Stirling Engine Model Demonstration

[jamiemh76]

Helium would be a better choice of gas as it is inert. It is 10% less efficient in a sterling engine than hydrogen, but will not seep through the metal. It is also cost effective to obtain in the small amounts needed. Sterling engines fell out of favour (for the last time) in the 1930s, although Philips made some amazing improvements to the original designs. Would be interesting to see the improvements that could be made with the latest advances in materials technology.

[mirrorclick]

Not in production yet... hmm could it be to the high costs of materials and the problem hydrogen has with seeping through metals not only all that but H² can also cause the embrittlement of metals.

[gmesthermax]

If You want to get Free Energy System

Here is my advice for you:

- there is a website that review the current Magnetic Generators in the market

- Go To Google and search for-- Top Magnet Generator

--Click the first results and - Wa-la

TopMagneticGenerator(dot)Com

[efahrenholz1]

It isn't practical enough for placing on a vehicle. Solar panels also only work well when directly facing the source, not just facing up. If facing up, it must be a clear sunny day for them to produce any current. Considering the power output to surface area, you might only get a few hundred watts on a sunny day. Not only that, your car would be ugly and it would be difficult to insulate as it is well known that solar panels get very hot...imagine all the extra material and weight you have to a

[RottingBoard]

Why not demonstrate the charging of real electric car for 8 hours (typical day at work in the parking lot).  What kind of charge could it offer in various parts of the US? Just a question: Why hasn't electric car companies put the flexible solar panels on the hood, trunk, and top of electric cars? Seems like a lot of surface space with direct sunlight.

[ulisesrobles]

all this stirlings get a lot of media, and they look cool, but i still doubt that it would power something usefull, sure it might help if you live in a mountain and need to power an emergency radio... but what about a PC and its 500w PSU? a house? i think someone out there working for electricity companies might have thought about it already.

[celloprof]

OH PLEASE!! Sterling engines are GREAT, BUT dont mock oil. We're SOO dependent on fuel, well guess what, we're SOO dependent on food also! The guy mentioned fossil fuels, WHAT A JOKE! HA, like fuel came from dinosaurs.

Anyways, I only see sterling engines as a stationary engine. ALSO, I think a FRESNEL LENS which can melt a penny(few sec) would work FAR BETTER than that mirror bowl. They have great potential, but with liberal guys like this, the sterling engine will never see the light of day.

[randommagnum]

@celloprof I don't think Fresnel lenses are as efficient for the size, compared to mirrors, but it does have some advantages. They both have pluses and minuses. That's the good think about getting the free market into this stuff...whichever is better, that's what will triumph hopefully.

[celloprof]

@randommagnum Well of course it depends on the size of the fresnel lense also, i doubt a mirror can burn a hole in a penny in a few seconds, but who knows. and yes it decreases in pressure (not mass)

[randommagnum]

@celloprof

watch?v=8tt7RG3UR4c

Go to Wikipedia and type in "Solar Furnace"

[iwillkillyourdogs]

whats up with the tags...?

[f007scott]

So is this better than the sterling engines on the market?

[jonnyasprin]

I'd like to see run under a load.

[memorizable2020]

A NASA Technical brief described 76,000W/hour could be produced using a 30 foot diameter 'solar collector' and a Sterling engine. This would power 5 homes.

I imagine this was in the '60s or '70s?

Source: Mike Rivero podcast, March 8, 2011, hour 2 of 2 at the 27.5 minute mark until the 29th minute. whatReallyHappened site will get you to the archives until the end of March, 2011 for free. After that, you have to pay at republic broadcasting site.

[ForPropertyInvestors]

This was 2007 what become of it?

[jasonwilfong]

I'm assuming when you say you're using hydrogen, you're referring to the gas inside the displacer. It's lighter and its thermal conductivity is 0.172 W/m K (@ 20C) compared to helium or nitrogen @ .138 and .0234 respectively. I don't believe you are gaining enough thermal efficiency to offset the possible dangers of using hydrogen instead of helium in this application. Also, the added weight to properly seal such a system would more than offset what you've lost. Great concept

[celloprof]

@jasonwilfong People usually used regular oxygen, let alone helium or whatever, LOL! Some STERLING ENGINES are far more efficient engines than others. I heard that the "Duplex sterling engine" is FAR more efficient than the other sterling engines. Little oil lamps or candles use to power fans and the duplex sterling engine use to power popcorn makers

[randommagnum]

Every time I hear one of these interviews/conversations start out with the phrase "ninety-three-million miles away"... [facepalm]

Look, we know what the friggin sun is, okay? Quit getting all dramatic/eccentric on us and just say "the sun", and tell us how the device works.

