So for those of us who don't all build LTD stirling engines in our spare time, maybe in your next video you might want to talk a bit about how it works?
A beautiful piece of workmanship. But why are you running it in "reverse" ie on top of iced water? 2 problems with that...
1 - it works on temp difference. If the ice is 0C and the ambient room temp is 25C then the diff is 25C but if you used boiling water the temp diff would be 75C.
2 - Your actual temp diff is less because cold air sinks so sitting on TOP of a cold source is inefficient. Better to sit on top of hot water so the heat rises.
Let me just understand your logic here moron999: I'm not entitled to ask a question or post a comment cos I don't have a clip. But you ARE entitled to despite not having a clip?
Let's summarise: So far I put one comment praising the poster's workmanship but asking why he is running it the way he is.
you should put a gear ratio on it so you could have it lift like a ton of weight while it spins freely lol. it would probably take like an hour to lift something but it will be intresting lol! its awesome though!
the first application of the stirling engine was a water pump which required a good bit of power. The downside of sterling engines is the time required to change power output. So, vehicles are not a particularly good application, but yes, you could build one that would power a vehicle.
Stirling engines are great because they use little power to spin really fast, and their efficiency is WAY beyond that of an internal combustion engine (car engine), but like ZisMyName said they can't change power output quickly. Although a Stirling Engine used as a generator in an electric car would be a great application.
A google search of "elevator return energy", found that modern elevator systems in tall buildings do have special drive mechanisms that generates return energy when the elevator is going down. Thus, the complete needed technology for storing residential solar energy in a special heavy-concrete-weighted solar energy storage elevator is already available. The "overall energy" use for tall building elevators is very small ( just the cost of resistance and inefficiency ). No explosive hydrogen.
can someone plz help me, im looking for a science project and i think i found one. i have a few questions, how much does one cost, where can i get one, if i cant buy one where can i get plans, and how long would it take to build one
ive seen a lot of these, but none actually yet that have harnessed the power, for example you could build a simple rechargeable battery charger onto it
They are building two of the largest solar power plants in the world in California which use concentrated solar power heat, generated from the sun to power sterling engines.
Impecable craftmanship no doubt you are a machinist and the hot air engine always an imagination exercise for those of us that want to make a better mouse trapp.
its great. why arn't stirling engines used in conjunction with combustion engines in cars/vans/trucks e.c.t. to harness the waste heat energy? if they were they could be hooked up to the alternator, charging the battery and running lights, I.C.E., heated seats, AC e.c.t. so all the combustion engines power can be used to drive the vehicle, making the vehical more efficient. is this a sensible sugestion? pease reply and express your opinions and/or ideas
re: running a stirling along the normal engine: i guess it's just cheaper not to do it - who'd be willing to pay an impressive premium to put another machine (with its own need for cooling) into a car, adding weight = extra fuel consumption for a marginal gain in efficiency? Stirlings are great for nonstop operation, like generators or coupled to heating systems. There ARE commercially available ones the size of a big PC that give off 700 W electric and 5 kW heat, for sailing boats. Kinda pricey
you're right, for instance the hot gas could be used on a dynamo type fan thing on the exhaust, and maybe some kind of external source engine (like the stirling) for the engine heat byproduce
jozafax, good work, I have just watch your videos, congratulations!! good machines!:D. I am going to upload one video of my first ltd. For the moment, only the piston-fix test.
running on ice huh. if u live in the north u have free ice 6 months out of the year which is exactly when people could use some extra electricity to heat their house. so my question is could people heat their homes for free or even hook into the grid and make some money just off of free ice from outside in the winter ?
In Northern Icy climates, the diffrence of heat beetween the ice and air is not enough to power it practically. This particular device works better in a diffrence of Extream heat and Extream Cold. If you were to hook it up to a Liquide Nitrogen canister and placed it on the equator, it would spin like crazy. That is more practical than in an icy climate.
Hi gmark1953!! Nice video!!. I like your engine a lot. I hope show you my stirling. I am in the design process, and your engine inspired me.(In some fabrication process mainly). Thanks, and one question. Is your engine capable to move with the heat of your hand?
Anyplace where you can bring a temperature difference close together can run a Stirling engine. One idea could be to use sea water for one side and the air temperature during summer or winter for the other. Wonder how much power you could produce that way. Or maybe use thermal pipes down about 60 feet for one side and the ambient air temp for the other. That could be used nation wide. There would be blackout times when the air and ground temp were the same but not many.
This is all fine and good but I can't get one... They're so freaking expensive, and it seems like you need lots of machining equipment just to build one...
HA HA that is the same plans and book i built of have a look at my motor. what temp diff have u got it down to? i have got mine down to 3 or 4 c after lots of work.
