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Welcome to My
Mini Stirling Fan Page ! |
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This is a picture of my
'Mini Stirling Fan'
(plans by Jerry Howell)
under power.
I just finished it after many, many hours making many, many small parts. It stands 10" tall and it's brass fan is 5-1/2" in diameter. With a modified salt shaker for an alcohol lamp and a small blue flame, it spins smoothly at about 1000 rpm, creating a gentle breeze 4 feet away! |
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A close-up view of many of the small parts I made. The majority of them are made from brass, bronze, aluminum and stainless steel. Yes my eyes are still recovering! |
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For some of the larger parts I had to make special tools to machine, the power & displacer cylinders ( bottom) & the hot cap (right).The insulators (top center) I made from circuit board. Most of these parts shown are sub-assemblies. |
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In another close-up of the component parts you can see the balancing holes in the 3-crank discs and the slots for the fan blades in the brass hub. I made the fan hub larger than plan specs for a smoother running engine. The piston & displacer gland (not shown) are made from 'Ryton' , a hi-tech temperature stable plastic, and require no lubrication! |
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In this view you can see many of the parts as the assembly proceedes. Everything must be made precisely in order for the engine to work. The main crankshaft is supported with precision bearings to reduce friction (the enemy for a hot air engine this small). I made the aluminum displacer cylinder 1/4" wider to aid in cooling and in operation it only gets lukewarm. |
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This is a close-up of the engine. Note the small oil holes for the displacer and piston rods! Also the #4-40 brass screw I used to plug off the port connecting the displacer chamber to the power cylinder made it much easier to accurately machine the port. I see I still need to clean up a little solder by the fan blades...minor cosmetic details . |
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I'd like to mention in this section, being a professional machinist, how much I enjoyed working with a good set of plans. In this view one of my other modifications was to make the bearing standards thicker from 1/16" to 1/8". Although I altered a few things of Jerry's plans I'm quite sure an accurate, unaltered rendition would produce quite satisfactory results! |
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This is a view of the side of the 'Mini Stirling Fan'.
I like brass to be brass, aluminum to look like aluminum,stainless to look natural...................
NO PLATING HERE!!
just a little polishing.
If you are interested in seeing other engines built using Jerry Howell's plans why not visit his site? Perhaps you'd like to build one too!! Visit:
www.jerry-howell.com |
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Previous Page |
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Back to my Home Page |
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View My Old Guest Book |
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This page last updated 03/10/01 by
'The Brainman' |
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