Tesla's Ambient Heat Engine Theory - Right or Wrong ?

[memoryman]

Thank you for these posts.
I have been searching for a way to convert ambient heat to another form for years.
So far I have not done any experiments, but am encouraged by the replies.
Please keep the discussion going.

[Tom Booth]

Hi, I have a campaign going to raise some funds to build a prototype engine based on the information provided here and on other forums. The idea being to test Tesla's idea in a practical way. There is no guarantee it will work, but I don't think we can really rule out the possibility until someone tries. I have recently been encouraged by coming across a little device called a fire piston which appears to be able to generate considerable heat by compressing a relatively small volume of air:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvlm-BiCU2k

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/exploring-cold-hole-technology/x/10539009

[vasik041]

you can build something like this

[MarkE]

Sorry guys, but you need a heat source and a lower temperature heat sink.  Otherwise that pesky Second Law will eat your lunch.  Now, that said, there are various heat sinks available at least for small scale power.  You can for instance exchange heat between the surface and depths of a pond.  And if you are really clever, there is always the sky window.  In space no one can see you freeze.

[Tom Booth]

you can build something like this

Something like that, sort of. As drawn though, I don't understand how the device illustrated could work, for a couple reasons. There appears to be no compressor, without which it seems to me that pressure would simply equalize (or remain equal) within the loop and nothing would happen. More or less like a refrigerator that wasn't plugged in.

Also there is no indication of any means of power output. If energy (environmental heat) is going in, it would also have to come out in some form somewhere.

There would presumably, if things got moving somehow, be a build-up of heat in the pipes before the throttling device/turbine and a cooling in the condensation chamber but it does not appear that this temperature difference is being utilized.

Tesla's engine consisted, in part, of an air compressor and included some possibility of  liquefying air, apparently, it would seem then that his system was, or consisted of in part, an air-cycle refrigerator. This obviates the need for any kind of exotic gas or fluid such as Freon making the apparatus simpler and safer and easier to build I should think using air as a working fluid.