We need to find other ways to supply energy without using fossil fuels that is the trick. Yes your method would produce more energy but is dirty. How about Thermal active areas could be used to supply the thermal energy to run larger versions of these.
Are you silly? Antarctica, Alaska, Canada, Russia, lots of places could use this technology with cold, and tropical or desert places provide tons of heat.
You are missing the entire point of this engine. It runs on thermal differences, and can use the cold surfaces difference with ambient air as a source for energy! There is another YT vid of a stirling engine running on a block of ice at a rapid pace.
a friend gave me an antique pump that is in an inverted tear drop shape. he said it ran without any electric or fuel of any sort, that it needed to be primed with air. It has "R. Mc Dougall Gault Canada" stamped on it. any info at all anyone
it will run in both directions FLGUY if there is heat on the bottom it will run in one direction and if its cold it will run the opposite direction. i got that answer from the very book he said he got those plans to build that with
well if its anything like my toy it will run the way that you start spinning it. you can reverse it by stopping it and spinning it the other direction. BTW not all Americans are morons - just most; like any other country.
I believe flguy32501 is incorrect. Put mechanical energy into a Stirling engine and it will pump heat. Neutron7 was correct. If it was impossible to pump heat none of us would have refrigerators.
Can this be made affordable enough and worry-free enough (can be fixed by a village fix-it man or woman) to provide light and power to say, a typical small school room in a developing country?
big Stirling engines are used to make electricity. Solar tracking mirrors focus the sun to create a spot of 700C+ temperature on the hot side and a fan cools the cool side.
The ones i have seen are well engineered and therefore expensive. A cheap version would be very handy, so if you come across one please share the info.
As long as there is no monsoon season in said developing country. These things are very simple, at least in concept, and dont require much beyond sunlight to function in an inefficient way and some addtional hardware to function in a less inefficient way.
I bet if you make a smaller power cylinder and piston the engine will go faster, because the air will not need to take up as much space there for pushing the piston faster so more power.
It's not just the speed at wich it runs, but also the amount of surface area the piston has. The biger the piston, the more area the hot air (or hot gasses) have to push on. The more push you have, the more power you have. So despite what some people will tell you, in most engines, size does matter.
The funniest of all is that we know about the principles behind Stirling Engine for almost 200 years and have done nothing about it. Imagine combining sun heat and earth's own coolness to produce rotatory power, we could produce electricity just like that. Instead we are chasing after technologies that may require next 200 hundred years to fully perfect such as PV cells
As for solar panels, there's nothing wrong with them except your attitude! Yes they're more expensive, but not so much that it's prohibitive. I designed a system to cover my entire electrical needs for a house I owned in L.A. My total out of pocket expense was $16K after state rebates, and my break even point was only 6.5 years out. From then on it's a free ride.
It was a 220V grid-tie system, meaning any electricity I didn't consume was sold back into the grid at the utility companies day market price. The system consisted of 30x150W, series/parallel wired panels. The 240V DC current was fed to a Sunny Boy inverter and wired to the mains. While I was at work, the system was busy earning me power credits that were spent at the night rate (off peak).
I should mention I save about $6000 on the cost of panels by waiting to buy with a large group. Saved nearly $200 per panel. There is TONS of great articles on alt energy at home power DOT com. Also, check out dsireusa DOT org for a comprehensive list of state, local, utility, and federal incentives for AE. If everyone did their part, got educated, and took action there would be *NO* energy crisis.
The funniest of all is that we know about the principles behind Stirling Engine for almost 200 years and have done nothing about it. Imagine combining sun heat and earth's own coolness to produce rotatory power, we could produce electricity just like that. Instead we are chasing after technologies that many require next 200 hundred years to fully perfect such as PV cells
Bzzzt! Wrong. There are dozens of practical sterlings in use, generating as much power as other traditional power sources.
"Imagine combining sun heat and earth's own coolness to produce rotatory power..." See a video called "Sterling Engines - Solves Energy Needs?" It's been done.
In answer to, SeJoHu's comment, "They don't do any thing but go". These engines run generators in nuclear submarines using excess heat from reactor to make 55 kilo watts of electricity. There is of coarse no shortage of cold water to supply the temperature difference.
It's going to take a whole hell of a lot more than 'belief' to make 'free energy'. Like changing the way the *entire* universe works. You might want to read up on the laws of conservation. Anyone claiming to have a machine that violates those principals is a LIAR and a CROOK.
I've seen a few of these now, bu all I've seen are these things running. They don't do anything but go. If something like this works, then could it produce enough power to either heat itself or cool itself enough to run perpetually, or does it not work that way? Because if it could supply itself with the necessary change in heat to keep moving perpetually, and especially if it had surplus energy after that, this engine could have some amazing ramifications.
The *outside* source of energy that operates the machine is a difference in temperature.
