Sunnytech Hot Air Stirling Engine Motor Model Educational Toy Electricity Generator Colorful LED (SC001)

The media could not be loaded. Great product, some quick do's and don'ts.Don't lubricate it, one drop of oil where the piston connecting rod attaches to the flywheel on each side is sufficient and needs no lubrication elsewhere.The alcohol burner is too small, Sunnytech sells a much better unit for 10 bucks, it's shorter and wider with a much thicker wick.It's a two cylinder engine, get used to it vibrating, that can't be helped. I bought a cheap set of three bamboo cutting boards and attached the engine to that, The cutting boards are just too heavy to be affected by the engine vibration.The alcohol burner, I suggest a small metal plate be attached, (there is a full video attached) so that you can toss a neodymium magnet into the burner, which keeps the burner from wandering around and allows you more precise control of the flame, the magnet in the burner locks it to the metal plate while running.Fuel, isopropyl alcohol only, and the very least potency should be 91%, which can be purchased anywhere. 70% just doesn't cut it.A room temperature engine should take roughly 15 to 20 seconds to get started, (see video)The alcohol burner does not work well with a breeze, set it in an area with still air movement.Ambient temperature makes a difference on engine performance, too cold or too hot can seriously affect performance. A good running range is about 65 to 80° Fahrenheit.The Piston rod from the cylinder to the flywheel should be checked to make sure it is straight, they bend easily with your fingers, check it to make sure it is straight.Don't try to boost the heat by using a torch, you'll just fry the internal o-ring seals, alcohol burner only.The maximum RPM for the engine is about 1500, if the generator is connected you will get a drain as the engine tries to rotate the generator, slowing it down.Mine is over a year old and has not had a single part replaced, (normal wear parts such as pulley bands or o-ring seals) the trick to long life is not to overheat it.Remember the engine functions on exothermic heat, not internal combustion, whatever heat you apply to the cylinder head determines speed and torque.If you want maximum RPM's remove the pulley belt to the generator.If you follow these basic guidelines you will get the maximum efficiency, the longest life and the most fun of this neat and well-made engine.Unless you have experience as a tinkerer or tool jockey I suggest you don't take the engine apart if not needed, if you can handle the simple mechanics then be my guest, this review is simply to help the beginner with only rudimentary mechanical skills, a primer so to speak.

This little engine heats up right away and functions perfectly. Sounds like a little sewing machine. Runs for quite a while on denatured alcohol. I recommend that over isopropyl as it doesn't leave soot on the heat tube. Extra parts were provided should they break or wear out. Not a toy for little children as you're working with flammables. If you're into Stirling engines I can highly recommend this one. Will order a few others in the future. Fascinating subject. If I can find out how to share a photo or video out of my gallery I'll update this review but I don't give many apps permissions to access cameras or mics on my phone.

The media could not be loaded. I love this little engine! It's very compact and well made. I particularly like that it's all chromed out. It makes for a very good demonstration tool. It worked right out of the box. No assembly required. It even came with some replacement parts, like the glass tubing, and an extra LED.So now, let me explain the video and the excel graph. The video just shows my set-up of how I am collecting the data. Yes, I am well aware that the blinking LED affects my results. However, the LED is soldered on and I may remove it, but the kids like to see lights when it's running so I left it on for now.The excel data is where I collected the data after the video when the engine was running for awhile. Then I recorded the data on my Ti-84 calculator and transferred it over to a computer to run some very simple stats on it using excel. So it appears that with the LED attached, it produces around 3.75 volts within +/- 0.3 volts. I may investigate RPM or AMPS next.Also, the power piston has little holes in it so that the length of the power piston can be adjusted. One neat little project for calculus students, is to change the length of the piston, create a best fit polynomial (power piston length vs the averages of RPM, Volts, Amps or etc) of some fixed degree, and then find when that curve is optimal. That will answer which piston length produces the most efficient given your metric (RPM, Volts, etc). The flywheel piston length is also changeable. For my experiment above, you want to change both length at the same time so it's balanced. So there are lots of potential for experiments I can use in the class! Have the students guess what will happen if the power piston and the flywheel piston are different? How does that affect the engine's output? Plus, it's small enough to fit on my desk which is great.I just received this product recently, and I am having a blast coming up with ideas for students already! I would love to see how people are using this as a teaching tool!Before anyone asks: Yes, that is an Apple //c from 1984 hooked up on my desk next to a working dot matrix printer. I still use it to show students in computer programming how an older computer use to work with goto statements. Also, the user must type in ASCII values to simply print a page. (No drivers back then, remember Form Feed and that mess?)

Nifty looking showy toy. Built very well. Well worth the money. Only thing that would have made it better would have been a free Range Rover SUV included with my purchase. :)

I loved this doohiky, but I broke the cold cylinder trying to change out the pulley belt. Wished there was a guide on maintenance.