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Vesuvius

I bought a kit from Cole's power models called The Vesuvius. It consists of castings and plans to build a steam engine for a bicycle. I've now completed the engine, installed it, and been testing it.I can start out with a 140# head of steam and only go about 200 yards before I'm out of steam pressure and water.I have increased the output of the engine driven water pump by boring it out and the burner by adding another jet, but I think that the engine is just wasting too much steam. The exhaust seems to have quite a bit of pressure. I have adhered to the specifications as much as possible and am assuming that the engine, boiler and water pump were engineered to work together as a continuously operating machine. Now it's my task to determine what to do to make my engine more steam efficient.The D valve is operated directly off the eccentric and there is not enough space to install some sort of variable cutoff device. Naturally I'm going to try the easiest methods first. I'm thinking of making up a new eccentric with a shorter stroke. An alternate idea that would require more work would be to make a new D valve that was slightly longer, maybe about .030" or .040". The plans called for a 1.5" stroke but gave the option of a 1.5" or a 1.375 bore. I went for the larger bore, figuring that it would give me more power. Is it possible that the problem is that the engine is too large? Any suggestions?

Engineman1

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Engineman1
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Increase the cutoff of the valve timing and the steam usage will decrease. You don't need to have admission of steam all of the time otherwise it won't expand as the piston moves. Go look at the various valve gear systems that have been built and the one used by the Shay locomotives ends up being just as compact as not even having any adjustment at all.

-- Bob May Losing weight is easy! If you ever want to lose weight, eat and drink less. Works every time it is tried!

Reply to
Bob May

|Increase the cutoff of the valve timing and the steam usage will decrease. |You don't need to have admission of steam all of the time otherwise it won't |expand as the piston moves. Go look at the various valve gear systems that |have been built and the one used by the Shay locomotives ends up being just |as compact as not even having any adjustment at all. | |-- |Bob May |Losing weight is easy! If you ever want to lose weight, eat and drink less. |Works every time it is tried! | |

Rex in Fort Worth

Reply to
Rex B

--Dick Vennerbeck's got one and has fiddled with it a bit, IIRC. Email me if you'd like contact info.

Reply to
steamer

This is the only one I can find.

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Engineman1

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