pered5 Energy doesnt make black holes. A large amount of matter collapsed in a small area of space. In order for energy to make a black hole you'd need the energy to transform into matter, abd even though E=MC^2 we have never been able to make a large amount of matter from energy, (or any at all to my knowledge)
I'm really glad you linked to lindy beige. he has a great channel and makes really good content, so I'm really glad to see you supporting him! I think I first some him through you or an AVE cross link. I just really like knowing all the engineering and science TH-cam channels follow and support eachother. it's really encouraging!
A FYI from that i got from thermodynamics studying in college. A colder cold-source is more efficent than a hotter heat-source. That is, you will get more power if you decrease the cold source 5º than if you increase the heat source 5º.
Math. And Algebra. Can't remember the exact formula explanation, it was pretty long. But, my physical explanation for it is, probably because the cold source (being colder) has more density of mass that can transfer heat out of the system. The heat source has less mass density and therefore is less efficient at transfering heat into the system. IE. the cold source can absorb energy faster than the heat source can put into it. Making cold more efficient at creating a bigger temp difference.
I don´t think so. Eff=1-T1/T2 where T1 stands for the cool source, and T2 is the hot one. So you gotta make the difference as big as you can if you want efficiency
The number of times I watch one channel to find that they also subscribe to a number of other channels that I watch. Great minds think alike - I think! :-)
Side note: due to the fanning motion of the wheel the heavier gasses will not settle at the bottom. There will be an even mixture of what ever gasses are in the bottle.
About the time you made this video, I bought one exactly like it, off ebay. When it arrived, I replaced the stainless steel plates with aluminum, 1/16th inch, which doubled the rpm at least. I've played with many versions of this engine, from superheated, and cooled, to the simple "atmospheric" as this one, their best feature is their simplicity of design, and of driving needs, they are simply not "torque monsters" in any way, shape or form, but do very well with simple basic tasks such as pumping water from a mine, day and night, minimal service and maintenance. We've jumped past a great many basic engine designs that are perfect for specific tasks, because we tend to leap on "new", with little debate on "effective". These have great potential in any situation where one has differential temperature, and a "constant, low load engine need". The issue is one of choosing the application to meet the facts, not changing the situation to meet the needs of an engine. Most people don't know, we operated Newcomen's steam condensing engine, as most effective until the idea of wrapping music wire around a wrought iron boiler, allowed for a pressure engine, designed by James Watt, a century later. Most of our technology has come into its own, only when another technology makes it possible to do things vastly different, as "Bessemer steel" made possible high speed steam, and ultimately, diesel and gas engines. I've played with "atmospheric engines", flamesuckers, for many years, because they make great gifts, but first, because I found I could see the actual anular flow of gases, watching the action of the flame, "external combustion", sucked into the cylinder, something air, in a flow bench, with colored smoke, can only begin to show. I have long enjoyed your delving into the exotic, strange, and the general organic chemistry. Thanks for some really interesting work.
Cody: "I hope I'm not bothering the fish." Fish: "OMG, we are going to be part of an experiment! We're all gonna die! RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!" OR Fish: "Oh wow! What is this spinny thing? Is it food? Why is it ticking? I can't eat it! Don't torture us, oh Great Wanderer of Land!"
Nate Smith and that would matter why? An increase in voltage? Just nope. Voltage doesn't pile up. This engine in this setup would eventually even slow down because the atmosphere in the bottle will heat up, decreasing tbe temperature difference for the engine.
The reason why they were swimming back and forth was because they were courting, based on their behavior i can tell that they are 2 males and a female, and they are in heat. So the way they were acting it's not related to the experiment itself. Now if the experiment was safe for the fish or not, that's a different discussion.
Nate Smith Nate, we have a direct current electric engine here. Even if the cables were blank the current would never carry throughout the tank, but in the shortest way from positive to the negative cable. There ist absolutely no danger for the fishes even if the voltage was 10 volts. It would be a completely other story if we had an AC powersource here. But still, the fishtank is made of glass and is well isolated from the ground. The current would still go directly to the neutral wire, not through the fishes. You might want to learn some more about electricity.
I rewatched Lindy's video, and when I returned, the app picked up where I left off, with you saying "now that you're caught up to speed..." Surprised me haha
Geez dude. I've never watched one of your videos without learning something new... Thanks a lot for all your input in your videos. you'd be an excellent teacher if you ever choose to be one
It's astounding how interconnected all the cool channels seem to be. I've watched Lindy's vids for years, I found your channel through watching Isaac Arthur and now I see a vid where you reference Lindybeige's channel.
Hey Cody you should get some clear acrylic pipe and unscrewable endcaps and put a valve stem on it it would allow you to put way more pressure and show just how much power you could get
the PV diagram shows that doubling the pressure should double the power. and since electrical power is proportional to voltage squared you should expect the second voltage to be roughly sqrt(2) or 1.41 times the first voltage. so 0.745 V / 0.520 V = 1.43 .... seems to check out!
I think the speed of the engine would also be proportional to the sqrt of the power. so measuring the speed at twice the pressure it should be 1.41 times as fast as at normal pressure.
Checks out a bit too well IMO, doesn't account for friction in various parts of the engine as Cody points out in the video - these would really not be negligible in this scenario.
3:00 The pressure differential that drives the engine is independent of the molecular mass of the gas. The amount of heat required to change the temperature (and thus the pressure) of the gas DOES depend on molecular mass...the lighter gases need less heat to drive the engine.
I have always wondered if Stirling Engines can be used to harness energy from heat (which is lost energy) in many devices, essentially converting the heat into energy and keeping it in a loop
there are two problems with this one, a stirling engine will eventually stop moving even though heat is being produced, because heat will creep into the rest of the engine through the base, and it relies on a temperature differential between the base and the rest of the engine in order to run. the greater the difference in temperature between the base and the rest of the engine, the faster the engine goes. for this reason, in addition to just stopping eventually, the conversion will get less efficient the longer it runs. the other issue is that stirling engines don't actually generate that much torque, and harvesting electricity from rotational movement steals rotational energy from that movement, requiring yet more torque to keep the thing spinning. these are the same reasons you can't have an electric car charge its own battery from the spinning of its wheels while it's driving - that would create a perpetual motion machine if it were possible.
Hi Cody, how about building one on top of a compost bin and using the composting process as a heat source? It'd be a great recycling example! Thanks for the video it was awesome!
You should see how fast you can make the stirling engine go by putting the base in liquid nitrogen and heating up the other side with whatever the hottest thing you can use that won't damage it is.
