this has me intrigued about a possible merging with a project I'm working on with my car. I was fiddling around with a mild carburetion of the intake air on my car's 40+ year old direct injected engine to see if I could get some of the benefits of a dual injection system. what I used for a carb was just a mason jar about 2/3 full of petrol with two lines fed through the lid. the air intake feeds all the way to bottom, and the vacuum line just pokes through the lid, so that it only sucks vapors. originally I was concerned with the heat in the engine bay, but after actually running the thing I touched the jar and instantly understood something that I really should have expected all along. it was cold as hell, because the phase change from liquid to gas in the petrol removes large amounts of heat from the system. this made me instantly think of the possibility of using this mechanism for an A/C unit that doesn't sap power from the engine like a conventional compressor unit does. anyway, when I saw this vid this morning the thought of uniting an IC engined with a carb like my homemade one, and a stirling engine like the one you're making hit me. it seems that there should be potential power gains to be had from sharing the crank on the IC engine and the stirling engine. with the stirling's hot side being the exhaust pipe and its cold side being the carb.
Strangely enough a friend introduced me to your channel some years ago, sadly he is no longer with us but he did make a diaphragm Stirling engine. The challenge for him was to build it with materials he had close to his bed, he was not ill at the time just perversely lazy. The crankshaft made from copper wire was not entirely successful but it did try to run. I do remember sketching out a way to use a liquid in effect as a piston. A different approach to your engine could be a "flame licker engine" you could still use your diaphragm, lots of videos of the engines running on TH-cam. Basically they ingest hot gases which cool rapidly in the cylinder casing a pressure drop. Keep up with the good ideas....
Stirling engines can be made more efficient by replacing the working fluid (air) with a gas of lower molecular weight, such as helium. Efficiency can also be increased by pressurising the working fluid. Both methods may be used in conjunction.
@UCCzi5CdmnQDRiA1fMOo4_EQ at these scales viscous loses become significant, especially when using a 'regenerator' design; working fluid selection can influence efficiency by several percent which is proportionally significant when the highest theoretical efficiency is around 35%.
I invented the thermal window generator with TECs and ambient temperature difference of our house in the winter. doing it on the stove can melt the wires! If you use adhesive thermal tape they'll hold to the stove in series. Make a water fed heat sink with liquid to the bitter cold outside between the stove.
Heres a challenge for you Rob. Ive been dreaming up Stirling engine designs trying to avoid pistons for years. The favoured diaphagm material is usually silicon since it can withstand high temperatures such as the 200 to 300C on your rocket stove. The real challenge though is one that can stand 600c which is the maximum tollerance you need to design for when it comes to concentrated solar. There is one company that boast theyve done it but obviously they won't tell us how lol, for good reason. Being a materials guy it might be right up your street. Love you work, hats off.
@@peteraquablue Sorry no, trawl the internet long enough and you will find them, US firm. But they didn't strike me as a firm that sells to joe public. Only interested in contracts for big solar concentrator projects or large industrial corps.
One overlooked idea for the Peltie device is a block of copper or aluminum. Both have thermal conductivity and drawbacks. Either one can conduct to the device to a sufficient distance to keep the cold side cold enough. I learned of this when a friend of my father had a wood burning stovetop fan fail on them. The base was mostly black painted aluminium sandwiching a peltier with another aluminum heatsink with a fan mounted in it. The fan kept air moving to keep ' the cold side ' cool and move the heat around the room. The sove melted the wires to cause the failure and I could not get enough wire sticking outside the device to replace it with solid strand that might better handle the heat.
I can’t wait rob, really really excited. I have a rmh in my workshop and have just acquired a central heating pump to send water through a thin flat heat exchanger on the top of the barrel so I can heat the far corners. Very excited to see you into both rmh and stirlings…”these are some of my favourite things!” Can’t wait to see what you come up with for us impatient types that just want to design,source,build,test,rebuild,redesign,rerebuilt, re test, edit an publish before lunch…every day. Speak soon I hope. Tanc
Totally Awesome!! Thank you so much, this is Really useful and gives us plenty of ideas for our project to get ourselves as off grid as possible!! We have looked into this for heating water, which is good, however this is just the job for us to get electricity bills down and off grid in the City!! Thank you so much! Andrea and Critter Family. XxX.
I was thinking the same when I first saw it, although I was wondering if the intake tube could be used as the cool side for the sterling engine as the air drawn in would provide the cooling for the cold side. I'm not sure how cool the intake side of it remains over time though, does the thermal transfer through the metal overcome the air being pulled through the intake? An added benefit of fitting the engine between the two vertical tubes would help keep the overall size down. I hadn't considered the diaphragm engine though, so I was thinking more complicated, another 'U' shaped pipe inside the existing ones, one being the hot side and one being the cold) but that would be a lot of work to do, square pistons etc lol Can't wait to see this project, always had a thing for the Stirling engine, at one point I was wondering if a car alternator could be replaced with one using the exhaust for heat. removing the drag on the engine to for electricity production.
me neither - on the intake that is - I will start just by putting it away to one side and see how we go but a future modification might well be as you suggest
@@ThinkingandTinkering Sorry didn't mean to suggest extra work for you :D If it was 10 years ago and I had my old workshop instead of a 2 bed flat I would be playing with these myself. My engineering fix now has to be done vicariously though YT videos like yours. I suffer from that old problem of too many ideas and not enough time/equipment to play them.
Same would be true for the Peltier device - use the intake airflow (free) to cool the cold side using heat sinks while (marginally) increasing the combustion efficiency.
Great video rob ,you always inspire me ,for those of you who don't have any welding skills and have some extra money check the biolite camping stove ,it uses a peltier to run a fan to make the wood burn more efficiently, i bought one and use it all the time.I was planning on using this to power a steam engine or a stirling engine.
You stated as a goal simplification, a noble goal I’d say. That said, it seems to me that the rocket stove necessarily requires a strong draft of ambient air for combustion and creating the “rocket” effect. Would it not be sufficient to add a heat sink to the “cold” side of the Peltier device and use some well placed ducting to pass the ambient combustion air across it? Thereby eliminating all moving parts.
Brilliant channel. Loved it and subscribed. I do have a suggestion for using the Peltier with your rocket stove. Hope you see this. Sandwich the Peltier or TEG modules between 2 square metal containers (one container is the hot side, the other container is the cold side) and wire the modules so you can use the output. (You could just strap the two containers together with the modules between them) These two containers are completely separate from your rocket stove, though the stove will be the power source. Hang with me a few moments longer. Now, put a pot of sand on the rocket stove to heat it. How hot? Use a thermometer to heat the sand ONLY to your Peltier or TEG modules' max operating temperature so you don't damage it. A lot of Peltier modules can take moderate heat, but more expensive TEG modules with higher outputs can take very high temperatures. Just depends on what you're working with. Just use a thermometer to insure the sand stays below the module's max operating temperature. Pour water into the cold side container, or if it is winter you can pour cold antifreeze that was left outside over night. In the hot side container, pour your hot sand that is temperature matched to your modules' max operating temperature. Viola, electricity. You can insulate the top, bottom, and exposed 3 sides of your hot side container for better efficiency. If you can insulate any excess sand left over after filling the hot side, maybe you can use it to refill the hot side when the first batch cools down, if you can keep the extra sand hot enough till then. This setup would also allow you to heat the sand with a parabolic mirror in the sun, a gas or oil burner, or whatever other heat source you have up your sleeve. As well, after you heat the sand for the hot side, you can bring it inside your home to operate the thermoelectric generator, rather than standing outside by the stove the whole time. It is just an idea and it certainly has it's drawbacks, but it should work. Maybe someone will see this and it will help in some way. Again, great channel.
