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Kickstarter project for $100 - 1 kW - stirling engine
- MrEnigma 15y agoSeems like a huge long shot. Even if you wanted to get one now, it's $250. I guess I've never seen this yet, but what happens when they can't' deliver you the working product? Do you get your money back?
- MrEnigma 15y agoAlso, there has to be some sort of mechanism for heat, and then something to actually generate it. All this is going to be is the engine to turn it I believe...
- TylerE 15y agoSterlings are normally run on solar heat.
- colanderman 15y agoI don't know why you're being downvoted. One of the primary uses of Stirling engines, especially for off-grid homesteaders (at whom I'm sure this is aimed) is concentrated solar. All you need are a giant Fresnel lens (~$100), some black metal to act as a collector, and heat transfer compound to attach that to your Stirling engine and you're off to the races.
- TylerE 15y agoYep, also somewhat common on boats, especially sailboats, for the same reasons.
- damoncali 15y agoNot a downvoter, but maybe it was the "normally". The cool part of a Stirling is that it is indifferent to fuel.
- TylerE 15y agoThat's true, but in the real world it's fairly uncommon to see actual burners in use, outside of machine shop projects and the like.
- Volodesign 15y agoCorrect - this is just the piece that turns heat into work. The rest electrical system and fire box / solar concentrator comes latter.
- Volodesign 15y agoThere is no money back guarantee, it is a gamble, although we feel its a pretty good gamble.
- grecy 15y agoCan you point me in a direction where I can buy one now for $250? It's something I'd love to experiment with in my off-grid cabin
- Volodesign 15y agoI don't know of anyone providing a working engine for $250 at this time - you can find desktop models that run off of coffee cups but don't do real work. The industrial models cost in the tens of thousands. Give the Volo a shot - we hope to have it completed by spring.
- jerfelix 15y agoLooks like a cool project. One note to entrepreneurs using Kickstarter, or creating any slide presentation for potential investors: Take the time to spell check your slides. Tim Sefton (creator of this project), if you happen to be reading this, here are some notes that may help you make your presentation more professional... "One thing.. The Sterling engine is about 10% more efficent then the gasoline engine, but strugles with changes in suden acceleration - like what is needed for cars." If you are the author of the presentation, you may want to correct the four errors: efficient, than, struggles, and sudden. Also misspelled is "temperature" (on the previous slide), Not a big deal to me, but some potential investors will absolutely be turned off by that.
- colanderman 15y agoNot to mention it's "Stirling", and not "Sterling".
- GigabyteCoin 15y agoThis. Maybe it's just because I am a web designer and lover of the English language, but when a company's blog URL looks like this: http://volodesigns-sterlingproject.blogspot.com/ http://volodesigns-sterlingproject.blogspot.com/ a) free site b) a dash? c) mispelled stirling? I get just a tad anxious.
- Volodesign 15y agoAppreciate the feedback. I'm going to have to give that typist a tough tongue lashing !
- jacquesm 15y agoOne of the first things you learn when you run a company is that you own your mistakes in public. In other words, it doesn't matter who f'd up, you own it and you can't pass the buck. Regardless of who did it, you should have proofread it, or you should have had someone else proofread it. And even after that any mistakes would still be yours to own in public. If it was in jest and you were the typist then apologies for responding in a serious way.
- MichaelApproved 15y ago"Well the average US household uses about 8,900KWH of electricity per year - that comes down to 24 KWH per day and so our goal is to have a minimum engine output of 1KW so that it can produce close to the average home use of electrical power per day (24 hours of 1 KW output give you 24KWH)." This math isn't taking into account that the power use isn't consistent, batteries will be needed to handle the variances in consumption. You'll never get 100% efficiency from power storage so the amount needed per day is much higher. I also didn't see anything about the temperature required to make this run. Does this go on a roof or do they expect me to keep this in the fireplace the whole time.
- trin_ 15y agowith this kind of device you just need smart plugs so that your dishwasher/dryer/washinmachine run at night.
- MichaelApproved 15y agoThat wouldn't work either since this power isn't clean and steady. Same goes for SV and wind. All these solutions need batteries to even the flow of power.