I just had thermodynamic lessons in my physics class And God, I wish our teacher could do/show experiments so that we could understand sooner! Now everything makes sense, Thanks a lot Cody
Hi Cody Love the video. One thing to understand the power output of the engine. This can be done by adding various loads (resistors) until the voltage starts to drop from the 1 V you measured. At that point measure the max current while 1 V output and measure the load amount. Now you know max power output. One step further is to know the efficiency. How much power in vs power out. Love you videos thanks for sharing. 😊
Cody you seemed to ignore that the atmosphere inside of that bottle will heat up due to your heating wire. The cooling side of the sterling engine will also heat up and your temperature difference will drop. You might want to install some cooling mechanism for the "cold side" of your engine. If you ever build a large scale sterling engine you also should install a cooler. If you are in possession of some constantly cool groundwater for example you should use a watercooling. Again i want to point out that a sterling engine is an incredible engine with a high efficiency (if build well) but the relative low pressure difference compared to other combustion engines and the limited time to cool your working gas at high speed due to the missing gas load exchange, leeds to a really low power:weight ratio of such engines. We use a lot of sterling engines in germany combined with our home gas heatings. But those relatively heavy and large engines in stationary work have but a few horsepowers. Normally they generate about .5-2 kW electricity. The torque of sterling engines is pretty low, so that you have to run them at a high speed to gain the needed power, leeding to even less time for the heat exchange. Also one of the biggest issues why sterling engines aren't used in large scale is because you can't use any kind of lubricant like motoroil inside of the engine. You can't lubricant your pistons etc.so they tend to stuck and break at high revolutions. This makes it quite impossible to build engines in a realistic scale with a useful power output to run electrical engines etc. You always need high capacity batteries as a buffer. Nevertheless i really look forward to your large scale sterling engine! Please build one.
The Crow like a feedback loop. Put energy in to produce energy in the engine and have the energy produced to go back into the heating coil so that it becomes a little less reliant on the energy you put in. Rinse and repeat. Although I think the heat might become too much for the engine to use for the same reason Cody stated where a lot of heat is lost.
Great design and food for thought. I work in HVAC as a apprentice and have long wanted too make a stirling or steam setup for household power. You might want to try hydrogen, it goes even faster!~ But at the downside, hydrogen escapes it's container pretty easily, and you need too recharge such systems frequently. But there is one advantage, if you were too use solar+stirling as the energy source, you can than split water into hydrogen for a battery, some of which, you can use too bathe your stirling should it leak.
It won't run in a perfect vacuum for the reasons given, but a better question of similar taste is: At what pressure does it stop running? How high above sea level does a Stirling Engine work? Incidentally, the radio-thermal generators used in space probes are also based on thermal differentials, I guess the power output of those is limited by either black body thermal or your willingness to pack some kind of coolant? It's weird to remember that space isn't as "cold" as you'd think because there's so little thermal loss.
yeah, I know that, but i'd still like to see it try, maybe you could get it working with a really high pressure differential? Your vacuum chamber isn't perfect, after al
Excellent demonstration, and patience Cody! There are another couple of other factors - the surface area of the heat exchanger could be increased a lot using fins like a heat sink, preferably with a flow path to help the most gas to heat up/cool down. A smooth cylinder isn't going to be as effective as a rough or ribbed surface designed to maximize heat transfer. In addition to density and viscosity, different gases also have different heat capacities and conductivities so these will affect performance to some degree. Helium has a very low viscosity, but it also has a high heat capacity and thermal conductivity so it can absorb and release energy more quickly. It should be an ideal gas, if it didn't want to keep escaping to space forever... It would be interesting to see how hydrogen and the other noble gases perform.
Nope, it will only spend more energy moving gasses in the machine, not producing engergy. You can get the energy out in high speed or more torque. But it is still the same amount of energy.
Yes, it would since now less energy is wasted shifting gases around, its the reason it goes faster. The top speed is the speed at which the energy wasted per a cycle is equal to the energy generated per a cycle, if you were to reduce the waste you increase the max speed. The max speed comes about due to friction and other time dependant functions. Cody should have loaded the stirling engine to give a better demonstration, he assumed that was obvious though.
To my understanding, Stirling engines are sealed, there is a fixed amount of working fluid or gas inside. So changing the gas in the bottle should not change the gas in the engine, it should be air. Unless I am missing something?.
Well that's blows Lingyb`s theory of how they work out of the water. Well done Sir! I have run my Ross yoke Stirling for 13 hours on 1cup of boiling water.
Hey Cody. I heard about a something called Peltier Module which seems to be sort of a ''solid state Sterling engine''. I don't know a lot about it and it'll be nice if you could make a video about it as well.
Omer Magen peltier units use the same principle, the difference between temperatures on either side of it but I've heard it's not efficient at converting heat energy to electricity or cold energy
Keenan Smith Peltier junctions are extremely inefficient, I'm not sure how they compare to Stirling engines though. Also, there is no such thing as "cold energy".
Peltier elements reach about 1% or slightly over at their near melting point, they are great for small packaging and having no moving parts, but unless used merely as a minor power recovery device while heating something else there isn't much point. Stirling engines are predicted to possibly reach 50% power conversion, but we are talking extremely refined, insanely high pressure, several thousand degree type of devices. These toy ones only get a couple percent efficiency, some will only really turn themselves and nothing else.
MsSomeonenew I heared that the Peltier module is used on some space probs such as Juno and the Voyager crafts. As those probs get very far away from the sun they need an alternative energy source. Using a piece of plutonium (which gives off heat) surrounded by Peltier elements, they are able to generate enough electricity for the prob's equipment.
That's actually really cool. Good job. I suppose this could work on larger Sterling Engines as well. You could heat it with a waste oil burner. There is a lot of heat available from those and I suspect you could get a lot of energy from it - not just to make electricity but to heat water in your hot water tank or radiant floor heating - whatever.
Cody, the reason the helium working fluid results in higher speed than air working fluid has a couple factors: - as you were hinting at, more dense gasses tend to be more viscous. Helium is less viscous so pumping losses are lower. - low heat capacity is an advantage, but helium has a higher heat capacity on a per mass basis, yet the density of helium is so much lower than air that at equal pressure the volumetric heat capacity of helium is lower....meaning greater temperature increase for the same heat input...yielding larger pressure increase for the same heat input. - high heat transfer coefficient in the working fluid is an advantage as the allows more heat to enter and work on the fluid for the same delta T. Helium has a much higher (more than 7 times) heat transfer coefficient than air. . it would be interesting if you compared some similar molecular weight gasses in the sterling engine.
Hey Cody, If you really are going to build a scaled up version of the sterling engine, use a heat source that would normally be wasted. Exhaust from a central heating for example. Something that is widely available in many households so it has a practical application.
