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Need help with nitinol motor Bribe offered

HI All. I am developing a motor using super elastic nitinol wire and have problems. Picture at:

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The most frustrating problem is joining the wire together. I bought some tiny stainless steel tubing from Ebay. The idea is to use this as a sleeve and solder/braze it together. It hasn't arrived yet. I have been unable to find small high pressure crimp fittings. The second problem is the wire slipping on the pulleys. I will send anyone coming up with a solution to either of these problems a piece of wire to play with, assuming it is something I can use. Wire description at:
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wire has a transition temp ~100C. This helps resolving the cooling side. The heating side can be easily insulated with cheap materials(styrofoam). I am hoping to put this on a bicycle and operate with solar power. Any comment/suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance. Larry

Reply to
Larry Snyder
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HI All. I posted this on several newsgroups and got a lot of responses. I would like to thank everyone for their input. The answers that I like are: capstain/multiple turns around pulleys use tubing for guide and spot weld grooving pulleys for more surface area crimp fittings from fishing supply store idlers/belts to apply extra pressure on pulleys Answers I didn't like: coating pulleys with nonslip stuff- wire pressure too great. will fail too fast. I have notified people with the above ideas and will offer wire only for some other ideas. Thanks for your interest. Larry

Reply to
Larry Snyder

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This is one of the more inefficient schemes for converting thermal to mechanical energy ever developed. Only a tiny fraction of the energy in the water bath (on a bicycle?) will be transferred to a thin wire running through it. Nitinol only converts a few percent of the heat energy to mechanical energy. So you get to multiply the efficiencies of two low-efficiency processes to get a very tiny number.

Nitinol is mostly a solution looking for a problem.

Please don't do that.

John Nagle

Reply to
John Nagle

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