[celloprof]

@randommagnum The Sterling engine works by Means of the heating&cooling of the oxygen inside of the sterling engine after you manually start it.

1. As the heat expands oxygen, it PUSHES the piston

2. Then the air that was heated went to the other side of the piston to be cooled AND when that air cools it decreases in mass causing the cylinder to be pulled.

3. Then when that cylinder pulls, the air goes back to the other side of the piston to get heated again

4. back to #1.

[randommagnum]

@celloprof Uh, yes...I know how a Stirling engine works. I wasn't really asking that...it was rhetorical. :D

Even still, I appreciate you taking the time to explain it. There is one little detail that's off on #2 though...actually, a couple of details... When the air gets shuttled to the other side of the displacer to be cooled, it decreases in pressure (not mass); it doesn't "pull" the piston in...the piston compresses it, BUT this takes less energy than it got from the power stroke.

[rbush2271]

Needs a flywheel and some counterweights so it doesn't clunk around so much.

[Calyton21]

It sounds super efficient.

[Aquacruiser1]

Are you still experimenting with these? If so, I would like to talk to you. Can you please send me an e-mail?

[fsjal1]

more info : doesnt work at night.

[kiddpoor]

Why is there never a generator on these, without which it would only be an aggravating noise maker? Connect it to a generator hook up the Amp and Volt meter I want to see the output. It's not a model unless I see some Wattage.

[Jigaboo123456]

@kiddpoor yeah, usual green crap -the guy said it produced milliwatts, but how many? looks crap fopr practical purposes. Like you. I want to see these things work

[sjwimmel]

So can anyone explain why this is not our main source of energy yet?

[dzgfdg]

stirling has no torque... so its useless

[czarsolarhydrowind]

@dzgfdg it needs a weighted flywheel with a 2 or 3 to 1 ratio belt pully system or chain configuration to turn a generater/alternater under a load. Their are alot of ways to do it but not many people with time and tools who are motivated to do it... I would use steam, it has compression..Czar

[dzgfdg]

@czarsolarhydrowind yes steam is more efficient than this

[dandaman783]

@dzgfdg horsepower can be converted to torque through gear ratios

[dzgfdg]

@dandaman783 well this has no HP either

[MrJastin]

wait, 1 foot in diameter=1 kilowatt in optimal conditions?! I am going to be a billionaire!! :D

[Jigaboo123456]

@MrJastin Er,sadly, no. I guess you are extrapolating your Ikw from his " 30 ft dia would give 30KW "

Unfortunately not, or I'd have one ina minute.

Area of circle increases by the square of the factor of increase.

. Area of 1ft dia circle is pi X radius squared = 6"X6" X 3.142 = 120 square inches approx. just less than a square foot

30 ft dia. = 15ft X15ft X 3.142 = about 700sq ft. Parabola is almost spherical

but area of parbola is 4Pi R squared so same applies

[dan020350]

solar -4-life ?

[cableairman]

What they need to do is produce 5hp Stirling engines well thats what I need lol

[kalit8001]

Well done gentlemen. Good show.

[BlueBluby]

i think they should make it school topic in physics and make everysingle studen make his own engine per year

[jollyruss]

I have one of these. My parents bought me one back in 1978 to highlight my Science Fair project on Solar Energy. It still works great 31 years later! However, the guy in the video is wrong... There is no Hydrogen inside the unit.

[iulian28ti]

Stirling engines can work with pure air and hydrogen as well.

[dzgfdg]

@jollyruss it works more efficiently with hydrogen. u my friend have got a dud

[justinaurelius]

You guys have to get this up to a residential and then industrial scale.

That thing is great for the science fair, but in the real world we need results.

[granulomatosis2]

AHAHA "that's why J.P. Morgan and the FBI burned down his lab" you're so funny.