- jws 15y agoYou'll never get 100% efficiency from power storage so the amount needed per day is much higher. Lead acid batteries are 85-95% efficient for getting power in and back out. It doesn't change your sizing much. That said, until a significant percentage of the utility's customers are using these devices, it makes no sense to use batteries. Just sell surpluses to the grid and buy back to handle peaks. If you have no grid, then about $1000 of batteries will cover you, and need replacing every 5-10 years. Either way, your inverter is probably around $2000. I'd have already clicked to buy in, except there is a missing chunk of the efficiency. Assuming I don't have a small lava flow next to a stream in my basement, what is the total projected efficiency of these units from fuel to electrical energy? They don't seem to be addressing burner efficiency. How will it compare to a small gasoline powered generator? (You can't buy a diesel genset this small.)
- ck2 15y agoYes gas is near $4 - what does that have to do with utility prices, since there aren't any gasoline powered plants in the USA since the 70s ? I would have to assume the way the utility company produces power is far more efficient than a town with thousands of mini-engines. Only stuff like solar cells work better in distribution. Not sure how this would work either - what fuel are you going to use to power it for 24 hours without maintaining it? Will it drive an alternator to power an inverter? How stable would the feed be?
- meow 15y agoUnlike other engines, a Stirling engine (like other external combustion engines) is more suited for using alternative power sources like solar energy. You can heat the end using a Fresnel lens or a solar concentrator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Spain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Spain). But more importantly, with a $100 price tag, it will be an affordable engine to experiment for hobbyists.
- Volodesign 15y agoHi, thanks for the question - The fuel source intended for the Volo Engine is some type of biomass - for the biomass the plan is to use a gassifier to get the heat out of the biomass. Solar is a good possibility, but not enough solar in the northern part of the US to make enough heat.
- Egregore 15y agoI would put it on heating stove.
- nobody31415926 15y agoCompared to your local big-city nuclear plant, no this thing doesn't compete. But if you are off-grid or have unreliable power it is better than a Honda gasoline generator, especially because they can pretty much burn anything - from wood chips to pig manure. Although you do need a big cold sink for it to work well - a river/stream is ideal.
- napierzaza 15y agoA huge amount of the generated electricity is lost on resistance of the power lines on the way to your house. So having it in your basement and going 30 feet to a lamp/outlet would be more efficient.
- ctdonath 15y agoVariant idea: a small portable version for camping. Stick one end in a fire, USB plug for power connector at the other. 2.5W shouldn't be hard to get under conditions where "unreliable" is normal.
- meow 15y agoIt will be kind of heavy though. For simple charging of appliances, other projects are very interesting: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryochijiiwa/bootstrapsolar-portable-power-pack-kit?ref=live http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryochijiiwa/bootstrapsol... http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/davefoster/lilypad-using-light-to-power-all-our-mobile-device?ref=live http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/davefoster/lilypad-using...
- ctdonath 15y agoI have a solar charger/battery. Surprising how often you can't get enough sun to matter, as you need many hours of continuous direct bright light to collect anywhere close to enough. I'm imagining a sort of pencil-sized Sterling; stick one end in the fire and the other in a cup of cold water. Not reliant on ambient/weather conditions for power.
- meow 15y agoaah, that's very interesting.. though I'm skeptical a pencil sized one will be able to output that much of power :). The problem with Stirling engines is that power output is kind of low when compared with a similar sized IC engine.
- damoncali 15y agoI've got a miniature Stirling on my shelf. It's a two cylinder setup that runs off of two small alcohol lamps (about the equivalent of two candles), and is air cooled. It weighs about a pound (but could probably be lighter). I don't know exactly how much power it puts out, but it's not much - you can stop the flywheel with light finger pressure. More heat would produce more power, but I think pencil sized may be a bit optimistic. I like the idea though.
- jgrahamc 15y agoIt's possible to buy something like this. A WhisperGen which generates electricity (1kW) and makes hot water using a four-piston Stirling Engine: http://www.ehe.eu/ehe/dm/whispergen.asp?nombre=2401 http://www.ehe.eu/ehe/dm/whispergen.asp?nombre=2401 They do both because they get cooling by transfering the heat to the domestic hot water supply getting hot water and electricity at the same time. They are powered by natural gas. The gas company E.ON in the UK did a study on them (they also provide them I believe): http://www.microchap.info/Carbon%20Trust%20field%20trial.pdf http://www.microchap.info/Carbon%20Trust%20field%20trial.pdf To quote that report: "For typical family homes, carbon savings of up to 20% are realistically attainable with economic payback of around 3 years."