Hey Cody. So I've got an idea. Had it for a while. But I was thinking of using this in a closed system that could be self sufficient, using the low temperature differential model scaled up. To start, you've got a pump hooked up to one side. That it does is pump water in a circle as the engine cranks it. The water moves outside in insulated tubing and coils under or inside solar panels, or really anything black that easily conducts heat I suppose. The water then moves back into the house and coils on top of the upper plate, transferring its heat, while the lower plate simply sits on cooler earth or concrete. If you could get that system running well enough, you could then attach an crank generator. And if that's too much resistance to get the engine started, you might be able to build something like a simple 3 speed transmission. It would cost plenty to get it built, but it could, in theory, be a clean, efficient source of electricity.
Would depend on how efficient a charging circuit is made. Though I'm pretty sure no one's gonna be pushing 1 volt at 30 amps. I imagine you could get maybe 10 watts through this setup with the input energy being constant.
All mechanical transformations of energy looses some of that one. The thing with this experiments are not to be efficient, then he would not used that version of Stirling engine. That isn't energy efficient, it just works.
He was only measuring voltage on that motor/generator, it wasn't powering anything. The generator was essentially being used as a speed sensor. The multi-meter probably dissipated a few microwatts, since a tiny bit of electricity has to flow for the meter to read the voltage, but as you can see when he measures it the first time, the engine doesn't slow down at all when he probes the generator as it would if a significant current were flowing from the generator. Basically, this is an overly complicated 30w aquarium heater. 30w electric goes in, is converted to heat with an element. This heat flows into the engine, some of of it gets converted to mechanical power, most of it just flows right into the aquarium water. Of the power that was converted to mechanical, some of it turns the generator and all of it is converted to heat by friction, either within the engine parts or generator parts before flowing into the water. The tiny bit of power required to give a voltage reading is like a grain of sand on a beach. This experiment tells is nothing about how much electric power we can harvest from a 30w heat source. But it does tell us which conditions are more efficient at running the engine. I wouldn't expect to be able to draw more than watt or two from that generator, It might be able to power a single incandescent Christmas light bulb or several LED ones before slowing the engine down enough to stall it. He should test this in a later video.
This is definitely something I hope Cody revisits. It would be interesting if Cody stuck a sterling engine on his charcoal barrel and made some power while making some charcoal.
That could be it, I don't have a good way of keeping the temperature at the right level. I didn't think the temperature changes would be enough to outright KILL them though. I've always kept them in my room, so it stays at a temperature comfortable for a human all the time.
Ignition point is 750k Neither the ice water nor the heat lamp would raise the temperature to that much. Ps, ccd cameras will start to see 750k as light.
Bruce Baxter You are trying to take a technique from an industrial generator, that probably has really big security measures to a motor in a soda bottle. But besides that, I thought that you were talking about the other engine, were he used the electrical heating. In the other case, yes, it should work.
ohh are those triops (and fairy shrimp) in the background? i get intermittently obsessed with them, but they have a reasonably short lifespan so i can have a break
they would probably be slightly higher maintenance due to the short life cycle, but you could have a sort of egg nursery net made of fine mesh net inside the main tank and just empty it into the tank and refill it weekly (or a better timing) to keep the population up, then maybe the maintenance would even out due to them being slightly easier to feed
8Jory, I miiiiiight be thinking of a different channel, but I think he did a bunch of videos about this a couple years ago. They were really good and in-depth too.
Chris McQueen Well considering that we don't know everything, and never will, we may or may not eventually discover that something like this fits into quantum mechanics.
I'd assume one big one. Most efficiency scales with size. Mainly as surface area and volume change rate at different speeds (squared vs cubed). Hence the Titanic and massive air liners instead of lots of little ships and planes.
basically, yeah, probably wouldn't want one on the top anyway. Smaller engines are also better generally because the piston doesn't have to fight against air resistance.
Thanks for sharing this great video with us. Replacing the mechanical piston engine with a piezoelectric transducer altogether, harnessing a solar-driven thermoacoustic power, is the future. All the He-pressurised vessel will not be more than a tube, quite similar to those used to hold cigars. Willing to partially sponsor a small project for that, if you fancy getting your hands dirty! Few images are put together if you like sending them to you, for clarity.
does this only work with gases or is there a chance to create a liquid one? for instance mineral oil? I guess the difficulty would be not only the viscosity but also the thermal conductance though... would be cool seeing you try to make one though
yes it should work with a liquid in fact the power output would be unmatched! all you would need to do is adjust some of the sizing, I should give it a try.
I think you'll find (though I could very well be wrong) that the internal friction of the fluid would usurp most or all of the benefit. On a side-note, thank you for explaining PV diagrams in this video. A lot of people who haven't studied thermodynamics are totally unaware that they exist. Makes me dredge out a lot of memories which haven't seen the light of day in quite some time.
maybe a "compressible liquid" but my guess is there aren't many liquids that are compressible enough to yield any kind of efficiency. Even water is compressible... but very very little even at extreme pressures. additionally, to contain said pressures, the material of construction would need to be VERY strong. So practically I doubt it. I'd love to hear Cody's thoughts. prompt.... prompt.... root@cody'slab:> :)
Motor should generate up to 5 volts at that speed. It looks like you have meter connected to AMPS connector which is loading motor down so it is only generating a few hundred milliamps.
Stirling engines have been used for producing significant amounts of power for propelling an automobile, and for power plants. One of the problems was the production costs of the engines. The working gas was highly pressurized helium for best efficiency and power density. The characteristic of helium meant that very high quality seals were needed and this was the expense issue. Sears had a portable unit for camping, and it worked, but the mechanical reliability and the cost were issues. The US Army had a very large power plant that was portable...with a big truck, providing electrical power for an encampment. The waste heat was also useful for area heating. Again, cost and reliability of seals was an issue. An American auto manufacturer experimented with an automotive application. The engine was about the physical size of a muscle car engine. The experiment was discontinued account of production costs of the engine and the reliability issues with the seals.