[OrphanPaper]

u you doing so well , then the greedy dollsrs ,, would reduse the impack of carbon reduction ,, every envious ass on the planet will be spweing out more carbon

go green need not greed

[koenstr]

the cooling part of the stirling engine could also be placed behind the mirror. There it can be cooled faster, by heating water for example.

[jokakijo]

Do you know Chris Opperman?

[ohbig1]

Whats the name of the company who is looking to produce these solar engins.

[Criptografo]

great engine dude!

[mozarks]

What is the title of his book,he speaks of in the last 10 seconds??? Can`t make it ouy?? Un- - - The Dollar?????

Un? what????

[omeidr]

Sunshine to Dollars i think.

[mediaman2003]

hes saying 30 feet diameter will produce 30kW....so theoretically 1 foot will produce 1kW right, but as you can see that the current size of the dish is more than 1 foot in diameter and he just said this dish produces only something around 1mW. i dont understand this until he meant that the relation is not directly proportional.

[Tonic2012]

Don't forget that we're dealing with circles here, thus a 30ft diameter circle has a surface area of around 707sq ft, and a 1ft diameter circle has around 0.78 sq ft. Thus the smaller disk is about 0.11% the size of the larger disk. 0.11% of 30kw is about 0.033kw, or 33 watts. Still a bit more than the milliwatts that Roy was on about.

[heelspurs]

Just the noise it was making could be measured in milliwatts. I have some 5 W computer fans and it looked like it was putting out enough to drive them. 0.78 sq ft is about 0.075 m^2 or 75 W in bright noon sun. So 33 W would be 50% efficient.

[dzgfdg]

@heelspurs u think ur so smart huh. stirlings dont have any torque. the "sound" is only high rpm

[koenstr]

A=pi*r^2

[FelipeValen]

But the engine won't work forever due to entropy.

[SecularAfghan]

It would be more efficient if the cooling took place on the opposite side of the dish where the temperature is lower.

[caboflyguy]

Look closer. It is.

[tomterahedrob]

Tesla,Stirling,Diesel.Theyre finally getting the fame they deserve.

[capoman1]

you all are crazy with your conversions!! Here is an example: double the resolution of a video file from 320x240 to 640x480. You only DOUBLED the resolution, but the new AREA of the video is 4X that of the original, NOT DOUBLE. (320x240=76800, 640x480=307200, 307200=4x76800). Same goes for the area of a circle, as radius increases, the surface area increases by some multiple or exponentially

[redneckflava]

what happens when it's really cloudy? or nighttime?

[chillz27]

not much

[metalstorm91291]

What's the average efficiency for a small, solar-powered stirling engine such as this?

[delirio1987]

15-30%

[mediaman2003]

what about in desert areas with a good reflecting material dish in a desert area?

[delirio1987]

you will have more power but the efficiency won't change. also, you need a good cooling system beacause stirling work with temperature difference

[dzgfdg]

@metalstorm91291 very VERY low

[paulie1982]

I think you could make a larger version using a large cheap fresnel lens and a modified old moped engine

[AdiGeorgescu22]

Can i kindly ask you for the plans of the small stirling engine you got there?

[moabsafari]

They are using the "sunrunner" stirling. Just google it.  I've seen it anywhere from $200-$450.

[Oddman1980]

That thing makes so much more sense than a photovoltiac cell.

[vqdset]

search "Concentratore solare da parabola satellitare" an experiment of italian students in 2006.

[nativesun]

good stuff.

[PupuTheClown]

Who invented this thing ?

[Avalaunch123]

lol, duh Mr. Stirling :P

[zws1922]

Robert Stirling, and he patented this type of engine in 1816. (not the dish version)

[PupuTheClown]

Makes a great cigarette lighter, don't let the Japanese see this video.

[jollyruss]

They have solar-powered cigarette lighters...

[elbow43]

blog.makezine com/archive/2008/04/solarpower­ed_stirling_eng.html?CMP=OTC-0­D6B48984890

[swapvid]

This is a great post. One of the most interesting SE i see.

Thanks

[aldj6]

cant you just use air instead?

[geoffart]

yes, stirling works with air, but they said hydrogen conducts heat better, and that would make the engine more efficent.

Stirling is actually the most efficent engine you can make, only problem is its never got that much power compared to other engines.