- colanderman 15y agoWhisperGen is also only available in Europe and costs two orders of magnitude more than this device would last time I checked.
- JoeAltmaier 15y agoBut this device is vaporware, and its price is a pipe dream.
- Volodesign 15y agoLets hope not - we did complete a working prototype, proving out the mechanics, linkages, and feasibility. We are pretty close to budget on the full sized model - bearings may take us slightly over the $100 mark.
- jgrahamc 15y agoWhat would be useful is an apples-to-apples comparison. The WhisperGen is about £3,000 in the UK but that's a complete installable unit in the home that burns natural gas and hooks up to the electricity and water supply. It sounds like your $100 is for just the motion part of the engine (perhaps I'm wrong about that). Do you have a sense for what it would cost me to go from having nothing to a working system in my home generating electricity?
- tord_f 15y agoGreat, if I had enough space I would build one.
- damoncali 15y agoAn interesting side note: You can build one of these that will run off a candle and fit in the palm of your hand. I've got one in my office. It's a pretty neat technology.
- grecy 15y agoCan you give us more details please - did you build it? buy it?
- sbhat7 15y agoI suppose he is referring to this - http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/9e84/ http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/9e84/
- damoncali 15y agoIt was a kit like one of these: http://www.ministeam.com/acatalog/Bohm_Stirling_Engines_and_Kits.html http://www.ministeam.com/acatalog/Bohm_Stirling_Engines_and_... I also tried to build one from scratch once, but only got a few parts in before I sold my lathe and mill. The kit was much easier... Also look up flame eater or vacuum engines. Pretty neat.
- retube 15y agoHmm. I see a few practical issues with this. I need to keep a fire burning the whole time? Not practical for many (most) homes and also will result in a lot of wasted heat.
- Volodesign 15y agoWe've given some thought to this - one idea we are kicking around is embedding a heat capacitor in the engine, kind of like a battery for heat so that we can even out the heat input to the engine - The heat capacitor coule be a type of insulated molten salt bath.
- rcfox 15y agoWhat sort of performance could you expect by just sticking this in the wall of your house? In the winter, you've got cold air outside and you're already heating the inside. In summer, you've got hot air outside and you're cooling the inside. Does it matter which side is hot/cold?
- a-priori 15y agoAnd waste the energy you used (via a furnace or air conditioner) to create that temperature gradient in the first place?
- grecy 15y agoI like that idea - can anyone commment further? Up here in the Yukon it's regularly -30C and below for long stretches and we all have our wood stoves burning 24x7 for 4+ months.... It would not be hard to have one end touching the wood stove (200-400C) and the other end outside (-30C - -40C). Will this work?
- meow 15y agoIt depends on what your power requirement is. For a 200C difference, you should be able to get around 500W to 600W with a properly built stirling engine.
- grecy 15y agoSounds nice for all the people running off-grid up here who get so little precious sunshine in the winter. Can you provide more information on where I might be able to buy such a Sterling engine? Are there any companies actively making them?
- meow 15y agoUnfortunately, there are not many companies building these engines commercially (at least at these power outputs). Most of the engines I have seen are built by hobbyists (either too tiny or crude :( ). That's changing in recent years with increased focus on solar power.
- colinsidoti 15y agoAlthough the goals are clearly different, Dean Kamen (inventor of Segway) has been working on optimizing Stirling engines for years with seemingly great results: http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news4.24.08d.html http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news4.24.08d...
- meow 15y agoOne particular design that I'm very interested in is a quasiturbine based stirling engine. It seem to have a lot better power/volume ratio than other stirling designs. Unfortunately, I haven't seen even a single running model yet :(
- eogas 15y ago>The second difference is the Stirling engine is more efficient then the gasoline driven engine. Gotta proofread this stuff. Anyway, I was thinking recently about how a stirling engine could be powered by solar energy, and discovered that this is actually done. From wikipedia: >Placed at the focus of a parabolic mirror, a Stirling engine can convert solar energy to electricity with an efficiency better than non-concentrated photovoltaic cells, and comparable to Concentrated Photo Voltaics. That's cool, and I'm startled that it isn't mentioned at all on this kickstarter page, especially considering the first paragraph of the pitch.
- colanderman 15y agoProblem is, CPV only works with clear sun. i.e. it's best for deserts. My hunch is this is targeted at off-grid homesteaders, who tend to live where there's vegetation (and thus clouds).
- JabavuAdams 15y agoRobotics.