Pressurizing the Stirling's working gas chamber (or as you did the whole thing) and avoiding leaks is the main challenge. It's great that you demonstrated and explained that! From what I've seen (from Philips Stirling Cryogenics) the pressure can go as high as a 100 bars, but H or He tiny atoms makes it difficult to prevent leaks. Quick googling shows me that there are industrial solutions for compressed gas chambers for up to 700 bars. Btw you didn't mention that Helium (or Hydrogen) are good because of their high thermal conductivity (using air as same pressure would have 5 to 7 times lower heat conductivity resp.) I've seen also a solution in which each end of each tank has fine fins on the resp. displacer and are dipped in hot (or cold) fluid (I think it was some kind of silicone oil) which helped with the heat transfer and sped up the gas expansion (& contraction resp.). I imagine a Hot end receiver of concentrated sunlight (CSP) to hit the hot tank which is painted in something like Vanta or Misou black that have ~99% absorption and wrap it in a double layer, vacuum isolated glass container (because glass is opaque to infra-red waves created by the heated hot tank surface). The glass' inner surface would heat of course but that's why there's a vacuum insulation with the glass outer layer, so the most heat losses would be on the edges due to conduction (which can be further insulated to slow it down). If average sun radiation on sea level is about 1000W and you can capture about 80% of them if you can turn half of the max.efficiency to real world efficiency you'll still get twice that of solar PV panels. (not to mention that about half of our energy needs are for heating/cooling, and solar thermal panels are about 70% efficient)
build a solar powered version using a fresnel lense for the heat scource
And then put it into a high pressure chamber at as many psi as possible.
You can't do that, the energy generated by the engine would create a black hole
pered5 Energy doesnt make black holes. A large amount of matter collapsed in a small area of space. In order for energy to make a black hole you'd need the energy to transform into matter, abd even though E=MC^2 we have never been able to make a large amount of matter from energy, (or any at all to my knowledge)
Alontrle | Gaming | Livestreams
☐ Got the joke
☑ Didn´t get the joke
You mean one of these? de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-Stirling
Or just google "solar dish"
I'm really glad you linked to lindy beige. he has a great channel and makes really good content, so I'm really glad to see you supporting him! I think I first some him through you or an AVE cross link. I just really like knowing all the engineering and science TH-cam channels follow and support eachother. it's really encouraging!
9:40
"Okay, so I'm gonna turn on this electric heater!"
*Electrifies all fish*
That's not how low voltage electricity in relatively clean water works.
@@jimmio3727 r/whoosh
@@jimmio3727 r/whoosh
@@jimmio3727 r/whoosh
I love it when I find out my favourite channels have connections, especially when they don't even have much in common, lindybeige is amazing
NOW,
for the GEEKS OUT THERE....
how about a stirling engine from a Heat sink on a computer???
If you watch Lindy's video he mentions using spare heat of a serverbuilding to regain power
Thats a server building..
How much would a Rich geek pay for Lights and moving Things inside his case..
Then I would recommend AMD parts for extra heat ^^
An overclocked processor would be spades better at generating heat.
Damn that's a really good idea. If you have a large gpu with a backplate it would be difficult.
I'm so glad you gave Lindy a shout-out, the guy has quality content that is often overlooked.
I frekn love lindybeige!!
Just read your username 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Lindybeige is Awesome
A FYI from that i got from thermodynamics studying in college. A colder cold-source is more efficent than a hotter heat-source.
That is, you will get more power if you decrease the cold source 5º than if you increase the heat source 5º.
how so?
Math. And Algebra. Can't remember the exact formula explanation, it was pretty long.
But, my physical explanation for it is, probably because the cold source (being colder) has more density of mass that can transfer heat out of the system. The heat source has less mass density and therefore is less efficient at transfering heat into the system.
IE. the cold source can absorb energy faster than the heat source can put into it. Making cold more efficient at creating a bigger temp difference.
Gustavo XD the smaller in the difference in the heat reservoirs also leads to a much more efficient engine as well (at least for a Carnot engine)
Carnot cycle isn't it
I don´t think so. Eff=1-T1/T2 where T1 stands for the cool source, and T2 is the hot one. So you gotta make the difference as big as you can if you want efficiency
Today on cody's lab we make depth charges.
It's been a year and a half, I'd like to see that super efficient upscaled generator.
MrRolnicek me too
2 and a half years now
Tbf "some day" doesn't really put a timescale on it.
He might do it for power on his mars project
Me too
Cody: *loses 12 hours on a small experiment that brings no real personal benefit to himself*
Also Cody:*'Tis but a scratch*
I just bought a high temperature Stirling engine when you get it running it will vibrate so much it almost moves off the table. Its pretty epic.
You've been blowing up lately, it seems like yesterday when you were drinking cyanide at 700K subs
TH-cam changed how people get promoted to try to promote higher quality content. The new system decided Cody is high quality.
Cyanide, Mercury and a few explosions here and there is all you need on TH-cam.
+mr1337357 That's because Cody IS and always has been high quality.
Ricardo Vazquez he definitely deserves it though.
Karl Wilson I got a boat load of views in a week then it dropped off and didn't come back. I guess it helps to upload regularly
Oh hey look its Lindybeige!
i think a lot of people look the same channels.....
jeffrey damen a lot of fuckin nerds lmaoooo 😂😂😂👌👌👌👌👌
I mean this is a sciency channel so yeah lots o' nerds here.
The number of times I watch one channel to find that they also subscribe to a number of other channels that I watch. Great minds think alike - I think! :-)
I mean Cody is a fan of Kurzgesagt considering he has a calendar for 12,017 HE
Cody suggesting Lindy? Gotta love when your favourite channels watch each other.
Side note: due to the fanning motion of the wheel the heavier gasses will not settle at the bottom. There will be an even mixture of what ever gasses are in the bottle.
Yes another video :D I had never heard of a sterling engine so thanks for the new knowledge!
never played moded minecraft?
richard mitchell haha, not for a long long time xD
Keystone Science yea same but i think it was in the mod forstery i think
White Genocide Resistor yea it was buildcraft lol had to look it up
What? Really? I expected you be someone who knew already. Well what are you still doing here, go build one, stat! :)
this guy is my new favourite TH-camr
Welcome to the club.
check out angry grandpa
What if you used Liquid Nitrogen as your cold source?
Yes! A Cody-Lindy connection was just what I needed to close the last gap in my Web of TH-camrs I Watch!
About the time you made this video, I bought one exactly like it, off ebay. When it arrived, I replaced the stainless steel plates with aluminum, 1/16th inch, which doubled the rpm at least. I've played with many versions of this engine, from superheated, and cooled, to the simple "atmospheric" as this one, their best feature is their simplicity of design, and of driving needs, they are simply not "torque monsters" in any way, shape or form, but do very well with simple basic tasks such as pumping water from a mine, day and night, minimal service and maintenance. We've jumped past a great many basic engine designs that are perfect for specific tasks, because we tend to leap on "new", with little debate on "effective". These have great potential in any situation where one has differential temperature, and a "constant, low load engine need". The issue is one of choosing the application to meet the facts, not changing the situation to meet the needs of an engine. Most people don't know, we operated Newcomen's steam condensing engine, as most effective until the idea of wrapping music wire around a wrought iron boiler, allowed for a pressure engine, designed by James Watt, a century later. Most of our technology has come into its own, only when another technology makes it possible to do things vastly different, as "Bessemer steel" made possible high speed steam, and ultimately, diesel and gas engines. I've played with "atmospheric engines", flamesuckers, for many years, because they make great gifts, but first, because I found I could see the actual anular flow of gases, watching the action of the flame, "external combustion", sucked into the cylinder, something air, in a flow bench, with colored smoke, can only begin to show. I have long enjoyed your delving into the exotic, strange, and the general organic chemistry. Thanks for some really interesting work.