[phdecora]

thats only a problem when you are worried about maximizing efficiency, instead of just getting something to work 'good enough'. and since you arent paying for the solar inpput,  possibilities open up

[geoffart]

true, but you only get 1000w per meter squared (in the best circumstances). To obtain a usful power output, to save manufacturing costs in making a bigger collection device, you want as efficent an engine as possible surely.

[phdecora]

i mixed up 'power' and 'efficiency' in my comment. i meant that reduced power is a problem only from a perspective.... internal combustion may provide 20% or 30% more power.. and yet, what are the problems associated with it? i see them every day on the news... i feel them in my lungs, i see them in the oily water in the parking lot, i smell them in the air... in the future man will look back on us with the same quaint bemusement & horror that we look back on whale oil or gas lamps.

[geoffart]

I did think that internal combustion could provide many more times the power than stirling. Internal combustion and external combustion (steam), rely on latent heat (that goes directly into changing the state of the working medium). However, stirling simply relies on pressure, volume and temp relationships - its a slower process, but more efficent potentially.

The way to go would be use stirling to extract energy from primary source to be used later in electric motor (battery or fuel cell)

[chuck2na]

panchovilllla on youtube

got the video of it

him and and see how they stole it

[chuck2na]

dude the bigwigs in california stole this to make the words biggest solar electric plant

[diogeneslaertius666]

electrical cosmology predicts zero point energy.

get cracking you fucktards

[441rider]

These are available in germany commercially, this guy did not make the motor. It's sold as a scientific toy in europe.

[culturaldissident]

What is the specific name of this device and exactly where is it available ?

[sentzeu]

Its a simple Stirling Engine, that uses a hydrogen gas as a medium inside its cylinders.

It has a hot part, heated by the parabolic mirror, and a cold part cooled by the ambient temperature of the air. It uses this temperature differential, to make the gas contract and expand through a cycle, and produce power.

[sunwindwaterenergy]

typical..lets argue about the efficiency..either way solar energy is free and doesnt harm the enviroment like the oil companies and wars over oil do!6ft dish with a 5hp sterling and generator can run a home.

[poussecafe3]

Does it work at night.

[StickstoffProduction]

If you heat the Center somehow it will run at night too. A Stirling Engine works with one heated part and one cooled part. The hotter the hot part and the cooler the cool part the more efficient is the engine.

[roidroid]

solar thermal power generators like this can produce electricity at night by storing extra heat during the day. What they do is during the day they gradually heat water, or in the more intense versions they actually liquify salt.

Then during the night they use this as a heat source, and they keep running.

[WarzSchoolchild]

There is absolutely no need for a huge parabolic dish to collect solar energy. Also it would get dirty and lose efficiency. Small is beautiful. Make them like automobile spotlights, with glass, like light bulbs. Deploy Thermoacoustics to generate the electricity.

[FulinYu]

Let's Do it! Forget Big Oil!

[roidroid]

In the video he says that "The best solar thermal stirling engine is 4x better than the best photovoltaic"

But that's wrong.

The best solar thermal stirling engine design i've seen is under %30 efficiency.

Whereas the current record for photovoltaics is around %48 efficiency - and it keeps going up.

Clearly the video guy doesn't know what he's talking about.

[tylerkb12]

That is true. However, this idea is quite a bit cheaper as far as money spent per watts delivered. Imagine if you could use a large enough one to charge an electric car. You could screw oil companies forever. There are other lubricants besides petroleum for the gearbox, bearings, and other moving parts that could be made from renewable resources (castor oil, for example) so we don't even need them for that.

[StickstoffProduction]

Thats wrong. Current Photovoltaec cells have an efficiency of max. 20% It can probably increased to 28% but not more. The reason for this is that the intensyty of UV-Spectrum of Sunlight is the ony used one for the Cells, other wavelengshs wuld not work.

[roidroid]

no you're wrong, solar cell efficiency is much higher than 20% - much higher even than 28%!

Current production triple-junction cells have 35% efficiency, you can go out and buy one.

The record for solar cell efficiency is currently 42.7%, held by the University of Delaware.

just google it:

Solar Cell Efficiency Record

[lauritahaz]

is it! solution simple bat skilfuly

[benstanton]

so if it's so easy then show us a generator hooked up to it with some real data. I'm frustrated with all these hundreds of stirling engines without any use . . . theory is useless without application!