Solar power is free energy, the temperature of a surface exposed to direect sunlight will be higher than that of one that is not exposed, the difference in the two temperatures is indeed convertable to energy.
In theory yes, in practicality no. It would take all the power output of the engine, to produce enough heat to keep it running. WITHOUT takeing into consideration the effects of drag on the engine, this would be possible. The internal drag of the engine, reduces it's power output, therefore preventing it from makeing enough energy to keep it running.
If you did you'll be breaking Newton's Law of Conversation of Energy. If the engine could turn %100 of the heat to kinetic then 100% of this must need to be turned back into heat energy, else the engine would slow down. So where is your surplus energy come from?
Look up a video called "Sterling Engines - Solves Energy Needs?". I have it in my favorites. It is a clip from PBS in L.A. The power company is building a facility in the desert that will generate MEGAWATTS based on this same principal.
Stirling engines run on a difference in temperature between 2 surfaces - they generally need a HOT side and a room temp side.
A well designed Stirling engine hooked upto a generator can be approx 25% efficient. In otherwords it will turn 100watts of HEAT energy into 25watts of ELECTRICAL energy.
If you then used that 25watts to power a heater and ran it through another Stirling engine, you would get only 6 watts of electrical.
Everytime you do it you loose 75% of your energy.
They DO however use their own energy to power a fan to blow air onto their "room temp" side. As this side has to keep as close as possible to room temperature. If they didn't do this the "room temp" side would gradually get as hot as the "hot side" and you don't want that - You want the biggest temperature difference possible.
Your videos are a mine of useful ideas for a metalworking fan like me! I have just ordered the book to try making this beautiful engine. I'm wondering if the power piston is made of graphite; it could be possible to use PTFE?
Hi Rick, I think PTFE will cause lots of problems. It will swell with temperature, and machining it to the tolerances necessary will be difficult. If you don't have graphite then just use cast iron or even steel. It will work but not as well as graphite.
Hi there, I was looking on youtube the other day hoping for videos of the Stirling 4-2-2 Steam locomotive and videos of these engine came up, I myself love science particularly physics and mechanical items, I only just came across this video today, this is a great machine you have here, after watching lots of videos and wanting to comment, it was this video that motivated me to sign up to type this just now.
I really want to make one of these, I just hope I can find a book somewhere near me.
Hi K, thanks for the comments. i didn't keep track of the hours but i think it was a whole weekend plus a couple of hours every nite for a week. so maybe 36 hours. this engine wasn't too bad as far as time goes. some of them take hundreds of hours.
That is a quality job. I admire good engineering. Cant be certain where you are based but here in Britain the skills are being lost. I'm the only under 21 i know who can use a lathe. Today I'm considered fair but 15 years ago i've been rubbish.
im in florida, usa. thank you for watching the video. its nice to have someone appreciate the amount of work that goes into these things. we are losing our manual skills over here also. i hope somehow we can get the old timers to pass a little on before its gone forever. i hope you keep up your interest. you are young enough to make a big contribution.
HI Shotgun, I made one of these for my A level design and technology. Unfortuneatly, I only got a B as my folderwork wasn't up to scratch. I had a fairly rubbish lathe and found it easier using a pillar drill to make the piston using a graphite pencil from the art department. To answer a couple of other people's questions. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed.
can you PM me as to where you got the book?
crazyFLkid 2 years ago
Oh, how I wish I had tools like these.....
Andreask93 2 years ago 2
So for those of us who don't all build LTD stirling engines in our spare time, maybe in your next video you might want to talk a bit about how it works?
brandthedog 2 years ago
Fantastic work. Thank you for posting.
aadengler 2 years ago
molto elegant saluti
blasius50 2 years ago
you've got some nice tools there!
great work!
Are you planning on making another engine?
I hope that, some day, I'll make a (steam) engine myself...
ps: check my home-made steam boiler
pjmasterzz 2 years ago
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foxy058 2 years ago
A beautiful piece of workmanship. But why are you running it in "reverse" ie on top of iced water? 2 problems with that...
1 - it works on temp difference. If the ice is 0C and the ambient room temp is 25C then the diff is 25C but if you used boiling water the temp diff would be 75C.
2 - Your actual temp diff is less because cold air sinks so sitting on TOP of a cold source is inefficient. Better to sit on top of hot water so the heat rises.
trossachs2003 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
let's see your video clip smartarse
moondog999 2 years ago
Let me just understand your logic here moron999: I'm not entitled to ask a question or post a comment cos I don't have a clip. But you ARE entitled to despite not having a clip?
Let's summarise: So far I put one comment praising the poster's workmanship but asking why he is running it the way he is.
You post a snide comment insulting me.
You really think you are in a tenable position?
trossachs2003 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
I get it.
