In article ,
Winston wrote:

Ken Davey wrote:
Some time ago somebody (forgotten who) mentioned, in passing, that hard
drive discs might serve as rotors in a Tesla Turbine.
I had been working for some time on that idea and now I am finally ready to
show the world (or at least RCM) the results.
http://www.rupert.net/~solar/
Click on Tesla Turbine - go figure
The page is still incomplete but the basics are there.

Way excellent, Ken.

Please post again when you have performance and efficiency curves.

Indeed! This definitely ranks as one of the niftier hacks I've seen.
Can't wait to hear about power output and the rest of the details.

As a side note, this has inspired me to start looking at that scrap 3'
chunk of 14"x8" "engineered wood" main beam from the house as a
potential housing for a many-many-more disks on an even longer shaft
version done in a wood case. If I've properly understood what I've read
about TTs, it would seem to me that increasing disc count can do one
thing, and one thing only: Increase output torque. (Yes, Virginia, I'm
certain there's an upper limit of how much fluid you need to feed it to
get it spun up)

Ponders a compressed-air chainsaw where the chain going through the
wood drowns out the engine noise

I know, I know, I'm a heretic, working in wood... But hey! The material
is there, and at this moment, it's considered something to be hauled to
the dump! Chopping it up and making one of these gizmos out of it would
only be enhancing its value!

Ken:
Love the milled spiders - The spooky part is I keep glancing at the
stack of them that's visible in the other window and seeing spiders for
45 RPM records

Suggestion for improvement if there's a "next version" in your shop:
I've done some reading on these little beasties, and they, like so many
other nifty gadgets that Ol' Nick came up with, intrigue me. One of the
things I've learned from that reading is something that you mention on
your page - one of the key things is putting the drive fluid to the
rotor-bank at as close to a perfect tangent as possible, and *WITH AS
LITTLE TURBULENCE AS POSSIBLE*. (Emphasis mine)

Now, your manifold bar/nozzle bar setup is an excellent idea, but I
think I see a flaw in it that's quite likely to be putting extra
turbulence in the fluid path, but could be tuned up pretty easily, with
potentially significant improvement over the excellent-sounding (so far
- I'm waiting for the torque figures ) performance with what I think
would be only a slight alteration of what you've already got.

It isn't clear for sure from your commentary what, if any, kind of plans
you might have for maybe producing/selling this neat little widget
(which doesn't even consider whether there's an exploitable market for
it if you want to try), so do you want me to talk about the idea I've
got "in public", or would you prefer to go to email or some other
medium?

--
Don Bruder - - New Email policy in effect as of Feb. 21, 2004.
Short form: I'm trashing EVERY E-mail that doesn't contain a password in the
subject unless it comes from a "whitelisted" (pre-approved by me) address.
See http://www.sonic.net/~dakidd/main/contact.html for full details.