TS build #2 Vertical lamina flow.

[Twinsquirrel]

Had a reasonable day in the workshop yesterday, between worrying about why the phone hasn't rung for nearly a week

I have the upright, base+brackets, cylinder assembly and test tube steady roughed out. I have to admit this is one of those projects where I have been so focused on the why and how these things work I haven't given the aesthetics much thought so things may change, input welcomed.

Dry assembly:

Sorry for the rough pictures taken on the mobile under fluorescent lighting cos' I was to lazy to walk up to house to get the camera :

David

 

[Stan]

Is this the one that you said you had a rough model running and wanted to make it more pretty.

BTW: I went the shop this morning and removed the 3/16" restrictor and tried the lamina with the 1/4" x .6 hole into the cylinder, using a 1" stroke with the long connecting rod.. It now has the heavy flywheel on it and it,started up nicely, slowly picked up speed until it reached 387 RPM, ran for about five minutes and then started to slow down. I tried water cooling on the cold end of the hot tube and both water and air on the fins of the cylinder. Nothing seemed to have any effect and it just slowly died over several minutes.

 

[Twinsquirrel]

Is this the one that you said you had a rough model running and wanted to make it more pretty.

Not sure what to make of that comment :big: :big: No, this is an all new pretty-as-I-can-manage design using the dimensions from the experimental rig.

What are you making your "hot" end and your regenerator from, 5 minutes doesn't sound too bad. I'm coming to the conclusion that there needs to be a temp difference within what we are calling the hot end, the temperature of the cylinder is important but not the whole solution...

Note: I'm not that confident about any of my findings or theories, I will probably never attempt another one of these unless someone can fully explain what exactly is going on in there.

 

[Brass_Machine]

David,

Looking good so far. I really dig the style. A couple of Q's though. What size test tube are you using? What size choke and bore are you going to use?

Eric

 

[Twinsquirrel]

Hi Eric,

The test tube is 4"/100mm long with a id of .63"(16mm), the choke is a bit different from most lamina's in that it is a stainless or brass tube (I haven't decided yet) with an id of .12"(3mm) but it is 3"(75mm) long to bring the business end to the bottom of the tube.

The bore of the cylinder is as near as damn it to .63" (16mm) and the stroke will be a little less than .78" (20mm)...

Stroke and choke dimensions may change as when testing I found that these are very sensitive depending on the build but have very little to do with logic!

One of the reasons the test tube is so short is that I have bought 20 tubes and broken them all either by droping them or during cutting, I'm reduced now to a tube from my boys chemistry set and refuse to buy anymore!

David

 

[Stan]

David: Certainly no offense was implied. Your response was the answer I was looking for.

The hot end on My lamina is still the piece of mystery metal. It is some kind of SS .625" OD and .550" ID with an effective length of 5.5". For a regenerator I have used steel wool in both very fine (0000) and coarser (0) in different quantities both loose and packed. Like everything else I have done with this, I have no firm data to suggest what gives the best result.

I recently made a new crank wheel with adjustable crank pin location and some new thicker connecting rods. The object was to maintain the same dimensions but with better fitting pins to have less lost motion. The result is that it now runs better with a 1" stroke and a 1/4" restrictor where before it was best with a 3/4" stroke and a 3/16" restrictor.

If anyone can make any sense out of this, please let us know. My attitude is about the same as David's. I will try and complete this thing so that it looks decent and will run if someone wants to see it. I have already started on an electric engine!!