Build A Better Stirling Engine PDF
Build A Better Stirling Engine PDF
Build A Better Stirling Engine PDF
Table of Contents
Step 1: Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Related Instructables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
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Author:marshon Marshon
Untidy, disorganised and a bit silly.
I am a photographer, artist, body artist, sculptor, prosthetic maker, model engineer, and general idiot who likes making stuff and messing about.
The main difference between this one and the first one I made was the diffuser cylinder. This one would use a longer, thinner cylinder with an aluminium piston. I also
decided to use metal where possible on this one and have roller bearings. The diffuser cylinder would be bolted on allowing strip down of the machine and a rubber
gasket to hold the seal.
CLIP
Step 1: Materials
For this engine I used the following materials:
The reason for the not shown items is ..... at this point I haven't acquired them yet!
I decided to simplify the con-rods for this engine. I went down to the model shop and bought some more 2.5mm tube and some 1.5mm rod. These two can be slid into
each other. The piston connecting rod is 2mm steel from an old printer. To make the connectors I simply crushed 4mm of the tube flat in the vice, then cut it off at 10mm.
Drilled the flat 2mm and slid it on to the piston connecting rod.
The diffuser cylinder is a length of 22mm copper pipe (1" should do). The pipe needs to be cut to length as depending on the length of the piston and the stroke of the
crankshaft.:
The piston must have a gap all around it in the cylinder, the idea is that as the piston moves, air flows around it from one end of the cylinder to the other heating and
cooling as it goes. There should be a gap at the sides of at least a couple of millimetres. I wanted to use a metal piston so that I could use a tea light candle to run the
engine.
I found an aluminium bodied marker pen that was around 16mm across. This left a gap of about 2mm either side when slid into the tube. Ideal. I cut the pen in half and
removed the innerds which were discarded. The plastic end was broken off and cleaned with the Dremel to leave a nice round hole. Then I worked out the length of the
required piston. A guess but I went for 65mm. To make the piston I cut the rear portion down to give the overall dimension I wanted, then I slid a short section of 15mm
plastic plumbing tube into the end a glued it using super-glue gel. The other piece of the pen was then slid onto the other end of the plumb fitting and secured with super-
glue gel. This gave a lightweight air-tight piston. The open end was fitted with an aluminium plug pre-drilled for the con-rod. That completed the diffuser piston.
Now I wanted to be able to strip and re-assemble this engine so as few glued joints as possible. You could use a plain solder end cap on one end of your cylinder, but
because of the soldered bolts I didn't want to disturb with more heating I used a compression fitting. This will become the hot end. Next I sourced 4 brass motherboard
mounting bolts from a scrap yard PC. These come in a number of thread sizes, most common sizes are M3 fine thread or M3 course thread but there are some imperial
ones around. the trick is to find 4 the same (which should be the case if they came from the same PC). Find 4 bolts that fit the threads. These need to be at least 15mm
long. If they are metric you should have no trouble finding bolts. If they are imperial suck it and see.
Cut off the threaded part of the bolt, leaving just the brass 'nut' which should be about 6mm long. We are going to solder these onto the cold end of our cylinder and then
use them to bolt the cylinder to the chassis. If you manage to solder them at exactly 90 degrees each then you don't need to mark the cylinder. I didn't trust my accuracy
so I scribed a top mark so that each time the cylinder is bolted up it will go back in the same place allowing for misalignment of the soldered stand-offs.
I made a simple wooden jig to hold everything in place. i tinned the bolts and one end of the pipe and then used a micro pen torch to solder the bolts on. I tested bolting it
all up before going back to finish the chassis.
With the exception of the con-rods this completes the cylinders and pistons.
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Step 3: Main Chassis
Assembling the main chassis.
This engine differs from the last in that the cool plate will house a separate diffuser and power cylinder one either side. Both will be sealed in their own right and linked by
some tubing.
The chassis is made up of a sandwich of four plates. Two heat-sinks (they had power transistors on them) from a TV I found in the scrap yard. They have pre-drilled
holes in them from the transistor mounts and are identical. This means that I can reverse and screw them together to form a single thick plate with the cooling fins on.
Each cylinder is formed from the copper tubing, the power cylinder is soldered to a Paxolin board that is bolted to the two heat-sinks. The diffuser cylinder will be bolted to
a second Paxolin board and bolted to the chassis via a gasket. This should enable me to seal the two cylinders and then simply link them with some tubing. (I hope).
I cleaned up the two heat-sinks with the Dremel to ensure good mechanical contact between them. I cut and marked out the two Paxolin boards, then drilled the power
cylinder board to bolt to the heat-sink.
The diffuser cylinder board was marked up and drilled for the bearing and the feeder tube, then tacked on with super-glue. The four mounting bolt holes were drilled
through and then the two feeder tubes were soldered into place. The power cylinder was soldered on and the nylon bearing for the diffuser piston glued in.
Finally the feeder tube was connected up. That completes the main chassis assembly
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Step 4: The Flywheel and Boss
I wanted to make the engine look nice, so I decided to try and make an elegant flywheel.
