Stirlingengineforum.com

Dear everybody, i joined this forum about 1 month,and realise it is very good and usefull for everyone who are concern on stirling engine. There is many people in here ready to share, reply and guide the other to complete their engine. But i feel it is not enough because it is passive. My idea is building a topic which always on top to show engine of members which can operate, even drawing and size formular for other people can open wide their stirling engine knowledge. This will make the forum more copious and more usefull. This is only my opinion to develop the forum.

My opion:
I think this is a small part in the structure of the items of forum discussion.
And it could be done more.

The fact is that there is NOT a "Stirling engine", there are many.
You can make different categories (which in fact emerge from the debate), for the production:
The prototypes built "cans and wires."
The prototypes at low temperature.
The prototypes "aesthetically beautiful" (brass handles and levers that shine)
The prototype high-temperature
The prototypes under pressure
The prototypes where "you are going to detect a power"
The prototypes of dimensions of power exceeding 220 W
Each one of these categories (or combinations..) produces very different problems and overall solutions, that make it difficult ...to believe that the other categories relate to the same Stirling cycle.
In the category concerned, it ends up being a few persons interested.
I am allowable to explain my views on the distinction of these categories.

With regard to processing them (calculations, the study of thermodynamic cycles, scaling assumptions on the size) that is little discussed, or only in an elementary way in this forum, (and scaling would be good to talk more about it).
In fact, as we understand from the splitting of the categories, the Stirling engine can deal with the side that wants to get that "what is rewarding."
In other forums I saw that the Stirling engine is an opportunity for fulfillment of pure thermodynamic mathematical development, or operation and programming of mechanical hy-tech CNC, or TIG welding, ...this is less interesting for me.

My only idea is to have a "files" section where we can upload all the documents we find that are public domain, so we don't have to follow dead links and removed websites. A central database would be nice on this site. Most of what we find are already public domain, anyways. I doubt copyright infringement is possible, since we would not be selling anything for profit or production.

If the forum had say 10 times the usage it has (meaning post), dividing the forum into sections may make sense.

However with this forum, most of the post would not be seen if the forums were divided into smaller sections (other main categories).

On any forums, the "main forum" gets all the traffic because many people who visit never look at the "smaller main forums". In many cases, they don't even know they are there so they get missed. Hence no traffic or views in those smaller forums and they die off. So people out of fear will not post topics in a higher level forum that will not get seen, so they either don't or they post them in the wrong "lesser" forum. So the forum starts to die off a little. I have seen this many times in growing forums.

Adding "sub forums" is more appealing. A "sub forum" is one inside of another forum and sits at the top of it's main forum. Creating those sub forums here is something we can discuss further if there is enough interest.

However, there is nothing that can't be discussed here in this forum right now. Just start a new thread and it can be simple or complex. If there are things that should be kept at the top, if I am made aware of it, that can be done (it's called a sticky).

There are several ways to create a database for files. I will look into that.

boydhouse

Was my post deleted?

I agree that a unique forum immediately catches the interest of all, everyone is very willing to give opinions, even those who visit can be captured in the discourse, or tried to intervene, and may be is an imput interesting.
I already wrote that the subdivision of interest (high temperatures, low temperatures, materials, fluidistic) are already identified by the context, this theory is in part already, but make public "more" or "less" are important .

locd proposes the sharing of data, actually tries to play the role of a '600 mathematician Marin Mersenne, that obtained remarkable results and above all made ​​them get to the other, spreading the custom to stop working alone, but sharing the data, and above all the problems (before this absolutely was never happened).
It was not easy, but largely succeeded, with all the limits went to other aspects of his culture and that of his time: We aren't in 1600, time is passed, but communication is never enough.

Create a DataBase is a (good) project, but realize it has its costs, and above all costs to keep it decent, I have seen many times "good intentions pave the floor of hell", as an Italian proverb says, be aware that we can not nail Boyd to keep it updated.
(Exist a similar proverb in the States?)

I imagine the information would be somthing like a thread of a few months ago on friction of different materials.
Another one could be on heat conduction. Or maybe where to find suitable materials to build motors, with all the recycling going on, its getting harder to find stuff, we used to have a local dump, where you could find all sorts of good stuff, but thats gone here. Ian S C