Most Peltier elements will not survive long at 400C, because the internal solder joints will come unstuck over 265C. You will need to find a high temperature TEC
This is a really good idea - I have a rocket stove made from pieces of flue pipe so it is easy to lose the welding too, although the flue pipe is round obviously.
There is nothing more that gives me great glee than when a combination of awesome is put together. I too think of these but you actually get most of them done . Great work Rob!
Last time i checked a few years ago you could buy a sterling-heater combo. It's main purpose was still heating the house/water and it made a small amount of electric energy on the side. But the heat output was optimized for continued running, no on/off as most burners do. so if i remember correctly only around 2 to 5kW heating Aaand the electric power generated, of course only when also heat was needed, was not enough to run your home with. Dont know if it even reached 1kW They were intended for, and only for, street gas (not the US liquid/petrol) because of the clean burning.
I was thinking something similar, but I was thinking about putting one of those roof rotating exhaust caps and try to harness the momentum from the cap
As soon as I saw you make a rocket stove I thought the same. I have made a heating and hot water system out of a boiler heat exchanger and an oil drum cut in half, use a magna circ pump to circulate through radiators and cylinder and get lots of free scrap wood and trees. Free heat and hot water but I want to make a TEG Out of it somehow.
Christmas came early! I've been hoping for more Stirling content since I first saw your NASA Stirling video years ago! Can't wait to see where this goes!
Rather than peltiers might it be possible to use masses of thermocouples? For decent output would need a fair few in series and parrallel. I'm thinking it might be possible to screen print/paint them. Cooling? Just add a tube over part to be cooled. Warmed air should induce draft same as above a fire.
hi. mount your heat exchange pelletier or whatever thingy on the bottom plate of your stove for heat, and build a cold air draw that directly interacts with the cold side at 90 degree angle its winter here in Canada so cold is easy to come by. draw from. outside to the firebox and it will work. Mike
@@ellsworth5841 so what? it's an idea to overcome a harder. I wasn't aware that there was a no thinking sign on the description. your imagination is the gateway to the universe. how narrow and structured your life must be! open your eyes, see what others don't. but don't stand in their way of discovery, you'll get run over..... try to catch up whenever you decide to free your mind......
@@mjohnhayes Right you are. My apologies. FWIW, my life is anything but narrow. Still, as you intimate, it is indeed way over-structured. But that is not what my original comment was about. I think in this case my problem boils down to a more visceral, emotional knee jerk reaction: I came long ago to loath the "you know what you should do...." type of comment. (To give a real world example: If you have come here to help me re-roof my house with these cedar shakes, and you can see the pallets of wood shingles there on my driveway, why would you repeatedly tell me I should be installing a standing seam metal roof instead?)
apology accepted buddy. I am the same way sometimes, and I do not think you have a narrow view, you follow Robert right? he is a great teacher and I wish I had someone like that with his passion for teaching and discovery. the world is not as it seems lately, and it affects us all on a higher level than most understand.. my apologies as well, I had no intention of telling anyone what to do. I merely attempted to make an observational suggestion. thanks for the message.
I've now watched the updates to this theory-approach-application. I would like to suggest an alternative/addition to this beautiful idea that you are building. On the intake side you have such potential energy. Constant vacuum that can be harnessed with a simple computer fan dc that is placed on the intake. Obviously this can be improved to increase efficiency as I am only trying to simply explain my thoughts. Let's convet the vacuum energy to mechanical energy---- Installing a modified ram pump on the intake side would utilize the vacuum and turn it into mechanical energy. You could easily pump water to a higher level,Then the same way a "cuckoo clock" works you can power a mechanical dc energy generator. You have a great channel and I love watching your content, keep up inspirational work.
There are some LOVELY old sterling engines with huge flywheels that used to pump the water for large manor houses before we had a mains water system, and they require very little heat to run. I have indeed been wondering about such a thing for electric generation but kind of assumed it wouldn't be enough to be useful... but I might be about to be proven very wrong, so I am excited to watch and learn and perhaps take things further myself.
If you can store just a trickle of electricity, if that is trickle is continuous, it's amazing how useful that can be. Rarely do we need continuous high current, normally it's used in bursts, so a small ongoing amount can be very easily stored via batteries for higher power intermittent use.
@@melodysouljahrootsdubpress5539 Yeah, I have been running the figures again. Actually, one of those old vintage jobs (which are very inneficient by today's standards, so we could do better if we tried) could definitely power something akin to a Testla wall battery quite happily. 1/4 horsepower is plenty. Some are bigger.
@@ThinkingandTinkering You'd need about 5k for a nice one, I looked into it. Entirely worth it in my opinion partly because they are beautiful and collectable, but not something we can all just decide to do.
I've been considering this very thing. Alcohol evaporation cooling should work for the peltier atleast i hope so. My goal - long term is to put all 3 systems on one fire and see what if any usable power i can get out of it.
Id never heard of a diaphram engine before, thank you so much for explaining it. I will be heading over to the tnt channel. Ive been making some rocket stoves myself recently they are so fascinating and useful it looks like an super combo with the diaphragm idea.
I guess if you had a could enough outside temperature I had though about an out side peltier effect generator with a large flat tube with TEGs on the wide flat sides with large heat sinks to take advantage of the cold. And circulate hot water by natural convection.
one could also make a series of thermocouples out of iron wire and copper wire (copper nickel or constantan would be best but copper does work). The hot end could be inserted into the exhaust directly, and the wires made long enough to be air cooled in the room (6 inches or so would work). A few coat hangers and some scrap house hold wiring could make quite a few in an hour or so. Twist and braze the hot ends, solder the cold ends. Make a thermopile out of the exhaust.
Neat project. Definitely want to try it but was also curious is there a point in a rocket stove where you could do a sterling , another point where you could capture woodgas and a 3rd where your making steam. Then you have fuel for an ice engine or propane stove after filtering, hot water + steam for a steam engine. Plus sterling electric and more. Could even perhaps run it all off biogas, propane, wood gas, or wood. So universal power, heat, hot water and more. Question becomes efficiency and size
@@ThinkingandTinkering yeah. Would be neat to see data which might suggest which is the most efficient means of powering what you need. Or what provides most resiliency, reliability and so on.
@@jimallmondsr3467 yeah basic idea. That way your 1 rocket stove fits any situation and you only carry what ya think ya need. But needs data to show which have more worth/efficiency
Another grea project in the making! I love watching you going about stimulating our brains... food for though and all those kinds of things! However... I have one complaint... well, sort of! I'm still back at wind power and turning motors into generators... for a micro project! In other words... I can't keep up! Not your problem, I know... but just saying... for a friend, that is!!💥😁😱
Awesome! The first sugestions why dont make extra lght whit the warm/cool element! And ever SInce i saw Nils Ericson steal the Stirlingengin in a schoolproject and call it Sun-maschine! I feel extra fore a Sterling engines!
Rob, it likely won't help this itteration of the design, but do you think a speaker-cone could provide the diaphragms for such an engine? You are doubtless aware that behind the paper cone on most of them is a currugated "spider" that holds the cone securely in the centre but allows lateral movement. And ofc the speaker already comes equipped with a magnet and coil. I bet you can pick-up some quite large speakers for next to nothing just because the paper cone is ripped. I might give that a go once I've watched you do a bit.
There's no reason you can't use the Peltier device. You just need a large heat sink and a fan but you have to be careful to channel that air only through the fins and avoiding cooling the stove at all. Having some kind of sheet sticking out from the Peltier device would help.