You're all "advice" and no "substance"
I've met your sort before... ;-)
moondog999 2 years ago
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chineseful 2 years ago
Hi, I'm from Brazil
I'll like know what's the material of the displacer, please ?
aaaaaadriano 2 years ago
You show some fine craftsmanship. Thank you for posting.
samrustan 2 years ago
fucking crazy outragious shit definitely has massive potential. FAVORITED
Mooseboy240 2 years ago
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artemis545 2 years ago
That was great and you seem to know your way around machine shop tools.
Glad you put some narration in. Wish you would have talked more about the princiiples. Thanks a lot.
rayunseitig 2 years ago
What temperature difference does this stirling engine need to run?
And approximately how much did this cost to build?
Johnny5Guy 3 years ago
>1°Celsius
Christian32500 3 years ago
put one in a cold river...?
ive always thought a stirling engine would work well on a boat because you could use the water as coolant...
JoshatSuzuki 3 years ago
how long does it run on ice water?
peppoj 3 years ago
as long as the water stays icey i guess :/
KingCosmo7 2 years ago
Great work man, my respect!
easyrhinotuber 3 years ago
you should put a gear ratio on it so you could have it lift like a ton of weight while it spins freely lol. it would probably take like an hour to lift something but it will be intresting lol! its awesome though!
boxa888 3 years ago
efficiency ? torque ? power ? weight ?
com85 3 years ago 2
great work there !!!
what is the piston made of ?
momodragon 3 years ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Hey if anyone wants to find out how this machines works check out my site
magicalmachines 3 years ago
if could get skate ball bearings they´ll work beter than the bronze bushings. but good work anyways
enanowalk 3 years ago
Beautiful work indeed that is. What lathe do you have?
jarkonkotisivu 3 years ago
Could you use that on the difference between the inside and outside of the house - or other, temperatures?
CTR831 3 years ago 3
Well built,
Good Job
IBeHoey 3 years ago
Awesomeness dipped in more bits of awesome.
NoncentsProductions 3 years ago 3
Stirling Engines RULE!
zecnobot 3 years ago
how does that work not researched it at all what is the ice water for?
dhudson369 3 years ago
the engine has a piston that is powerd by the expansion/ contraction of the air in it caused by differing temperatures on the two ends of the piston
chillz27 3 years ago
Can you make a stirling vehicle that travels across the ice or snow?
kaduisaui 3 years ago
ATM stirling engines have like 0 horsepower but in theory, yes
chillz27 3 years ago
the first application of the stirling engine was a water pump which required a good bit of power. The downside of sterling engines is the time required to change power output. So, vehicles are not a particularly good application, but yes, you could build one that would power a vehicle.
ZisMyName 3 years ago
Stirling engines are great because they use little power to spin really fast, and their efficiency is WAY beyond that of an internal combustion engine (car engine), but like ZisMyName said they can't change power output quickly. Although a Stirling Engine used as a generator in an electric car would be a great application.
Magganrchy 3 years ago
is allready an engine. what for to generate electricity for another electric motor?
treispe13 2 years ago
A google search of "elevator return energy", found that modern elevator systems in tall buildings do have special drive mechanisms that generates return energy when the elevator is going down. Thus, the complete needed technology for storing residential solar energy in a special heavy-concrete-weighted solar energy storage elevator is already available. The "overall energy" use for tall building elevators is very small ( just the cost of resistance and inefficiency ). No explosive hydrogen.
trader0108 3 years ago
I was wondering how much time did it take you to do this proyect. how much precicion does it take to do one. and how hard is it to get he materials.
dald21 3 years ago
can someone plz help me, im looking for a science project and i think i found one. i have a few questions, how much does one cost, where can i get one, if i cant buy one where can i get plans, and how long would it take to build one
T3hbassmasta 3 years ago
try gyroscope. com /StirlingEngines/
(take the spaces out)
chillz27 3 years ago
Great Video!!
jridout01 3 years ago
ive seen a lot of these, but none actually yet that have harnessed the power, for example you could build a simple rechargeable battery charger onto it
programaster 3 years ago
Hahaha my names Stirling xD
stirling1994 3 years ago 3
Build yourself one of these and the Oil companies hit men will kill your ass.
wavepiercer 3 years ago
lol that's if they can find me hahaha . . . they'd never think to look in california ;)
Super32Nova 3 years ago 2
Conspiratorial nonsense!
They are building two of the largest solar power plants in the world in California which use concentrated solar power heat, generated from the sun to power sterling engines.
quaheedus 3 years ago
Impecable craftmanship no doubt you are a machinist and the hot air engine always an imagination exercise for those of us that want to make a better mouse trapp.
