3D print a high power DIY Stirling engine - a field report
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- čas přidán 29. 12. 2021
- In this video I show you my experience with printing main parts of my half rhombic drive Stirling engine.
It presents the printing of different materials as ASA , PETG , IGUS I180 , IGUS J260 and the problems I have with them.
As always I am very happy for comments and suggestions.
Greetings
Ralf - Věda a technologie
Sooo many hours of work and trouble shooting condensed into such a short video, and still staying focused on the original goal in spite of all the deviations required to edge closer to it, is just impressive!
Hi.
thanks for your nice comment.
You are right sometimes it is quite frustrating because the setbacks are much more often than the succsesses.
And thats the reason for my youtube channel my motivation is greatly sustained by comments like yours and the many suggestions and contacts to like-minded are also great.
Dear Ralf, it was a pretty good display about your precise work again! Congratulation! Stirling community guys will crying for the plans! :) Anyway I'm so curious about your next step! Kind regards! BLADE
Hi,
thanks for your kind words and I am also very curious about your next videos!
Keep up your good work and best wishes
Ralf
Impressive results you have, also, your machine tools & workshop are awesome...
Sterling engines is one of those technologies that exist in the public domain, but are being withheld from the public...
The potential of Sterling engines is to provide a compact, silent power unit that can produce heat and power for homes & small businesses independent of the grid....
For that reason, it is not allowed to be...but that might change in the future...
I hope in my lifetime someone creates a Rotary Stirling Engine. Which I feel would be the best of all worlds.
Thank you for sharing this video, and also your journey through many different upgrades.
Thanks for your kind comment!
You are best in diy stirling building!
Thank you very much and with best wishes
Ralf
I really love your projects, congratulations!
This is a man who knows how to lead the way on this uphill ride. Pay attention!
This is some really awesome work - and very cool result!
Hi Andrew,
thanks for your kind comment and with best wishes
Ralf
Cool video, great work!
Wow! Thank you! I have waited this video almost 9 month!
Thanks alot,
hopefully I will show some progress soon.
Best wishe
Ralf
ganz grosses Kino! viel Erfolg weiterhin mit dem Stirling
Vielen Dank und viele Grüße
Ralf
Always great to watch your progress. It looks like you will soon have a powerful generator! More than the 300w!
I am excited for your next video!
Its my dream to have a workshop of my own one day. I live in a country where space is expensive and as a high earning professional i still can't afford a space in my early 30s. One day I'll join in and produce some cool stuff too :)
Hi Martin,
that sounds nice, its really fascinating to build whatever you like, its priceless.
I hope you will find a possibility to realise it.
Greetings and best wishes
Ralf
Can't wait to give it a try! Hoping to grab power from a campfire while winter camping. You da Tru Tru 🙌 you might just change the world with this. Power in third world is severely hard to come by outside of cities.
Thanks alot for your kind words
Ralf
Godlike! I would like to have half as much know how as you have, maybe I would have built one myself by now 😅
Bealtiful stirling!!!!!! Incrivel!🙏❤👏👏👏👏👏👏👏Brasil!!!
Hi Marcos,
thanks for your kind comment.
Greetings
Ralf
Very nice work and careful research - the CNC parts are very well designed and made - an excellent project. 3D printing can be very useful but it does have it's limitations.
Hi Tudor,
many thanks for your kind comment and you are right, for many parts 3D printing is perfect.
Unfortunately not for powerful engines...
Greetings
Ralf
@@myengines2443Hello Ralf, you really need to invest in a small foundry, sand casting things like your box would become very easy and done in a day. I cast stuff like that also with the assistance of the CNC router or 3D printer and make whatever part I want whenever I want. Sand, clay and plaster, and aluminum, is very cheap. Small amount of propane used.
excellent
Incredibly awesome work!! I've been researching Stirling engines for a few days now, and your work is near the top! I do a lot of 3D printing, so this is very cool to me. You may want to try a PLA+ rather then PETG, it's very strong. Anyway, keep it up!
Hi,
PLA is no good choice because a good resistance at higher temperatures is necessary.
I am not sure if PLA+ has a better thermal stability.
But thanks for your hint, do have some positive expieriences with PLA+?
Is it really so much stronger as the advertising suggests?
@@myengines2443 PLA+ is actually a bit weaker then plain PLA. But it is more ductile and has much higher impact resistance. Temperature resistance is still a problem though, so you bring up a very good point, but PETG is not much better. If you want strength and thermal resistance then a carbon fiber nylon is a good option, PC is good, but I have found it very hard to print. Anyway, I would really like to see more detailed videos on the construction of your engines! Particularly the heat exchangers and regenerator set up. Very awesome work you are doing here!!
@@HoffmanTactical
Hi,
you can see more details of the heat exchangers in my older videos and also the time-consuming machining of them.