Cody: "I hope I'm not bothering the fish."
Fish: "OMG, we are going to be part of an experiment! We're all gonna die! RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!"
OR
Fish: "Oh wow! What is this spinny thing? Is it food? Why is it ticking? I can't eat it! Don't torture us, oh Great Wanderer of Land!"
I think they're more like "where's the explosives".
Nate Smith are you really going to tell us that ONE volt is a thread to these fishes?
Nate Smith and that would matter why? An increase in voltage? Just nope. Voltage doesn't pile up. This engine in this setup would eventually even slow down because the atmosphere in the bottle will heat up, decreasing tbe temperature difference for the engine.
The reason why they were swimming back and forth was because they were courting, based on their behavior i can tell that they are 2 males and a female, and they are in heat. So the way they were acting it's not related to the experiment itself. Now if the experiment was safe for the fish or not, that's a different discussion.
Nate Smith Nate, we have a direct current electric engine here. Even if the cables were blank the current would never carry throughout the tank, but in the shortest way from positive to the negative cable. There ist absolutely no danger for the fishes even if the voltage was 10 volts. It would be a completely other story if we had an AC powersource here. But still, the fishtank is made of glass and is well isolated from the ground. The current would still go directly to the neutral wire, not through the fishes. You might want to learn some more about electricity.
those poor fish, always having to put up with Cody's bullshit.
i recently learned about these from lindybeige's channel. I was curious to know more, and now you picked it up, sweet!
Cody is always really great about sending views to other channels, and sending people to things they want to see.
I rewatched Lindy's video, and when I returned, the app picked up where I left off, with you saying "now that you're caught up to speed..." Surprised me haha
Love all of your videos and knowledge! I hope to see the larger version that you were talking about at the end of this ❤️👍
Man, I love me some Sterling engnes!
The worst part is that is not Sterling but Stirling LOL
Phoenix AF it's a sterling stirling engine. just ask lindybeige.
Nope
yeah especilly when theyre with ice n stuff
Stop it you, Cody doesn't need to spell. He has the power of alchemy!
CODY AND LINDYBEIGE ARE AWARE
Emperor_Xenolius collab aye ?
That would be heaven
in next episode Cody and Lindybeige demonstrate how Hannibal dissolved rocks with vinegar and fire to cross the Alps.
Lindybeige mostly talks out of his ass though.
but its damn good ass-talk.
Geez dude. I've never watched one of your videos without learning something new... Thanks a lot for all your input in your videos. you'd be an excellent teacher if you ever choose to be one
It's astounding how interconnected all the cool channels seem to be. I've watched Lindy's vids for years, I found your channel through watching Isaac Arthur and now I see a vid where you reference Lindybeige's channel.
Hey Cody you should get some clear acrylic pipe and unscrewable endcaps and put a valve stem on it it would allow you to put way more pressure and show just how much power you could get
the PV diagram shows that doubling the pressure should double the power.
and since electrical power is proportional to voltage squared you should expect the second voltage to be roughly sqrt(2) or 1.41 times the first voltage.
so 0.745 V / 0.520 V = 1.43 .... seems to check out!
now I'm curious if this rule continues for 3, 4, 5 times the pressure, etc.
3x pressure = 0.90 V
4x pressure = 1.04 V
5x pressure = 1.15 V
etc.
I think the speed of the engine would also be proportional to the sqrt of the power.
so measuring the speed at twice the pressure it should be 1.41 times as fast as at normal pressure.
Earthbjorn Nahkaimurrao, Nice observation!
Checks out a bit too well IMO, doesn't account for friction in various parts of the engine as Cody points out in the video - these would really not be negligible in this scenario.
RIP that first Stirling Engine.
Wow! Very clever way to demonstrate the theory, cheap n dirty like I love! I was aware of Sterling motors, but the Helium under pressure is brillant!
3:00 The pressure differential that drives the engine is independent of the molecular mass of the gas. The amount of heat required to change the temperature (and thus the pressure) of the gas DOES depend on molecular mass...the lighter gases need less heat to drive the engine.
Inching closer to 1mil. Congrats in advance, Cody!
**rage quit** **ad** Thanks TH-cam
Side note NEARLY TO 1MIL CODY!!
I'm way late, but I'm so glad to find out that you're friends with LindyBeige
Went back and rewatched after all these years. Still a fantastic video!
Aww, I've been watching both you and Lloyd's videos for ages, it's great to see the link. I feel like I'm in good company!
I have always wondered if Stirling Engines can be used to harness energy from heat (which is lost energy) in many devices, essentially converting the heat into energy and keeping it in a loop
there are two problems with this
one, a stirling engine will eventually stop moving even though heat is being produced, because heat will creep into the rest of the engine through the base, and it relies on a temperature differential between the base and the rest of the engine in order to run. the greater the difference in temperature between the base and the rest of the engine, the faster the engine goes. for this reason, in addition to just stopping eventually, the conversion will get less efficient the longer it runs.
the other issue is that stirling engines don't actually generate that much torque, and harvesting electricity from rotational movement steals rotational energy from that movement, requiring yet more torque to keep the thing spinning. these are the same reasons you can't have an electric car charge its own battery from the spinning of its wheels while it's driving - that would create a perpetual motion machine if it were possible.
Hi Cody, how about building one on top of a compost bin and using the composting process as a heat source? It'd be a great recycling example! Thanks for the video it was awesome!
Is it Sterling (Thumbnail) or Stirling (Title)? You have to choose one!
Michi Lo It was invented by Robert Stirling, so it is in fact Stirling with an i.
Michi Lo - yes
The Stirling engine is a sterling engine! She's a pun.
Stirling. The title originally also said Sterling. I guess fixing the title is easier than fixing the thumbnail.
You could always make it in sterling silver...
Such a cool guy Cody love the calm caring nature you have
I love your videos, I run into them totally randomly too. Very good, much coolness.
I like how your fish are trying to breed in the background
On Cody's next video he runs it in his vacuum chamber.
coolevi123 impossible...
why should you do that? for less energy???
for less molecules friction but not at complete vacuum
i know it wouldn't work
coolevi123 I want to see if it worked at mars pressures and a co2 atmosphere.
You should see how fast you can make the stirling engine go by putting the base in liquid nitrogen and heating up the other side with whatever the hottest thing you can use that won't damage it is.
