Make a 3D printed Stirling engine !

In this video I want to change with your help the design of the thermoacoustic Stirling engine that everyone can build it just with a 3D printer and some standard parts.

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If the engine is scaled up in the next step, it will be possible to generate electricity and move a little closer to the goal of going off-grid .

My new thermoacoustic engine is made up of a small number of relatively simple components.

Recently, many people have asked me for instructions on how to rebuild the thermoacoustic Stirling with simple means and without special tools like a lathe or milling machine.

I built the engine according to the ideas of Jaime Gros et al. and their book “Introduction to Thermoacoustic Stirling Engines”.

The engine is described in great detail here, and anyone with a well-equipped workshop can rebuild it.

I think it would be great to modify the design on this basis so that anyone with simple means could build the engine.

I alone don't have the time.

But if enough people were seriously interested, we could develop some kind of open source community engine for everyone.

Another goal would be to increase the power at the same time to make it practical to use.

In the past, I have been amazed at how many good ideas and solutions come out of a lot of people working together here on YouTube.

There are several tasks/problems to solve.

My version of the engine has a lot of metal parts made on a lathe and milling machine.

This is not possible for many people.

The main reason for using metal is its high thermal conductivity and heat resistance.

The coolers could also be made from thermally conductive filament using a 3D printer.

The special Ice9 filament from TC Poly is available with different base polymers and has high thermal conductivity and heat resistance for plastics, but is quite expensive.

The clever use of metal inserts would be cheaper and probably better.
Metal inserts made with simple tools could be embedded in 3D printed parts, leaving only the relevant parts in metal.

With creativity and good ideas, the heater can be made with simple means.

I already have some ideas with a bar or grid structure.

I look forward to hearing your ideas too.

Soldering can easily be replaced by gluing or taping the tubes together.

With a little care, the Pyrex test tube can be easily cut using a mini drill and an inexpensive diamond cutting disc.

The power extraction unit is easy to produce with the 3D printer and the piston running surfaces must be ground accordingly.
It is also necessary to determine which filaments are best suited for this purpose.
Do you need a high performance filament such as carbon fibre reinforced polyamide, which is easy to print, heat resistant and dimensionally stable, but expensive, or is an inexpensive standard filament sufficient?

What is the best way to combine the printed parts with the metal inserts?

I would love to hear your thoughts and solutions.Please post your ideas here in the comments section so that everyone can join in the discussion.

If you have drawings or anything like that, please send them to my email address and I will put them up for discussion in the next video.
I am convinced that a lot can be achieved if many people think seriously about it.
So get to work and thank you for watching!

[maximal]

if you are looking into open-sourcing your designs, you may want to use a version tracking system like git with a popular service like github to make design files more accessible

[sierraecho]

Geiler Typ, hast du gut gemacht. Auch wirklich gute Ideen.

[micultimy]

I would love to see a collaboration between this channel, TPAI and Homofaciens channels as all of them are from Germany.

Thank you for all the efforts you make around community Stirling engine. 💪🏻

[AlexB-jn]

Wohoo, greate idea! I had to suspend my work on the stirling engines a while ago, but I hope I can get back to them soon.
At least, I got my CNC mill ready, the lathe is still WiP, so if we can get a usable stirling with 3D printed parts it would be wonderful.

[shodanxx]

A 100W, 500W, 1000W, 2500W and 5000W with a hot side temperature of 90C would be a world wide game changer, the ability to turn biomass and solar heat seasonnal storage into a reliable source of electricity

[AAPattrick]

we would definitely buy this from you in kit form if you ever produce one for, say, trickle charging or LED lighting.

[keithfirst]

I believe there are enough people to make a community. for the radiators. I think a great choice will be using copper. Because 1.most people may not have a lathe, but they can have simple DC tig welds, that can bse used to weld copper. 2.They can borrow the heat conducting rod that us used on PC, which is exteremely thermal conductive. .

[luisca]

Have you looked at the virtual foundry and they’re filament based pure metal 3D printing? With the basic (FDM) printer, you can printer filament use a small electric count and get pure metals of all types from copper bronze aluminum to hard steel stainless and even titanium as well as carbide and some ceramics/glass

[zaitcev]

I don't have any metal fabrication at home beyond hand tools like vises, hacksaws, drills, and files. So I order CNC machined and DMLS printed parts at providers such as Parts Badger (U.S.), Xometry (EMEA), and Protolabs.

[fedang]

Could you make an explanation of the working principles that allow to make a bigger version of this? I am curious as to how you will make it have enough torque

[tomlearnmakelive]

I would like to help, i think the best first steps would be a git repository as a central documentation area and to disassemble the big problem in smalls so that everybody can have a look at the smaller problems and think about an solution.

[sierraecho]

Generally speaking when doing work like that you should always choose the cheapest and most simple way.
For example you asked is coating the FDM printer part with Epoxy a good solution or the use of something like "Dichtol".
Start with Epoxy or CA glue, or maybe even a spay can rubber coat if it´s cheap, even if it looks stupid and feels wrong THIS is exactly how breakthroughs are made. The first person being able to fabricate graphene did just something stupid like that:
(Doch wie wurde Graphen eigentlich entdeckt? Das haben 2004 Andre Geim und Konstantin Novoselov mit einem genialen Trick geschafft: Sie klebten ein Stück Klebestreifenauf ein Stück Graphit-Gestein und zogen den Film ab. Dabei blieben einige 1000 Schichten Graphen am Klebestreifen hängen.) and he won the nobel price for it, how awesome is that.

[MUCAV_COM]

Continius 100watt can be good. I testes now and petg filament cannot resist boiled water temperature. We can use resin printer.

[MoonMoon-guge]

While not a redesign idea, you could definitely get parts cnc'd or slm printed for relatively cheap with online services.
So you could print the 3d housing part, then order the metal 3d printed insert.

[sybrenvanheeswyck]

Would anyone happen to know where to get the book mentioned on 0:28?
I am not able to find a seller on the internet....

Regards

[billknighton]

Curious about low temperature metals being sand-cast with 3d printed patterns for parts not directly exposed
To flame. It might be possible to have precision low-friction mechanisms there.

[Huntloserpyrotechnik]

I think really interesting in is a Engine Poweroutput of 1 kW. But this is really to much for thermal accousti.

[tutsiengineering]

Great consept. Open community to drive this furter is for sure interesting.

Personally I consider soldering, accessible enought to be an valid option. At least compared to milling or lathe.

I was thingking if on the shelf, copper/brass piping could be utilised as cold heat exchangers. 3D printed moulds to make gypsum jig to support all the parts and then solder all joints in one go. Water piping parts as main body and brake pipes as "fins".

Also several brass brake pipes could be soldered (or attached in other means) in a cluster to form the heater.

Do you have any tips where to purchase the book, in Europe?

[konobikundude]

UV resin for 3D print water/air tightness is common. Lots of UV setting nail polishes out there at a fraction of the price of epoxy, though you may want epoxy at a later prototype phase.

Have you considered a different gas? I'd wonder if there was some power v torque performance selection there.

Certainly keen to follow experiments!

[smooth-jamie]

Is it practical to make many small engines and place them in parallel to scale up the power levels?