Robert could you build your Stirling engine positioned between the hot side and the cold side where you use a seperated air duct which is the air feeding the combustion and will give you a reasonably constant significant temperature difference
Here is a little idea. Make a small hole coming off the chimney so the hot air comes out then direct that hot air to a small water-wheel which could then generate electricity
A Peltier device could work better if you insulate the riser! Incorporating it into a Rocket Mass heater could also work if you cut window in your outer drum and bridge to the riser with a lump of steel (again insulation might be in order). I seem to remember talk of incorporating a sterling engine into a combi boiler to increase efficiency but it seems to have died a death (maybe the hype was not realized into the hard world of commerce?). Eather way I think you will find the output would be rather low compared to say running a standard small genny from a wood gasifier! I have to say being encouraged to think of things like this, outside the box, is a great idea!
@@calysagora3615 Yes ..... I was talking of Max not usual power! (I googled it to check what it is now as things have a habit of changing just to embarrass me) ;o)
@@totherarf well, I was checking as well, there are more powerful ones in that range, for a few times more in price, and at max potential, some at up to 120⁰C differential.
Is it possible to run a fire blower fan with that electricity generated ? The blower fan could kindle the fire and raise its intensity. You can use either of these devices.. 1. Sterling Engine dynamo 2. Thermoelectric generator
I've been wanting to do this for some time I just haven't had the time to rebuild the wood stove, the old Chrysler AC compressors are set up in the 90° and will make a Sterling engine barely easy just FYI
Great one Rob. Thinking out loud here: Can this be used in conjunction with heat pipes to transfer the heat at some distance to a Seebeck device with the cold side connected to a heat sink and some water body. That should ensure a larger temperature gradient.
@@ThinkingandTinkering yes I agree but the loses would be to an environment you try to heat ... or ? ... maybe the plan is to use the rocket stove only to generate electricity....
I was going to make a very similar suggestion. I have a wood stove and use stove fans. They use a metal leg to stand the peltier away from the stove and have a heat sink on the other side which is cooled by the fan blades. That 'cool' air is what heats the room faster than just waiting for convection.
Cool ambient air feeds your combustion. This plus added surface on the cold side of your peltier? Not advocating for this but much more simple for no moving parts idea.
How about using the Peltier generators to power a heat pump/Chiller pump to cool the plates, then dump the heat into a hot water tank with a heat exchanger and use the steam or a Stirling engine.
@@ThinkingandTinkering It probably is, but the idea is to harvest more heat provided by the rocket stove and convert it into different types of work "efficiently". Probably a little too ambitious for a Hobby build.
Here's my strange ideas..... Helium is the best gas, but that makes it way too hard to manage. I would have the hot side up (heat rises) and the bottom side in the evaporated urea and water to force a cool effect. The steel regeneration in the middle helps but I don't know how you pull that off with complications. Something complicated would be liquid salt in the middle - because it was phase change it could cause weird effects with the heat differential. This project looks so fun.. oh and another engine is the Tesla Turbine. I think super critical carbon dioxide if you can deal with all the issues is the best. It acts like steam but doesn't phase change. Well the big downside is the super critical CO2 rots metal parts ... but if you pull it off you can have a microsized engine that can get megawatts.
If anyone happens to know about such things: Which of the main Sterling designs (Alpha, Beta, Gamma) is most efficient in terms of power-out vs heat required?
hiya mate - the efficiency of a particular design is going to pale in comparison to the operating principle in terms of possible improvement - the main governing factors are pressure of the working fluid and temperature difference between hot and cold sides - if I were you I would focus on these - for example repurposing a diesel or petrol engine block where you could increase pressure would lead to a particular design choice for alpha beta or gamma and would see a huge increase in power output
Hi Rob ,great videos ,i know this is off topic but what if you also add a pc fan generator on the intake of the rocket stove to also create energy with some kind of insulator so it doesn't overheat.
Hi Rob this peltiè device (don't know how it's spelt) I was wondering if you added a massive aluminum heat sink and use the energy from the device to power a computer fan to disperse the heat from the heat sink, would that maintain the work of this device and also do you think there would be excess energy produced?
you can always send me an email mate - robertmurraysmith64@gmail.com - but i do get a lot of mail so a hint as to who you are when you write would be good - cheers
Weeell. When your rocket stove started burning properly and the chimchimeney is long enough/ flow you can add a turbocharger and run a generator off the central axis away from the heat. There are a few.. interesting.. videos going to the extreme with a pressurized tank+turbocharger turned to jet engine.. :-)
I am intrigued with this. but i almost wonder if you couldn't do the diaphragm with magnets on the center of it, and then you could use them use them to connect to push pull rods, or even just magnets on a shaft to push pull on, but in the process of getting the diaphragm to move you could just harvest the diaphragm flapping with a magnet on it with a coil rather than a shaft, and then you just need your diaphragms to push pull each other to generate (like a heat driven shake torch)
I do understand that the gas is expanding and reducing, but it does seem counterintuitive watching the motion of this if you remove that from your thoughts while watching it. I hope I explain that in a way that makes sense
@@ThinkingandTinkering just watching the computer model move. If you are not thinking about the expansion and retraction being caused by the gas, and just looking at the mechanism move, you see how really cool this whole thing works. Does that make sense now?
Wouldn't a simpler option be to use a water tank attahed to back of peltier make a better heat sink and producing hot water going off to a hot water tank and being allowed to thermo cycle be simpler than the sterling engine?
@@ThinkingandTinkering Sorry meant thermosiphon just make sure to use an unpressurised water storage tank, strangely Paul Wheaton has just done a video on rocket water heaters you may want to check out.
I am guessing they don't have to use a diaphragm but do not most bellows have an open flap material that would be able to be used as a diaphragm too? Going to have to look up the word on wikipedia and see how many different types there are that I have never seen LOL Incidentally I am guessing something I am working on, might be of use for what you guys are doing, in making a hand held plastic extruder similar to those hand held "3D printer" pens, but it will use 2 liter bottle material (PET) directly by feeding a flat ribbon cut off one straight into the head, this requires dehydrating it to be able to go as far as I want. though, and reason for a hand held unit is so I can use the bottles cut up and weld it together quickly by hand 2 ways to dehydrate them exist that I know of so far (so the plastic does not hydrolize when heated up enough to get it good and soft, as well as sticky for bonding just like a 3D printer does. 1 is using a compressor that uses the pressure and cooling down to room temp, to remove the air's ability to hold water vapor, and the water trap (for protecting metal in the compressor from rusting) to remove the water, as well as when it decompresses causing it to get super cold and bouncing it off something, that the water can drain off of due to a hydrophobic coating, a water trap of some sort to let it out but close up tight enough so the air is not leaking out. Benefits of this is that it gets the air super dry no matter what so you don't need an enclosed circulation of air to get down as dry as possible each pass, since heating the air and passing it over the bottles is only going to be able to pull so much water that has absorbed into the plastic bottles, out so each pass should be pushed back through extracting that water again to get super dry, and with a salt bed to pull the water, unless I used something like zinc sulfate, I would end up with too much water toward the end sneaking back into the chamber, but dehydrating it I am guessing is as hard if not harder than copper sulfate crystals are, ie heating breaks down the chemical and it does not just recombine :( 2nd way will use a salt of some sort that I can bake to get the water out of if I can get something with enough absorption rate both in speed, and quantity before needing to be processed to dry it) and keep the system enclosed, with this one the air will have to pass through some sort of flap over a hole arrangement that snaps shut keeping the air in the chambers where it is until pressure is greater, that way external air is not sneaking in bringing humidity in, like when changing out the salt bed (or possibly push it through from the bottom to the top of the salt or something, not sure) Anyway, if it even mostly drys out the plastic bottles material, then it should keep it from getting crystalized by water trapped in it when it is heated up enough to really get that sticky action going I really have been tinkering with this stuff a while both putting cut open bottles on jigs then heating till it shrinks onto the jig, extract it and prepare for the next unit, and it's possible to make flexible linked bottle structures for solar cells to make a panel super strong, but I think making triangular shapes to self assemble a geodesic dome would be far better use, say for green houses or something :) Just wondering what all you guys would use scrap plastic PET or other flat sheet material as scrap to make things from? One last thing, the design has to be super easy and simple to both build and repair, for nearly everything I made and design, so it should be fairly cheap and easy for others to take advantage of the design too XD
I have a woodburning stove on my off grid houseboat and have thought about building a square section chimney clad in TEG units and then heatsinks that sits outside the roof in the winter, we use ridiculously low amounts of power and can get by on a 3 ah 20 v battery bank per day, so this TEG chimney might generate something for us, what do you think ?
