NEED HELP! HOW TO MODIFY THE DRINKING BIRD SO AS TO GENERATE MORE OUPUT????

[sm0ky2]

well, essentially you can make a low-temp engine with a sealed alimunum can on a shaft. your gas is in the can, and as you heat it from the bottom it rises up the shaft, cools down and the can comes back down,
just attach a crank assembly to the top of the can and there ya go.

they made these things in the 1800's

[barematt]

The drinking bird uses ambient temperature as the heat source and the wet bulb temperature as the heat sink.  Draw a rankine cycle using these temperatures and you will have yourself a low temperature gradient heat engine.  Very little power with cold exhaust air as a by product.  Worst case is you will have an evaporative cooler that powers it's self.  Familiar with OTEC, Think of it as a desert version.  Hot desert air heating ammonia and pre-cooled evaporative air as the heat sink.  Heat exchanger design will be an important factor.  Good luck. 

[one]

As to building one yourself, you really would need a reasonably well equipped machine shop, off the shelf parts are really not suitable.

what if i buy off the shelf parts and take my parts to a machine shop so they can do minor cutting and welding for me? shouldn't be too expensive, i just have to find the right parts, shouldn't be so difficult.

FreeEnergy     


By off the  shelf parts I assume that you  are  thinking of mostly  internal combustion  engine  parts . 

A  normal internal  combustion  engine  can't  be  easily  converted  into a sterling engine  because  a sterling  requires  one  set of cylinders  to follow another by 90 degrees . 

If you apply heat  to one set of cylinders   it  runs  one way ........if you  apply heat to the other it  runs the other way .   

The  most  practical way I can think of   to make a  sterling engine  with internal combustion engine parts   would be to use  2 engines ...... link  the  crankshafts  together  90 degrees apart .     You would heat one of the engines  and cool the other

The   heads  from both motors could be thrown out

The  heads would be replaced with  manifolds 

Each  manifold  would  go to  the  corasponding    cylinder(s)  on the other  engine .

Keep in mind that  the  sterling  engine runs on the relative  pressure  difference   in the different  parts of the cycle .
If you want   the  engine to have high efficency   you would need the manifold  to  have  a  high thermal  storage  ability . 
The heat is  actually  shuttled back and forth  between the  hot cylinder  and the  heat  storage in the manifold.

The most practical way  that I can think of  to build  a manifold  like this  would be to  design a manifold   filled  with aluminum  or copper tubes.The inside of it would  look similar to the inside of  a catalitic  converter   

Heat  exchangers could be built into both ends of  the  manifold

The  factor that   limits   the  power output of a sterling engine most is  the  ability to transfer  heat  in to it and out of it .

   

gary

[sm0ky2]

low-temp boilingpoint fliud, in a can on a verticle shaft.
small heat source underneath.

fluid in can turns to steam, and lifts, raising a set of magnets to create one of THESE::

http://pesn.com/2008/02/19/9500471_Gravity_Lamp/

which then creates power on its way down, the fluid cools back into a liquid, falls down to the heat source and the cycle repeats.

[Gearhead]

low-temp boilingpoint fliud, in a can on a verticle shaft.
small heat source underneath.

fluid in can turns to steam, and lifts, raising a set of magnets to create one of THESE::

http://pesn.com/2008/02/19/9500471_Gravity_Lamp/

which then creates power on its way down, the fluid cools back into a liquid, falls down to the heat source and the cycle repeats.

When a liquid turns to steam it does not lose mass.  The drinking bird works because the mass shifts beyond the balance point.  If I understand you correctly the can is sealed so the mass cannot shift. 

The drinking bird can be made more efficient if the liquid can be shifted without turning it to steam as this will avoid the loss of the latent heat of vaporization.