Stirling motor running on one ice cube

This Sterling motor is powered by the heat moving between the top and bottom plates, transferred by the expanding and contracting air inside the cylinder. This Ice cube weighed 0.6oz at the beginning of the run. Ice requires the addition of 144 BTU per pound to change state into water, so that's 9 BTU per ounce or 5.4 BTU for our little cube. Actually, the whole thing didn't melt so let's just say 5 BTU of energy was used to power this little motor. That's 1.47-ish Watts or 0.002 Horsepower!

Stirling motors are cool, but Not perpetual motion.

This motor is kit #6565 by Inpro Solar. It requires careful assembly. Not for small children.
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Contour HD camera
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Music: Rite of Passage by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons "Attribution 3.0" http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• stirling
• motor
• heat
• btu
• power