Speaking of internal engine, I investigate anything that explode, like aluminium (but alumine lead me to a kind of dead end because CO2 emission), given you are a chemist, what do you think of the plentiful Sodium? When looking for aluminium explosion I found it explode pretty well too! lol It explode with water and produce hydrogen which is more fuel! and hydrogen get reduce to water when burning with oxygen! and the end result (caustic soda) is safe and useful and *ABSORB CO2* to make even more safe and useful byproduct (washing and baking soda)! And we can get it with SALT assuming we figure out what to do with chlorine gas (haven't google that one yet). What do you think of the pro and cons?
Good question sbout wjat happens to tje chlorine when processing sea salt to produce caustic soda , sodium bicarbonate n carbonate , sodium metal . It can't simply be vented to atmosphere. So we do make hydrochloric acid, sodium n calcium hypochlorates , potassium n ammonium chloride for food n fertilizer . All t these chemical industries are always next to each other too .
@@ThinkingandTinkering Well we need to try sodium based engine then lol obviously internet is already a few step ahead of me lol I'll investigate more!
Peltiers are no good too expensive and if you fry it you have fried a lot of money. Steam is bad paying for the latent heat all the time. I do like your diagram engine but I am considering something different for my off grid house in Portugal. I want to use a James Watt engine running on hot air. Watt didn't want to use pressurised steam too dangerous he cooled the steam and used its contraction to suck rather than push a piston. Get your stove to generate hot air and feed it to a James Watt engine.
that sterlin engine is noisy and low power. Hard to scale up, hard to design, You need a constant high heat source, best to use steam, the boiler buffers the energy like a battery, can be used to heat as well as electricity, less parts, a stream engine is better than a turbine(for low power applications) the steam can be condensed to create extra heat so no waste.
I like steam too - but I also like Stirling engines and I feel you have a bit of a 'thing' against them here lol - I am joking mate -I am sure you know what you are saying - cheers
@@ThinkingandTinkering Yes its all theory, until you make something. so i do not have much value, i'm afraid. , but i think that the heat needs to be kept within a range for stirling.. were as a steam engine, the heat can reach 1000 degrees and take advantage of a burning completely. Steam is more controllable. With Steam the engine can run at slower speeds and has higher torque. Steam engines do not require a difference in temperature. heated steam has more mass than heated air and exerts a greater force and compresses less within the engine so higher efficiency. more of the energy from the fire can reach a greater surface area, so more energy reaches the engine. With a stirling the energy has to be concentrated on a small surface area plate, so less energy reaches the engine. I think that covers it ..lol
There is a company that sells a thermal couple design for chimneys that does a 200 Watt from a fan cooling and 400 watts from a water cooling. So why can't you just take the pelter device and hook up a small car heater core to a bunch of water pipe and pump some water through it?
@@TheBaconWizard Yes. Complicated, expensive, and mentioned as you say by Mr. Murray-Smith. My point was "Rob", creator of this video series, has decided to follow a different path. So when a "why can't you do ?" question is posted, I believe it doesn't add much to his goal of doing ... which is all a meant to convey.
this has me intrigued about a possible merging with a project I'm working on with my car.
I was fiddling around with a mild carburetion of the intake air on my car's 40+ year old direct injected engine to see if I could get some of the benefits of a dual injection system. what I used for a carb was just a mason jar about 2/3 full of petrol with two lines fed through the lid. the air intake feeds all the way to bottom, and the vacuum line just pokes through the lid, so that it only sucks vapors.
originally I was concerned with the heat in the engine bay, but after actually running the thing I touched the jar and instantly understood something that I really should have expected all along. it was cold as hell, because the phase change from liquid to gas in the petrol removes large amounts of heat from the system. this made me instantly think of the possibility of using this mechanism for an A/C unit that doesn't sap power from the engine like a conventional compressor unit does.
anyway, when I saw this vid this morning the thought of uniting an IC engined with a carb like my homemade one, and a stirling engine like the one you're making hit me. it seems that there should be potential power gains to be had from sharing the crank on the IC engine and the stirling engine. with the stirling's hot side being the exhaust pipe and its cold side being the carb.
Strangely enough a friend introduced me to your channel some years ago, sadly he is no longer with us but he did make a diaphragm Stirling engine. The challenge for him was to build it with materials he had close to his bed, he was not ill at the time just perversely lazy. The crankshaft made from copper wire was not entirely successful but it did try to run. I do remember sketching out a way to use a liquid in effect as a piston. A different approach to your engine could be a "flame licker engine" you could still use your diaphragm, lots of videos of the engines running on TH-cam. Basically they ingest hot gases which cool rapidly in the cylinder casing a pressure drop. Keep up with the good ideas....
Stirling engines can be made more efficient by replacing the working fluid (air) with a gas of lower molecular weight, such as helium.
Efficiency can also be increased by pressurising the working fluid. Both methods may be used in conjunction.
NASA investigated pressurised systems a while back - I think there are quite a few reports on them
@UCCzi5CdmnQDRiA1fMOo4_EQ at these scales viscous loses become significant, especially when using a 'regenerator' design; working fluid selection can influence efficiency by several percent which is proportionally significant when the highest theoretical efficiency is around 35%.
I invented the thermal window generator with TECs and ambient temperature difference of our house in the winter. doing it on the stove can melt the wires! If you use adhesive thermal tape they'll hold to the stove in series. Make a water fed heat sink with liquid to the bitter cold outside between the stove.
nice
Heres a challenge for you Rob. Ive been dreaming up Stirling engine designs trying to avoid pistons for years. The favoured diaphagm material is usually silicon since it can withstand high temperatures such as the 200 to 300C on your rocket stove. The real challenge though is one that can stand 600c which is the maximum tollerance you need to design for when it comes to concentrated solar. There is one company that boast theyve done it but obviously they won't tell us how lol, for good reason. Being a materials guy it might be right up your street. Love you work, hats off.
nice suggestion mate - it certainly has me intrigued
do you have a link to that supplier?
@@peteraquablue Sorry no, trawl the internet long enough and you will find them, US firm. But they didn't strike me as a firm that sells to joe public. Only interested in contracts for big solar concentrator projects or large industrial corps.
One overlooked idea for the Peltie device is a block of copper or aluminum. Both have thermal conductivity and drawbacks. Either one can conduct to the device to a sufficient distance to keep the cold side cold enough.
I learned of this when a friend of my father had a wood burning stovetop fan fail on them. The base was mostly black painted aluminium sandwiching a peltier with another aluminum heatsink with a fan mounted in it. The fan kept air moving to keep ' the cold side ' cool and move the heat around the room. The sove melted the wires to cause the failure and I could not get enough wire sticking outside the device to replace it with solid strand that might better handle the heat.
