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Coke Can Stirling engine

video Coke Can Stirling engine

Here's a coke can Stirling I made, I didn't work as well as I had hoped but it's a starting point! Somehow the flywheel ended up completely wonkey and the bearings keep falling out and it's not very well balanced but other than that its fine ;-) The cranks are made out of a bicycle spoke, I used the thread on the end to screw on the flywheel so it can be easily removed. The piston is graphite in a pyrex cylinder The target is to build a 1W Stirling generator out of coke cans, a long way to go yet !

16 comments

Nov 18, 2010. 4:45 PMjonathanlee0 says:

whats the flywheel made of?

Jan 15, 2011. 2:14 PMDavid97 says:

It looks like wood.

Aug 15, 2011. 1:02 PMfiredude20123 says:

either that or a cork "coaster" or a couple of em glued together haha???? no idea lol

Aug 2, 2010. 9:30 AM

Blofish says:

This is how we succeed, thru our failures! Thanks for sharing

Jun 17, 2010. 3:36 PMSasquatchKid says:

Nice machine what can you power with it?

Jul 3, 2010. 9:25 PM

egbertfitzwilly says:

The Stirling was an early competitor with the internal combustion engine. The ICE won out because we had this readily available, cheap fuel.... The fundamental design scales up extremely one can power any number of devices. I believe the primary production application in the modern world is in some model airplanes which can benefit from the high RPMs.

Jul 4, 2010. 3:57 AMSasquatchKid says:

Great im an aviator

Jun 14, 2010. 6:12 PM

egbertfitzwilly says:

I wish you would post an instructable to go along with this. By itself its not any better than viewing it on YouTube.

Jul 3, 2010. 10:00 AMscraptopower (author) says:

I don't have any intentions of posting an instructable as it requires a graphite piston and cylinder which isn't easily available anywhere. Sorry.

Mar 26, 2010. 1:46 PMak49er says:

I like the "wonkey" flywheel - it adds character! Plus, the fact that it works makes it even more entertaining! If there are two means to an end, and both means are just as effective, but one looks hilarious, go for the funny one!

Mar 24, 2010. 4:03 PM

rimar2000 says:

Congratulations!
I'm doing a Stirling engine designed by myself (rotary displacer), but it does not work. I think it has three flaws: It's not tight enough, the cooling is very poor and air connectivity is also poor. I'm redoing it.
Yours functions very well!!

142

Mar 24, 2010. 3:24 PM

Kiteman says:

Is that black pipe a chimney?

Does it affect the efficiency in any way?

Mar 24, 2010. 3:31 PM

lemonie says:

sites.google.com/site/reukpower/
Interesting stuff.

L

142

Mar 24, 2010. 3:45 PM

Kiteman says:

That lenz turbine looks interesting...

Mar 24, 2010. 3:30 PMscraptopower (author) says:

Yes, I fitted it try and stop the heat rising straight to the cold side. I don't have any evidence for it affecting the efficiency but I think that it should. It's just a piece of scrap pipe that happened to have a nice bend in it.

142

Mar 24, 2010. 3:42 PM

Kiteman says:

That's a sound idea, any way.

I love the chuffing noise the engine makes.