I had found an old brass centre from a defunct CD or DVD player, then I downloaded a protractor template from the net and marked lines at 0, 120 and 240 degrees to
give three equal spokes. I still had the top ring of a food container I had cut down for my first Stirling, so I used that as the flywheel outer ring. You could cut a ring from 3"
plastic drainpipe instead.
I placed the brass boss onto the protractor with double sided tape and then measured and cut 3 lengths of 1.5mm brass rod from my stock. These were then supported
on some levelling materials and soldered to the centre boss. The outer ring was laid onto the protractor and marked then drilled 1.5mm to accept the spokes. Because
the ring is slightly flexible it was easy to deform it enough to force the spokes through. Once it was all back in shape and trued up on the protractor, the spokes were
super-glued into the ring.
A piece of 10mm aluminium was cut to size and drilled ready to accept the crankshaft. It was then super-glued onto the brass boss.
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Step 5: The Support Pillar and Bearings
Recognition for the idea for the support pillar and bearings must go to eVolti which was an inspired bit of 'ible.
I decided to use a very similar system, just a bit simpler in execution.
Using the head arm and bearings from the HDD that I got the platters from for my LTD engine, I drilled the shaft 2.5mm to accept the crankshaft. The head had originally
had four read arms, three of these were ground off with the Dremel and all the ancillary coils, wire and the actual heads were removed.
The arm was carefully ground to fit a piece of aluminium channel, then the channel was drilled and the arm bolted to it. A little epoxy glue was added for a really good
strong joint.
The channel was cut 60mm long, but you can set the size to whatever you require.
The bottom of the channel was bolted to the third heat-sink I found in the old TV which had a good 90 degree bend in it. The bend will be bolted to the main chassis plate.
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Step 6: The Crankshaft
The crankshaft consists of a short length of 2.5mm tube. This is passed through the bearing head and carries a flywheel on one side and the cranks on the other.
The cranks are formed from 15mm disks of brass. You could cut these off a piece of brass bar, as I intended to do, but whilst I was in the plumbing section of the
hardware store buying the compression end cap for the diffuser cylinder I came across a pack of four 15mm 'blanking caps' for 79p. These will do the job very well.
I drilled the centres of three of the caps 2.5mm to accept the shaft, then I drilled 1.5mm offset by 5mm from the centre for the crank rods. This will give a stroke of 10mm.
The first disk was slid onto one end of the shaft and soldered in place. The distance between the cylinders (26mm) was marked onto the shaft and the pair of disks for the
second crank were slid on and soldered in place.
The crank rods were slid into the disks, the con-rod connectors slid onto the rods and then the rods were soldered.
Finally the extra metal on the rods and the main shaft of the crank were ground out using the Dremel. The shaft was secured to the bearing using some super-glue gel
and the flywheel fitted.
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Step 7: Final Assembly
I made up a small connector for the diffuser piston, then the con-rods were measured and cut to length. These were then glued into position using super-glue gel.
The engine was tested and adjusted to ensure that everything turns freely, and for balance. The flywheel will need some work to get better balance but the engine should
work.
I need to make a stand so that it can be positioned above a tea light candle but that can wait.
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Comments
45 comments Add Comment
See
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/02/29/stirling-engine-moth.html
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6raleyh says: Jul 26, 2010. 7:07 AM REPLY
Hi Would you be able to post a video of this model working? Thanks
http://www.amazon.com/Stirling-Hot-Air-Engines-Darlington/dp/186126688X
I might look into getting this book. Ive been working on my own version of yours for a while, Ive spent 14 bucks so far (since my last comment anyway).
http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-Better-Stirling-Engine/
marshon says: Jun 18, 2010. 4:11 AM REPLY
I'm no engineer, and certainly didn't work anything out using gas flow thermal dynamics. You'd need to ask someone who knows about these things.
However, over the two first experimental engines I have found that (testing them to destruction) the limiting factors are mechanical design, and
temperature (differential). The LTD ran between about 50 RPM and 300 RPM before the temperature started to soften and deform the walls of the
diffuser cylinder (made from a plastic tub). I am working on a glass cylinder to improve this. The metal engine shown here runs between about 200 and
700 RPM but the bearing for the diffuser decided to bind and this bent the crankshaft and the con-rod, so I'm working on improvements here too. The
torque and therefore the power is more dependant on the temperature and the speed at which the air can be heated and cooled effectively. I have no
idea as to the Newton Lbs Ft figure, but for these small engines it would be quite low. Theoretically, these engines could be nearly as powerful as a
steam engine, but that would depend on materials and design. Eventually I'm aiming to build one to drive a squirrel cage fan for a forge.
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deformed, but it was long enough I just cut the weird part off. Hope this helps! BTW, its super cheap! Its like $5 for a stick 10cm long and about an
inch in diameter! Better then anything else I saw at Canadian Tire! Also added a picture of mine...I don't really like the grey color...but its a piston,
color doesn't affect performance! :D
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