If I read you right, you might need to read up how a diesel engine works. To put it simply the fuel is sprayed at over 100 bar into the hot compressed air as a very fine mist just before top dead center on the compression stroke, whereapon it catches fire by itself. As to finding a 6/1 lister diesel, theres a few here in the UK at engine rallies and steam fairs. We find it easier to heat the house, the water and do the cooking on a large cast iron cooking stove . A Rayburn no1. Made in the 1950/60's. As with everything else we have a spare put by.But then we have always planned on the long term.
Time spent doing the above,? well, the WVO is collected about every 3 weeks when I take a trip into town to do my chores, at the same time I collect the thick worktop off cuts from a kitchen maker . these are also free,and are the best and most consistent fuel supply for our wood burner/water heater/ cooker/ house heater.Cut with a tractor driven saw bench and tungsten tipped blade. Diesel maintenance is minimal. oil change 2 times a year, fuel injector service every 4 yrs. will do 50,000hrs before it needs a ring and bore set. However I was trained as a flight engineer, still have all my foot launced flying kit, Earn my living as an applied art metal smith. forge bronze, silver ,titanium etc. also mint all sorts of products. do have plenty of space, storage and fun!!. A fully equipped engineering workshop is here as well. Have lots of projects on the go. Been very lucky really. Our weather is capricious, weve had 8 weeks of high pressure with only 3 or 4 days of cloud cover. need the rain badly . Just the way it is!!. Thanks for your interest. allways enjoy rec. crafts, metalworking. Ted.
PG&E has a big solar stirling project somewhere. I've heard different stories about them, but apparently they're kinematic machines, which is a surprise because most of the large-scale solar stirling experiments and pilot projects have been done with free-piston engines.
As always, they have possibilities. Cost and lubrication have been big issues. At the high end, lubrication has been solved.
Although I'm a stirling enthusiast, I keep my enthusiasm curbed. They've been around since 1816, and except for a short period from around 1880 -
1930, they've found little commercial application. Models are fun to build and watch, however.
Well, it looks like I need to find a great book now. Didn't know ole Rudolf killed himself over trying to figure the engine out. Looks like it took between 30 to 40 years to get the injector right.
I had assumed it was accomplished without injectors and maybe right...? Also assumed they had to wait for someone to come up with the injector to make it useful, which might be right...?
But, thanks, I had no idea they where doing such things from close to the get go. I've been trying to get some good old books through the library system, now it seems that the copy writes expire they don't want to let you check out the old cool books cause they are old and rare. Getting a hold of that good information has always been a pet peeve, so I best drop it before I go off on a rant.
I've never seen an injector apart and was hoping to get that diesel VW to force myself to learn. Plus I have a friend who lives close that knows diesels very well, he even has a Simi that you can't reach the $100 bill taped to the dash from the acceleration between gears.
Not long ago I found out what they mean by a hit and miss engine, I assumed it was like a 6 - 8 cycle engine of some sort. Never thought it was possible to let it turn until more power/speed was needed. Must have huge valves and opened far to make it work.
I think I might have lost you on the heat thing, not your stove. Use the heat from your generators for an evaporative cooler for your refrigerator.
Flight engineer. Isn't that the person the pilot and co-pilot look to, to see if they look scared ?
There is an awful lot of commercial roof space out there, and additionally, commercial roofs tend to be flat (easier to work on and lower visibility), and have A/C units on them that could benefit from the shading an array of solar panels mounted a couple feet above them would create. Generate some electricity from the solar panels, shade the A/C units to increase their efficiency, and also shade the roof to reduce the solar heat load, you end up with a triple gain. Add in some energy efficiency tax credits and the costs are not that bad. Add in some "green" publicity for the business and you may have another benefit. Don't forget some solar thermal panels for your hot water needs.
Lots of old engine books on archive.org, just none showing current Diesel practice. There's at least a couple of dozen ways of getting fuel into a Diesel cylinder, the one Rudolf invented isn't used much anymore, which was blasting the charge in there with compressed air.
100RPM was fast for the engines he first built, though, were meant to replace stationary steam power. The current crop of car Diesels use direct injection and electrically operated and computer controlled injectors. Benz used, for many years, indirect injection and a mechanically operated and timed plunger pump set, look up "Bosch pump". VW's diesels were off on their own, didn't use anything like current practice or Bosch, either. Hopefully the newer low-sulfur fuels haven't killed the injector/distributor pump, that was happening when I left CA 15 years back and guys were haunting the VW scrapyard looking for injection system parts. Weren't factory available.
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