I just had thermodynamic lessons in my physics class
And God, I wish our teacher could do/show experiments so that we could understand sooner!
Now everything makes sense,
Thanks a lot Cody
Hi Cody
Love the video. One thing to understand the power output of the engine. This can be done by adding various loads (resistors) until the voltage starts to drop from the 1 V you measured. At that point measure the max current while 1 V output and measure the load amount. Now you know max power output.
One step further is to know the efficiency. How much power in vs power out.
Love you videos thanks for sharing.
😊
Cody you seemed to ignore that the atmosphere inside of that bottle will heat up due to your heating wire. The cooling side of the sterling engine will also heat up and your temperature difference will drop. You might want to install some cooling mechanism for the "cold side" of your engine. If you ever build a large scale sterling engine you also should install a cooler. If you are in possession of some constantly cool groundwater for example you should use a watercooling.
Again i want to point out that a sterling engine is an incredible engine with a high efficiency (if build well) but the relative low pressure difference compared to other combustion engines and the limited time to cool your working gas at high speed due to the missing gas load exchange, leeds to a really low power:weight ratio of such engines. We use a lot of sterling engines in germany combined with our home gas heatings. But those relatively heavy and large engines in stationary work have but a few horsepowers. Normally they generate about .5-2 kW electricity.
The torque of sterling engines is pretty low, so that you have to run them at a high speed to gain the needed power, leeding to even less time for the heat exchange. Also one of the biggest issues why sterling engines aren't used in large scale is because you can't use any kind of lubricant like motoroil inside of the engine. You can't lubricant your pistons etc.so they tend to stuck and break at high revolutions. This makes it quite impossible to build engines in a realistic scale with a useful power output to run electrical engines etc. You always need high capacity batteries as a buffer.
Nevertheless i really look forward to your large scale sterling engine! Please build one.
Taunus-Tims Welt he used the tank water to cooldown the bottle
Attila Junior That helps, but it only guarantees that the bottle won’t melt. It doesn’t keep it cool.
Cody did you have the motor run back to your heating coil?????
it wouldn't have generated nearly as much power
no, I used a battery charger for that.
The Crow I'm talking as an additive. Like to rev it up even more
Cody'sLab ok
The Crow like a feedback loop. Put energy in to produce energy in the engine and have the energy produced to go back into the heating coil so that it becomes a little less reliant on the energy you put in. Rinse and repeat. Although I think the heat might become too much for the engine to use for the same reason Cody stated where a lot of heat is lost.
Wow this guy knows Lindybeige!
Wow! Synchronicity at it's finest. I collect and run model steam engines & was just looking into getting my first Stirling engine in the future.
Great design and food for thought. I work in HVAC as a apprentice and have long wanted too make a stirling or steam setup for household power. You might want to try hydrogen, it goes even faster!~ But at the downside, hydrogen escapes it's container pretty easily, and you need too recharge such systems frequently. But there is one advantage, if you were too use solar+stirling as the energy source, you can than split water into hydrogen for a battery, some of which, you can use too bathe your stirling should it leak.
When will you build a stirling engine Cody? it's 2019 and i'm still waiting!!! :)
Still waiting in 2020
Still waiting in 2021
'22 right now. still interesting tech !
yes this is good to know, but you should test if it will run at all in vacuum chamber...
Linards Rozitis it wouldn't as it requires air to operate plus heat transfer in a vacuum isnt great
Linards Rozitis No need to test, it would not because it's the air moving up and down the powers the engine.
ok now I get it, thanks :)
I think you could use photon pressure (as he showed in his over videos) for a similar (but different designed) device. :D
It won't run in a perfect vacuum for the reasons given, but a better question of similar taste is: At what pressure does it stop running? How high above sea level does a Stirling Engine work?
Incidentally, the radio-thermal generators used in space probes are also based on thermal differentials, I guess the power output of those is limited by either black body thermal or your willingness to pack some kind of coolant? It's weird to remember that space isn't as "cold" as you'd think because there's so little thermal loss.
this wouldn't work in a vaccum, right? I still kinda wanna see it in a vacuum.
well the power output would be proportional to the pressure and so if the pressure is zero...
Cody'sLab why
a stirling engine works with gas pushing around, when you remove the gas it has nothing to work with so output is 0
yeah, I know that, but i'd still like to see it try, maybe you could get it working with a really high pressure differential? Your vacuum chamber isn't perfect, after al
If you have a high pressure differential... you don't have a vacuum. Well maybe on one side of it, but then the return stroke wouldn't work.
Thank you for uploading this on my birthday. I love the Sterling Engine.
Excellent demonstration, and patience Cody!
There are another couple of other factors - the surface area of the heat exchanger could be increased a lot using fins like a heat sink, preferably with a flow path to help the most gas to heat up/cool down.
A smooth cylinder isn't going to be as effective as a rough or ribbed surface designed to maximize heat transfer.
In addition to density and viscosity, different gases also have different heat capacities and conductivities so these will affect performance to some degree.
Helium has a very low viscosity, but it also has a high heat capacity and thermal conductivity so it can absorb and release energy more quickly.
It should be an ideal gas, if it didn't want to keep escaping to space forever...
It would be interesting to see how hydrogen and the other noble gases perform.
Are you ever going to build the 10x version of the Sterling engine?
I understand that the thinner gasses make it go faster but I'm wondering if thicker gasses would make it stronger? like more torque?
Lukes I wondered the same thing, lol. I think all it does though is take longer to heat up and cool down.
Its not a matter of speed vs torque, just overall wasted energy
Nope, it will only spend more energy moving gasses in the machine, not producing engergy.
You can get the energy out in high speed or more torque. But it is still the same amount of energy.
Yes, it would since now less energy is wasted shifting gases around, its the reason it goes faster.
The top speed is the speed at which the energy wasted per a cycle is equal to the energy generated per a cycle, if you were to reduce the waste you increase the max speed.
The max speed comes about due to friction and other time dependant functions.
Cody should have loaded the stirling engine to give a better demonstration, he assumed that was obvious though.
To my understanding, Stirling engines are sealed, there is a fixed amount of working fluid or gas inside. So changing the gas in the bottle should not change the gas in the engine, it should be air.
Unless I am missing something?.
You've got some synovial fluid in hand, yeah? I hear it's a great lubricant.
Can't believe, a crossover with the two best channels on youtube!
Well that's blows Lingyb`s theory of how they work out of the water. Well done Sir! I have run my Ross yoke Stirling for 13 hours on 1cup of boiling water.
Hey Cody. I heard about a something called Peltier Module which seems to be sort of a ''solid state Sterling engine''. I don't know a lot about it and it'll be nice if you could make a video about it as well.
