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A bit of fun in the Shed

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bryan1

Well-Known Member
G'day Guy's,
A few weeks ago talked with my boss about using wood pellets for making power off the grid. So that got me thinking and the only way to use pellets is for heat so steam would be the go. Then I thought about the use of steam and a steam engine would be required. Did a bit of research and found one can turn old 4 stroke motors into a 2 stroke engine by simply putting new lobes 180 degrees apart on both cams. So that got me thinking I have a few old 5hp Briggs an Stratton engines in the shed, so after work I got that old motor and stripped the motor and took the cam shaft out so I could take it to work and mig weld the new lobes on. Then I used my bridgeport mill with my rotary table. I did try using a dial gauge then thought eh I do have a gauge set so got that out and set the height ensuring 4 lobe faces met true. 10 minutes later I got one modded cam shaft.

Heres a pic of the modded cam.

image_zpsac9826ad.jpg


So with the cam shaft back in the motor finally got to using you tube for logging my projects and the results are shown below.


I did need to make a new input plate so marked out some 6mm plate I got out of the scrap bin at work with a 1/4"bsp thread to suit the air fitting and decided to use my small air compressor and give the motor a test.



So at 60 psi I got 300 rpm then the compressor couldn't keep up.

Now I have a converted steam engine I now need to move onto steam so now got to score a 9kg gas bottle off a mate then put a flame under it after I have designed and made the pipe work. I will machine up a steam valve and set it to 90 psi on the output of the boiler. It will be interesting to see how long the 9kg bottle will run the motor until the low water alarm goes off.

My goal is to use a 45kg gas bottle as the boiler and one can image the heatup time to boil the water. More thinking and a passive rural pipe config to provide close to boiling water on the roof of the new shed to provide the heated water. Now this gets me thinking on head pressure to the boiler for constant top up. I do have a 25 metre head pressure off my water supply so I will need to do a few calcs.

Anyway Guy's I'm wrapped I converted an old 4 stroke motor to run off compressed air so the way back to steam is there and using a micromite with required industrial sensors to ensure full safety systems in place. Now I'm thinking I should do a boiler ticket course so I'm legal and my goal of this project is to prove one can make off grid power off available natural resources.

Cheer Bryan
 
Another way to do it is to make them into a "bash valve" motor. Using the sparkplug hole for the inlet, and the valves for exhaust. It can be done even easier with a 2 stroke motor. https://www.google.com/search?q=bas...la:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb

Another way to use the pellets with out making steam, would be to run the motor on "producer gas". This works best with a lowered compression ratio, use two or more head gaskets to lower compression. https://www.google.com/search?q=pro...la:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb
 
Brian, you sound just like I thought you would. I alway had it in my mind your voice would sound a lot like "Steve Irwin"

Good luck on the project.

kv:)
 
Am in awe of the awesomeness of your project...
 
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