The magnetic coupling and resulting snap action of the displacer piston is beautiful in its simplicity (eliminating a mechanical linkage and less than ideal cyclic movement) as is the incorporation of a regenerator in the displacement piston. Bravo!
Underrated comment! The magnet and the regenerator through the displacer are extremely novel features. I don't think I've seen this before in my decades long survey of Stirling engines. Still seems to be a bit noisy so that would be the next thing to optimize maybe? I figure that noise is lost power. My other projects are starting to give me dirty looks because they know I have to build one of these now, dangit. ;)
For $100 I would expect a Stirling engine that works from body heat. In any case why buy a kit when building one yourself is much more rewarding. It's one of my many projects this year. (other projects include a Forth Operating System, learning German, re-learning Calculus, etc... I'll be happy if I've done one of them in by the end of the year. )
+SlyPearTree To get this engine to run off body heat (similar to the heat of your hand engines) you would receive a nobel prize for physics - there is too little surface area on the top and bottom plates and too little working gas. It is the smallest low temp stirling engine on the planet.
Great little engine, I might build one in the winter monthsm to sit along side my other in the living room where it gets run most days.. Good videos as well, Thanks, Cheers, Pete
wonnderful...! supported by saving size (portable) and not dangerous because working not on the flame... but it would be better whether you give the tutorial 'how to build it' on your hand truely... Thnks(Y)
They will work on cold water ... All it needs is a differential in temp between top and bottom plate it doesn't care which is hot or cold. I have a similar but larger LTD ( not my design) that has been running nonstop for over 4 years on a warming plate at 90f . Have run it on both heat and cold.
Great achievement, well done. I guess it's understandable that some commenters don't understand why it's harder to make a very small one than a bigger one. And they could be made for a much lower price if there was a huge enough market to justify investing in million dollar robots, which there isn't. The bit that particularly interests me is that your use of magnetic coupling gives a sort of "snap action" motion, which I'd guess is more efficient than other commoner linkages. Did this come from analysis of the thermodynamics, or just as a way of simplifying the machine? A guess? I'd guess it's better, within a certain temperature range, magnets don't like getting hot.
+Ray Kent Hi Ray, it was just a way of the simplifying the machine, it lowers the amount of friction by getting rid of the displacer rod plus it ensures a more airtight seal within the displacer cylinder. I wouldn't be one for thermodynamic analysis etc, i'm a bit too old school for that :)
YTEngineer haha! me too! Carnot cycle? Well there's a great bike shop near me, but they don't sell one of them. I am intrigued by the geometrical fact that scaling of volume and surface area for a single gas chamber seems to lead to the conclusion that Stirling engines can be (ideally) more efficient when smaller. Will we see 1000 cylinder nano-stirlings in the future? I am quite mad, and a little drunk... but maybe.
+Ray Kent I was just thinking about that last night when I came across this gem of a channel. I have a suspicion that different size pistons, or I guess you could say power dense (less pistons per power) engines would optimize at different temperatures... which might be further refined by choosing chamber gas based on thermal conductivity. +YTEngineer you think its possible to rig up a fluid version based on existing automotive engines, where the hot element replaces the head, and the engine operates at vaporization point of the fluid?
Intelligent Designs yeah, the scaling problem is that you need to get heat into and out of the air chamber, and nobody's come up with a way which doesn't depend upon surface area, which scales according to a square law. But the power output depends on volume , which scales with a cube law. The bigger, the worse, small is beautiful. Multiple stirlings scale linearly, two of the same size have twice the area and twice the volume. I'm guessing that the idea you propose is to do with an engine involving phase change between liquid and gaseous states. More like a steam engine? Maybe a hybrid?
This is really neat. I just have one question. Don't the magnets lose their magnetization with the heat, and decrease the power output over time? It is still a creative idea, though. Thanks for sharing. I know how much effort and skill it takes to build a small sterling engine that actually works.
$15 to $20 in parts, tops. $80 markup? Look this is cool and all, but stop being so sickeningly greedy. If you made the price reasonable you would sell 20 times as many, which would make up for the difference in price. Your price policy will mean the difference between selling hundreds of these, or tens of thousands or more. Robbing people is unethical.
Ultimist,before you start judging people as being greedy you might want to do some research. The piston and cylinder alone is higher than 15-20$. Then there's the rest of the engine including the plastic body,aluminium discs,several micro bearings,over twenty screws & the copper mesh. This engine also takes well over two hours to assemble. Hastily judging people is unwise.
YTEngineer I think these are cool. People are used to buying cheap mass produced junk from China for $5.00. The price you charge seems about right, ignore the haters.
I believe that they mention on the website that the borosilicate piston chamber [not cheap material] and the graphite piston [not cheap material] need to be machined together to ensure that they are an exact, airtight fit that still allows the piston to move freely. You can't do that with a lathe. You're going to need to perform some mechanical polishing to take off material a micrometer at a time.
The magnetic coupling and resulting snap action of the displacer piston is beautiful in its simplicity (eliminating a mechanical linkage and less than ideal cyclic movement) as is the incorporation of a regenerator in the displacement piston. Bravo!
Underrated comment! The magnet and the regenerator through the displacer are extremely novel features. I don't think I've seen this before in my decades long survey of Stirling engines.
Still seems to be a bit noisy so that would be the next thing to optimize maybe? I figure that noise is lost power.
My other projects are starting to give me dirty looks because they know I have to build one of these now, dangit. ;)
Nice CADing , great engineering, great animations
For $100 I would expect a Stirling engine that works from body heat. In any case why buy a kit when building one yourself is much more rewarding. It's one of my many projects this year. (other projects include a Forth Operating System, learning German, re-learning Calculus, etc... I'll be happy if I've done one of them in by the end of the year. )
+SlyPearTree To get this engine to run off body heat (similar to the heat of your hand engines) you would receive a nobel prize for physics - there is too little surface area on the top and bottom plates and too little working gas. It is the smallest low temp stirling engine on the planet.
