A wind tunnel used to analyze drag force on different objects, like hotwheel cars, small model aircraft, or any geometry that fits! It will feature an on-off switch to turn it on or off, and a rotary dial to control the speed of the fan. It also will have a pressure cell load at the back to record and display real time drag force on an external monitor
PicoStream-60
PicoStream-60 is a desk wind tunnel use for analyzing drag force on
different objects, such as Hotwheels cars, scaled airplane models, or
even custom geometries made by someone! It’s powered by the Raspberry Pi
Pico rp2040 microcontroller. I designed this because as someone who is
deeply passionate about aerospace engineering, I though this would be a
good project that I could even learn from, and even use in the future.
Features
Powerful Brushless Fan PicoStream-60 features a powerful 60mm delta fan intended for server cooling, and can spin up to 12,000 rpm.
Adjustable Fan Speed: Via an ec11 digital encoder, the
fan can be adjusted for different kinds of enviornments, and items being
tested, and features around 33 indivual speed settings.
Scientifically Accurate Design: I engineered
PicoStream-60 to follow real world principles when designing a wind
tunnel, including a honeycomb mesh panel to reduce air turbulence, and
an inlet which reduces in area size to streamline airflow.
Analysis Feature This wind tunnel has the ability to
record and display live time drag force in grams on an external serial
monitor (given, that you will need your own external display) for
further drag force analysis
CAD Model
I designed the overall wind tunnel structure on Fusion360, and have
decided to 3d print the parts using standard PLA at 20% infill. The
assembly also has nice rounded curves to make it more presentable
How to assemble
Join the mesh and mesh mount together with the m3 screws
Attatch the Fan to the Fan mount using the m4 screws, and hot glue the Pico microcontroller, Switch and Rotary encoder to the Fan Mount aswell
Glue the load cell into the hole in the carriage halfway, with the end with the wires sticking out (See CAD model to locate mounting hole)
Hot glue the rest of the parts together, and make sure to line each gap with duct tape to keep the wind tunnel assembly extra air tight
Wire up! (See schematic for reference)
Now move onto “How to Flash”!
How to Flash
Press and hold the physical BOOT button on the Pico controller board.
Connect the USB cable while holding the button, then release it.
A virtual drive will mount to your operating system.
Drag and drop the sketch_jul22a.ino.uf2 binary file directly onto the root of the drive.
The device will automatically flash, reboot, and initialize as an operational device.
Please Note that AI was utilized for some basic project planning and debugging of the firmware in Arduino IDE
