Disc brakes

It is possible to use car brakes or even air plane brakes as the brake for a dyno. 

brake dyno
Brake dyno using car brakes

For smaller engines such as kart engines you can run one rotor/caliper setup, or for more powerful engines you can put many in parallel such as done here. Run the engine at max RPM and gradually push the brake pedal until engine RPM is below the interesting area. The brakes heat up pretty fast. Add fans and don’t run long runs if you have heat issues. In any case a run does not need to take more than 10 seconds or so. The calipers will need to be kept from rotating by the load cell. Pretty simple setup!

One drawback of such a setup is the difficulty of accurate brake control. It may be possible to use a servo or stepper motor to somehow modulate the brakes, but it is not straight forward. An automatically controlled brake dyno will be more repeatable. 

 

Last updated byJostein on March 23, 2019

2 Comments

  1. Matthew Ross
    January 14, 2020 @ 4:19 am

    I was wondering if the pwm brake control function would be able to be configured to drive a 12v solenoid valve? The reason I ask is I have access to big rig ( dump truck ) drums pads and actuators. they are desinged to be consistant in application force under varying temps and are desinged in nature to hold back lots of force and disipate heat. My plan would be to build a hub dyno using these componets as a very budget option for a high horsepower diy person. I was inspired by 2 stroke stuffing on youtube and have been interested in your dyno package before also. anyway thanks for your time and have a great new year.

    Reply

  2. Che Ahmad Majdi Bin Mohammad
    December 17, 2020 @ 11:34 pm

    Can used old ABS pump to control the break?

    Reply

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