Posted: 12/21/2010 10:15:14 AM EDT
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Anyone done anything like this?
Are small commercially produced units available..? http://www.otherpower.com/steamengine.shtml |
| Need to be careful with steam - there's a reason that boiler safety codes exist. From the site, they need to fire it for 40 minutes until it starts doing usable work. What's really happenning is that it's storing up a metric fuckton of energy, which tends to do bad things if released suddenly. |
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Quoted:
Steam is a PITA. Sure, it works, but it's not something you can leave unattended. Even automated low HP wet steam systems need looked after. Yep. It's also maintenance-intensive - lots of ashes to dispose of, lots of scale, mineral deposits and soot to remove; lots of parts to keep lubricated (steam tends to remove oil and grease just about as fast as you can apply it)... There are plenty of very good reasons why we switched to the internal combustion engine. |
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This happened not too far from me. It's a good read. http://www.farmcollector.com/steam-engines/tragedy-at-medina-county-fairgrounds.aspx |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
Steam is a PITA. Sure, it works, but it's not something you can leave unattended. Even automated low HP wet steam systems need looked after. Yep. It's also maintenance-intensive - lots of ashes to dispose of, lots of scale, mineral deposits and soot to remove; lots of parts to keep lubricated (steam tends to remove oil and grease just about as fast as you can apply it)... There are plenty of very good reasons why we switched to the internal combustion engine. They speak the truth. I did boiler startups for about six years on a college campus, just low pressure stuff, under 15psi, and the systems required daily blowdown, tests of the safeties––pressure, low water and high water cutouts, chemical tests of the feed water and boiler water for alkalinity, oxygen content, oxygen scavengers, total dissolved solids, and periodic maintenance of the water softeners. It's a daily chore and absolutely critical to avoid corrosion or Kaboom!. It ain't like a lawnmower engine that you check once or twice over the season. And when you get into high pressure boilers, enough to run a steam engine, it's a whole other world of risk. Basically, a boiler is a bomb and needs to be treated as such. 
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Closed Loop Steam Power -
As stated above this is a real pain in the rear to maintain. In college, I worked at the steam power plant. Every shift we would blow down the mud tanks, chem. tests and add chemicals, etc. Open Loop System - This is where you continually feed fresh water into the system and the steam is vented to the atmosphere. I saw an old C-Band satellite dish that was converted to a steam generator. They filled in the mesh panels with solid aluminum and replaced the LNA with a plate that had fluid paths and pipe fittings. The steam was sent into a turbine like generator. The dish tracked the sun and it produced a surprising amount of energy. Obviously this has problems too, hard water build up, etc. |