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McGyver, Sping assist has been talked of before and I think the energy required to compress it out weighs the benefit it provides on up stroke. If your displacer is balanced with weight on the flywheel you will have better results. Ideally you should be able to stop the engine in any position and it...

Thrundar, The two stroke I have is also from a small weed eater. I was going to make some sort of displacer assembly much like the guy did for his Briggs and Stratton. I would then use the spark plug hole as a port and JB weld the ports on the side of the cylinder closed. I may remove the rings and ...

I'm told 25% of the power piston diameter is the number. I've played with this a little but didn't see any real gain or loss from increasing it to about 50% I have seen diaphram engines that are 100% so I'm not sure how this effects operation. A safe number is about 25% though.

If I remember right, the thought was that the epoxy would be contaminated and not set right? I would still be willing to experiment with it if I was going to make one that way. I've been using Airpots piston products in mine and I used a nylon spacer in a brass fitting on my first one (it worked) I ...

Welcome to the forum Heckman, Your probably right about your first non-working engine. Friction is the number one enemy followed closely by exessive leaks. I mentioned mixing graphite with the epoxy long ago and got discouraging feedback? I never tried it but I thought it would be a good idea for th...

I just finished adding an alternator to one of my engines. I made a stator plate with two coils made from 12v automotive relays, a couple 3/16 X 1/4" neodymium magnet cylinders and two 1.8v LED's. Just wire the coils in series to the LED's (LED's parallel but opposite polarity to each other) Pu...

If speed is desired over power then a short stroke on the power cylinder is generally used. Your engine is close to what is called a "square" engine, meaning the stroke and bore are the same. I see many Stirling's with long power strokes and I believe this helps over come the friction by i...

I see no problem with it as long as you stay within it's temperature limits.

I'll throw in my two cents here.. I have no experience building any type other than an LTD but I do own a commercial model Solar-1 Engine ( http://www.pmresearchinc.com/store/home.php?cat=5 ) It's specs are; Power Cylinder: 3/4 inch stroke by 3/8 bore. Piston length is approx 1 inch long with small ...

Sorry, I have no plans for a useful Stiring but congratulations on you working first engine! Build a few more and eventually you may come up with one powerful enough.

I have read that a compressor conversion has been done and it read like it was fairly common. I'm not sure if it was gamma or alpha and I'm not sure if it was refering to an automotive AC compressor or an air compressor. I don't have much to offer you here but if I remember right, the drawback was d...

Speedless, I think you have it right. A Stirling engine is actually a one-stroke engine. Power is produce in each direction of piston travel. I too have been contemplating a “double action” Stirling for some time and have a pneumatic “push-pull” cylinder perfect for the task. I posted this topic on ...

Your engine size is a bit over my head but I'll venture to say that the steel wool would be a good idea. I don't think you want it to separate the hot and cold side but the air should flow around and though it. The wool will catch and store some heat this way for use in next cycle. I don't think you...

Wouldn't a graphite piston work well?

I've run my engine on dry ice before but that's nothing new. A bowl of water ice can run many of the production LTD models. I'm sure it's possible to "fuel" a stirling with liquid nitrogen but as you mention, I doubt it is cost effective or very "green" in terms of total energy c...