Simulate, analyze, design, build, and test solar-powered engines
This article covers power measurements for the PE 2 3D printed Stirling engine. The net output power (the useful power) plus the frictional losses measured earlier are combined with other test data and simulation results to more fully understand this engine’s performance. The techniques and data should be useful for others designing Stirling engines, especially […]
The Epiphany onE PUCK on Kickstarter is sure to interest anyone with even a passing interest in power generation or Stirling engines. The device uses the Stirling cycle and is supposed to generate 5W (one amp at 5V) to charge USB devices. It’s supposed to run off either a hot drink as shown or turn […]
This article describes the method used to determine the engine component friction in the 3D printed Stirling engine. This technique can be used on rotating machines of any size. The ordinary purpose for a flywheel is to store kinetic energy to smooth the rotation of an engine or machine tool. For our purposes we will […]
Flywheels are used to store kinetic energy. Once a flywheel is accelerated to some rotational speed, it will only slow down because it is transferring energy to a load. By accurately measuring the flywheel’s rate of rotation versus time, we can determine the rate at which the flywheel’s energy is being transferred to the the […]
Using the automated testing system for the 3D printed Stirling engine I described in my last article, I’m now presenting some of the results of using the test system. On the chart below I’ve plotted all the data I collected versus time. It’s a little busy so I’ll explain it in detail before I go […]
As you can see from the photo, I’ve switched over from manually taking data from sensors to semi-automated testing of the 3D printed Stirling engine. I’m still manually controlling the heat input so I wouldn’t call this fully automated testing. This article will cover the test setup details including a schematic and a listing of […]
To simplify the building of the 3D printed PE 2 Stirling engine I’ve designed and tested two modifications. The parts were printed on a Stratasys printer. Neither of these modifications is required, nor will they alter the performance. If you have built or are building the original design there is no need to change. If you haven’t built those parts you may find the modified parts save a little time and effort. The STL files for the parts are available at thingiverse.
This post will examine some of the practical and theoretical aspects of a regenerator as it applies to the 3D printed PE 2 Stirling engine. Those who just want to build a regenerator for the engine and get good performance, will find what they need here too. The above data show my tests of the […]
This third post on the 3D printed Stirling engine PE2 should cover most of the loose ends for those interested in building one. First I’ll provide the complete BOM (bill of materials) needed to build the engine. The reduced copies I’m showing here are barely readable, but you can download the ful-size PDFs at Thingiverse. […]
I decided to make this engine open source so that anyone could build it. The PE2 design (stands for printed engine 2) is licensed under the Attribution-Share Alike – Creative Commons license. The previous post introduced the Stirling engine with a lot of information about the design. This post and a few more will provide […]