Flywheel Governors for Steam Engines

[MattMaie]

I came across a video on youtube of an antique model steam engine someone had built that had a rather unique centrifugal governor on the flywheel instead of the usual ball type governor. I'm wondering how this type of governor is linked up and how it operates when compared to a standard Watt type governor. Anyone have diagrams, blueprints, etc?

 

[crueby]

Sounds a lot like a hit and miss ic engine setup, pushing on a steam valve rather than tripping the ignition. Can you post a link to the video to give us a look too?

 

[MattMaie]

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_PHLOiRV-s[/ame]

Here it is.

 

[Jasonb]

Looks like the governor alters the movement of the piston valve so limiting the amount of steam that is addmitted to the cylinder.

There are a few other designs for flywheel governors inside the flywheel on steam engines, as with any model governor they don't always scale down well as the friction in the linkages is often more than the force the weights can produce unless you overscale them.

 

[RonGinger]

I think that is actually a riding cutoff to alter the valve timing and reduce the steam use, not really a governor. Wonder what the awful knock is on that model?

 

[Charles Lamont]

I think that is actually a riding cutoff to alter the valve timing and reduce the steam use, not really a governor. Wonder what the awful knock is on that model?

There appears to be only one valve motion, so it can't have the normal type of rider expansion valve. It seems to just reduce the stroke of the main valve, which one would expect to throw the timing out too. The arrangement also seems to put the governor weights at a considerable mechanical disadvantage.

Using a centrifugal device to automatically control speed by means of varying the cut-off is a perfectly legitimate use of 'guvernor' as far as I know. The term is not limited to a throttle governor.

That knock is horrible. It seems to occur at both ends of the stroke - could be the little-end as that seems relatively meagre?

Was it comon full-size practice in the US for single cylinder, horizontal, open-crank engines to be fitted with piston valves?