss of pushing air outwards. 2. Dimples on the outer rim for less air fiction. 3 using schlieren effect to observe aerodynamic behaviour.
Is using a lubricant allowed? For example a crankshaft bearing (which sometime don’t even use a bearing at all…just engine oil) they survice a countless violent rotation when the car moving around
Just fascinating! I have had a desire to make a long spin top for so long, yet I didn’t know of your channel. perhaps when my workshop is finished I can make something that will spin for 10min! It’s funny about your pinned comment. My first thought was golf ball dimples then micro dimples (but seeing your comment these woukd be useless!) and then finally uranium! I’ve actually wanted some for so long. I have searched how to buy uranium so many times I’m probably on a watchlist, apparently older aircraft counterweights used to be uranium.
This may have been suggested ... a magnetic bearing is feasible and would greatly decrease the frictional loss. In this method there is no physical contact between the rotor and base.
I have nothing to do with spinning tops other than this random video which was recommended, but after visiting the record page and seeing the previous record holder, I have to say I was slightly more impressed with Iacopo Simonelli's run. The single twist start and the trueness of his top throughout, at least until 40mins of 51 was a touch more mesmerising to me. You're top seemed to start going through various wobble phases from 35mins on, maybe tip wear? None the less hats off for the determination and thanks for the interesting entertainment👍
I agree Iacopo’s tops are incredible! They have been an inspiration since the start. I aspire to achieve the seemingly perfect balance his tops have. Regarding the single spin, this really ought to be a separate category (and I think he would hold the record)
Thank you, @antichicmusic. I don't think it's tip wear. Tungsten alloys have disomogeneous density so tops made with these materials are almost always less or more badly unbalanced, there can be also couple unbalance, not only static unbalance, so it takes some patience and knowledge to balance them perfectly.
@@hiper_tops , thank you.
amazing, I wonder how long it would last in a vacuum chamber, to factor air/tip drag ratio
Interestingly, it only spins for about 1.5hrs in a near vacuum. Although the vacuum eliminates half the power loss (air/tip breaking torque = 1), due to tip power loss being proportional to angular velocity squared, the time is not doubled.
the maths are incredible, the top is incredible, and i want one for my desk, so yes a commercial design would be amazing
i didnt know that high performance spinning tops were a thing, but i love them
Optimizing something outwardly so simple is clearly extremely challenging.
I've read through some comments and you mention drilling at the tip being and issue, I did have a thought about whether it's possible to deliberately add surface imperfections to the base making the tip move around just a little however at this scale all the minute losses might be offset somewhere else.
Could be something to try if you do get some vacuum chamber time.
Unless I'm understanding this wrong from dealing with normal wonky rope that process and a well balanced one just acts like a gyro.
@@mrln247 I think your idea has promise, if there was a subtle way to stop the top from drilling down in one spot, this could reduce tip drag quite significantly. However I don't think a texture is a way to go. Perhaps a different base geometry could help, such as a flat surface with a lip to stop the top falling off.
@@hiper_tops I think I miss described my thinking with texture, geometry would be the way to go I was thinking if it could trace a figure 8 I was caught up with isochronal curves the other day although I think that's not relevant here. Think I thought texture since I expect your machining tolerances are down in the mircons.
@@mrln247 Yes tracing a figure 8 would be good, and yes the base surface is all the way down at 0.5 microns from diamond lapping pastes. I wonder how I could make the top move in such a way though..
@@hiper_tops Möbius strip or magic?
There are some funny geometries out there with things the the 3D printed shapes that roll even though they look like they shouldn't.
The piano piece by the way is "Liebestraum no. 3" by F. Liszt .