Talk-Polywell.org

Far less than obvious is glassing in my south-facing front porch and using a water wall. I might be able to get by on only a few kW and ~10kWh bank capacity.

builditsolar's turning out to be a treasure trove.

http://www.cyclonepower.com/

External combustion engine design that can burn any fuel, including bio-matter.

jowey styxx wrote: External combustion engine design that can burn any fuel, including bio-matter.

Sounds like a Stirling Engine! Which, by the bye, is more efficient than a rankine engine at similar delta Ts.

http://www.energysolutionscenter.org/di ... MPower.htm

KitemanSA wrote:

jowey styxx wrote: External combustion engine design that can burn any fuel, including bio-matter.

Sounds like a Stirling Engine! Which, by the bye, is more efficient than a rankine engine at similar delta Ts.

http://www.energysolutionscenter.org/di ... MPower.htm

Cool then STM Power, Inc. can compete with Cyclone Power for the Land Steam record in August, let the best company win.
http://landspeedrecord.intuitwebsites.com/index.html

If either Stirling or Rankine can be made small enough to work in a hybrid car, replacing the IC with a cleaner burning engine that does not depend on a certain grade or type of fuel, that would be a good thing - right ?

I have heard that pure electrics will give us problems with copper availability, so we still need options.

I am not clear on how the "incinerator" drives itself to convert "biomass" and whatever you want to burn (Mr Fusion?) to in turn heat the coils. The webpage seems to gloss over this part. Liquid or gas fuels atomize easy enough (PS: what is the air source for atomization?) and the photos of the lawn mower et. all seem to run off Propane Bottles (self atomizing...). But the wood pellet/orange peel bit is not clear. What source runs the incinerator? How does that effect overall efficiency and carbon footprint? What is the exhaust gas makeup? I liked the bit in the video where he says, "it burns very clean, you can't even smell it when it is up and full running". Great measure of environmental effectiveness. maybe that is why tree huggers love Yankee Candle, smells nice and all.

On a seperate note, I do like the simplicity of the engine itself, very similar as noted to the sterling concept. Piston is a piston. I wonder if they have thought of running it with a rotary piston setup? Even more simple, and improves power to weight much more.
I think I will email him with the thought...

Email sent...I'll let you all know what they say (if anything).
If they like it, maybe I can get a royalty out of the idea!

ladajo wrote:Email sent...I'll let you all know what they say (if anything).
If they like it, maybe I can get a royalty out of the idea!

Good luck. I am impressed with Cyclone's credentials, the EATR robot, attempting the Land Steam record for an automobile and WHE engines in beta - the company seems to have credibility.

How the incinerator handles solids, wood, orange peels, lawn clippings as fuel is a question unless they mixed it with an accelerant or processed it somehow, like sawdust. It would be neat if one could run their lawnmower off of grass clippings.

these guys have had a Stirling engine out for a decade now, mostly for remote small-scale CHP (combined heat 'n power) ... has wobble yoke set-up

http://www.whispergen.com/

icarus wrote:these guys have had a Stirling engine out for a decade now, mostly for remote small-scale CHP (combined heat 'n power) ... has wobble yoke set-up

http://www.whispergen.com/

Not their idea:
Philips swash-plate Stirling engine (pg. 72)
This was rolling along Detroit streets in a Ford test vehicle by 1979. The killer was warm-up time impact on fast-food/beer runs. Still a nice design.

DeltaV wrote:

icarus wrote:these guys have had a Stirling engine out for a decade now, mostly for remote small-scale CHP (combined heat 'n power) ... has wobble yoke set-up

http://www.whispergen.com/

Not their idea:
Philips swash-plate Stirling engine (pg. 72)
This was rolling along Detroit streets in a Ford test vehicle by 1979. The killer was warm-up time impact on fast-food/beer runs. Still a nice design.

I am curious as to how Cyclone solved the "warm up time", if they did, along with the use of solids. Lets see how their "Land Speed Record" goes in August, will they make 200mph ?

It still would have been nice to be able to purchase an affordable Stirling electric generator. Or applying it in a hybrid automotive design, where an instant warm up time is not required.

DeltaV wrote:

icarus wrote:these guys have had a Stirling engine out for a decade now, mostly for remote small-scale CHP (combined heat 'n power) ... has wobble yoke set-up

http://www.whispergen.com/

Not their idea:
Philips swash-plate Stirling engine (pg. 72)
This was rolling along Detroit streets in a Ford test vehicle by 1979. The killer was warm-up time impact on fast-food/beer runs. Still a nice design.

Oops, WhisperGen has wobble yokes, not a swash plate. Slightly different timing.
http://www.whispergen.com/main/technology/
http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/P ... C.htm#tech

Of course, the free piston stirling engine is pretty nice too. See www.sunpower.com.

Then there's the third-world-ruggedized ST-5. Bulky, but hard to break and easy to service. Runs on corn cobs, wood chips, peanut shells, cow dung, old phone books, french fry grease, ethanol or whatever:
http://www.stirling-tech.com/stirling/stirling.htm