[roidroid]

solar thermal stirling

google it

[trailkeeper]

So if thats about 2 times as efficient as solar, then it should be technically about 15% x 2 = 30 percent efficient then. Thats good. A square meter of good sunlight is said to have 1000W, so 30 percent is 300 watts would be produce. will home units be available sometime?

[Kaberf]

This is very interesting. Somebody has found a use for all those obnoxious Direct TV dishes :)

On a serious note, does anybody know if this can be rigged to drive a tesla turbine?

[Every1happy]

Hmmmm hardly original check out;

stirling-engine de /solare_energiesysteme html

In Europe several pilot project has been running for a number of years. There are Companies selling this technique all over the world.

[ltpotato]

hi, im from canada... so i see all these people that are posting below me saying sum pretty stupid things. uhmmm do you want to kill the earth? ive been saying this for quite a while, why dont we use solar power for most of our appliances. yes, obviousely we would only be able to use it for daytime usage, but thats when most offices are up and running and using power. daytime vs nighttime power usage is incredibly onesided. I hope to see these come into play sooner rather than later.

[frightrover]

Sorry,i may have been wrong about you and your team,what i now think is,,,you are all just shit pumping fags,does your engine pump the arse fluid faster??coz if it does,well,then i want one.on the best of this and the best of this,,,,god that fag knows how to speak man,,,thick cunts.

[jsmith2007LOL]

If you do not have any thing close to intelligent to say. Go shag it by yourself, fag!!!

[frightrover]

he started off,by saving the world,then,,,he is talking about a franchised product,am i retarded like him,or is he just selling shite to the thick,retarded yankes???

[frightrover]

I have an idea for the fucked up yanks,,,,why not franchise life,,thats gotta make doe man.your born,your folks rent you out to couples that cant have kids,,,then,,you can buy them back later,at a reduced price,because your then a used human,seccond hand,not worth as much as you were new,sounds good to me maaaaan,,,hehehhahaha,i have great fun messing with,what seems to be,the most retarded race on earth.hehehehhahahhahhahaheheh­eh.

[frightrover]

good sales gimmic,and nothing more,save the earth,then ask how many rich yanks it will create,typical american slant,save the world,bot make a fast buck on the way,rifgt????yanky lost the plot bastards.

ME<ME<ME<ME<ME,,,thats the yanks for ya.

[jsmith2007LOL]

Don't think this guy create it. I found it at

gyroscope dot com

go to solar sterling

cost: $334.65

[cesarengenhero]

Hello!Where do you bought or builded your Dish Stirling Engine, please?

[FuseBox80A]

Some kinda DIY kit would be nice. :)

Would it be more efficient if the heat collector was iside a vacuum tube? It would then work even better here north like in -30 degrees celsius weather?

[solarbrian]

I too think a vacuum around the heat collector end could help as the convection current to cool the heat dissipator fins is too adjacent to the collector.

Unlike vacuum tube collectors in a flat plate box, I'd doubt low sunlight would provide enough temp differential for the engine to work efficiently.

For parabolic dishes, google cleardomesolar.

Stirling Energy Systems is the company behind the 37ft Solar Stirling Dish farms about to deploy in S.California

[ApostleRon]

WHAT?

[ApostleRon]

Does anyone have any plans on this hydrogen stirling engine? Is this made the same way a regular stirling engine is made but useing hydrogen instead of just air to heat up?

[ApostleRon]

I was just thinking, if you used a fresnell lens or two or 3 of them you could actually run this engine with a much smaller collector.

[solarbrian]

So long as the collecting area of lens was comparable to the mirrors collector area and the lens focus was entirely on the hot end. That might require the cooling fins to be moved a bit further away. I'd then baffle the cold heatsink from the hot side so as to assist the convection cooling or even add water cooling.

[ApostleRon]

Wonderful video on this engine. How does a person get all the things required to make this like the parts that make up the hydrogen container? Is there a kit that can be bought? If a person built a big enough one they could run their home on it and if they had an eletric car all their energy would be free.

