Tiny Stirling Engine

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NickG:
Hmm, good point Dave, I hadn't read that back but it was very misleading - apologies!

Might generate some more interest continuing on this theme though :lol:

Nick

Bogstandard:
Dave,

If you do a bit of searching on the web, the Stirling has progressed a lot further than people think.

Only a couple of weeks ago I was looking at plans from a few years ago of the stirlings that were used in the Space Shuttle program. Mainly for refrigeration systems. Again, a few years ago, Japanese students had a fully operational (and compact) motor vehicle using both solar power and very low emission and highly economical fuels driving a sterling engine for it's main source of traction.

We are rather far behind on the design of things with what we do.

Bogs

Russel:
I was doing a little looking around for mini stirling engines on the internet and found this:

Stirling Engine Motherboard Fans Powered by Waste Chip Heat

Talk about hightech! A stirling engine powered by microchip heat and used to cool said microchip!

NickG:
Pretty impressive stuff Bogs!

NickG:
Got a quick update tonight. I only managed 2 hours work, not pleased with the results but nevertheless it yielded 2 iffy components :bang:

I set about making the 2 bearing uprights, one is was to be soldered (I think actually I'll glue it some how instead as I don't want to mucky up and have to clean everything) and the other bolted to aid assembly.

I started by finding some suitable brass, as luck would have it I found some 1/16" plate which is what I had designed it for - some 3/8" wide strip would have been ideal but this would be ok.

I made a bit square and marked it out, first mistake was annealing it - this made it black and difficult to mark out.

Cut the two ends off and filed to size, then put in milling machine to drill bearing hole. Mistake 2 - managed to drill off centre and using a blunt drill made a massive burr on the other side.

At least the hole was sort of square, but this is so thin I can just give the holes a bit more clearance to reduce friction if anything is binding anyway.

I could use this rod to help me hold them together while I filed one side to make the hole central again - got bored of this to be honest and it's already 20 thou undersize on width now - doesn't really matter but it's frustrating.

My marking of the radius on the top had now gone so I had to do it by eye - filing button would probably have been the order of the day here but for 1 rad on this thin bit of metal it was hardly worth it.

Here are the finished bits, even managed to drill the other hole off centre for the bolt too. A pretty poor night really, lots of scratches in it too. :(

Final mistake was that I forgot I'd used 4mm instead of 4ba for the bolt, therefore my clearance hole isn't big enough, which means I couldn't do a trial assembly. By the looks of it I still have a burr on the top plate anyway so that'll need to go first.

I should really have paid more attention to these, because the flywheel sits between them, they are quite visible. I don't have time to go back and start re-making parts now though, I think I'd rather just prove the design if I can.

Well, that leaves me with 4 parts to make ... 2 small ends, crank and piston. So 2-3 more nights at least, hopefully I'll be finished on Friday. I will probably need to re-make or modify the displacer though which will be too heavy.

When I was eating my bacon sandwich from the canteen on Friday it occurred to me that the box may be the sort of material people were talking about:

Or alternatively, the lid I stole from the fridge could be used to seal up my nylon displacer after I have attacked it with a drill!

Nick

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