My "Custom" Stirling Engine Workshop

[Tom Booth]

https://youtu.be/ya9tDXIXSYs

Getting this thing safely home and down into the workshop is probably 3/4ths of the battle.

Should be able to do some real testing on this engine and get going on all the other projects I have lined up.

[Tom Booth]

Getting things organized:

Resize_20220917_002513_3031.jpg (199.45 KiB) Viewed 8347 times

Resize_20220917_012013_3271.jpg (176.92 KiB) Viewed 8347 times

[Tom Booth]

With all the uncertainties, things have been on hold as far as opening up a storefront, but as life returns to some semblance of normalcy we got the necessary permit and are putting up our sign.

https://youtu.be/cP3Wup4WG9g

The street level will be a kind of vendor space for handcrafts and a Farmers market. (And of course, Stirling engines) The Stirling engine workshop is on the lower level which actually extends slightly under the sidewalk where you see me there on the ladder, all the way to the back of the building which overlooks a portion of the old Erie Canal.

In the old days goods were delivered by horse drawn Packet Boats, up the river/canal to the back of the building, so the name "Old Packet Boat Market".

[ifishtoo]

I want one. How much for a set of plans? Is there other documentation available?

Where did this engine come from? Would you care to share the story? If typing is as hard for you as it is for me you might try the chrome plugin "voice in" by dictanote. #notsponsored I just hoping it will help make it easier for you to share what'ss going on.

Peace

[Tom Booth]

I want one. How much for a set of plans? Is there other documentation available?

Where did this engine come from? Would you care to share the story? If typing is as hard for you as it is for me you might try the chrome plugin "voice in" by dictanote. #notsponsored I just hoping it will help make it easier for you to share what'ss going on.

Peace

I assume you mean the 3kw. That was apparently a prototype or test engine from late in the period mentioned in this video.

https://youtu.be/EBidoWN-9Us?si=BZQl-XisVOvStv4T

This engine looks identical and even has the same type of green inspection tag as seen in the video.

Resize_20231211_165950_0391.jpg (112.85 KiB) Viewed 6860 times

Resize_20231211_170303_3482.jpg (145.51 KiB) Viewed 6860 times

As far as I know, the company went bankrupt before these engines ever went into production.

It was obtained from another forum member who found it for sale on eBay.

Documentation is pretty scant, but what we know has all been posted to this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5463

[ifishtoo]

I found this pic in the document I have linked here https://cdn.newswire.com/files/x/16/dc/ ... 8fa431.pdf. Does this add to the treasure trove of info?

[ifishtoo]

qnergy has them for sale. They call it a remote power genset. They use different fuels to generate electricity for the oil and gas industry. https://qnergy.com/contact/

[ifishtoo]

Can you intend to share the pics and dimensions record during the tear down? For sure I would like to contribute what little I can afford. That is remarkably small before a 3 kilowatt generator. I am dying to know how they made it so efficient. There's an awful lot of documentation available from NASA and SunPower.https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA607481.pdf

[Tom Booth]

qnergy has them for sale. They call it a remote power genset. They use different fuels to generate electricity for the oil and gas industry.

One big problem with the early prototypes was that they were designed to operate using off the shelf components to make them adaptable to virtually any situation.

The linear generator, for example delivers "RAW" unregulated high frequency alternating current which is completely unusable directly from the unit, so it is necessary to rectify the high voltage AC to DC then from DC an off the shelf inverter designed for a high voltage photovoltaic system can be used to convert the DC, which can be stored in batteries back to whatever AC is required. 110 volt or 220. 50 hertz or 60.or whatever.

Qnergy took care of that "problem" with a proprietary control unit.

Another big problem was that Infinia had intentions of.using the automotive industry to mass produce these engines on auto industry assembly lines making them affordable for just about anybody who wanted one.

https://vimeo.com/44817732

Now we really couldn't have that. Giving people their own "free" solar power generators as charitable donations and such. Good God man. Imagine the impact on the worlds economy! These things could go viral, everybody would want one.

