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sterling engine


sailor mcgee

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hey,

 

i need your help, i am designing an experimental sterling engine for electricity generation in winter, my idea is to use the backboiler of a fire to passivly pump heat round a central heating system and include in that system a coil of pipe or a hollow chamber on top of a sterling engine, this creates a heat difference between the bottom of the canal (which can be freezing) and the warmth of the hot water on the boat meaning the engine will turn and some electricity may be generated to help the battery when the diesil is not working as the canal is too cold.

for this
I need to know how cold the water is in different situations eg the canal water in a marina may be a degree warmer than on top the penine mountains; can you throw a thermometer overboard on your boat and record water tempriture every morning between 6 and 8am once a week over winter?  or for liveabords as often as you can?

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I have a Stirling engine in my Whispergen it runs at burner  degrees C in the top chamber[exhaust is at 400 c] and liquid nitrogen in the bottom! it creates 70 amps at 12 volts and works well I suspect you may be onto a hiding to nothing with your plans but have some fun trying because you might get lucky

5 minutes ago, Mad Harold said:

What's a Sterling engine?

google it they are fun

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2 minutes ago, peterboat said:

I have a Stirling engine in my Whispergen it runs at burner  degrees C in the top chamber[exhaust is at 400 c] and liquid nitrogen in the bottom! it creates 70 amps at 12 volts and works well I suspect you may be onto a hiding to nothing with your plans but have some fun trying because you might get lucky

google it they are fun

have you tried to generate any electricty with a sterling engine? they are used in renewables in spain. they generate electric and used on swedish ships and submarines to the point where the americans where impressed and leased the submarine fleet for a time to improve thier own engines. mock me if you wish.

1 minute ago, WotEver said:

Not using the 50C difference between central heating pipes and the canal it can’t. 

hot water would be 100c and so even if the water in the canal is 10c or-10c then itd be still generating energy. more than 50c difference

 

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14 minutes ago, sailor mcgee said:

have you tried to generate any electricty with a sterling engine? they are used in renewables in spain. they generate electric and used on swedish ships and submarines to the point where the americans where impressed and leased the submarine fleet for a time to improve thier own engines. mock me if you wish.

hot water would be 100c and so even if the water in the canal is 10c or-10c then itd be still generating energy. more than 50c difference

 

I have used mine for 6000 hours, making electric and 5 KW of hot water, I am just installing a new one, but a 24 volt model and with luck this one will be just as good, as you can imagine I know a great deal about stirling engines over the years of my ownership of one!

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1 minute ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Me too, but the low temperature differential Stirling cycle engine only develops microscopic amounts of power. Ecofan territory. 

Agree. I got a massive wood fire going and ok the fans smoking but at low delta temps forget it.

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4 minutes ago, sailor mcgee said:

physics disagrees

Always open to pursuation. Link please. I have two engines. One has more rotational mass and struggles to spin enough torque to overcome friction despite loading more wood fuel to bring the base temp up. It could be the heat transfer is not efficient in my set up. Sort of makes me think you need to scale right up to silly sizes to get useful power output.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by mark99
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1 minute ago, sailor mcgee said:

ill make one. that may show you

 

It certainly will. I'll be staggered in fact as I think it can't be done using hot water and cold water with a typical delta T of perhaps 80C as the energy source.

 

What Wattage output are you planning your Stirling cycle engine powered generator will deliver?  

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Just now, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

It certainly will. I'll be staggered in fact as I think it can't be done using hot water and cold water with a typical delta T of perhaps 80C as the energy source.

 

What Wattage output are you planning your Stirling cycle engine powered generator will deliver?  

i dont know yet, i am going to make it with a few ceramic bearings so it moves efficiently, i asked a few friends in one of the sigs i am a member of for help

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4 minutes ago, peterboat said:

It doesnt Mike has a stirling engined whispergen as well, we both know how they work, and when the heat differential is very small they produce little power, but copious amounts of hot water

 

Red herring.

The OP is claiming hers will generate useful amounts of electricity, using hot water in the first place as the energy source. Our Whispergens have an electrical power output of 750W, using a delta T of about 800C 

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1 minute ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Red herring.

The OP is claiming hers will generate useful amounts of electricity, using hot water in the first place as the energy source. Our Whispergens have an electrical power output of 750W, using a delta T of about 800C 

I know Mike thats why I said to her have fun making it ? anyway you have jumped the LifePo4 route at long last

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3 minutes ago, sailor mcgee said:

i dont know yet, i am going to make it with a few ceramic bearings so it moves efficiently, i asked a few friends in one of the sigs i am a member of for help

 

I'll be delighted if you can demonstrate one. I'm always willing to turn my opinion 180 degrees on a sixpence when I'm proved wrong!

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