Thats the reason I built my new EDM machine I present in my new videos.
Greetings
@@myengines2443 Awesome! Watching through your old videos now ;)
Echt Beeindruckend. Really Amazing. Wenn ich die Fähigkeiten dazu hätte, würde ich mir so'n Ding sofort nachbauen. Und damit meine ich beides ;-) Die EDM Maschine und die Stirling Engine. Echt klasse was du da zusammengebaut hast.
Danke!
@@myengines2443 ich hab zu danken. Freu mich auf weitere Videos
Hallo Ralf,
das sieht ja Sehr gut aus! Was mir wirklich toll scheint ist wen Sie die Wärmetauscher in Kombination mit einem warmwasser Püfferspeicher machen könnte (90grad celsius). So das man das Stirling auch mit einem thermische Solarkollektor oder mit pelletheizung benützen könnte und das wärme wasser als batterie :)
Mfg,
Mark
and then dissipate all the thermodynamic advantage of an high temperature source?
Amazing work, again! You have so many toys now, it looks like so much fun.
Have you considered "Lost PLA" casting of your connecting rods, etc? I've never done it, but I've seen people get very accurate parts if shrinkage is accounted for.
Thank you so much for sharing. I always look forward to your videos.
Hi,
many thanks for your kind comment.
Yes, casting is very interesting but to time consuming to learn this technic just for my single batch production.
If sometimes I want to build more than one prototype I definitely will learn to sand cast.
Best wishes
Ralf
Super. Great!!!
Thanks!
Have you tried it as a cryocooler? Beautiful work, by the way!
I'd like to know more about your test stand. Looks like it could be used as a small engine dyno
Hi.
Very interesting your video and work.
I am planning to develop an energy producer by means of a large parabolic mirror. I was wondering about boiling water for generating steam, then a turbine with recovering steam for water again.
But your Sterling model could be appropriated, too. Or not? What do you think? I just know the principle of the Sterling, but nothing else.
Regards from Spain.
Awesome work, did you try to run the cylinder with compressed hydrogen? I heard that hydrogen have 40 times more thermal conductivity than air
Hi buddy,
Amazing work can u add the designing copy by that we can learn more
Beautiful. Optimize it, bring it to on market, and I could be your customer! I find it very strange that there are no stirling engine generators of this size on the market.
Hi Giesbert,
thanks for your encouraging comment.
I think the problem is the complexity and the cost of a Stirling engine that will only be cost effective for a large engine.
My little 300 Watt engine would be far to expensive for reasonable useage.
Greetings and best wishes
Ralf
@@myengines2443 Is there not a sweet spot somewhere? High volume production (lower cost per unit) of a 2000Watt model for example? Enough for one household, nice addition to solar. It may not have a good price per kWh, but that is not always the most important thing. Anyway, keep up the good stirling work 👍
@@Trebseig Hi Chris I have a machine shop started building one inspired in part by your videos, you've made very nice engines, my question is why you make engines with such small bore sizes. It seems like the reasonable power comes from engines of 2" bore
Happy New Year! There has been no news from you for a long time. What are your plans for this topic?
Thanks a lot.
My plans for the next time are experimenting further with the half rhombic engine and test new heat exchanger geometries with my EDM to improve power and reliability.
Best wishes and a happy new year
Ralf
Very interesting work, I am trying to to understand it myself and do it myself. But this project for me is HUGE HUGE undertaking with current resources and I will need to invest quite some sums of cash....
Good day! A lot of work has been done. Could you tell me what is the chemical basis of your materials? We do not have material designations like yours. Of the structural ones, only ABS filaments, Nova PA-GF30 polyamide or analogues are available.
Hi,
PETG is Polyethylene terephthalate glycol
ASA is Acrylonitrile Styrene Acrylate
and both is very common in the 3d printing world.
Important is a good resistance to higher temperatures so PLA is not good.
Hi cool video . Did you remake the parts in steel or aluminum ? I was thinking of trying to use pla printed parts to cast parts to make two sterling engines to create a solar powered air conditioner . Steel is a lot harder to melt than aluminum or maybe even brass do you think those materials would work in this design ?
Hi,
I use a good aluminium alloy which has almost the strength like steel which is normally sufficient.
If you cast your parts by yourself you have to be careful with the quality, it is not easy to cast thin parts with much strength at home.
Greetings
Cool thanks for the info . @@myengines2443
I'm as surprised as you on the mass failure of the printed parts... Just curious, what was their temperature at the time of failure? Have you also considered composite(carbon fiber impregnated) filaments?
Hi,
the temperature was near ambient.
I think the strenght of composite filaments is not much better when I look at material test videos. In addition these are mostly nylon based and hard to print.
