nivek@ROVER.RI.CMU.EDU (Kevin Dowling) (11/16/87)
Solar Engines of Phoenix, AZ makes a number of small hot-air engines for hobbyists. They sell a couple of Stirling engine kits and several assembled engines. These are all hobbyist scale. Some use the sun as heat source and some use small tablets or any source of heat. They sell a bunch of West German accessories for those little steam engines you find in hobby shops too. Solar Engines PO Box 15625 Phoenix, AZ 85060 I've been looking for early examples of hot-air engines. There used to be several companies that made fans based on this principle around the turn of the century. Lake Breeze was one of them. There are also heat engines based on NitiNol wire. This is a nickel-titanium alloy also refered to a "shape-memory" alloy. Scientific-American of Nov 1979 had an article and more recently a Sci-Am amateur scientist column on engines made from this. It's been used in actuators, robot hands, emboli filters in hearts (animals), experiments in large space based antenna, etc etc. Anyway Innovative Technology International of Beltsville MD makes a thermobile which is a small two-wheeled device with Nitinol wrapped around the two wheels. When one end is immersed in hot water it spins! I found a hair dryer is pretty effective too. They also make a toy boat powered by an ice cube based on the same principle . They make another device called an ice-mobile which looks like the Thermobile. Anyway, $19ea Innovative Technology International 10747-3 Tucker Street Beltsville, MD 20705 (301) 937-3688 Mondo-tronics in Cupertino,CA makes a flapping butterfly thay uses Nitinol too. Pretty neat. It doesn't really fly but sits on something and flaps slowly (6 time/min) They also make a small robot arm based on Nitinol with joystick or serial line control. Oh well, I've always been fascinated by heat engines. Aka : Kevin Dowling Bell: (412) 268-8830 Arpa: nivek@rover.ri.cmu.edu Mail: Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University Pgh, PA 15213-3890