spirit burner

[firebird]

Hi

Back in October 2009 I posted this in the questions and answeres section, http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=6260.0 but unfortunately there were no replies. If you have read my small boiler topic and my small steam engine topic you will see that I have messed about with spirit burners a bit. The burners I made for the small boiler work OK but I feel the tank is too close to the boiler (the hot end) and does get a little warm for my liking. I want to build a remote tank and control the flow of spirit. This is how the experiment has gone so far. The tank is copper, silver soldered together. The valve is basically a tapered needle in a hole with which I can contol the flow of or shut off the fuel. I have some photos of the valve being built if anyones interested I'll upload a few.


The jet tube is a piece of 15mm copper pipe with a brass blanking plug silver soldered in one end a tapped brass plug silver soldered in the other end. 9 0.7mm holes are drilled along the top.



To make the copper coil I stripped some wire from some heavy duty earth cable.



Then wound it round a 1/2 inch bar in the lathe



Then stretched out to match the holes



Then silver soldered to the top of the tube

It has to be lit with a small torch to get the coil hot but once burning it looks quite good





Cheers

Rich

 

[chuck foster]

rich i have followed most of the builds that you have posted and i must say you do some very very good work :bow: :bow:

i have one question and that is, what is the purpose of the copper wire wrapped around the burner tube???

thanks for the excellent builds and write ups Thm: Thm:

chuck

 

[kcmillin]

Very Nice Burner.

Is Spirits another name for alchohol.?

I am confused on how this burner works. How does the liquid fuel turn into a "jetting" flame without an air source?

Kel

 

[firebird]

Hi Chuck & Kel

To be perfectly honest I'm not sure exactly how it works. Did you look at the link I posted and look at the picture? That's all I have to go on. I'm assuming that the heat generated in the copper coil vaporizes the fuel (methylated spirits by the way) which forces the gas out of the jets where it mixes with air. If the fuel feed is to high the tube fills and spirit starts to bubble out of the jets which results in a rather spectacular fire. It seems that only the bare minimum of fuel in the tube is all that's required.

Cheers

Rich

 

[doubletop]

Rich

An intriguing burner, I sense we may have to start getting a bit more technical and establish a method of determining how much heat we can get out of these things and therefore best way to go.

On the subject of spirits, the first thing that came to mind when I saw your first picture was "still". Homebrew is legal in NZ http://www.stillspirits.com/

Pete

 

[firebird]

Hi DT.

That's a thought. Lets make a miniature still ;D ;D ;D ;D

Cheers

Rich

 

[tel]

Hi DT.

That's a thought. Lets make a miniature still ;D ;D ;D ;D

Cheers

Rich

MINIATURE?????

 

[doubletop]

We could become PC and get on the badwagon and make a "green" engine. Throw potato peelings in one end and burn the spirit coming out of the other. May be a bit lossy in energy terms though, but good fun during the quality control

 

[firebird]

Hi

Ok Tel,

Lets make a big un ;D ;D ;D

Got any plans

Cheers

Rich

 

[doubletop]

I'm sure we could work something out from the stuff we know already, but lets start at the begining of the process. What are we going to use for heating up the potato peelings...................................

 

[xo18thfa]

Rich: Flame looks perfect. Have you ever experimented with a "birdfeeder"?

 

[firebird]

Hi Bob

Birdfeeder????

Cheers

Rich

 

[Blogwitch]

Rich,

I think Bob means 'chicken hopper'.

They work on the same sort of principle as the water and seed feeders that clip on the side of budgie cages, as the bottom bit empties, it allows it to be topped up to a certain level automatically.

They are OK but only on very static burners, as any moving about can cause them to overflow.



John

 

[xo18thfa]

A birdfeed system consists of an upper fuel tank, a lower sump and an air tube that connects them. A valve allows fuel to flow from the upper tank down to the sump. When the fuel level in the lower sump covers the bottom of the air tube, a vacuum is formed in the upper tank stopping the flow of fuel. As the fuel burns off, the air tube opens and allows air back in the upper tank, releasing the vacuum. Fuel again flows into the sump until the air tube is covered. It provides a constant fuel level. The fuel level in the sump is the same level as in the burner. So the burner and the sump have to be in line with each other. The upper fuel tank has to be air tight.

Birdfeeds are widely used on Gauge 1 live steam locomotives. They work. Their only drawback is that there is no way to throttle them. The fuel level to the burner is fixed. Have to do some trial and error on the bottom of the air tube the get the level right.

Here is a plan for a birdfeed system in a Gauge 1 loco

 

[firebird]

Hi

Thanks John & Bob

I've printed out the plan and will study it later.

cheers

Rich

 

[xo18thfa]

Check out these guys. They have raised homemade alcohol camp stoves to an art form. With machine tools it should be fairly easy to do one of these.

http://zenstoves.net/