Impressive and self-starting even more!
motor movido a ar,cade o inventor,esse merece um nóbel por não poluirmos mais o mundo,magnífico
Very impressive ingenuity. Thanks for sharing with us!
Great little engine, I might build one in the winter monthsm to sit along side my other in the living room where it gets run most days.. Good videos as well, Thanks, Cheers, Pete
WTF I was doing in school all this years!!! I understood nothing... But I love that thing
Did you come up with the idea of using magnets yourself? It's brilliant.
wonnderful...! supported by saving size (portable) and not dangerous because working not on the flame... but it would be better whether you give the tutorial 'how to build it' on your hand truely... Thnks(Y)
very cool....brilliantly engineered too...nice. now if you got one to work on cold water....hmmmmm :)
+100roberthenry I'm working on it :)
They will work on cold water ... All it needs is a differential in temp between top and bottom plate it doesn't care which is hot or cold. I have a similar but larger LTD ( not my design) that has been running nonstop for over 4 years on a warming plate at 90f . Have run it on both heat and cold.
Greetings I would like to see a bigger version that is really effecient
Great achievement, well done. I guess it's understandable that some commenters don't understand why it's harder to make a very small one than a bigger one. And they could be made for a much lower price if there was a huge enough market to justify investing in million dollar robots, which there isn't. The bit that particularly interests me is that your use of magnetic coupling gives a sort of "snap action" motion, which I'd guess is more efficient than other commoner linkages. Did this come from analysis of the thermodynamics, or just as a way of simplifying the machine? A guess? I'd guess it's better, within a certain temperature range, magnets don't like getting hot.
+Ray Kent Hi Ray, it was just a way of the simplifying the machine, it lowers the amount of friction by getting rid of the displacer rod plus it ensures a more airtight seal within the displacer cylinder. I wouldn't be one for thermodynamic analysis etc, i'm a bit too old school for that :)
YTEngineer haha! me too! Carnot cycle? Well there's a great bike shop near me, but they don't sell one of them. I am intrigued by the geometrical fact that scaling of volume and surface area for a single gas chamber seems to lead to the conclusion that Stirling engines can be (ideally) more efficient when smaller. Will we see 1000 cylinder nano-stirlings in the future? I am quite mad, and a little drunk... but maybe.
+Ray Kent I was just thinking about that last night when I came across this gem of a channel. I have a suspicion that different size pistons, or I guess you could say power dense (less pistons per power) engines would optimize at different temperatures... which might be further refined by choosing chamber gas based on thermal conductivity.
+YTEngineer you think its possible to rig up a fluid version based on existing automotive engines, where the hot element replaces the head, and the engine operates at vaporization point of the fluid?
Intelligent Designs yeah, the scaling problem is that you need to get heat into and out of the air chamber, and nobody's come up with a way which doesn't depend upon surface area, which scales according to a square law. But the power output depends on volume , which scales with a cube law. The bigger, the worse, small is beautiful. Multiple stirlings scale linearly, two of the same size have twice the area and twice the volume. I'm guessing that the idea you propose is to do with an engine involving phase change between liquid and gaseous states. More like a steam engine? Maybe a hybrid?
This is really neat. I just have one question. Don't the magnets lose their magnetization with the heat, and decrease the power output over time? It is still a creative idea, though. Thanks for sharing. I know how much effort and skill it takes to build a small sterling engine that actually works.
Huh… you know, that's probably why the website says not to let this come in direct contact with hot water, and not to run it using anything hotter.
very cool. have to save up for one.
Nice, you have my deepest good envy!! thanks for posting/
This thing is great!
Really cool!
This is really nice
This is amazing!
How about making a inline 6 cylinder one :D, all six can use the same chamber heat
Hi... gret videos...
What software do you use to design the 3D models... and edit the videos ???
Can you make a video about this topics...
Thx
I would suggest using a hot plate as long as it's not too hot
very nice
what a sweet thing that :) greetings
It's so cute
i want this !
bạn thật là giỏi tôi rất thích nó
How does it run on heat?
great
Guuuua mucho bueno jajaja good job
neat
What program do you use to model?
3d studio max
You could use a bigger version of this engine to power a torpedo...I think.
Do you have bigger scale? I want to buy a bigger scale
muito bom
要热水的吧
still dont get it how it works~
i want to get it tell me how to ger Fr u
Will it run on liquid nitrogen?
AMAZING. Tesla deserves more respect...
Jesus...
$15 to $20 in parts, tops. $80 markup? Look this is cool and all, but stop being so sickeningly greedy. If you made the price reasonable you would sell 20 times as many, which would make up for the difference in price. Your price policy will mean the difference between selling hundreds of these, or tens of thousands or more. Robbing people is unethical.
Ultimist,before you start judging people as being greedy you might want to do some research. The piston and cylinder alone is higher than 15-20$. Then there's the rest of the engine including the plastic body,aluminium discs,several micro bearings,over twenty screws & the copper mesh. This engine also takes well over two hours to assemble. Hastily judging people is unwise.
YTEngineer I think these are cool. People are used to buying cheap mass produced junk from China for $5.00. The price you charge seems about right, ignore the haters.
I believe that they mention on the website that the borosilicate piston chamber [not cheap material] and the graphite piston [not cheap material] need to be machined together to ensure that they are an exact, airtight fit that still allows the piston to move freely.
You can't do that with a lathe. You're going to need to perform some mechanical polishing to take off material a micrometer at a time.