Omer Magen peltier units use the same principle, the difference between temperatures on either side of it but I've heard it's not efficient at converting heat energy to electricity or cold energy
Keenan Smith Peltier junctions are extremely inefficient, I'm not sure how they compare to Stirling engines though. Also, there is no such thing as "cold energy".
Peltier elements reach about 1% or slightly over at their near melting point, they are great for small packaging and having no moving parts, but unless used merely as a minor power recovery device while heating something else there isn't much point.
Stirling engines are predicted to possibly reach 50% power conversion, but we are talking extremely refined, insanely high pressure, several thousand degree type of devices. These toy ones only get a couple percent efficiency, some will only really turn themselves and nothing else.
MsSomeonenew I heared that the Peltier module is used on some space probs such as Juno and the Voyager crafts. As those probs get very far away from the sun they need an alternative energy source. Using a piece of plutonium (which gives off heat) surrounded by Peltier elements, they are able to generate enough electricity for the prob's equipment.
Omer Magen The device which powers the Voyager spacecraft is called a nuclear battery. Also, the word is "probe" not "prob".
Place giant stirling engines in hydrogen chambers on icebergs.
Need to be quick about it
Overlooked comment lol
Hey Cody, how many gallons is your goldfish tank? It looks a tad bit cramped there for 3 goldies
They are only here temporary because their pond froze solid.
That's actually really cool. Good job. I suppose this could work on larger Sterling Engines as well. You could heat it with a waste oil burner. There is a lot of heat available from those and I suspect you could get a lot of energy from it - not just to make electricity but to heat water in your hot water tank or radiant floor heating - whatever.
Cody, the reason the helium working fluid results in higher speed than air working fluid has a couple factors:
- as you were hinting at, more dense gasses tend to be more viscous. Helium is less viscous so pumping losses are lower.
- low heat capacity is an advantage, but helium has a higher heat capacity on a per mass basis, yet the density of helium is so much lower than air that at equal pressure the volumetric heat capacity of helium is lower....meaning greater temperature increase for the same heat input...yielding larger pressure increase for the same heat input.
- high heat transfer coefficient in the working fluid is an advantage as the allows more heat to enter and work on the fluid for the same delta T. Helium has a much higher (more than 7 times) heat transfer coefficient than air.
.
it would be interesting if you compared some similar molecular weight gasses in the sterling engine.
I know conpost heats up quite a bit, maybe make it compost powered?
Maybe you can use solar mirrors to direct the solar heat to the chamber, and water..
thats basically a Concentrated solar power system. usually those use steam turbines though because its a lot more efficient.
Radu Adrian solar mirrors? Do you mean fresnel lenses?
You can use mirrors, fresnel lenses are expensive for that type of aplication.
Question: Could you further improve the Sterling engine's effiency by using a hydrogen/helium mix? (hydrogen alone doesn't seem safe)
what, you dont want to hindenburg the fish tank
Hey Cody, If you really are going to build a scaled up version of the sterling engine, use a heat source that would normally be wasted. Exhaust from a central heating for example. Something that is widely available in many households so it has a practical application.
Hey Cody. So I've got an idea. Had it for a while. But I was thinking of using this in a closed system that could be self sufficient, using the low temperature differential model scaled up.
To start, you've got a pump hooked up to one side. That it does is pump water in a circle as the engine cranks it. The water moves outside in insulated tubing and coils under or inside solar panels, or really anything black that easily conducts heat I suppose. The water then moves back into the house and coils on top of the upper plate, transferring its heat, while the lower plate simply sits on cooler earth or concrete. If you could get that system running well enough, you could then attach an crank generator. And if that's too much resistance to get the engine started, you might be able to build something like a simple 3 speed transmission. It would cost plenty to get it built, but it could, in theory, be a clean, efficient source of electricity.
Damn Cody is that a horseshoe crab?!?!?!
30W of electricity went in; how much came out?
Would depend on how efficient a charging circuit is made. Though I'm pretty sure no one's gonna be pushing 1 volt at 30 amps. I imagine you could get maybe 10 watts through this setup with the input energy being constant.
All mechanical transformations of energy looses some of that one.
The thing with this experiments are not to be efficient, then he would not used that version of Stirling engine. That isn't energy efficient, it just works.
I imagine its pretty poor, maybe like 5 watts.
He was only measuring voltage on that motor/generator, it wasn't powering anything. The generator was essentially being used as a speed sensor. The multi-meter probably dissipated a few microwatts, since a tiny bit of electricity has to flow for the meter to read the voltage, but as you can see when he measures it the first time, the engine doesn't slow down at all when he probes the generator as it would if a significant current were flowing from the generator.
Basically, this is an overly complicated 30w aquarium heater. 30w electric goes in, is converted to heat with an element. This heat flows into the engine, some of of it gets converted to mechanical power, most of it just flows right into the aquarium water. Of the power that was converted to mechanical, some of it turns the generator and all of it is converted to heat by friction, either within the engine parts or generator parts before flowing into the water. The tiny bit of power required to give a voltage reading is like a grain of sand on a beach. This experiment tells is nothing about how much electric power we can harvest from a 30w heat source. But it does tell us which conditions are more efficient at running the engine.
I wouldn't expect to be able to draw more than watt or two from that generator, It might be able to power a single incandescent Christmas light bulb or several LED ones before slowing the engine down enough to stall it. He should test this in a later video.
I look forward to seeing the scaled up version. Think you could make one that could crank 100 watts?
I'm shooting for a couple kilowatt but 100 watts would be a good start.
nice!
Cody'sLab what happens if you change the volume of the chamber. Or what if you changed the dimensions but not the volume
quit posting this shit everywhere you piece of shit
i have seen 7 of your other posts that are exactly the same
MWB Gaming shut up you unintelligent little troll
Im so glad you and Lindy are friends!!!
This is definitely something I hope Cody revisits. It would be interesting if Cody stuck a sterling engine on his charcoal barrel and made some power while making some charcoal.
Triops!!!! I've tried a couple of times to grow Triops, but they always die soon after hatching :(
I don't know why.
Really? I've had pretty good luck with the little kits I've used in the past. Perhaps you're experiencing a temperature issue?
That could be it, I don't have a good way of keeping the temperature at the right level. I didn't think the temperature changes would be enough to outright KILL them though. I've always kept them in my room, so it stays at a temperature comfortable for a human all the time.
Hydrogen has a very low thermal inertia.
Might be worth a go?
Might not be a great idea to put an electric heater next to an explosive gas.
He's got heat to power the piston.. In either one you don't want flammable gas as atmospheric gas for this enclosed engine test.
