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Author Topic: microcosm steam car  (Read 1082 times)

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microcosm steam car
« on: March 20, 2019, 05:46:27 am »
Nick if you are the same Nick that posted a video of MSC. on an other forum i would like to know how long did it run for
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RON
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Re: microcosm steam car
« Reply #1 on: March 20, 2019, 10:30:16 am »
Hi Ron, yes that's me. It takes a lot of flame to run well, but will easily run 5 minutes, maybe as much as 7
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Nick

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Re: microcosm steam car
« Reply #2 on: March 20, 2019, 10:32:09 am »




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Nick

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Re: microcosm steam car
« Reply #3 on: March 20, 2019, 01:32:07 pm »
Thanks Nick  trying to workout how much fuel an engine would take to boil xx amount of water. Maybe there is a table somewhere
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RON
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Re: microcosm steam car
« Reply #4 on: March 20, 2019, 07:25:34 pm »
Quote from: RON on March 20, 2019, 01:32:07 pm
Thanks Nick  trying to workout how much fuel an engine would take to boil xx amount of water. Maybe there is a table somewhere
Regards
RON

I think you could estimate that - fun to try to think that through in any event..  To convert one fl oz of water at 70º F to steam requires about 70 BTU's.  Burning one fl oz of methanol produces about 490 BTU.  Looks like that tank holds maybe 2 oz of water, so that says you need to get about 140 BTU's into the water. The big unknown is the transfer efficiency of the meth burner through the boiler into the water - I'm guessing that would be about 40%.  If that is all true.....you need to burn about 3/4 of a fl oz of Methanol to empty the boiler.

Okay - I could be way off, but it is always fun to shake off the cobwebs and figure this stuff out.  What do you think?
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Mike

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Re: microcosm steam car
« Reply #5 on: March 21, 2019, 05:06:19 am »
Mike i can tell by your answer that you are away ahead of me when it comes to the sums.  My real reason for asking the question is i have a few of these small engines lying in boxes doing nothing and i would like to try and make them do something i tried with the Stanley but that`s now on hold until the summer.  Looking at Nicks small car i assume the bore is similar to the small twins that i have and if that is the case then it would only run for 3 1/2 mins using the same boiler in the case of the Stanley it took 16mins to burn off 30mls of water using 5mls of meths give or take.  My object now is to try an make a platform as small as i can but must be able to run for at least 5min  minimum.  There are some really nice American cars around the 1906 era.
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RON
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Re: microcosm steam car
« Reply #6 on: March 24, 2019, 07:09:01 am »
Mike while waiting for boiler material to arrive i thought i would try some sums i have a small meths burner which so happens to be 1"dia x 1 1/8" full it takes 12ml of water which means 1/8 = 1.3ml. boiler i was going to make was 1" x 1 3/4"=14.6ml if i make a boiler 1" x 2"=21.3ml and leave out the air space i`m back down to 15ml approx which i think is roughly 1/2 a US fl oz which means i might only get a run of 8mins but i really would like the tank to be 1" x 1 3/4" so i might be struggling to get 5mins?

1UK fl oz = 28.41ml
1US fl oz = 29.57ml

No doubt there will be people out there who will know
Was brought up in the era of inches and miles but nowadays everything is metric
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