How to make a Stirling engine with your own hands

The Stirling engine is a thermal machine in which the working fluid (gaseous or liquid) moves in a closed volume, in fact it is a kind of external combustion engine. This mechanism is based on the principle of periodic heating and cooling of the working fluid. The extraction of energy comes from the emerging volume of the working fluid. The Stirling engine works not only on the energy of the burning fuel, but also on virtually any source of thermal energy. This mechanism is patented by the Scottish Robert Stirling in 1816.

The described mechanism, despite the low efficiency, has a number of advantages, first of all it is simplicity and unpretentiousness. Thanks to this, many amateur designers make attempts to assemble the Stirling engine with their own hands. Some people succeed, but some do not.

In this article, we will look at how to make the Stirling engine with your own hands from improvised materials. We need the following blanks and tools: can (can from under the sprat), sheet metal, paper clips, foam rubber, elastic, package, wire cutters, copper wire, pliers, scissors, soldering iron, sandpaper.

Now proceed to assembly. Here is a detailed instruction on how to make the Stirling engine with your own hands. First you need to wash the jar, sand it with sandpaper. Cut out the sheet from the sheet metal so that it lies on the inside edges of the can. Determine the center (for this we use a caliper or ruler), use a scissor hole. Next, we take a copper wire and a paper clip, straighten a paper clip, at the end we make a ring. We wind a wire on a paper clip - four tight coils. Next, with the soldering iron, we obtain the obtained spiral with a small amount of solder. Then it is necessary to solder the spiral accurately to the hole in the lid so that the rod is perpendicular to the lid. The clip should move freely.

After this, it is necessary to make a communicating hole in the cover. We make a displacer from foam rubber. Its diameter should be slightly less than the diameter of the can, but there should not be a large gap. The height of the displacer is slightly more than half the can. We cut out a hole for the bushing in the foam rubber, the latter can be made of rubber or cork. We insert the stem into the received bush and seal everything. The displacer must be placed parallel to the lid, this is an important condition. Then it remains to close the jar and to seal the edges. The seam should be sealed. Now we start to make a working cylinder. To do this, cut out a sheet of 60 mm in length and 25 mm in width, bend the edge by 2 mm with pliers. We form the sleeve, then solder the edge, then it is necessary to solder the sleeve to the lid (above the hole).

Now you can start making membranes. To do this, cut off a piece of film from the package, slightly press it with your finger inside, press the edges with the elastic band. Next, you need to check the correctness of the assembly. We heat the bottom of the can with the fire, pull it by the rod. As a result, the membrane should bend outward, and if the stem is released, the displacer under its own weight should descend, respectively, the membrane returns to its place. In the event that the displacer is not made correctly or the soldering of the can is not sealed, the stem will not return to its place. After this, we make the crankshaft and racks (the crankshaft spacing should be 90 degrees). The height of the cranks should be 7 mm, and the displacers 5 mm. The length of the connecting rods is determined by the position of the crankshaft. The end of the crank is inserted into the plug. So we looked at how to assemble the Stirling engine with our own hands.

Such a mechanism will work from a conventional candle. If you attach magnets to the flywheel and take the coil of the aquarium compressor, then such a device can replace a simple electric motor. With your own hands, as you can see, making such a device is not at all difficult. There would be a desire.