Stirlingengineforum.com

If only I could afford the shipping I'd take your junk off your hands for you. 12kW of solar energy costs no more than time and effort, plus some space blankets and ingenuity, Over at my petite ruine in France I have many 20' lengths of 2" bamboo to lash up a parabolic framework with. And an a...

I'm a lazy engineer. I don't stuggle to make sense of tiny temperature differences with comparatively big error ranges for unusable power outputs when I can play with bigger projects. If I were you, I'd be spending this part of the year making parabolic mirrors and stocking up on free tube and reba...

So you think this "finickyness" selectively shows power pistons glowing red/white hot with adjacent cold plate readings indicated by dark purple/blue how or why exactly? Because the IR camera uses the full palette of colours for whatever range of temperatures/reflectivities/emissivities a...

Tesla at least saw through the Carnot caloric theory nonsense 200 years ago. It seems he failed to share the secret of longevity with anyone before he died in 1943. :laugh: Oh, you got me. Not 200 years. A mere, what was it around 1900 when he wrote the article? In the article he said he was contem...

Tom I actually think possible the self cooling aspect of these engines you are exploring. But these ir guns are finicky, even my expensive one. If you paint everything flat black, then we can start talking. It still will not be a very accurate overall reading, but at least the general comparison of...

Compress_20240504_125427_7507.jpg For supposedly not doing any work, the heat from friction at the power piston is easily visible, at least 12° ∆T above the "cold side" generally So that is 12 joules of heat generated from mechanical motion 0 joules of "waste heat" going out thr...

The flywheel on your small engine is very light and is as easy to turn as it is to stop. So there's not much work being done for heat to be converted into. Logically, a well insulated engine is going to equilibriate with and accept very little heat from the heat source. So if there's not much heat ...

All very interesting Tom. In the test I just did with my 'LTD' (now a medium T diff) I found the engine was still speeding up as the 'cold' side got hotter, even though the hot side was stable at 148C. Whether this is due to bearings getting freer as they warm, or the wire wool round the edge of th...

Maybe you might also be interested in this experiment. A different model but this engine also has acrylic sides and top for retaining heat, or put another way, to eliminate the cold "sink". In addition to the low heat conductive acrylic, I also put additional Styrofoam insulation on the in...

at least I tried to.... you can't measure what isn't there. Of course fool and company just say I'm not getting an increase in temperature because my little toy Stirling engines use such an infinitesimal amount of heat and are so so inefficient and produce such little power the heat leaving the eng...

Tom, IIRC you were the first to mention fridge's. We seem to be in agreement that they have little relevance to this discussion. What? I have no idea how you arrived at that conclusion. Refrigeration systems generally are HIGHLY relevant. For one thing Stirling engines ARE a kind of refrigeration s...

Fool wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2024 6:15 am ....

You've made a number of very important and highly significant talking points, which I've highlighted here.

I'll comment on them all in full another time.

Unfortunately, I've never been able to find specifications. If the minimum operating temperature is 600° maybe it used some high temperature heat transfer fluid for "coolant". With water it could never reach operating temperature without boiling. They wouldn't have used water because of t...

Unfortunately, I've never been able to find specifications. If the minimum operating temperature is 600° maybe it used some high temperature heat transfer fluid for "coolant". With water it could never reach operating temperature without boiling.

My point really was that it's a good example of how NOT to build a Stirling engine. Personally, I'm skeptical it ever worked at all. The solar input area is nearly adjacent to the water jacket. 6000° metal alloy tungsten or whatever hot enough to vaporize stainless steel contiguous with a cooling ja...