Thank you for sharing. Ernest.
n4120p 3 years ago
Great vid. Great machine. What was the name of the author of the book ?
dokvist 3 years ago
i need one
dafreak83 3 years ago
its great. why arn't stirling engines used in conjunction with combustion engines in cars/vans/trucks e.c.t. to harness the waste heat energy? if they were they could be hooked up to the alternator, charging the battery and running lights, I.C.E., heated seats, AC e.c.t. so all the combustion engines power can be used to drive the vehicle, making the vehical more efficient. is this a sensible sugestion? pease reply and express your opinions and/or ideas
jbradleyk 3 years ago 2
re: running a stirling along the normal engine: i guess it's just cheaper not to do it - who'd be willing to pay an impressive premium to put another machine (with its own need for cooling) into a car, adding weight = extra fuel consumption for a marginal gain in efficiency? Stirlings are great for nonstop operation, like generators or coupled to heating systems. There ARE commercially available ones the size of a big PC that give off 700 W electric and 5 kW heat, for sailing boats. Kinda pricey
cinema4Dguy 3 years ago
it was a bit of a silly idea, i didn't think it through at the time
jbradleyk 3 years ago
You stole my one year old idea >=O
yes the regular combustion engine has lots of wasted energy thats why cars we use are very inefficient.
Light, Heat, Pressured hot gas is created we should harness all of those energies.
brookifyd320 3 years ago
you're right, for instance the hot gas could be used on a dynamo type fan thing on the exhaust, and maybe some kind of external source engine (like the stirling) for the engine heat byproduce
programaster 3 years ago
The thing is that they are very very heavy for the ammount of power they output
aclockworkkelly 3 years ago
yes however they are extremely efficient
programaster 3 years ago
omg we should hook that sort of stuff up to old faithfull!
iownnwo 3 years ago
jozafax. normaly you don´t need a mill, for example i`m making my own LTD, and i have only a lathe.
snipperwolf73 3 years ago
Well, i don't have a lathe or a mill so i'm stuck with my over-the-thumb-engineered tin can Stirlings.
jozafax 3 years ago
jozafax, good work, I have just watch your videos, congratulations!! good machines!:D. I am going to upload one video of my first ltd. For the moment, only the piston-fix test.
snipperwolf73 3 years ago
Thanks!
jozafax 3 years ago
Very nice!
I wish i had access to a decent lathe and a milling machine
jozafax 3 years ago
Where can I download the book?
crostom 3 years ago
where did the heat to power it come from??
sxcHideki 3 years ago
running on ice huh. if u live in the north u have free ice 6 months out of the year which is exactly when people could use some extra electricity to heat their house. so my question is could people heat their homes for free or even hook into the grid and make some money just off of free ice from outside in the winter ?
518schenectady 3 years ago
In Northern Icy climates, the diffrence of heat beetween the ice and air is not enough to power it practically. This particular device works better in a diffrence of Extream heat and Extream Cold. If you were to hook it up to a Liquide Nitrogen canister and placed it on the equator, it would spin like crazy. That is more practical than in an icy climate.
ObiTrev 3 years ago
what if u brought the ice in your basement or something where the temperature is much warmer than outside
518schenectady 3 years ago
Then it wouldn't make a diffrence, because it would take more energy than it can produce to heat it up using an electric heat source.
ObiTrev 3 years ago
thermodynamics says you can't get energy from temperature, only from a temperature difference. overenthusiastic viewers should keep that in mind.
jojomcbean 3 years ago
there is a temperature difference
notice the words "ice water" which would probably be colder then the surrounding air, just a guess
Ondure 3 years ago 2
Nice work dude. Check out my making of stirling engine video too.
grasswine 3 years ago
Hi gmark1953!! Nice video!!. I like your engine a lot. I hope show you my stirling. I am in the design process, and your engine inspired me.(In some fabrication process mainly). Thanks, and one question. Is your engine capable to move with the heat of your hand?
snipperwolf73 3 years ago
Hi, Good Job. Im not sure but if you run this engine on heat and not ice will it run the opposite direction? Thanks and keep up the good work!
mattpow1 4 years ago
No, it will run on the same direction... Remember, its only a two dimentions movement.
edo75 3 years ago
And after this I am going to make a thermonuke..lear... or someshit.
Katieswan1234567, do you get weekends off? Git'n any? Hey, it's Satity night!
Sorry, just jealous about all the smart monkeys.You really get off on pistons eh...oops here I go again.
Flashistic 4 years ago
Anyplace where you can bring a temperature difference close together can run a Stirling engine. One idea could be to use sea water for one side and the air temperature during summer or winter for the other. Wonder how much power you could produce that way. Or maybe use thermal pipes down about 60 feet for one side and the ambient air temp for the other. That could be used nation wide. There would be blackout times when the air and ground temp were the same but not many.
Mechman064 4 years ago
What does the brass button top front do?
fb2800 4 years ago
Power for the Frozen Regions?
brothershort 4 years ago
you would have to have heat also though
thenickboarder 4 years ago
I would like to find the same book you have I've looked and can't find it. where can I look?