But... that's not what he wants to do. He wants to build a special type of Sterling engine. So...
cheers mate
@@ellsworth5841 and now he also has my perspective on making the other type fo potentially another project
You are right. My apologies.
Meanwhile, are you from Parkersburg? or perhaps Belpre?
@@ellsworth5841 Victoria, B.C., Canada. However, I did grow up on Pender Island.
I can’t wait rob, really really excited. I have a rmh in my workshop and have just acquired a central heating pump to send water through a thin flat heat exchanger on the top of the barrel so I can heat the far corners. Very excited to see you into both rmh and stirlings…”these are some of my favourite things!” Can’t wait to see what you come up with for us impatient types that just want to design,source,build,test,rebuild,redesign,rerebuilt, re test, edit an publish before lunch…every day. Speak soon I hope. Tanc
awesome mate - you will need a little patience though lol
Totally Awesome!!
Thank you so much, this is Really useful
and gives us plenty of ideas for our project to get ourselves as off grid as possible!!
We have looked into this for heating water, which is good,
however this is just the job for us to get electricity bills down and off grid in the City!!
Thank you so much!
Andrea and Critter Family. XxX.
it may well be an answer anyone can build and I am always attracted to that for sure
Just installing an RMH in my place. I started thinking about power generation right away. Love your ideas. Keep up the great work.
I was thinking the same when I first saw it, although I was wondering if the intake tube could be used as the cool side for the sterling engine as the air drawn in would provide the cooling for the cold side. I'm not sure how cool the intake side of it remains over time though, does the thermal transfer through the metal overcome the air being pulled through the intake? An added benefit of fitting the engine between the two vertical tubes would help keep the overall size down. I hadn't considered the diaphragm engine though, so I was thinking more complicated, another 'U' shaped pipe inside the existing ones, one being the hot side and one being the cold) but that would be a lot of work to do, square pistons etc lol Can't wait to see this project, always had a thing for the Stirling engine, at one point I was wondering if a car alternator could be replaced with one using the exhaust for heat. removing the drag on the engine to for electricity production.
me neither - on the intake that is - I will start just by putting it away to one side and see how we go but a future modification might well be as you suggest
@@ThinkingandTinkering Sorry didn't mean to suggest extra work for you :D If it was 10 years ago and I had my old workshop instead of a 2 bed flat I would be playing with these myself. My engineering fix now has to be done vicariously though YT videos like yours. I suffer from that old problem of too many ideas and not enough time/equipment to play them.
Same would be true for the Peltier device - use the intake airflow (free) to cool the cold side using heat sinks while (marginally) increasing the combustion efficiency.
Great video rob ,you always inspire me ,for those of you who don't have any welding skills and have some extra money check the biolite camping stove ,it uses a peltier to run a fan to make the wood burn more efficiently, i bought one and use it all the time.I was planning on using this to power a steam engine or a stirling engine.
You stated as a goal simplification, a noble goal I’d say.
That said, it seems to me that the rocket stove necessarily requires a strong draft of ambient air for combustion and creating the “rocket” effect.
Would it not be sufficient to add a heat sink to the “cold” side of the Peltier device and use some well placed ducting to pass the ambient combustion air across it? Thereby eliminating all moving parts.
Brilliant channel. Loved it and subscribed. I do have a suggestion for using the Peltier with your rocket stove. Hope you see this.
Sandwich the Peltier or TEG modules between 2 square metal containers (one container is the hot side, the other container is the cold side) and wire the modules so you can use the output. (You could just strap the two containers together with the modules between them) These two containers are completely separate from your rocket stove, though the stove will be the power source. Hang with me a few moments longer.
Now, put a pot of sand on the rocket stove to heat it. How hot? Use a thermometer to heat the sand ONLY to your Peltier or TEG modules' max operating temperature so you don't damage it. A lot of Peltier modules can take moderate heat, but more expensive TEG modules with higher outputs can take very high temperatures. Just depends on what you're working with. Just use a thermometer to insure the sand stays below the module's max operating temperature.
Pour water into the cold side container, or if it is winter you can pour cold antifreeze that was left outside over night.
In the hot side container, pour your hot sand that is temperature matched to your modules' max operating temperature.
Viola, electricity. You can insulate the top, bottom, and exposed 3 sides of your hot side container for better efficiency. If you can insulate any excess sand left over after filling the hot side, maybe you can use it to refill the hot side when the first batch cools down, if you can keep the extra sand hot enough till then.
This setup would also allow you to heat the sand with a parabolic mirror in the sun, a gas or oil burner, or whatever other heat source you have up your sleeve. As well, after you heat the sand for the hot side, you can bring it inside your home to operate the thermoelectric generator, rather than standing outside by the stove the whole time.
It is just an idea and it certainly has it's drawbacks, but it should work.
Maybe someone will see this and it will help in some way. Again, great channel.
Most Peltier elements will not survive long at 400C, because the internal solder joints will come unstuck over 265C. You will need to find a high temperature TEC
yep - if that's the way you want to go
This is a really good idea - I have a rocket stove made from pieces of flue pipe so it is easy to lose the welding too, although the flue pipe is round obviously.
cheers mate - it is going to be fun to look at it for sure
There is nothing more that gives me great glee than when a combination of awesome is put together. I too think of these but you actually get most of them done . Great work Rob!
wow - cheers mate - I count that as praise indeed
Last time i checked a few years ago you could buy a sterling-heater combo. It's main purpose was still heating the house/water and it made a small amount of electric energy on the side. But the heat output was optimized for continued running, no on/off as most burners do.
so if i remember correctly only around 2 to 5kW heating
Aaand the electric power generated, of course only when also heat was needed, was not enough to run your home with. Dont know if it even reached 1kW
They were intended for, and only for, street gas (not the US liquid/petrol) because of the clean burning.
Great! Looking forward to the square "cylinder" !
You and me both lol
Interesting work with clear explanation.
Awesome stuff! Could you also use the venting hot air to drive a wind turbine like the rose? Have fun! 😁👍
I don't see why not mate
I was thinking something similar, but I was thinking about putting one of those roof rotating exhaust caps and try to harness the momentum from the cap
As soon as I saw you make a rocket stove I thought the same. I have made a heating and hot water system out of a boiler heat exchanger and an oil drum cut in half, use a magna circ pump to circulate through radiators and cylinder and get lots of free scrap wood and trees. Free heat and hot water but I want to make a TEG
Out of it somehow.
Christmas came early! I've been hoping for more Stirling content since I first saw your NASA Stirling video years ago! Can't wait to see where this goes!
I was thinking of recreating that here - but I decided to do something new - just to spice it up a iittle lol
Rather than peltiers might it be possible to use masses of thermocouples? For decent output would need a fair few in series and parrallel. I'm thinking it might be possible to screen print/paint them.
Cooling? Just add a tube over part to be cooled. Warmed air should induce draft same as above a fire.
hi. mount your heat exchange pelletier or whatever thingy on the bottom plate of your stove for heat, and build a cold air draw that directly interacts with the cold side at 90 degree angle its winter here in Canada so cold is easy to come by.
draw from. outside to the firebox and it will work. Mike
But... that's not what he wants to do. He wants to build a special type of Sterling engine. So...
Thanks for the tip! I am sure it will but I was wanting to build the Stirling you know
@@ellsworth5841 so what? it's an idea to overcome a harder. I wasn't aware that there was a no thinking sign on the description. your imagination is the gateway to the universe. how narrow and structured your life must be! open your eyes, see what others don't. but don't stand in their way of discovery, you'll get run over..... try to catch up whenever you decide to free your mind......
