Gorgeous machined Stirling engine kits

Hermann Böhm's metal Stirling engine kits are some of the most beautiful machines I've ever seen, real triumphs. They run about as much as one of them fancy toothpaste squeezers, but they're about ten thousand times cooler, and somehow don't have the same oligarch factor.

(Thanks, Chris!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle

http://profiles.google.com/dickpilz Dick Pilz

(sp) Stirling is easier to Google
- bwcbwc
  
  Unless they mean the engines are made of sterling silver…but yes. The maker has the spelling right in the video.
irksome

As a Triumph rider, I’d like to see an inline three.
Utenzil

Do they produce enough torque to actually drive something? Can they be converted to solar, with maybe electrical coils for heat source?
- RadioSilence
  
  “Can they be converted to solar, with maybe electrical coils for heat source?”
  
  According to the Wikipedia page, yes!
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine
- glurpo
  
  “Do they produce enough torque to actually drive something? Can they be
  converted to solar, with maybe electrical coils for heat source?”
  
  According to these folks, yes.
- Telegram Sam
  
  The obvious application is to make a steampunk vibrating toothbrush out of one.
  Anything else is going to look mundane alongside your $300 toothpaste squeezer.
  - http://www.jeremiahblatz.com/ Jeremiah Blatz
    
    Or, hook up the stirling engine (via a complicated set of reduction gears) to the toothpaste squeezer!
Matthew Strohmeyer

they have a triple on the website…
- irksome
  
  If there’s a V-Twin, does it come with straight pipes and a pirate costume?
shutz

Instead of converting solar energy to electricity, then heat, then torque, why not just use mirrors and lenses (and fiber optics?) to redirect sunlight to the terminals. That should be much more efficient.
- Trevcaru
  
  Yes, you can do this using a fresnel lens…
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4VRb4vllB4&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=SP4CCA265CC49C37B0
- http://www.facebook.com/kevinhalse Kevin Halse
  
  Why not just use a pre-existing electric motor instead? Then you wouldn’t need to expend the energy to manufacture the sterling engine.
  
  mybrainisfulloffuck_jackiechan.jpeg
Brainspore

My brother got a badass facial scar building one of these things for an engineering class once. (Not from the power of the Stirling engine, but from a projectile flying off one of the machines in the shop he was using to fabricate the parts.)
futnuh

I close my eyes and hear … leaf-blowers.
- Dicrel Seijin
  
  I have to agree, these machines are beautiful to look at, but are not pleasant to listen to.
http://profiles.google.com/bentobjects Terry Border

Do you oil these machines? That’s a bit of friction happening there, right?
Bookburn

My gawd those are beautiful. Building my own Stirling engine has been on my “science project to-do” list for years now, but after watching these babies hum I realize that building my own Lexus might be more practical.

As to alternative designs – I’ve always wanted to see a rotary Stirling engine, and (especially) a solar rotary Stirling engine.

This is going on next years orders for my science classroom. Thank you Cory – this is the best thing you’ve ever posted.
- Bookburn
  
  Haha – great. I thought I would comment these awesome makers about the feasibility of a rotary Stirling engine. Clicking on their “Contact Us” link produces a 404 error with the helpful tip – “The link you used to get here is faulty. (It’s an excellent idea to let the link owner know.)”
  
  Umm… but the link to contact… uh… Aw hell I’ll just patent it myself.
Neural Kernel

I’ve been fascinated by Stirling engines since I first read about them years ago, especially since if you crank them with an external force they work as a chiller. I just wish they weren’t such “fringe” devices and had even a fraction of the R&D and manufacturing capacity that has been devoted to the various internal combustion engines… the power density may suck but you can’t beat a stirling for multifuel capability… solar, open flame, compost pile waste heat, sweaty mammals, ocean thermal differential, nuclear decay… you name it and odds are you can rig a stirling to run off it!
- silkox
  
  Infinia has put a lot of effort into commercializing Stirling for solar electric generation, but it still doesn’t seem to be taking off.
Cogent Cogency

Part of me suspects this is the future. With the Makerspaces accelerating the refinement of tooling capabilities, I can’t wait for the day 10, 20 years on where every bike shop could fabricate a replacement component for your little engine you use to drive your bike up hills. Plus considering the core of this engine relies on you being able to “Apply heat here”, the variability of it is resounding. Sunny day? Fold out the panels and focus sunlight on a heat sink. Cloudy? Lite up the candles… I want one of these so bad, lol.
http://artdonovan.typepad.com Art

Yes. Way too noisy. Ruins the aesthetic for me.
AllyPally

Böhm’s video at the top of this page http://www.en.boehm-stirling.com/about-us.html is gorgeous. Metalworking glamour.
http://www.facebook.com/davidrfrench David French

These are beautifully engineered Stirling engines, but I’d have thought he’d have wanted to cant the engine so the cold sinks aren’t in the convection path.

UK viewers keen to get their hands on a (more simple but nonetheless wonderfully engineered) Stirling engine could do worse than to visit Kontax at http://www.stirlingengine.co.uk. I have the basic KS80 on my classroom desk at work and it sits there all day every day converting the excess heat from my laptop power supply into motion. It’s fascinating.
http://ingulf.livejournal.com/ Ingulf

Those a very noisy for stirling engines. (Since they don’t involve a controlled explosions like an internal combusion engine, stirling engines can be very quiet).