Stirlingengineforum.com

The world is fast converting to USB power for phones, and now LED lamps plug into USB and can light a room for hours. USB powers communications, office and education (on tablet PCs), lighting, even water filtering with UV light.

So what? Think about this information from the World Bank:

There are more than 2 billion people who live in energy poverty. Most of them use wood fires, kerosene lamps or candles for light at night. They spend a big part of their tiny incomes on fuel for light from fires that are dirty and dangerous, killing tens of thousands of people a year in fires and from lung disease. They spend over $50 BILLION a year on fuel! All those lamps and candles can be replaced by clean cool LED lights powered by USB - 5V 1A. This is a $50 billion need.

There will soon be about 1 billion people living off grid who have mobile phones. They spend about $2/month for charging from local vendors with car batteries. That's $24 BILLION a year spent to get USB power for phones. And they also have wood fires.

A Stirling engine with 10W generator, powered by heat from an open wood fire, can charge up a USB battery that can in turn charge phones and LED lamps. This value is worth $50 billion a year to 2 billion of the poorest people in the world.

That's why we need a 10W stirling generator that is very robust and cheap to make. It need not be efficient, it just needs to survive and work.

I've spent weeks learning about stirlings and am really baffled why no one is working this problem seriously. Have not found ANY examples of a readily producible 10-20W stirling available at ANY price!

In my previous company I designed and built small hydropower turbines. See www.hydrovolts.com , which was sold last year. I have started working on a micro water turbine for battery charging and now I am going to pursue this stirling challenge. I have many pals in the international development community who will back this. If we can do it we can make a difference to 2 billion people and make billions in revenue. Who wants to join me? I previously raised $3M for my hydropower company, and I am going fund this new initiative as well.

Stirling engines for USB power are now a global necessity. Help me out please! I need to learn from you engineers what it takes to make this work! Comments here are most welcome. If you want to collaborate directly please email me. Thank you.

- Burt Hamner, Seattle WA burt@hydrobee.com www.hydrobee.com

I know there are other ways to tap an open fire for power, using a fuel cell eg VOTO or HALO charger or a thermoelectric circuit eg Powerpot. These have pros and cons too. For example Powerpot needs steady supply of cold water being raised to boil, and in many places they don't cook that way so won't use the tech.
My interest is to push limits of Stirling as far as reasonable to learn if it can be a solution. $50 Billion is a lot of money to divert.

Bookmarking for later comment.

R

Bert, we have an out fit in New Zealand converting used Fisher and Paykel washing machine motors into 1Kw, or multiples of hydro electric plants(theres quite a bit on the net if you Google Fisher and Paykel washing machine motors). Ian S C

Business-wise, I think it's a mismatch. Unfortunately for all of us tinkerers, but fortunately for the world, a cheaper and more user-friendly solution to most of those challenges already exists in photovoltaics. I agree that Stirlings have a place in moderate-temperature applications where they can burn low-grade fuels and don't need to compete with more efficient internal combustion, but only when cogenerating in a combined heat and power application where a lot more heat than power is needed. And that leaves out a lot of the parts of the world you're talking about, where solar or wind would likely be more practical.

But - for folks with existing solar power and long heating seasons with woodstoves, a battery charging cogeneration system would be a perfect match to fill the storage when solar is at its weakest. Even there though, another business problem is that Stirlings lend themselves to simplicity, and any viable design could most likely be easily replicated/stolen.

All that said, if you still want to throw investment around I'm sure a lot of us would love to be able to quit other work and furnish our shops with all of the latest whiz-bang tools.

Bumpkin

If you want to charge your phone, have a look at my stove top fan, I have tried that with a crude alternator, and it has more than enough power for a cell phone or similar battery. Power piston 30 mm dia, stroke 20 mm, the crank shaft runs on skate board bearings ($NZ 2 each), power con rod big end bearing from a VHS tape recorder, displacer con rod bearing is split plain bronze, only bits bought in were the skate board bearings (2 off). The displacer cylinder is a metal tube from a domestic vacuum cleaner, chrome plated mild steel. The cylinder head etc., is a bit of aluminium that was around the workshop. Ian S C

Hi Burt,

I am having the same opinion like you. At the moment I am working at my spare time on the project of my own. 50 W Stirling engine with wood stove.
My approach is to start from the desired power output and work in reverse direction. That means that I first calculate size of stirling cylinders then do heat exchangers, check to fit in, a couple of iterations and then do a calculation of a wood stove capacity. I want to develop a new product. Not just stirling engine but also a wood stove which will be adequate for the engine (think that this is important). So it will be a package unit. Here is the sketch of the system.

bhamner wrote:The world is fast converting to USB power for phones, and now LED lamps plug into USB and can light a room for hours. USB powers communications, office and education (on tablet PCs), lighting, even water filtering with UV light.

So what? Think about this information from the World Bank:

There are more than 2 billion people who live in energy poverty. Most of them use wood fires, kerosene lamps or candles for light at night. They spend a big part of their tiny incomes on fuel for light from fires that are dirty and dangerous, killing tens of thousands of people a year in fires and from lung disease. They spend over $50 BILLION a year on fuel! All those lamps and candles can be replaced by clean cool LED lights powered by USB - 5V 1A. This is a $50 billion need.

There will soon be about 1 billion people living off grid who have mobile phones. They spend about $2/month for charging from local vendors with car batteries. That's $24 BILLION a year spent to get USB power for phones. And they also have wood fires.

A Stirling engine with 10W generator, powered by heat from an open wood fire, can charge up a USB battery that can in turn charge phones and LED lamps. This value is worth $50 billion a year to 2 billion of the poorest people in the world.

That's why we need a 10W stirling generator that is very robust and cheap to make. It need not be efficient, it just needs to survive and work.

I've spent weeks learning about stirlings and am really baffled why no one is working this problem seriously. Have not found ANY examples of a readily producible 10-20W stirling available at ANY price!

In my previous company I designed and built small hydropower turbines. See http://www.hydrovolts.com , which was sold last year. I have started working on a micro water turbine for battery charging and now I am going to pursue this stirling challenge. I have many pals in the international development community who will back this. If we can do it we can make a difference to 2 billion people and make billions in revenue. Who wants to join me? I previously raised $3M for my hydropower company, and I am going fund this new initiative as well.

Stirling engines for USB power are now a global necessity. Help me out please! I need to learn from you engineers what it takes to make this work! Comments here are most welcome. If you want to collaborate directly please email me. Thank you.

- Burt Hamner, Seattle WA burt@hydrobee.com http://www.hydrobee.com

Hy Burt !
I am Laszlo,from Transylvania.I have few engines with wanted power
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04s0NO32olE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04s0NO32olE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiiwP_337ps this must developed to 10 watts power
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3b8aZ4hjtg this must be developed also

I saw an seiko watch fully depends on sun and learn the time from gps satellites. If they have money to buy a cell phone , telephone bills , I think they would have money to buy a solar cell powered cell phone.

Until you produce , distribute and sell millions of engines , cell phone manufacturers would have a solution. I saw an big flexible solar cell sheet for 60 dollars lot cheaper than iphone and its on the market. I think another answer will come from flexible solar cell manufacturers on thin plastic film. Its extemelly cheap , could be bought by meters. If there is no sun on these lands at winter and wind power is the easiest to build technology today. You cant beat 2 dollar a month bill with any new technology today , especially with engines.