Disaster

I have used a drum pump with a longer piece of pipe and a foot valve to pump from underground storage tanks. It was tedious to pump the fuel we needed that way but it worked.

-- Tom

But this is exactly what happens. I can imagine contacting the gas station across the street, and offering to let them use a genset to run their pumps, so long as I can get some fuel for free.

Otherwise it's wobble pump time.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

Some research in your area might come in handy too. With the power outages in the news lately I took the opportunity to ask about the pumps at some of the local gas stations. Most of the people I've talked to don't even know if their pumps still have the manual cranking handles and mechanisms that gas pumps used to have.

It is easier to fight for our principles than to live up to them.-Alfred Adler

Go to

and read about posting to the dropbox... Basically, send an e-mail with attached pictures (click the paperclip Attach button and select your files) and text file description to the listed dropbox addy, no subject or body text necessary AFAIK.. and they should appear in the 'box within a few hours. You'll get an automatic confirmation notice.

Tim

-- "That's for the courts to decide." - Homer Simpson Website @

[ ... ]

Actually, while it *is* possible to post pictures on a newsgroup, it is discouraged, except in newsgroups which have "binaries" in their names. For discussion newsgroups (which this is), pictures (and other binaries like audio files) are considered off topic.

However -- there is an accepted alternative. Go to the dropbox , and click on the option to learn about the dropbox. You send an attachment in e-mail to a specific address listed there, and you also attach a ".txt" file containing a description. The names of the file should start the same, for example:

howididit.txt (the description) howididit.jpg (the image).

There can be multiple images, best named with sequential numbers, such as:

howididit1.jpg (the image). howididit2.jpg (the image). howididit3.jpg (the image).

(or -- if there are more than nine of them, it is nice to start the single-digit names with a '0', so things will sort into the right order.

howididit01.jpg (the image). howididit02.jpg (the image).

...

howididit09.jpg (the image). howididit10.jpg (the image). howididit11.jpg (the image). howididit12.jpg (the image).

Exactly how to attach images to e-mail depends on the e-mail program, and you use a different one than I do, so I can't tell you how, but somebody else here can certainly do so.

Oh yes! Once you have sent the images to the dropbox (and made sure that they are there), post a message here saying where they are (remember to mention the URL of the dropbox , and the names of the files.

Now -- if you have a digital camera, it will be easy to get the images in a format so you can send them. (Hint -- try to avoid ".bmp" images, ".jpg" is preferred for photographs.)

However, if you only have still photographs, you'll need to run them through a scanner -- yours, or somebody else's, to convert the images into digital form, so you *can* e-mail them.

:-)

Enjoy, DoN.

Thanks, DoN, and you, too, Tim. I have saved the instructions for future use. I can't imagine there would be enough interest in the engine conversion to warrant posting the pics, of which there are a total of seven, three of which are two pics combined. I scanned them from the photo album and sent them to my email program, where they were sized appropriately for email. I'm willing to send them to anyone interested.

Unfortunately, I took pictures only of the engine as it was being assembled, so there is nothing in the way of detail parts showed. A new head was made, and a stainless steel band that went around the fins, which were altered to receive the band. The entire assembly was held in place by two stainless bands (think hose clamps) with a proper gasket under the components. Special wedges of aluminum were made that were placed under the stainless bands to direct clamping pressure where appropriate. The engine ran with no problems for several years, and was still functioning flawlessly when we sold the boat in '90. The engine conversion was done in '81. The conversion was a resounding success.

Harold

I don't know if Jim has natural gas at his house, but one solution to the fuel problem is to convert the engine to run on natural gas. Propane is another possibility.

We used to have a lot of long power outages here, until the power company ran another line so that my house was not at the very end of a long line runing thru a lot of woods. We don't suffer too much unless the outage is for a long time. The family room has insulation in the interior walls as well as the exterior wall and a wood stove. For lights and cooking I use portable propane camping gear and I have one of those things so I can refill the 16 ounce tanks from a 20 lb propane tank. ( Incidently Jim, Vincent has one of those too ). And we have a old portable radio that works on C cells that will receive the TV sound as well as AM and FM.

Dan

Won't work - all modern gas stations I know of have submersible turbine pumps in the underground tanks, they don't have a belt drive suction pump in the base of the dispensers anymore (except in very rare circumstances). No 120VAC power from somewhere, no fuel.

There's no incentive to put a generator in, IIRC there are laws in CA about not raising prices in a crisis, so they couldn't recover the extra costs of running the genset and amortizing the installation and maintenance...

(I'd gladly pay an extra 10c a gallon. It's the pirates that would try to charge $20 a gallon that would almost deserve a bullet... ;-)

Though I have seen a few gas stations (one I'm thinking of is in Port Hueneme, CA) that have a packaged genset on a slab in the back of the station - though the genset might be there for a nearby sewer lift station, it sure looked like it was on the gas station property....

-->--

Really, it would be better to post them. For example, my ISP is flaky as good Danish pastry. My chances of getting a whole e-mail with seven pictures in it varies from maybe to forget it. On the other hand, if I've got three from the dropbox and ISP dies, I have to re-download at most one.

Besides, it sounds like there's a lot more interest than you expected. :-)

Ted

"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass." --Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass." --Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

Stop that!

When I was a boy, these 50 years ago or so, I was at a favorite Aunt's house on the family orchard area for a month or so. There was an old pump that you put coal or firewood in to make it run. Now I know it was a Stirling engine driven pump!! I have scoured the whole area and nobody knows what happened to it. Darn!

I relly loved watering the orchards behind the house. Put in some kindling, get a good coal bed going in 3 or 4 minutes, then put a few small and a couple of big coal lumps in the firebasket. Then reach up ( I was about 5 years old) and turn the flywheel. Add 2-3 more big lumps to fill the basket and close the 'stove' door.