@@mjohnhayes Right you are. My apologies. FWIW, my life is anything but narrow. Still, as you intimate, it is indeed way over-structured. But that is not what my original comment was about. I think in this case my problem boils down to a more visceral, emotional knee jerk reaction: I came long ago to loath the "you know what you should do...." type of comment. (To give a real world example: If you have come here to help me re-roof my house with these cedar shakes, and you can see the pallets of wood shingles there on my driveway, why would you repeatedly tell me I should be installing a standing seam metal roof instead?)
apology accepted buddy. I am the same way sometimes, and I do not think you have a narrow view, you follow Robert right? he is a great teacher and I wish I had someone like that with his passion for teaching and discovery. the world is not as it seems lately, and it affects us all on a higher level than most understand.. my apologies as well, I had no intention of telling anyone what to do. I merely attempted to make an observational suggestion. thanks for the message.
Back to thermoelectrics! 🎉
Thanks mate, you're the best 👏
cheers mate
I've now watched the updates to this theory-approach-application.
I would like to suggest an alternative/addition to this beautiful idea that you are building.
On the intake side you have such potential energy.
Constant vacuum that can be harnessed with a simple computer fan dc that is placed on the intake. Obviously this can be improved to increase efficiency as I am only trying to simply explain my thoughts.
Let's convet the vacuum energy to mechanical energy---- Installing a modified ram pump on the intake side would utilize the vacuum and turn it into mechanical energy.
You could easily pump water to a higher level,Then the same way a "cuckoo clock" works you can power a mechanical dc energy generator.
You have a great channel and I love watching your content, keep up inspirational work.
That's a decent idea. A fan could be used to start the fire more easily, and then switch the configuration to generator.
Good plan, looking forward to seeing it come through.
There are some LOVELY old sterling engines with huge flywheels that used to pump the water for large manor houses before we had a mains water system, and they require very little heat to run.
I have indeed been wondering about such a thing for electric generation but kind of assumed it wouldn't be enough to be useful... but I might be about to be proven very wrong, so I am excited to watch and learn and perhaps take things further myself.
If you can store just a trickle of electricity, if that is trickle is continuous, it's amazing how useful that can be. Rarely do we need continuous high current, normally it's used in bursts, so a small ongoing amount can be very easily stored via batteries for higher power intermittent use.
@@melodysouljahrootsdubpress5539 Yeah, I have been running the figures again. Actually, one of those old vintage jobs (which are very inneficient by today's standards, so we could do better if we tried) could definitely power something akin to a Testla wall battery quite happily. 1/4 horsepower is plenty. Some are bigger.
I wish I had one for sure - I was in the science museum in Birmingham recently - some beautiful Stirlings there
@@ThinkingandTinkering You'd need about 5k for a nice one, I looked into it. Entirely worth it in my opinion partly because they are beautiful and collectable, but not something we can all just decide to do.
This I will be following very closely! Bang in line with what I’ve been mulling for a long time!
awesome
I've been considering this very thing. Alcohol evaporation cooling should work for the peltier atleast i hope so. My goal - long term is to put all 3 systems on one fire and see what if any usable power i can get out of it.
sounds like a good plan mate - might be careful about alcohol evaporation though
@@ThinkingandTinkering if you know of a better cooling medium that has a decent phase change and is less dangerous I would definitely consider it.
Thank you for everything you do Robert your not just an engineer your a MIND
awesome idea, can hardly wait for the following videos on this project
cheers mate
Id never heard of a diaphram engine before, thank you so much for explaining it. I will be heading over to the tnt channel. Ive been making some rocket stoves myself recently they are so fascinating and useful it looks like an super combo with the diaphragm idea.
I guess if you had a could enough outside temperature I had though about an out side peltier effect generator with a large flat tube with TEGs on the wide flat sides with large heat sinks to take advantage of the cold. And circulate hot water by natural convection.
one could also make a series of thermocouples out of iron wire and copper wire (copper nickel or constantan would be best but copper does work). The hot end could be inserted into the exhaust directly, and the wires made long enough to be air cooled in the room (6 inches or so would work). A few coat hangers and some scrap house hold wiring could make quite a few in an hour or so. Twist and braze the hot ends, solder the cold ends. Make a thermopile out of the exhaust.
I like that idea mate - cheers
Neat project. Definitely want to try it but was also curious is there a point in a rocket stove where you could do a sterling , another point where you could capture woodgas and a 3rd where your making steam. Then you have fuel for an ice engine or propane stove after filtering, hot water + steam for a steam engine. Plus sterling electric and more. Could even perhaps run it all off biogas, propane, wood gas, or wood. So universal power, heat, hot water and more. Question becomes efficiency and size
that is quite a lot to add on mate - might be an idea to try one at a time and see how it goes?
@@ThinkingandTinkering yeah. Would be neat to see data which might suggest which is the most efficient means of powering what you need. Or what provides most resiliency, reliability and so on.
@@nekotherion7317 Perhaps design a modular unit and accessorize the components that are needed.
@@jimallmondsr3467 yeah basic idea. That way your 1 rocket stove fits any situation and you only carry what ya think ya need. But needs data to show which have more worth/efficiency
@@nekotherion7317 at the very least you can stick a kettle or frying pan above the chimney and harness the last of the heat for your tea 😉
Here we go! Thank you!
Exciting!
I find it exciting mate
Now you've got my attention!!🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
awesome
Something that would be interesting to watch is a water cooling system for the peltier cell.
Thanks for the video.
give it a go mate
Have you got into magnets, telsa coils and resonant frequency yet?
Another grea project in the making! I love watching you going about stimulating our brains... food for though and all those kinds of things!
However... I have one complaint... well, sort of! I'm still back at wind power and turning motors into generators... for a micro project! In other words... I can't keep up! Not your problem, I know... but just saying... for a friend, that is!!💥😁😱
lol - well you have to remember mate - it's pretty much all I do - you have other concerns I am sure
@@ThinkingandTinkering Haha... no, me thinks me brain can't get out of first gear... so, I'm lagging... but having fun all the same!! 😁😁
Awesome! The first sugestions why dont make extra lght whit the warm/cool element! And ever SInce i saw Nils Ericson steal the Stirlingengin in a schoolproject and call it Sun-maschine! I feel extra fore a Sterling engines!
I have a bit of a love affair going with Stirling engines mate -I think they are pretty awesome
Rob, it likely won't help this itteration of the design, but do you think a speaker-cone could provide the diaphragms for such an engine? You are doubtless aware that behind the paper cone on most of them is a currugated "spider" that holds the cone securely in the centre but allows lateral movement. And ofc the speaker already comes equipped with a magnet and coil.
I bet you can pick-up some quite large speakers for next to nothing just because the paper cone is ripped. I might give that a go once I've watched you do a bit.
interesting idea mate - not sure how it would hold up to the heat on the hot side - but well worth a go
This is going to be one of my favorite projects!
awesome mate
A fun project. As always thank you for sharing.
There's no reason you can't use the Peltier device. You just need a large heat sink and a fan but you have to be careful to channel that air only through the fins and avoiding cooling the stove at all. Having some kind of sheet sticking out from the Peltier device would help.
It's better to have the peltier between the stove and water-boiler and a small pump.
you are quite right mate there is no reason - remember though they are only 3-8% efficient
Nice project mate! Could also add 20w TEG's as peltier's are very week?
Can you use a Reed to hammer a pezio to make electricity on that stove?
