Real homesteading machines
- Thread starter captskip9
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Indiansummer
Inactive
Great stuff Rusty!I will have to get DH to looky here! He will love it!
If you are really hot on steam and north of SF, contact me. The is a group in Willits called the Roots of Motive Power that not only has a free museum of donkey engines and a locomotive but spends a lot of time refurbushing this stuff.
One friend has, I think, a 2-4-2 steam locomotive at his house that he has been working on for years. I know at one time he wanted to lay track to town as a tourist attraction.
Todd
One friend has, I think, a 2-4-2 steam locomotive at his house that he has been working on for years. I know at one time he wanted to lay track to town as a tourist attraction.
Todd
Christian for Israel
Knight of Jerusalem
ever heard of hot air engines? think solar heliostat powered.
http://www.geocities.com/kenboak/stirling.html
What is a Stirling Engine?
A Stirling engine is a machine which converts heat energy into mechanical power.
In its simplest form you could burn some wood and pump water or generate electricity to run a PC for example. A wood powered computer - that's a novel idea!
Stirling engines belong to a category of heat engines known as external combustion engines. This means that the fuel is burnt outside of the engine cylinder - rather than inside the cylinder like an internal combustion engine - the best example being the engine in a car.
External combustion has certain advantages - you can use any fuel which you may have lying around, like wood waste in a sawmill, coffee bean husks, maize cobs, domestic refuse as well as the more usual gaseous and liquid fuels.
The other advantage is that you can control the amount of oxygen used in the combustion, and use the correct amount to get 100% combustion, which minimises the polluting waste products which occur during incomplete combustion.
Stirling engines will work off any source of heat, so do not necessarily need combustion of fuel. Successful Stirlings have been demonstrated running on concentrated solar radiation, or the waste heat from industrial processes, such as glass making or steel smelting.
Model Stirling engines are relatively easy to build, even out of bits of junk such as old tin cans or plumbing fittings.
Low temperature difference (LTD) Stirlings will even run on the heat from your hand - sadly they do not produce much power.
Stirling engines have been built in every size and shape imaginable from a tiny engine which will fit in a matchbox to an 800hp V12 monster intended for marine propulsion.
Unfortunately, Stirling engines are not really suitable for putting into cars, unless they are used as in electric hybrid mode.
There have however been Stirling powered vehicles, cars, buses, trucks and boats were all demonstrated in the 1960s.
I have been interested in Stirling engines since 1976 when I saw my first hot-air engine in the scholol science lab.
My interest was rekindled in 1990 when I happen across an article in "The Engineer" describing a Stirling being built in Hampshire.
I strived to find out all I could and this eventually led to the formation of the Stirling Engine Society in 1997 -see opposite panel.
2016 is the Bicentenial of the patenting of the Stirling Engine. I hope that Stirling engines will be commonplace by then.
links to more:
http://users.moscow.com/oiseming/lc_ant_p/lnk_stir.htm
http://www.geocities.com/kenboak/stirling.html
What is a Stirling Engine?
A Stirling engine is a machine which converts heat energy into mechanical power.
In its simplest form you could burn some wood and pump water or generate electricity to run a PC for example. A wood powered computer - that's a novel idea!
Stirling engines belong to a category of heat engines known as external combustion engines. This means that the fuel is burnt outside of the engine cylinder - rather than inside the cylinder like an internal combustion engine - the best example being the engine in a car.
External combustion has certain advantages - you can use any fuel which you may have lying around, like wood waste in a sawmill, coffee bean husks, maize cobs, domestic refuse as well as the more usual gaseous and liquid fuels.
The other advantage is that you can control the amount of oxygen used in the combustion, and use the correct amount to get 100% combustion, which minimises the polluting waste products which occur during incomplete combustion.
Stirling engines will work off any source of heat, so do not necessarily need combustion of fuel. Successful Stirlings have been demonstrated running on concentrated solar radiation, or the waste heat from industrial processes, such as glass making or steel smelting.
Model Stirling engines are relatively easy to build, even out of bits of junk such as old tin cans or plumbing fittings.
Low temperature difference (LTD) Stirlings will even run on the heat from your hand - sadly they do not produce much power.
Stirling engines have been built in every size and shape imaginable from a tiny engine which will fit in a matchbox to an 800hp V12 monster intended for marine propulsion.
Unfortunately, Stirling engines are not really suitable for putting into cars, unless they are used as in electric hybrid mode.
There have however been Stirling powered vehicles, cars, buses, trucks and boats were all demonstrated in the 1960s.
I have been interested in Stirling engines since 1976 when I saw my first hot-air engine in the scholol science lab.
My interest was rekindled in 1990 when I happen across an article in "The Engineer" describing a Stirling being built in Hampshire.
I strived to find out all I could and this eventually led to the formation of the Stirling Engine Society in 1997 -see opposite panel.
2016 is the Bicentenial of the patenting of the Stirling Engine. I hope that Stirling engines will be commonplace by then.
links to more:
http://users.moscow.com/oiseming/lc_ant_p/lnk_stir.htm