Gallery, Projects and General > Gallery

finally finished my first steam engine :-D

<< < (3/4) > >>

Bernd:
Jon,

The design of the engine is quite unique. Did you think this up or is it a composite of several engines that you used to build this?

May I suggest you get a ball valve to control the steam/air to the engine. You won't burn your fingers on the hot handle.  :thumbup: Any hardware store or home center should have those.

Regards,
Bernd

jonogt:
I see where you're comin' from now man... thanks for the heads-up, I needed it  :bang:  I was taking my photos and saw it on the shelf and figured I'd add a little mischievous pep to things.  Most here are old enough to have played with the stuff in their hands; I'm young enough to impulsively think it's a good show n' tell item for the internet  ::)
So to whom it may concern:   The substance is in a glass vial with a teflon sealed cap.  It resides in a location that is safe from accidental contact and naive curiousity.  It has not been opened since the day I filled it.  It will not be opened unless a specific need arises.  I obtained it purely for the marvel of chemistry that it is, and have no intentions of doing anything even slightly risky with it.  If an authority should see a need to confiscate it for public health and safety then I will hand it over.  No more photos of this, or any other edgy stuff, will be seen in my posts on these forums.


I'll take a look at those links later today.  If nothing else, I may just remove the gauge, and build a setup like what the PC originally had... a specific weight that sits on a hole of specific size and uses simple gravity by holding the steam back until the pressure is enough to lift the weight.  Again I'll ponder that later today.



Thanks for the tips, and thanks again for the heads up about posting edgy stuff.

-Jon



PS:  Bernd, I do have a ball valve at the tee coming off the pressure cooker.  I use that as course adjustment, and that little saddle valve as fine adjustment.  The saddle valve is actually crap for fine adjustment, but it's good enough.  The way i set up the intake with the pipe nipple and all I thought of on my own... the rest of the engine is kind of a melting pot from different plans and photos I've found on the internet.  I hope to start on my next engine soon, so I doubt I'm going to mess with improving much on this one, except for specific safety stuff with the pressure cooker.

sbwhart:
Hi Jon

Most of us chaps run our engines on compressed air:- it's not without its own particular hazards, but its a lot safer than  using a boiler, if you can get your hands on a cheep compressor I would do.

Have fun

Cheers

Stew

Bernd:
Jon,

Great. Your next engine, a plan from the mind or follwoing a specific plan?  :poke:

And we will require the obligatory photo assay along with your build sequence to see how you progress. :headbang:

Regards,
Bernd

jonogt:
sbwhart -

In my quest through youtube videos and online tutorials I have observed compressed air to be highly favored.  The first time I ran my engine, right after I finished it, was off a compressor in the shop.  Nothing had been adjusted yet and I was using cheap multi-purpose household oil as lubricant, and it still ran easier and smoother than I've gotten it to run on steam...I didn't have to worry about not touching hot parts or getting sprayed with steam, and it didn't make a big wet mess...I was walking around with a big stupid grin all day.............. 

But I couldn't bring myself to call it a steam engine.  I couldn't even call it a finished project.  The reality that its operation was completely dependent on a bigger and better piece of equipment (the compressor) kept me from getting a good night's sleep!  A few days later I got it crudely hooked to the pressure cooker... so crude and unsafe that that setup was never photographed, hopefully creating a means to an end of such compromises... and tried it out.  It was noisy and frequently spat hot water in random directions, not to mention an immediate 2 foot radius of soaked carpet surrounding the table it was on.  My roomate and I were literally ducked for the cover of our futon, like mobsters in a gunfight hiding behind a dinner table tipped on its side........... 

Through all this chaos and the cleanup that followed, I could not stop giggling with delight.  NOW I had built a steam engine.  Shortly after that I changed it into the current setup seen in the photos and things are 20-fold easier and safer.  It has to be set up tinkered with a bit and it still has some unexpected hot parts and it still can't run as fast or as smooth as it did on the compressor, but I'll forgo these luxuries to watch the little thing sputter and chug along the way its full-sized ancestors did in days of old.


I just realized what an excessively long and borderline cheesy/poetic response that turned into.  do feel free to chuckle about it if you are so inclined ::)



Bernd -

The next one is formulating about like this one did... studying many different plans, photos, descriptions, etc of models LIKE what I want to build to get a good understanding of the physics, then change it up based on materials I have, what I want it to look like, and what performance I want from it.  I'll be opening a different thread in the design shop or somewhere with some questions about it soon, as the gallery isn't really the place for planning future projects.  As you might guess from my response to sbwhart, it will be run mainly on steam, not compressed air.  I do however plan to BUILD a boiler for it, rather than improvising with the pressure cooker.  And yes, I'll try to take photos of the process, not just the finished product :thumbup:


cheers,
-Jon

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page