Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

I am stumped.

@crazydoug has a couple models from this maker.

Eco?

Made in Canada?

Interesting engine(s) what year do they date from?

I have not yet found any info that suggests dates as early as the 60's, but I also have not found anything that would refute that possibility either. As Doug says, there is very little out there to be found on these unique engines! The earliest date I have found was 1975 if I recall correctly, but it couldn't be called an authoritative reference, so even that is up in the air.

Sadly, even with all of Doug's materials, that he so kindly shared with me, I saw no copyright or even print dates to help solve this mystery.

The search goes on .... but what of the original questions I posed?!?!?   ;c)

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Quote from: Stoker on October 08, 2020, 11:35:36 pm

.... but what of the original questions I posed?!?!?   ;c)

,
Arizona Solar esque ?

Well of course you are spot on for the second part of the question Jim ..... the burner set-up is exactly the same as that still found to this day, on the Solar #1 Stirling engine as first produced in Phoenix Arizona in 1977-78, and continues to be produced by PM Research in Wellsville New York to this very day. Dimensionally it is so exact that the last two photos that you see in my post above, have the ECO motor wearing a PM Research wicked burner cap and firebox/chimney, which both fit the ECO motors base casting to perfection.

It should be noted that the original burner cap does not have a wick, but rather just has an almost 1" diameter hole in the top of the (knockout plug) cap, and has the well cast in the base packed with several layers of coarse weave fiber (probably asbestos), and in fact doesn't seem to work near as well as the Solar Engines wick design. Mine came without the cylindrical firebox/chimney, but the ones typically mounted on the Solar 1 engine fits over the displacer hot cap and in between the three uprights cast into the base just as though it was designed for it. I should note that there are three different styles of firebox/chimney for the ECO motor that I have seen so far, but they are all just slight variations on the same basic theme and dimensions. The one Doug has with a short small diameter chimney on top is the only one like it I have seen so far.

Well Jim, I guess you're the only one that is interested enough to play my little game, no real surprise there, so I'll go ahead and answer the first part of my query as well.

This engine has what may be the most unusual linkage that I know of, in that it has a free floating piston attached with a yoke to a hollow disc of plastic (possibly Nylon, probably Delrin), which is pinned to the crankshaft at a very off-center location, making it a cam. The plastic cam rotates within a horseshoe shaped "U" frame that is attached to the displacer, which causes the displacer to move in and out of the bore, thus initiating the Stirling Cycle by feeding deferentially heated and cooled (expanded and condensed) air to the power piston in this Beta unit.

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