Robert could you build your Stirling engine positioned between the hot side and the cold side where you use a seperated air duct which is the air feeding the combustion and will give you a reasonably constant significant temperature difference
Here is a little idea. Make a small hole coming off the chimney so the hot air comes out then direct that hot air to a small water-wheel which could then generate electricity
cheers mate
perhaps a fluidyne sterling engine made with simple plumbing fittings, ideal for pumping water for water gravity storage, pelton wheel etc.
A Peltier device could work better if you insulate the riser!
Incorporating it into a Rocket Mass heater could also work if you cut window in your outer drum and bridge to the riser with a lump of steel (again insulation might be in order).
I seem to remember talk of incorporating a sterling engine into a combi boiler to increase efficiency but it seems to have died a death (maybe the hype was not realized into the hard world of commerce?). Eather way I think you will find the output would be rather low compared to say running a standard small genny from a wood gasifier!
I have to say being encouraged to think of things like this, outside the box, is a great idea!
pelters are really only 3-8% efficient aren't they?
@@ThinkingandTinkering Yeah, but if you can get up to 125W out of one?
@@totherarf More like 10-30W
@@calysagora3615 Yes ..... I was talking of Max not usual power! (I googled it to check what it is now as things have a habit of changing just to embarrass me) ;o)
@@totherarf well, I was checking as well, there are more powerful ones in that range, for a few times more in price, and at max potential, some at up to 120⁰C differential.
Is it possible to run a fire blower fan with that electricity generated ? The blower fan could kindle the fire and raise its intensity.
You can use either of these devices..
1. Sterling Engine dynamo
2. Thermoelectric generator
I've been wanting to do this for some time I just haven't had the time to rebuild the wood stove, the old Chrysler AC compressors are set up in the 90° and will make a Sterling engine barely easy just FYI
nice - thanks mate I will look out for one
Use the Stirling engine to power a fan to blow the heat. Preferably directly.
What is the besta Sterling motor for a rocket stove?
Great one Rob. Thinking out loud here: Can this be used in conjunction with heat pipes to transfer the heat at some distance to a Seebeck device with the cold side connected to a heat sink and some water body. That should ensure a larger temperature gradient.
I would think so mate - the losses might considerable but worth a try I would think - fancy giving it a go to see?
@@ThinkingandTinkering yes I agree but the loses would be to an environment you try to heat ... or ? ... maybe the plan is to use the rocket stove only to generate electricity....
I was going to make a very similar suggestion. I have a wood stove and use stove fans. They use a metal leg to stand the peltier away from the stove and have a heat sink on the other side which is cooled by the fan blades. That 'cool' air is what heats the room faster than just waiting for convection.
Cool ambient air feeds your combustion. This plus added surface on the cold side of your peltier? Not advocating for this but much more simple for no moving parts idea.
nice idea mate
How about using the Peltier generators to power a heat pump/Chiller pump to cool the plates, then dump the heat into a hot water tank with a heat exchanger and use the steam or a Stirling engine.
seems a little over engineered to. me mate - what would be the advantages ?
@@ThinkingandTinkering It probably is, but the idea is to harvest more heat provided by the rocket stove and convert it into different types of work "efficiently". Probably a little too ambitious for a Hobby build.
Can't you use the intake of the rocket stove as the cool side, thereby preheating your stove air and helping cool the cold side?
well worth a try mate - not sure I will just for aesthetics but no other reason - fancy giving it a go?
@@ThinkingandTinkering unfortunately not, working on a battery project at the moment, kinda addicted lol
Here's my strange ideas..... Helium is the best gas, but that makes it way too hard to manage. I would have the hot side up (heat rises) and the bottom side in the evaporated urea and water to force a cool effect. The steel regeneration in the middle helps but I don't know how you pull that off with complications. Something complicated would be liquid salt in the middle - because it was phase change it could cause weird effects with the heat differential. This project looks so fun.. oh and another engine is the Tesla Turbine. I think super critical carbon dioxide if you can deal with all the issues is the best. It acts like steam but doesn't phase change. Well the big downside is the super critical CO2 rots metal parts ... but if you pull it off you can have a microsized engine that can get megawatts.
If anyone happens to know about such things: Which of the main Sterling designs (Alpha, Beta, Gamma) is most efficient in terms of power-out vs heat required?
hiya mate - the efficiency of a particular design is going to pale in comparison to the operating principle in terms of possible improvement - the main governing factors are pressure of the working fluid and temperature difference between hot and cold sides - if I were you I would focus on these - for example repurposing a diesel or petrol engine block where you could increase pressure would lead to a particular design choice for alpha beta or gamma and would see a huge increase in power output
@@ThinkingandTinkering Lovely, thanks :)
Hi Rob, would you be keen to post links in the description to where you buy components?
Hi Rob ,great videos ,i know this is off topic but what if you also add a pc fan generator on the intake of the rocket stove to also create energy with some kind of insulator so it doesn't overheat.
A rocket stove is like a Dekota fire pit so would a PC fan gen help on the air in take push the air in and more of a burn ?
worth trying mate - give it a go
Hi Rob this peltiè device (don't know how it's spelt) I was wondering if you added a massive aluminum heat sink and use the energy from the device to power a computer fan to disperse the heat from the heat sink, would that maintain the work of this device and also do you think there would be excess energy produced?
maybe even use some of your conductive ink CPU paste aswell
Great project Rob! :) (y)
cheers mate
Hi Robert, just wondering what the best way is to get in contact with you is? Thanks
you can always send me an email mate - robertmurraysmith64@gmail.com - but i do get a lot of mail so a hint as to who you are when you write would be good - cheers
Weeell.
When your rocket stove started burning properly and the chimchimeney is long enough/ flow you can add a turbocharger and run a generator off the central axis away from the heat.
There are a few.. interesting.. videos going to the extreme with a pressurized tank+turbocharger turned to jet engine.. :-)
now this looks fun cannot w8 to see what you come up with
cheers mate
I am intrigued with this. but i almost wonder if you couldn't do the diaphragm with magnets on the center of it, and then you could use them use them to connect to push pull rods, or even just magnets on a shaft to push pull on, but in the process of getting the diaphragm to move you could just harvest the diaphragm flapping with a magnet on it with a coil rather than a shaft, and then you just need your diaphragms to push pull each other to generate (like a heat driven shake torch)
Next comes an efficient steam turbine? I love the idea of a small generator
yep - I am looking into flash boilers too
All you got to do is add nitinol wire for the excess hot/cold
I love the stirling engine
me too!
I HAVE A SUGGESTION,3d print a steam generator to power a alternator.connected to a battery to a inverter.
cool suggestion mate - cheers
Inspiring stuff!
What happened to the wood gas generator? Don't remember it being finished or must've missed it?
I finished that ages ago mate
@@ThinkingandTinkering Okay 🤔 Only remember that it pushed some smoke that was flammable. In what video was it used to spin something?
I do understand that the gas is expanding and reducing, but it does seem counterintuitive watching the motion of this if you remove that from your thoughts while watching it. I hope I explain that in a way that makes sense
I am not sure I get what you mean mate
@@ThinkingandTinkering just watching the computer model move. If you are not thinking about the expansion and retraction being caused by the gas, and just looking at the mechanism move, you see how really cool this whole thing works. Does that make sense now?
Great video I really like it
awesome mate- cheers
Now your cooking 🤩 If you figure out how to House in a living room of your new build you will be in the 💰 🤑
for sure
Wouldn't a simpler option be to use a water tank attahed to back of peltier make a better heat sink and producing hot water going off to a hot water tank and being allowed to thermo cycle be simpler than the sterling engine?
don't know what you mean by thermocycle mate
@@ThinkingandTinkering Sorry meant thermosiphon just make sure to use an unpressurised water storage tank, strangely Paul Wheaton has just done a video on rocket water heaters you may want to check out.
