Lamp Post Engine

[glue-itcom]

I was wondering what it might be like if our street lighting was provided with a network of steam (might work in New York) and we have a steam engine attached to the lamp post that has a dynamo to generate electricity and hence drive a light bulb. Something like this:

This has taken me a while to construct, mainly because I built the engine and then look a few years to make the lantern

I also had to source a suitable small dynamo - there are some great christmas cards that have an electric motor driving a fan to blow snow around, a small motor that has a large diameter and so great as a dynamo.

A video of the build and at the end a short clip of it coming to life on compressed air



Having designed the engine as I've gone along I don't have any plans and so I'm in the process of making plans now, I must do this the other way around...Nigel

 

[glue-itcom]

I should also share the hints and tips for machining perspex and getting it to a glass like finish

 

[deeferdog]

Its like something out of a reverse Blade Runner movie, I can just imagine Harrision Ford chasing mutants down a dark alley lit by a row of steam engine lamps! I guess this is the result when you have imagination and talent in equal amounts......just beautiful. Congratulations. Cheers, Peter.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

I like it!!! It appeals to my steam-punk side.

 

[Ken I]

Glorious - I just love quirky or unusual engines.

Lovely piece of work.

Regards, Ken

 

[dwentz]

Very nice design, Nice to see a engine doing some whimsical work

 

[johnmcc69]

That is really nice! Great design!

John

 

[glue-itcom]

Its like something out of a reverse Blade Runner movie, I can just imagine Harrision Ford chasing mutants down a dark alley lit by a row of steam engine lamps! I guess this is the result when you have imagination and talent in equal amounts......just beautiful. Congratulations. Cheers, Peter.

Hi Peter, you conjured up a great image with your kind words, thanks, Nigel

 

[Tim Wescott]

I know it's a buzzkill, but don't most things that you can burn for steam power also give off light by themselves? Or at least heat at a high enough temperature that can be used to light up a mantle, like Coleman stoves?

You said "lamppost engine" and I thought this was going to be an Otto-Langden engine build thread.

 

[Ken I]

"I know it's a buzzkill, but......."

I have built a number of quirky engines and when displaying them I'm often asked "what practical purpose would such an engine serve ?".

My answer is "If it was practical I would almost certainly not build it."

Regards, Ken I

 

[fcheslop]

Nice, I like its quirkiness and a fun project

 

[glue-itcom]

I know it's a buzzkill, but don't most things that you can burn for steam power also give off light by themselves? Or at least heat at a high enough temperature that can be used to light up a mantle, like Coleman stoves?

You said "lamppost engine" and I thought this was going to be an Otto-Langden engine build thread.

Hi Tim, You could use geothermal, but seriously an early IC engine attached to a lamppost would look superb. The problem is I have a lot of ideas for models that I would love to make and only so much time....

 

[Tim Wescott]

Now I'm wondering if it'd actually be more efficient to run a generator with an infernal combustion engine and drive LED lights than to just burn stuff to light the street.

Several pages of calculation in that...

 

[glue-itcom]

Combined heat and power is interesting in terms of efficiency, I lot of the gas turbine generators for electricity run steam cycles on the exhaust heat. The Combined Heat and Power units are also interesting if you can use both electricity and heat, issue is the particulates from the exhaust as they tend to result in high local emissions. It's easier to scrub the exhaust of large engines. Comparing this though to solar/wind and battery storage would be interesting.

 

[Tim Wescott]

My dad's estate has an old WWII genset, that was rebuilt about 25 years ago and then never run. I'm tempted to set it up close enough to the house so that in the winter when we lose power (which we do, regularly -- we're a bit out in the boonies) we can light the place with it, and route any waste heat from it into the house.

It wouldn't do if we lost power in the summer, but that rarely happens.

 

[Cheshire Steve]

I think it would be easier to have mains air pressure than steam. I am reminded of the London Hydraulic Power Company that provided high pressure water for operating machinery before electric mains. There were several pump houses with big steam engines powering the high pressure mains (low pressure return piping too). This was used to power dockyard cranes, hotel lifts, theatre curtain openers, printing presses, and a host of other uses, as well as being available for fire fighting. The company survived until 1977, the pipework providing handy conduit for communication cables. If you redesigned your lamp post maybe you could run it off the mains water supply.

 

[glue-itcom]

Feels like we need a post on all the methods of transmitting and converting energy into different forms. Hydro-electric is a common conversion in both directions for hydro-electric dams and energy storage between pumped lakes. Compressed air has a lot of losses through heat. A lamppost has height and so maybe a weight running up and down the centre, but E=mgh might be quite limited with a height of just 5m maybe....

There will be some great engines in here

 

[Tim Wescott]

All? We'd never stop!

 

[Tim Wescott]

I've run the numbers for the falling-weight thing: A 1kg weight, lifted one meter, stores 9.8 Joules -- at least on the surface of the Earth.

Diesel fuel has an energy density of around 35MJ/liter (according to this site). So the equivalent amount of diesel to a 1kg weight lifted 1 meter is 0.28 micro liters -- 0.00028 cc. That's probably less than what you'd take out of a diesel tank by opening the cap and blowing the vapor out of the neck.

On a mass per mass basis, gravity is a really inefficient way to store energy.

 

[glue-itcom]

It's taken me some time, but finally I have sorted the plans for the lamppost engine and they are available as a pdf

Hand drawn plans with notes and images. 17 pages in a pdf, there is a small charge for the download, but all very reasonable.