[Tom Booth]

It seems from this article, that the four Stirling power dishes were delivered and worked as promised up until the time of publication at least.

Four solar power dishes donated by the Infinia Corporation now help provide about half the facility's energy needs—no small feat in the winter months because the therapy pool is a constant 89 degrees year round.

https://outsidebozeman.com/culture/arou ... /fly-eagle

And Bozeman Montana is in the northern part of the United States, so not the sunniest location in the world.

[Tom Booth]

I mean, that, four dishes, half of 100,000

50,000/4 = $12,500 at 2010 rates

Seems like one dish could handle just about anybody's household energy needs.

No big secret to the power output. Modest pressurization with helium, flexure bearings for frictionless operation and a multiple pronged linear generator. That is, several magnets and coils arranged around a central hub.

[stephenz]

The linear generator, for example delivers "RAW" unregulated high frequency alternating current which is completely unusable directly from the unit, so it is necessary to rectify the high voltage AC to DC then from DC an off the shelf inverter designed for a high voltage photovoltaic system can be used to convert the DC, which can be stored in batteries back to whatever AC is required. 110 volt or 220. 50 hertz or 60.or whatever.

what do you mean?
let me put it this way how many wires "power" coming out of the unit?

[Tom Booth]

The linear generator, for example delivers "RAW" unregulated high frequency alternating current which is completely unusable directly from the unit, so it is necessary to rectify the high voltage AC to DC then from DC an off the shelf inverter designed for a high voltage photovoltaic system can be used to convert the DC, which can be stored in batteries back to whatever AC is required. 110 volt or 220. 50 hertz or 60.or whatever.

what do you mean?
let me put it this way how many wires "power" coming out of the unit?

Just 2 I believe are power out. Quit thin wire, considering the wattage. That would put the amperage quite low and the voltage high. About 440 volts at full power I'm guessing. That would keep the current under 10 Amps. The high voltage and low amperage would make carrying 3000 watts possible. Such thin wire would no doubt burn up otherwise.

The end with the displacer and power piston is relatively long and narrow while the generator end is relatively short and fat, unlike the earlier models 1 KW and under.

I have confirmation that a "star" type linear generator was used, but not the proprietary "star" brand linear generator but something like it if a bit clunkier.

See the two posts on this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1585&p=18015#p18014

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1585&p=18015#p18015

[stephenz]

that's super strange, but who knows.
are you sure these 2 wires are the output?
maybe there are no wires but terminals instead?

I tried looking at your videos again but couldn't really locate what might have been output terminals.

[Tom Booth]

There are some interesting casual remarks in this article that could be taken as tentative specifications. These things do need to be verified

https://www.machinedesign.com/markets/e ... nditioning

This generates single-phase ac power on both in and out strokes. The magnet’s motion is damped as it moves past the magnets, and this damping, together with the gas and mechanical springs sets up a balanced system oscillating at a resonant frequency. A rectifier converts the ac power to dc, then an inverter converts it back to grid-quality, three-phase ac electricity. Calculations show that the PowerDish converts 24% of all the incoming sunlight into electricity, making it more efficient than most other commercial solar devices.

“To generate grid-quality ac out of the generator would be costly and complicated,” says Talda. “So accepting nongrid-quality ac gives us lower manufacturing costs on the generators. We also want this to be a global product, so for grid-quality power, we would need 50 and 60-Hz systems, This lets us sell worldwide without having different generators. However, we do lose about 5% of the power going from ac to dc, then back to ac. But photovoltaic systems routinely lose 20% of the power when converting electricity to grid-quality ac.”

Kind of anecdotally I found an eBay military surplus type supplier I was able to source some Infinia parts from. He had, along with the Infinia stuff, an off the shelf solar inverter it was an older model standard off the shelf 'Sunny Boy" solar inverter.