Ignition point is 750k
Neither the ice water nor the heat lamp would raise the temperature to that much.
Ps, ccd cameras will start to see 750k as light.
You guys do know that hydrogen (gas) is used as coolant in commercial electrical generators.
Don't you?
Bruce Baxter You are trying to take a technique from an industrial generator, that probably has really big security measures to a motor in a soda bottle.
But besides that, I thought that you were talking about the other engine, were he used the electrical heating. In the other case, yes, it should work.
ohh are those triops (and fairy shrimp) in the background? i get intermittently obsessed with them, but they have a reasonably short lifespan so i can have a break
yes they are, I want to try using them instead of fish in an aquaponic system since they will eat waste leaves and such.
Cody'sLab please, oh please, post videos of your experiments with aquaponics.
they would probably be slightly higher maintenance due to the short life cycle, but you could have a sort of egg nursery net made of fine mesh net inside the main tank and just empty it into the tank and refill it weekly (or a better timing) to keep the population up, then maybe the maintenance would even out due to them being slightly easier to feed
8Jory, I miiiiiight be thinking of a different channel, but I think he did a bunch of videos about this a couple years ago. They were really good and in-depth too.
Would like to see a demonstration on heat recovery, the concepts are really well executed here, best video I've seen on it by a long shot.
I think your idea is great Cody keep up the good work
What would happen if you took the output of the generator and connected it to the heating coil? ;-)
That's what he did but because of energy loss, the engine stops eventialy.
If it were to keep running, it would have made you an inventor of a perpetual motion machine.
Also thermodynamics... so, nope.
Flynn Thaio But quantum mechanics, so maybe.
that's complete nonsense, quantum mechanics says nothing of the sort.
Chris McQueen Well considering that we don't know everything, and never will, we may or may not eventually discover that something like this fits into quantum mechanics.
what would be more efficent? 1 big sterling engine or 2/4 small ones?
I'd assume one big one. Most efficiency scales with size. Mainly as surface area and volume change rate at different speeds (squared vs cubed). Hence the Titanic and massive air liners instead of lots of little ships and planes.
2 smaller ones, on either side of your heat source.
***** what if my heat source looked like a cube. could i stick 5 sterling engines on it and increase efficiency?
basically, yeah, probably wouldn't want one on the top anyway. Smaller engines are also better generally because the piston doesn't have to fight against air resistance.
***** thanks bro
Cody pleas do the big Stirling Engine!!!
Thanks for sharing this great video with us.
Replacing the mechanical piston engine with a piezoelectric transducer altogether, harnessing a solar-driven thermoacoustic power, is the future.
All the He-pressurised vessel will not be more than a tube, quite similar to those used to hold cigars.
Willing to partially sponsor a small project for that, if you fancy getting your hands dirty!
Few images are put together if you like sending them to you, for clarity.
Cody you'd be amazed how much PSI plastic pop bottles can hold, even splined together. You can make amazing water rockets with them and a bike pump.
does this only work with gases or is there a chance to create a liquid one? for instance mineral oil?
I guess the difficulty would be not only the viscosity but also the thermal conductance though... would be cool seeing you try to make one though
yes it should work with a liquid in fact the power output would be unmatched! all you would need to do is adjust some of the sizing, I should give it a try.
Cody'sLab sweet!
I think you'll find (though I could very well be wrong) that the internal friction of the fluid would usurp most or all of the benefit. On a side-note, thank you for explaining PV diagrams in this video. A lot of people who haven't studied thermodynamics are totally unaware that they exist. Makes me dredge out a lot of memories which haven't seen the light of day in quite some time.
Arnkellj, what liquid were you thinking?
maybe a "compressible liquid" but my guess is there aren't many liquids that are compressible enough to yield any kind of efficiency. Even water is compressible... but very very little even at extreme pressures. additionally, to contain said pressures, the material of construction would need to be VERY strong. So practically I doubt it. I'd love to hear Cody's thoughts. prompt.... prompt....
root@cody'slab:> :)
Motor should generate up to 5 volts at that speed. It looks like you have meter connected to AMPS connector which is loading motor down so it is only generating a few hundred milliamps.
Dude you have a sterling engne i want one
they are like 15 bucks on ebay
You can even create one with some soda can if you are handy enough.
Cody'sLab :0 SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!
A Teflon casing for the bearings would be nice set up like a car's crankshaft
Well I'm always up for watching more Lindybeige.
Was I the only one hoping it wouldn't work in the fish tank just to see another rage quit?
Here come all the "Engne" comments.
Whiteboard markers on paper? What kind of monster are you?
Stirling engines have been used for producing significant amounts of power for propelling an automobile, and for power plants. One of the problems was the production costs of the engines. The working gas was highly pressurized helium for best efficiency and power density. The characteristic of helium meant that very high quality seals were needed and this was the expense issue. Sears had a portable unit for camping, and it worked, but the mechanical reliability and the cost were issues. The US Army had a very large power plant that was portable...with a big truck, providing electrical power for an encampment. The waste heat was also useful for area heating. Again, cost and reliability of seals was an issue. An American auto manufacturer experimented with an automotive application. The engine was about the physical size of a muscle car engine. The experiment was discontinued account of production costs of the engine and the reliability issues with the seals.
Pressurizing the Stirling's working gas chamber (or as you did the whole thing) and avoiding leaks is the main challenge.
It's great that you demonstrated and explained that!
From what I've seen (from Philips Stirling Cryogenics) the pressure can go as high as a 100 bars, but H or He tiny atoms makes it difficult to prevent leaks.
Quick googling shows me that there are industrial solutions for compressed gas chambers for up to 700 bars.
Btw you didn't mention that Helium (or Hydrogen) are good because of their high thermal conductivity (using air as same pressure would have 5 to 7 times lower heat conductivity resp.)
I've seen also a solution in which each end of each tank has fine fins on the resp. displacer and are dipped in hot (or cold) fluid (I think it was some kind of silicone oil) which helped with the heat transfer and sped up the gas expansion (& contraction resp.).
I imagine a Hot end receiver of concentrated sunlight (CSP) to hit the hot tank which is painted in something like Vanta or Misou black that have ~99% absorption and wrap it in a double layer, vacuum isolated glass container (because glass is opaque to infra-red waves created by the heated hot tank surface). The glass' inner surface would heat of course but that's why there's a vacuum insulation with the glass outer layer, so the most heat losses would be on the edges due to conduction (which can be further insulated to slow it down).
If average sun radiation on sea level is about 1000W and you can capture about 80% of them if you can turn half of the max.efficiency to real world efficiency you'll still get twice that of solar PV panels.
(not to mention that about half of our energy needs are for heating/cooling, and solar thermal panels are about 70% efficient)