CrashByron 4 years ago
hi i got the same book as well i got mine of ebay for $6au
katieswan1234567 4 years ago
i want the plans so bad. im trying to build my own but it requires a flame and ice water
parisbaby6678 4 years ago
This is all fine and good but I can't get one... They're so freaking expensive, and it seems like you need lots of machining equipment just to build one...
cyborgtroy 4 years ago
HA HA that is the same plans and book i built of have a look at my motor. what temp diff have u got it down to? i have got mine down to 3 or 4 c after lots of work.
katieswan1234567 4 years ago
what is the thing (in white) or material inside the cylinder? Where can I buy the book?
trstao 4 years ago
the thing in the cylinder is the displacer piston, which pushes the air alternately between the hot and cold sides.
cyborgtroy 4 years ago
thanks, but what is the material of the displacer piston? It looks like feather, very light!
trstao 4 years ago
Its pronounced zepyxiptro
fergawdsache 4 years ago
We need to find other ways to supply energy without using fossil fuels that is the trick. Yes your method would produce more energy but is dirty. How about Thermal active areas could be used to supply the thermal energy to run larger versions of these.
Kharmak 4 years ago
Instead of running it on ice water, could you not use coal, im sure that would be the way forward.
fergawdsache 4 years ago
Are you silly? Antarctica, Alaska, Canada, Russia, lots of places could use this technology with cold, and tropical or desert places provide tons of heat.
stopglobalswarming 4 years ago
Silly, are you crazy, dont you see, if we use coal and maybe even oil it would give off much moe heat than ice, it stands to reason really.
If we got really desperate we could burn wood or even paper, but you cant burn ice, no siree bob, i should know, ive tried often enough.
fergawdsache 4 years ago
You are missing the entire point of this engine. It runs on thermal differences, and can use the cold surfaces difference with ambient air as a source for energy! There is another YT vid of a stirling engine running on a block of ice at a rapid pace.
stopglobalswarming 4 years ago
Your right, my god what a fool ive been.its all become so clear now.
fergawdsache 4 years ago
You are a joker: I'm calling you on it!
stopglobalswarming 4 years ago
a friend gave me an antique pump that is in an inverted tear drop shape. he said it ran without any electric or fuel of any sort, that it needed to be primed with air. It has "R. Mc Dougall Gault Canada" stamped on it. any info at all anyone
embarassedcanuck 4 years ago
Wow it runs on ice water! Alaska would love this! How cool.
hwymadness850 4 years ago
How did you make the power piston?
KARTOFFELSALATATATAT 4 years ago
very nice work . . . well done
stentorsoft 4 years ago
Dang subliminal influence these youtube vidyettes. LOL! will it work high temp if constructed right?
DIGIBOYTV 4 years ago
looks difficult to make
im a newb on lathes tho lol
s172mch 4 years ago
it will run in both directions FLGUY if there is heat on the bottom it will run in one direction and if its cold it will run the opposite direction. i got that answer from the very book he said he got those plans to build that with
mjerew 4 years ago
well if its anything like my toy it will run the way that you start spinning it. you can reverse it by stopping it and spinning it the other direction. BTW not all Americans are morons - just most; like any other country.
userlaalaa 4 years ago
Not true in this engine.
99Jazzman99 4 years ago
great video
tesla1961 4 years ago
you know they work backwards as well. you can make cold and hot air by turning a sterling engine with a motor or wind. free air conditioning!
neutron7 4 years ago
no- entropy
flguy32501 4 years ago
as response to neutron7 only goes 1 way
flguy32501 4 years ago
I believe flguy32501 is incorrect. Put mechanical energy into a Stirling engine and it will pump heat. Neutron7 was correct. If it was impossible to pump heat none of us would have refrigerators.
Mechness 3 years ago
you can't make something cold without making something else hot
flguy32501 3 years ago
Very nice work!
tsport100 4 years ago
Can this be made affordable enough and worry-free enough (can be fixed by a village fix-it man or woman) to provide light and power to say, a typical small school room in a developing country?
communitywork 4 years ago
big Stirling engines are used to make electricity. Solar tracking mirrors focus the sun to create a spot of 700C+ temperature on the hot side and a fan cools the cool side.