[worldwidepete]

the reason that the efficiencies are confusing is that for solar photovoltaic cells, the average conversion efficiency is about 10 to 25% for current tech. Using a stirlimg engine, I have seen claims of 40%. So for solar cells, converting 1000kw per m2 to the lowest conversion is 100 watts per m2, but a properly set up Sterling can produce 400 watts per m2 per the same area.

Please do not think that a 3 to 4X increase equates to 400x. 3 to 4x equates to 400 PERCENT. not 400x.

[worldwidepete]

You can buy reflectors lıke this almost anywhere on the net, You just have to be a bit creative.

To answer some other questions, A larger sterling engşne is NOT 400x more efficient. But perhaps 3 to 4x more. Simply put, a 1000CC engine is more efficient and uses less resources than 100 10cc engines.

[acerkiwi]

Hey U tubers!! Any body know where to buy reflectors like this one?

Thanks

[acerkiwi]

Really nice parabolic reflector. How big is it and where did you get it????

[hyperdelivery]

I HEART FREE ENERGY!!

[fuzzymonkey777]

Awesome. I haven't seen any other stirling engine on youtube like this one. What a great concept. Where did you get that shiny parabolic mirror? Also, I wonder how hard it would be to put the cool end below the mirror and enclose the hot end in plexi glass.

[mjs9691]

The sums don't add up.

If you can get 30kW from a 10m dish (30ft). That would equate to 381W/m2. This little dish should then in theory be able to produce approx 300w guessing its diameter as about 0.5m from the video; yet the guy is saying it is only capable of producing milliwatts???

Anyone care to explain?

[veewee7764]

It relates to the economy of scale. A smaller unit is not nearly as efficient as a larger one because of inherent tolerances and etc. A 5hp lawnmower engine is not nearly as efficient as a big V8 in HP/gal. Same, a small stirling engine is not as efficient as a large one.

[mjs9691]

Yeah OK, but to the magnitude of 100x plus??? The sums still don't add up. What I'm getting at, is it should be relatively easy enough to make a small unit, say under 2m diameter, to produce 1KW or more on a sunny day;i.e. useful for small domestic applications. The unit this guy is holding can be purchased off the shelf on the internet and I dont see why it should have a signifcantly lower effeciency than a PV panel of the same area if what they are saying is true?

[veewee7764]

Sums and the math are absolute, mechanics and actual are not. It is in the mechanical conmversion that makes the difference. That smaller engine do a very good heat to mechanical conversion because of size, tolerances, drag and etc. Example, a 5HP lawnmower engine may tyically have about 150CC of displacement, or about 30cc/hp. Now look at a 2 litre engine (about 2000cc) that makes 120HP, or about 16cc/hp, twice as efficient.

[mjs9691]

OK,your example is good as a stirling engine probably has comparable mechanical/heat losses and economies of scale to other piston engines, I agree. But the video is not suggesting a mere doubling as per your example but upto 400x more efficient. i.e from less than 1W\m2 to approx 400W/m2, when the dish is increased from 0.5m to 10m? Thats an incredible gain, even considering economies of scale?

[veewee7764]

Yes it is a big increase. I believe (enngineers chime in here. . .) that the output goes up by a square everytime the size goes up by a double. Every time you double the diameter, the power will go up by a square.

In a perfect world. . . But that is perfect dish power with no losses. . .

[mjs9691]

Yes, that's true, if the dish doubles in size then its area quadruples (along with the solar energy collected); I'm not disputing that. In fact I wouldn't expect any difference in the energy density collected at the surface of a large dish or a small dish in terms of watts collected per m2.

[mjs9691]

However what we are talking about here is the conversion of this energy by the stirling engine into mechanical energy, and the magnitude of difference btw a small stirling engine and a large one. i.e. a moderately larger stirling is 400x more efficient??

[desiredusername]

I think one of the issues must be the design of this particular device. He's got the cooling fins on the inside of the mirror, which is crazy.

[desiredusername]

Also, your math is wrong.  400 watts/m^2 is right, but .5m diameter isn't .75 m^2 (how you apparently figured it) but .1875 m^2. That's just 75 watts. Then there's collector inefficiencies such as the engine blocking some of the mirror surface, imperfect focusing in the demo model, etc.

Of course, he said "milliwatts" but that guy didn't really sound like he knew what he was talking about anyway.