Archive for the ‘Performance testing’ Category
Monday, July 18th, 2011
I'm currently working on a low-temperature engine for use in a solar-powered sculpture project. Fortunately it really doesn't need to run anything other than itself. Ideally it will not use concentrated solar to keep the project simple although that limits the engine to a very low temperature ratio. A low ...
Posted in Performance testing | 2 Comments »
Thursday, May 12th, 2011
First let me say I will display this engine and generator at the Maker Faire in San Mateo, CA on May 21, 22 so you can see it running if you are there.
The above video shows a one-watt Stirling engine driving a one-watt LED. Conversion efficiency is not too ...
Posted in Engine 3F, Generators and motors, Performance testing | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
Rev 1: See details at bottom.
Let me summarize what has been covered and what remains in this efficiency analysis:
Component
Power
percentage of total power
Efficiency analysis
Heat lost directly to the environment
40.3w
58.4%
Part 1
...
Posted in Analysis Tools, Engine 3F, Performance testing, Thermodynamics | 2 Comments »
Sunday, May 23rd, 2010
The following is a transcript with still photos of the previous video on the same subject. I’ve included a few more notes about the engine, my model 3F.
This is a gamma configuration Stirling engine. I’m powering it with the heat from a 70 watt light bulb so that I ...
Posted in Engine 3F, Performance testing | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
In the world of small Stirling engines everyone seems to talk about power and efficiency—but you seldom see the facts and the data. Just a couple days ago I saw the following Stirling engine on Youtube:
The promoter claims it must be putting out 100 to 150 watts. It was ...
Posted in Engine 3F, Performance testing | 3 Comments »
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
I needed to measure the torque and power output of my Stirling engine so that I could compare it with the simulation. The engine currently spins up to 70 RPM and has torque levels up to around 2 in-lbs. My first attempt at a design to measure torque was easy ...
Posted in Engine 3D, Performance testing | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
After using my bicycle speedometer-tachometer for a while, I decide to test the Schwinn speedometer that I saw on Amazon for $10. Although it uses the same programming values that I show in the table from my earlier Low-cost Tachometer article, it has some differences that I thought I should ...
Posted in Performance testing, Tachometer | 2 Comments »
Sunday, February 24th, 2008
One way to measure the friction on a rotating machine such as an engine or motor is to spin it up and record the appropriate data while it slows down without power. By measuring the time elapsed between two RPM measurements and knowing the moment of inertia, you can compute ...
Posted in Performance testing, Tachometer | 10 Comments »
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
If you need to measure RPM in experimental setups but don’t want to invest a lot of money, consider using a bicycle speedometer. You can get reasonably accurate measurements digitally displayed using an inexpensive ($15) bicycle speedometer.
All you need to do is attach a magnet to the rotating part of ...
Posted in Performance testing, Tachometer | 7 Comments »
Friday, February 8th, 2008
Engine model 3d has actually been running for over a week now, but I finally am taking time to start getting this website up-to-date. You can see more photos in the photo pages.
I'm in the process of performance testing the engine to see how closely its power output agree with ...
Posted in Engine 3D, Performance testing | No Comments »