I am guessing they don't have to use a diaphragm but do not most bellows have an open flap material that would be able to be used as a diaphragm too? Going to have to look up the word on wikipedia and see how many different types there are that I have never seen LOL
Incidentally I am guessing something I am working on, might be of use for what you guys are doing, in making a hand held plastic extruder similar to those hand held "3D printer" pens, but it will use 2 liter bottle material (PET) directly by feeding a flat ribbon cut off one straight into the head,
this requires dehydrating it to be able to go as far as I want. though, and reason for a hand held unit is so I can use the bottles cut up and weld it together quickly by hand
2 ways to dehydrate them exist that I know of so far (so the plastic does not hydrolize when heated up enough to get it good and soft, as well as sticky for bonding just like a 3D printer does.
1 is using a compressor that uses the pressure and cooling down to room temp, to remove the air's ability to hold water vapor, and the water trap (for protecting metal in the compressor from rusting) to remove the water, as well as when it decompresses causing it to get super cold and bouncing it off something, that the water can drain off of due to a hydrophobic coating, a water trap of some sort to let it out but close up tight enough so the air is not leaking out.
Benefits of this is that it gets the air super dry no matter what so you don't need an enclosed circulation of air to get down as dry as possible each pass, since heating the air and passing it over the bottles is only going to be able to pull so much water that has absorbed into the plastic bottles, out so each pass should be pushed back through extracting that water again to get super dry, and with a salt bed to pull the water, unless I used something like zinc sulfate, I would end up with too much water toward the end sneaking back into the chamber, but dehydrating it I am guessing is as hard if not harder than copper sulfate crystals are, ie heating breaks down the chemical and it does not just recombine :(
2nd way will use a salt of some sort that I can bake to get the water out of if I can get something with enough absorption rate both in speed, and quantity before needing to be processed to dry it) and keep the system enclosed, with this one the air will have to pass through some sort of flap over a hole arrangement that snaps shut keeping the air in the chambers where it is until pressure is greater, that way external air is not sneaking in bringing humidity in, like when changing out the salt bed (or possibly push it through from the bottom to the top of the salt or something, not sure)
Anyway, if it even mostly drys out the plastic bottles material, then it should keep it from getting crystalized by water trapped in it when it is heated up enough to really get that sticky action going
I really have been tinkering with this stuff a while both putting cut open bottles on jigs then heating till it shrinks onto the jig, extract it and prepare for the next unit, and it's possible to make flexible linked bottle structures for solar cells to make a panel super strong, but I think making triangular shapes to self assemble a geodesic dome would be far better use, say for green houses or something :)
Just wondering what all you guys would use scrap plastic PET or other flat sheet material as scrap to make things from?
One last thing, the design has to be super easy and simple to both build and repair, for nearly everything I made and design, so it should be fairly cheap and easy for others to take advantage of the design too XD
tinkering? some pretty cool 'tinkering' going on there mate - I will have to have a think about it
fun rob is gona made stirling engine
what's not to love about Stirlings mate!
@@ThinkingandTinkering exactly once i have seen Stirlings generating ICE ?hhh
I have a woodburning stove on my off grid houseboat and have thought about building a square section chimney clad in TEG units and then heatsinks that sits outside the roof in the winter, we use ridiculously low amounts of power and can get by on a 3 ah 20 v battery bank per day, so this TEG chimney might generate something for us, what do you think ?
How about using a heat pipe to conduct the heat away from the rocket stove and put a heat sink on the opposite side of the Peltier Device?
nice idea - go for it
Speaking of internal engine, I investigate anything that explode, like aluminium (but alumine lead me to a kind of dead end because CO2 emission), given you are a chemist, what do you think of the plentiful Sodium? When looking for aluminium explosion I found it explode pretty well too! lol
It explode with water and produce hydrogen which is more fuel! and hydrogen get reduce to water when burning with oxygen! and the end result (caustic soda) is safe and useful and *ABSORB CO2* to make even more safe and useful byproduct (washing and baking soda)! And we can get it with SALT assuming we figure out what to do with chlorine gas (haven't google that one yet). What do you think of the pro and cons?
Maybe you'll like cody's lab channel.
@@michaelcorbidge7914 already subscribed
I have seen quite a few aluminium based engines - they seem to work well.
Good question sbout wjat happens to tje chlorine when processing sea salt to produce caustic soda , sodium bicarbonate n carbonate , sodium metal . It can't simply be vented to atmosphere. So we do make hydrochloric acid, sodium n calcium hypochlorates , potassium n ammonium chloride for food n fertilizer . All t these chemical industries are always next to each other too .
@@ThinkingandTinkering Well we need to try sodium based engine then lol obviously internet is already a few step ahead of me lol I'll investigate more!
Peltiers are no good too expensive and if you fry it you have fried a lot of money. Steam is bad paying for the latent heat all the time. I do like your diagram engine but I am considering something different for my off grid house in Portugal. I want to use a James Watt engine running on hot air. Watt didn't want to use pressurised steam too dangerous he cooled the steam and used its contraction to suck rather than push a piston.
Get your stove to generate hot air and feed it to a James Watt engine.
What about a steam turbine reusing a car turbo?
that sterlin engine is noisy and low power. Hard to scale up, hard to design, You need a constant high heat source, best to use steam, the boiler buffers the energy like a battery, can be used to heat as well as electricity, less parts, a stream engine is better than a turbine(for low power applications) the steam can be condensed to create extra heat so no waste.
I like steam too - but I also like Stirling engines and I feel you have a bit of a 'thing' against them here lol - I am joking mate -I am sure you know what you are saying - cheers
@@ThinkingandTinkering Yes its all theory, until you make something. so i do not have much value, i'm afraid. , but i think that the heat needs to be kept within a range for stirling.. were as a steam engine, the heat can reach 1000 degrees and take advantage of a burning completely. Steam is more controllable. With Steam the engine can run at slower speeds and has higher torque. Steam engines do not require a difference in temperature. heated steam has more mass than heated air and exerts a greater force and compresses less within the engine so higher efficiency. more of the energy from the fire can reach a greater surface area, so more energy reaches the engine. With a stirling the energy has to be concentrated on a small surface area plate, so less energy reaches the engine. I think that covers it ..lol
I'm in.
awesome
I would use teslas steam engine heated by rocket stove
🙏👍🙏
cheers mate
Steam turbo air refreshener
There is a company that sells a thermal couple design for chimneys that does a 200 Watt from a fan cooling and 400 watts from a water cooling.
So why can't you just take the pelter device and hook up a small car heater core to a bunch of water pipe and pump some water through it?
I'd be interested in a link to that company if you have one? I imagine it's a few thousand quid, though.
Because that's not what he wants to do. He wants to build a special type of Sterling engine. So...
There's absolutely nothing from stopping YOU from doing it, btw. The issue as rob made clear (among others) is that it's complicated and expensive.
@@TheBaconWizard Yes. Complicated, expensive, and mentioned as you say by Mr. Murray-Smith. My point was "Rob", creator of this video series, has decided to follow a different path. So when a "why can't you do ?" question is posted, I believe it doesn't add much to his goal of doing ... which is all a meant to convey.
@@ellsworth5841 I understand all that mate, but there was no point in me saying that to Rey when you have already said it.
MERCURY VORTEX GENERATOR.
Run a line to neighbors house then get free electricity
that would be hilarious if your neighbour was doing the same thing lol
Why make anything when you can just steal, ammirite? 🤡