General Category > General Discussion
Stirling engine revolution
scott p:
So it looks like they did build a Stirling engine large enough to be installed in a car. Upside it was more efficient than its gasoline-powered counterpart. But it was not very responsive when throttled. The price of oil was so low and since the impact of pollution was not regarded the engine was not considered to be practical. Perhaps it is time to take another look.
It seems the stirling is practical at smaller applications.
Concerning the Wally wheel
Unfortunately I didn’t see the myth buster’s episode concerning the Minto wheel. I did though read the Minto wheel article put out by the Mother Earth magazine.
Bottom line, the wheel turns and it produces lots of torque. I don’t know what those back yard myth busters were doing but the Mother earth people put a lot of time and money into their wheel. It turned and it produced plenty of torque at a very low rpm. The mother people stated, I believe, their wheel was only good for one rpm in five minutes. It would be pretty hard to get anything useful out of that.
Wally Minto though, in his book, laid out the theoretical groundwork for developing a twenty-foot diameter wheel and concluded that it would turn about one rpm. Rpm is based on several different factors and is variable to a degree.
In reading his book it was obvious he put a lot of research and time into building his wheels. Other than running his wheel through an automotive rear end or transmission to get higher rpm he didn’t say much about going beyond that. He related his wheel to slow speed high torque applications such as pumping water or grinding grain.
As I said before I don’t know what the myth busters were doing or what the mother people were expecting.
If the ultimate goal was to generate a high-speed application from a shaft that is turning at one to five rpm they may have been approaching the problem from the wrong direction.
I missed an opportunity to purchase 15-volt wind generator that turned at 300 rpm. I have also seen a web page that demonstrated how to build permanent magnet wind generators. With their methods you can throw as many poles as you want into your generator. Four poles 1800 rpm, eight poles 900 rpm, 16 poles 450 rpm.
The heat required too vaporize a given amount of low boiling liquid such as propane or a refrigerant is not that great. You only need enough to pressurize the tank and force the remaining liquid up to the other container. Wally has a lot to say about designing a wheel.
I am posting the information I have.
If I were to undertake the construction of a wheel the first thing would be to connect a gearbox that could be run backwards. I have a 20 to one box that could be geared to give 40 rpm. I think that might be enough to run a slow speed generator of the required voltage to charge a battery bank. The higher the battery voltage the less amperage required.
Also inclosing the wheel in a sealed well-insulated building and burying a length of pipe in the ground to earth cool the wheel atmosphere. Perhaps an absorbent type of refrigerator could be used to drop cold air into the pipe to create a draft into the structure. Hopefully the draft would be enough to flush the heating portion of the system out side before it could affect the top of the wheel. Perhaps the excess heat could be channeled and vented and perhaps a cool draft would cool it down somwhat.
That hypothetical train of thought is as far as I am willing to go.
scott p:
We will see if this works. I resaved a win.doc to text only.
scott p:
Well, that didn't work very well.
scott p:
This place gives all the information I tried to attach earlier.
Wallace Minto: Freon Power Wheel - Rex Research
scott p:
Thanks for the input glort.
The gearbox I mention is about the size of a five gallon bucket. I would connect it backwards directly to the output shaft of the wheel to get 20 rpm or gear with a chain (again off the output shaft) one too two to get 40.
Anyway enough said about that. I read your PDF file about used veg oil. I have a couple hundred gallons of the stuff I collected years and years ago. It has been so overcooked it is almost black and nothing has settled out of it in all those years.
Would you run stuff like that in your engine? If being overcooked would that radically change the chemical makeup of the oil in a bad way ?
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