Greetings
Ralf
Great work. I have a few question. I want to make one of my own, how can I get about designing one for a specific power output? Thanks.
First step is the method of the Beale equotiation.
Search the net and you will find it.
Its very easy and straightforward.
Did you make this mechanism and then define stroke of your engine, or define stroke first and calculate dimension and distance of mechanism?
First I designed the Stirling cycle theoretically and then derived swept volumes, stroke etc. and then made the mechanism to this requirements.
Very nice machine, for make energie is this engine beter (stronger) than the alfa engine ?
For a small engine many Stirling enthusiasts say that a beta is better than an alpha configuration.
But I think that many factors are more important.
I mostly like the compact heat exchanger arrangement which is possible with a beta design.
If I had enough time I really would like to try an alpha engine.
Are you selling these for homestead... how much ? I'll to buy a few.
Ross Yoke design would be interesting, but in general double action pistons and a 4 cylinder configuration would be probably way more powerful and less complex for home use. Otherwise I would build a free piston or thermoacoustic striling for home use.
Yes, this are all technologies that are very interesting and I really made a lot of thinking about them all.
But my time is limited and I am able to just focus on one configuration at once.
But maybe the next engine will be one of your suggestions...
@@myengines2443 Yes, time is of the essence. I love those interesting projects =)
nice job. if you really want to improve a stirling with 3D printing the heat exchange areas are the best bet to optimize heat exchange. a regenerator is also a good one. adding lubricant passages is also something hard to machine but can be beneficial. what are the power specs on it?
Besides the version with just plain heat exchangers I use many others with better slotted heat exchangers and different regenerators with poers up to 300 watts.
Look my other videos where I describe this in detail.
do some thermodynamics to get a better heat exchanger. I saw a video on a 3D printed heat exchanger 1/3 the weight and volum of the previous one which was claimed to go in a helicopter and it looked like veins and arteries. could hold far more pressure. not many benefits to 3D printing here on some assemblies. bearing tolerqaances can be real tight meaning secondary finish cuts. plus many surfaceshave to be concentric, parallel, etc. might as well hog it all out as you would have to set it up anyway but just IMHO
@@myengines2443
Hi, Great Work
I was wondering if this stirling engine can work in reverse to function as a cryocooler
Hi,
I haven't tried it but I think it would.
Greetings
Ralf
@@myengines2443 Are you interested in making such a device? I think you may find a market for such a product.
I think the first steps is to make the gas chamber sealed and use compressed Helium as the working gas. Any thoughts?
Hello. Very nice progress. As i did suggested earlier - lost foam aluminum casting is way if you want to minimize you machining to absolute minimum level. I have some parts in my channel with process and result. Envy on your EDM setup for heat exchanger - i am still in ss tube welding area, it still look too cheap not to use it. Where are you based ?
Hi Stanislav,
nice videos on your channel, looks very good.
As soon as I want to produce more than one prototype I will try aluminium casting for sure.
I live in Germany and hope to see more of your Stirling soon.
How have you made the heater slots?
Greetings and best wishes
Ralf
@@myengines2443 Thank you for kind words. Germany is not a problem. I will make for you - call casting service. No closed borders. I have drop you Pm on a stirlinegine forum. It is really easy to make castings then you know all that small details.
With my slots i got mixed feelings. It looks like forced solution - yes, doable by welding together laser cut slices, but way too much costly and it warps while welding, so some slots are better than other. Now i switched to tubed heat exchanger - 20 tubes, 6x1, 140mm length. They cost as much as 5 euro, and provide 350 cm2 of area. Which is again enought for our baby, sub 1kw powers.
While in Germany - please pay attention to AlphaGamma stirling engine configuration. It is the nices way to reduce internal mechanical losses to minimum, and have simple V twin config.
0:55 What program was used to animate the linkages?
I think its called linkage designer and free in the net, if you search it you will find.
Greetings
its called "Linkage Mechanism Designer and Simulator" from the Rectorsquid Blog
Ralf, are you aware of the Boostheat technology ( a compressor for a heatpump based on the Stirling principle, creating a heat powered heat pump)?
Hi Jan,
yes I think I know the pinciple (didn't know the name) and I am very interested in the heatpump technology which is predistined for use in combination with a Stirling.
Thanks for your kind suggestion and with best wishes
Ralf
@Ralf tom-rock i'm working on this thermal heat pump myself, (with some help of the university of Ghent ) Is there a way to get in contact because the improvements we made may be of use for your machine ?
good job
wath is the name of mechanism design software you use
linkage or linkage designer I think, I have to look at my win PC..
@myengines2443 i am appreciated to you if say name the software that design linkage
That big black balance/inertia-wheel seems to be vibrating off-balance.
it is a little disturbing to se the perceived vibration - would it not be very simple for You to check and optimize it, possibly improving the effectivity?
