And for recreation you could fly your very own steam powered model airplane.
Lindsay sells a book about flash-boiler powered model airplanes. FWIW - I
believe the Langley
which was Wright Bros. closest competitor was steam powered.
Bob Swinney
"DejaVU" wrote in message
...
Gunner scribed in
:
A serious question to the group....in your individual opinions,
does anyone have any suggestions for a simply made from common
materials, with minimal machining, steam engine?
hmmmmm. not all that easy without basic machinery. what might be
more useful is a lot of printed materials from the 1850's onwards
which show the early ways of doing it (boring 24" cylinders etc).
at least then you don't have to invent soemthing to do the job all
over again.
Boilers are another issue of course..and suggestions on that
would be nice as well.
solar powered flash boiler. how much pressure do you want?
locos with flash boilers favoured around 1800 psi (-;
40 or 50 half-square-meter flat mirrors on 'tripods' (any stand
suitable). aim them by hand at the boiler elements and re-aim every
half hour or so. when you get tired of that, invent a mechanism to
do it for you (small steam engine with governor driving a celestial
telescope mechanism to keep all the mirrors 'pointing at the sun'
will do)
not much sun where you are? get more mirrors. it'll even work at
the poles, same energy density per square meter afaik.
imagine the effect of putting such mirrors in every seat in a
football stadium on the side facing the sun.... then reflecting the
sun at the ref..... (-:
Would it be possible to convert an internal combustion engine,
for example a VW engine, to run on steam?
probably too much friction as the rings are very tight compared to a
steam engine.
The only criteria is that it be easy to assemble from common
materials, capable of running an automotive generator (at the
least) and can be done with minimal tools, or simple machine
tools. If it can be scaled up for larger gennys/line shafts, that
would be a plus.
all really depends how much water you have. plenty water = flash
boiler and turbine and just waste theexhaust to air (or heat the
house). little water = some other boiler type and multi stage
piston engine with condenser etc etc etc to conserve water.
of course, if you have plenty of flowing water why make steam? just
use the water to turn whatever you want. if you generate
electricity, don't use it to run the lathes etc, lay shaft for that
works well, use electricity for the other things you can't live
without, like internet access....
swarf, steam and wind
--
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