The ones i have seen are well engineered and therefore expensive. A cheap version would be very handy, so if you come across one please share the info.
roidroid 4 years ago
dont worry the ameritards will never listen
neutron7 4 years ago
only one jealous of all America's great accomplishments would make such an ignorant comment..pity
DNM35 4 years ago
Robert Stirling was Scottish, not American!
gschjetne 4 years ago 2
As long as there is no monsoon season in said developing country. These things are very simple, at least in concept, and dont require much beyond sunlight to function in an inefficient way and some addtional hardware to function in a less inefficient way.
kipswitch 4 years ago
I bet you used more power freezing the water than you could get from a day of this runnin but cool anyway
o0oReFLexo0o 4 years ago
I bet if you make a smaller power cylinder and piston the engine will go faster, because the air will not need to take up as much space there for pushing the piston faster so more power.
rangerssteamtoys 4 years ago
It's not just the speed at wich it runs, but also the amount of surface area the piston has. The biger the piston, the more area the hot air (or hot gasses) have to push on. The more push you have, the more power you have. So despite what some people will tell you, in most engines, size does matter.
salemcripple 4 years ago
The funniest of all is that we know about the principles behind Stirling Engine for almost 200 years and have done nothing about it. Imagine combining sun heat and earth's own coolness to produce rotatory power, we could produce electricity just like that. Instead we are chasing after technologies that may require next 200 hundred years to fully perfect such as PV cells
paxgladius 4 years ago
Except they quickly become ineffective with size (due to material limitations)
ProductionDesignrMAX 4 years ago
As for solar panels, there's nothing wrong with them except your attitude! Yes they're more expensive, but not so much that it's prohibitive. I designed a system to cover my entire electrical needs for a house I owned in L.A. My total out of pocket expense was $16K after state rebates, and my break even point was only 6.5 years out. From then on it's a free ride.
hyperkinetic 4 years ago
would u say some characteristics of your system?
nazirdjon 4 years ago
It was a 220V grid-tie system, meaning any electricity I didn't consume was sold back into the grid at the utility companies day market price. The system consisted of 30x150W, series/parallel wired panels. The 240V DC current was fed to a Sunny Boy inverter and wired to the mains. While I was at work, the system was busy earning me power credits that were spent at the night rate (off peak).
hyperkinetic 4 years ago
I should mention I save about $6000 on the cost of panels by waiting to buy with a large group. Saved nearly $200 per panel. There is TONS of great articles on alt energy at home power DOT com. Also, check out dsireusa DOT org for a comprehensive list of state, local, utility, and federal incentives for AE. If everyone did their part, got educated, and took action there would be *NO* energy crisis.
hyperkinetic 4 years ago
The funniest of all is that we know about the principles behind Stirling Engine for almost 200 years and have done nothing about it. Imagine combining sun heat and earth's own coolness to produce rotatory power, we could produce electricity just like that. Instead we are chasing after technologies that many require next 200 hundred years to fully perfect such as PV cells
paxgladius 4 years ago
Bzzzt! Wrong. There are dozens of practical sterlings in use, generating as much power as other traditional power sources.
"Imagine combining sun heat and earth's own coolness to produce rotatory power..." See a video called "Sterling Engines - Solves Energy Needs?" It's been done.
hyperkinetic 4 years ago
In answer to, SeJoHu's comment, "They don't do any thing but go". These engines run generators in nuclear submarines using excess heat from reactor to make 55 kilo watts of electricity. There is of coarse no shortage of cold water to supply the temperature difference.
mungoesmad 4 years ago
i believe in free energy
mynameisash1981 4 years ago
It's going to take a whole hell of a lot more than 'belief' to make 'free energy'. Like changing the way the *entire* universe works. You might want to read up on the laws of conservation. Anyone claiming to have a machine that violates those principals is a LIAR and a CROOK.
hyperkinetic 4 years ago 2
Try and Google "Sterling engine" Sorry, it is "Stirling"! Always has been!
tube087 4 years ago 2
basically , thermodynamics wont let any object run over its own efficiancy. look it up , noob.
gtotheft101 4 years ago
I've seen a few of these now, bu all I've seen are these things running. They don't do anything but go. If something like this works, then could it produce enough power to either heat itself or cool itself enough to run perpetually, or does it not work that way? Because if it could supply itself with the necessary change in heat to keep moving perpetually, and especially if it had surplus energy after that, this engine could have some amazing ramifications.
SeJoHu 4 years ago
Stirling built his first hot air engine in the early/mid 1800's. It's not perpetual motion. It is fueled by heat.
lilbrudder32 4 years ago
right, but could it run on heat to produce enough heat to keep itself running, threfore make it perpetual? Of is it not capable of doing that?
SeJoHu 4 years ago
all depends on the efficiency of your heat producer...
lilbrudder32 4 years ago
*NOTHING* is capable of doing that. It would defy the laws of physics. For *any* machine to operate, there *must* be an outside source of energy.
hyperkinetic 4 years ago
The *outside* source of energy that operates the machine is a difference in temperature.
Solar power is free energy, the temperature of a surface exposed to direect sunlight will be higher than that of one that is not exposed, the difference in the two temperatures is indeed convertable to energy.