Regards.
Hi Helder,
yes you are rigtht the flywheel does not run prefectly true.
Several things are coming together here, I unfortunately turned the crankshaft is 1/100 to 2/100 mm too small and for the big and heavy flywhell the crankshaft is too long and small so the vibrations strenghten themselves.
In the video it looks worse than it is but I have to fix this like many other things as soon as I have time.
Thank you for your attention and with best wishes
Ralf
just curious, you say 300W, but the read out @ 7:02 shows P=50W....?
I reached 300 watts with my rhombic Stirling engine as the maximum output.
It is not shown in this video but in a older one, if you look you will find...
Thanks for your interest.
Bravo.......if u can print metal cool........brass...alum.............great design.....got a patient number.......cheers
why...........do.......you people...........always seem to talk...........like..this..............dont get it pls res........pond!
hello Ralf do you sell these?
Sorry they are just research prototypes and are not for sale.
When I stop developing a special engine to try an other design maybe I sell it for an other Stirling enthusiast for a friendship price.
Then I will announce it here on youtube.
Are u gonna have files for this and instructions
Hi,
yes somewhere in the comments I wrote a link to the file of the crankcase cad model.
I think here but maybe in an older video.
I dont have instructions because I dont have time to neatly prepare them for others.
And by the way - do you share your drawings?
Hi,
unfourtunately I have just basic sketches for most of the parts and it would be to much work to bring them in a form that is presentable.
In the comments of an older video I linked the .stl file of the crankcase.
I think if you really want to build a stirling engine you must design it from scatch for yourself to match your workshop and skill capabilities.
It is no rocket sience, just common sense, experience and workshop potentialities.
Greetings
Ralf
@@myengines2443 thank you! I will check the older video. Also I think some cooler part can be simplified by using subcontractors with hydroabrasive cutting.
@@myengines2443 just check - link is expired, can I ask you to share the crankcase again?
@@Negyo here is the new link:
www.mediafire.com/file/1m37ccpd6v9rb43/crankcase.stl/file
greetings and best wishes
Ralf
@@myengines2443 Thank you!
good job at any change can u give the files pleases
The link for the cad files is in the comments under one of the videos!
@@myengines2443 at any chance do u remember which one
Ok I found the link but it doesn't work can u please repost the links and files
any chance, you would share your cad files?
In an earlier comment here or in my other HRD video I posted a link to the cad files in webspace.
If the link does not work anymore send me your email adress and I can post you the files.
In the comments of the new Video I post a link to some cad files.
Would you be willing to sell your Stirling engine? I would love to buy one.
Hi Garry,
sorry but it is (as all of my engines) just a prototype engine and not developed enough for commercial sale.
Also the price would be far to high as it is all made in single-item production and it would not be reasonable to build it for selling.
Many hours of work are in this engine that cant be paid for a reasonable price.
If I abandon the research of this engine and develop an other approach of Stirling I will offer it for a friendship price here on youtube
for an other enthusiast who wants to develop it further.
Many greetings
Mine engine did ran for the first time : czcams.com/video/RcxW9fIGPDo/video.html
Plotting is not printing.
Hier geht es um den Verkauf von 3D Druckern, Heißluftmotoren Entwicklung ist das nicht.
Erst wenn Wärmerückgewinnung im Gegenstrom gezeigt wird mit Katalytischer Oxidation nehme ich das für voll. Pastor Stirling dreht sich im Grab um.
Nehmen Sie einen Metallbolzen 100mm Ø 150mm lang gehen Sie zu einem Dorfschmied und sagen bitte glühend machen, er nimmt keinem Gasbrenner, was macht er, RICHTIG.
This is about selling 3D printers, not developing hot air engines.
Only when heat recovery in counterflow is shown with catalytic oxidation do I take it for granted. Pastor Stirling turns in his grave.
Take a metal bolt 100mm Ø 150mm long go to a village blacksmith and say please make it red hot, he doesn't take a gas burner, what does he do, RIGHT.
Hello. I do not agree with you. This was a myth buster like video - can i build crankshaft parts using 3d printer. In the end - nope, you cant.
@@StanislavZachazevski Haben Sie das gemacht?
Nehmen Sie einen Metallbolzen 100mm Ø 150mm lang gehen Sie zu einem Dorfschmied und sagen: bitte glühend machen, er nimmt keinem Gasbrenner, was macht er, RICHTIG.
Schauen Sie bitte zu wie der Schmied es macht.
Did you do that?
Take a metal bolt 100mm Ø 150mm long, go to a village blacksmith and say: please make it red hot, he doesn't use a gas burner, what does he do, RIGHT.
Please watch how the blacksmith does it.
people who do that kind of work and don't share the plan's should go in hell lol