The old engine would turn, the belt would spin the pump drum and the water pump would begin a 'mighty flow' (2 inch pipe full). The sounds still are with me; the th-wapa th-wapa of the old belt and the squee-whush squee-whush of the pump. But I don't recall that the Stirling made any noise!!

It would run about an hour then slowly wind down, and finally ... stop. Wouldn't that be fun to water the garden with! OSHA would have apoplexy .

Jeff Thompson

***snip a bit***

I didn't see this link posted yet:

Looks like the Sterling engine lives!

Strider

I did some research on the web about the sterling engine. The is an outfit that sells small sterling engine kits that actually turn a disk. There obviously not much of a power out put, but it would be a place to start the scale up to a workable solution.

The Independent

Harold & Susan Vordos wrote:

This kind of use was one of the reasons the Stirling Cycle engine was invented. They could be run by the completely ignorant with no real danger to themselves or those nearby, unlike steam, which requires a competent operator to avoid blowing the equipment sky high.

I have only seen one Stirling farm engine, and I don't know if it ran or was just sitting there. It was in the back of one of the "shops" in the Ville D'Antan, a recreated "historical" village in Quebec. Sadly, the rules for the employees there forbade them from communicating with the tourists in any language but french, so I was not able to get any information out of the "resident" that was present, though he was able to understand my questions and nodded his replies. :-/ It was a nice looking Rider-Ericson type engine.

Cheers Trevor Jones

My, how considerate of them. And we Americans have our nose out of joint with the french? Go figure!

Harold

You will probably find even more information if you research "Stirling" cycle engines. Sterling is a grade of silver, among other things. Stirling is the name of the guy that thought of the idea to use the expansion and contraction of a contained volume of air to perform work.

There is a lot of information online that has been put there by bad spellers and those that do not know the proper names of things. Not that it's bad information. It would be easier to find, though, if it was filed correctly. :-)

Cheers Trevor Jones

Thanks for your anecdote, Jeff! Too bad you weren't able to track it down later. I rather suspect it would NOT be relegated to sitting in your trophy room or on your fireplace mantle (even if size or other considerations did not prohibit).

Thanks are also due to several other conferees for their comments as well.

I hadn't anticipated that Gunner would crosspost to my second followup in the thread. Originally I had deleted this newsgroup from my followups because I wanted to probe any possible interest in a small genset project - whether it was to be diesel, steam or Stirling

- in alone, for starters.

I've long been interested in a low power, "low signature" engine generator set - preferably one that uses either a =small= diesel engine, or else some kind of external combustion engine.

=Small= diesel engines aren't particularly abundant in the US.

As another participant hinted, in the case of steam engines there are some issues surrounding water availability and the possible need for treatment...or dealing with the effects of non-treatment. Auxiliary mechanical devices (oiler, feed pump), and codes and regulations (pressure vessel, operator licensing, etc.) may constitute still other disincentives. Although codes and regulations become selectively irrelevant in a "societal collapse" scenario, which is a recurrent theme in , prior to that happening it may be hard to get O & M experience without either stealth or regulatory compliance.

That leaves us with the Stirling engine. In the context it's an especially attractive candidate for many kinds of loads that require shaft power - be it a genset, well pump or an overhead line shaft for a machine shop. The Stirling engine can use an extraordinarily wide variety of fuel (including solar energy), it can be designed to operate on an amazingly low temperature differential, it's relatively quiet, it has no critical water maintenance issues (no issues at all if water is not used as a coolant), and it emits no ignition radio noise. The latter point is a definite consideration if a Stirling genset is used to support communications. [The audience includes Hams and other commo enthusiasts.]

Regrettably, Stirling engines are disappointingly scarce, and even small engine =kits= are expensive.

On the bright side, Stirlings do not appear to be especially complex designs. For example, castings (if any) and machinings are fairly straightforward; typical designs generally don't have passages for cooling water. Most of the lube oil system can be plumbed externally; some smaller engines don't even require lube oil. There seem to be relatively few complexities that complicate manufacturing setup, consume time or reduce yield.

So what we have, essentially, is a proven but bypassed technology that nicely addresses possible fuel shortages through fuel diversity. Any lower efficiency arguably may be offset by this utility alone.

Now here's the crucial backdrop. On a few occasions Gunner has lamented in about the disappearing US manufacturing base. (No doubt this observation is also applicable in other developed nations, as manufacturers chase after pools of lower wage workers offshore.) In particular, Gunner has described the alarming effects of this trend on metalworking careers, and he has urged skilled craftspersons to network cooperatively and to be resourceful.

I strongly concur with these sentiments. Behind the scenes this past spring, Gunner and I tried to stir up interest among prospective small manufacturers to do a short production run of metal containers for pocket sized "micro survival kits" (mentioned here at this time with his permission). [The folks will immediately recognize this phrase as a reference to the "Altoid tin" kit...except that we had aimed for a Better Mousetrap version this time around.]

I tossed out the idea of 100-150 W genset only as a starting point. It would require a fractional horsepower Stirling engine. This target is very attainable. The intent was simply to define some tentative product expectations before presenting the idea to , and if the idea found any resonance there, then perhaps we could develop it further.

Over the years we've whiffed a number of opportunities in to take advantage of available talent. "Survival" and emergency preparedness activities are niche markets, and seldom are all areas of these markets optimally served. For some specialty items I've long hoped that we could proceed from the "hunter-gatherer" stage of provisioning (i.e., scavenging and adapting from a field of existing products) to at least an "agricultural" stage ("growing our own"). I think there is enough consensus on at least a few items to make this a reality.

Lee_K