68Elko 4 years ago
In theory yes, in practicality no. It would take all the power output of the engine, to produce enough heat to keep it running. WITHOUT takeing into consideration the effects of drag on the engine, this would be possible. The internal drag of the engine, reduces it's power output, therefore preventing it from makeing enough energy to keep it running.
salemcripple 4 years ago
If you did you'll be breaking Newton's Law of Conversation of Energy. If the engine could turn %100 of the heat to kinetic then 100% of this must need to be turned back into heat energy, else the engine would slow down. So where is your surplus energy come from?
richard1969UK 4 years ago
Look up a video called "Sterling Engines - Solves Energy Needs?". I have it in my favorites. It is a clip from PBS in L.A. The power company is building a facility in the desert that will generate MEGAWATTS based on this same principal.
hyperkinetic 4 years ago
Stirling engines run on a difference in temperature between 2 surfaces - they generally need a HOT side and a room temp side.
A well designed Stirling engine hooked upto a generator can be approx 25% efficient. In otherwords it will turn 100watts of HEAT energy into 25watts of ELECTRICAL energy.
If you then used that 25watts to power a heater and ran it through another Stirling engine, you would get only 6 watts of electrical.
Everytime you do it you loose 75% of your energy.
roidroid 4 years ago
They DO however use their own energy to power a fan to blow air onto their "room temp" side. As this side has to keep as close as possible to room temperature. If they didn't do this the "room temp" side would gradually get as hot as the "hot side" and you don't want that - You want the biggest temperature difference possible.
roidroid 4 years ago
The spelling is with an I. The Stirling engine was invented by the Reverend Dr Robert Stirling.
Making my own at the moment, thx for the vid!
errthum 4 years ago 2
These LTD Stirling Engines seem like they are clean engine, what is the fuel that keeps these engines running?
jbitar07 4 years ago
It's driven by heat transferring from the room to a bowl of iced water.
alexholden 4 years ago
Your videos are a mine of useful ideas for a metalworking fan like me! I have just ordered the book to try making this beautiful engine. I'm wondering if the power piston is made of graphite; it could be possible to use PTFE?
Thank you!
Rick from Italy.
Rickydado 4 years ago
Hi Rick, I think PTFE will cause lots of problems. It will swell with temperature, and machining it to the tolerances necessary will be difficult. If you don't have graphite then just use cast iron or even steel. It will work but not as well as graphite.
gmark1953 4 years ago
Thank you. Can you post the author's last name ?
Old eyes can't read it on the screen.
Would like to read the book.
Thanks again.
blange6 5 years ago
hi b, the author is Dr. James R. Senft. title: Low Temperature Differential Stirling Engines. try amazon. It is a no frills engine but easy to make.
gmark1953 5 years ago
Thank you. Great work.
blange6 5 years ago
Hi there, I was looking on youtube the other day hoping for videos of the Stirling 4-2-2 Steam locomotive and videos of these engine came up, I myself love science particularly physics and mechanical items, I only just came across this video today, this is a great machine you have here, after watching lots of videos and wanting to comment, it was this video that motivated me to sign up to type this just now.
I really want to make one of these, I just hope I can find a book somewhere near me.
Overpair 5 years ago
Nice work... bravo!
Can I ask how many hours its manufacture took up?
K
ZwolfZki 5 years ago
Hi K, thanks for the comments. i didn't keep track of the hours but i think it was a whole weekend plus a couple of hours every nite for a week. so maybe 36 hours. this engine wasn't too bad as far as time goes. some of them take hundreds of hours.
gmark1953 5 years ago
That is a quality job. I admire good engineering. Cant be certain where you are based but here in Britain the skills are being lost. I'm the only under 21 i know who can use a lathe. Today I'm considered fair but 15 years ago i've been rubbish.
Shotgunlemming 5 years ago
Hi shotgun,
im in florida, usa. thank you for watching the video. its nice to have someone appreciate the amount of work that goes into these things. we are losing our manual skills over here also. i hope somehow we can get the old timers to pass a little on before its gone forever. i hope you keep up your interest. you are young enough to make a big contribution.
gmark1953 5 years ago
HI Shotgun, I made one of these for my A level design and technology. Unfortuneatly, I only got a B as my folderwork wasn't up to scratch. I had a fairly rubbish lathe and found it easier using a pillar drill to make the piston using a graphite pencil from the art department. To answer a couple of other people's questions. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed.
henryauthers 2 years ago
how much run time do you have on that size bowl?
sm0ky40 5 years ago
smoky, it will run for about an hour but this is florida, condensation builds up in the cylinder and slows the piston down.
cassowaryind and cchance, thanks for the comments
gmark1953 5 years ago
I guess you have a machine shop to make these parts, I find it incredible
sm0ky40 5 years ago
BEAUTIFUL MACHINE
cchance 5 years ago
ex quality maching it is a credit to you.
cassowaryind 5 years ago