Steam Engine Development: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
| Line 29: | Line 29: | ||
* 5/3/2011 - Updated design goes into review at SACA. | * 5/3/2011 - Updated design goes into review at SACA. | ||
* 5/5/2011 - Design review input received from SACA. Bump valve spring issues lead to consideration of a piston valve control. | * 5/5/2011 - Design review input received from SACA. Bump valve spring issues lead to consideration of a piston valve control. | ||
* 5/7/2011 - [[Solar Fire]] absorbed as the official solar concentrator implementation path for OSE - with solar steam engine as the first real-life implementation planned at Factor e Farm for the September [[Factor e Farm Convergence 2011]] | |||
=Unanswered Questions= | =Unanswered Questions= | ||
Revision as of 05:04, 8 May 2011
Main > Energy > Steam Engine
| Steam Engine | ||
|---|---|---|
| Home | Research & Development | Bill of Materials | Manufacturing Instructions | User's Manual | User Reviews | 
| |
The Development Process
The product development process consists of the following steps:
- Gather Requirements
- Create a Design
- Specify What Will be Built
- Describe How to Build It
- Bill of Materials with Sources
- Fabrication Plan (Diagrams, CAM, CNC, etc)
- Assembly Instructions
- Prototype
- Final Product
The creation of a prototype will often reveal design flaws, hidden assumptions, new requirements, etc. This learning is fed back into the development process to create a new design leading to another prototype. When sufficient quality is reached, the product is released (leading to Marketing Plans, User Documentation, Production Plans, and other considerations).
Progress
- 2/5/2009 - We are still developing a strategy for building the first steam engine. We have not decided whether we should cast the engine block or approach it by using stock tubing and parts.
- 4/30/2011 - Project has been re-started based on dialog between Marcin and Mark Norton.
- 5/3/2011 - Updated design goes into review at SACA.
- 5/5/2011 - Design review input received from SACA. Bump valve spring issues lead to consideration of a piston valve control.
- 5/7/2011 - Solar Fire absorbed as the official solar concentrator implementation path for OSE - with solar steam engine as the first real-life implementation planned at Factor e Farm for the September Factor e Farm Convergence 2011
Unanswered Questions
- What kind of steam control valve should we use?
- What will be fabbed vs. bought off-the-shelf?
- What size bore will we use?
- Should we enclose the crankshaft for safety and mess-prevention?
- How do we control oil flow out of the dribbler?
Design Snapshot
The following description is a summary of the current Steam Engine Design. For more details, please see Steam Engine Design.
Two designs are under active consideration with the steam control valves being the main difference:
Ball Valve Design
Piston Valve Design
Collaborators
- | Open Source Ecology
- Marcin Jakubowski, OSE Founder
- Mark Norton, Project Leader
- Eerik Wissens - Solar Fire adopted as the OSE development pathway to the Solar Concentrator - Eerik is Project Leader for the Solar Concentrator project.
- | Steam Automobile Club of America
- Tom Kimmel
- Ken Helmick
- Karl Petersen
- | Cyclone Power Technologies
- Harry Schoell
- | TinyTech, India
- V.K. Desai