How do solar powered heat engines work?

i had to look under solar power not heat engines, but anyways what i was looking for is a stirling engine attached to a parabolic reflector.

i think..

Some info here

Does anyone think its possible to run stirling engines off of CPU heat?

Just an idea im throwing out but i wonder if its possible to use these on say, a laptop cpu to provide extra power to recharge the battery while in use, to extend battery life. or provide self-powered cooling to enable use ofhigher speed processors while not taking any additional power to operate fans etc..

Im in love with these damn things they seem so able to provide our energy needs.

1 more question, did nikola tesla make an engine similar to a stirling engine? i think it was (lol) probablly magnetic or electro magnetic but my memory refuses to help me.

i wonder if a peltier plate with the cold side connected to a CPU and the hotside connected to a stirling engine would result in something useful.
a self powered energy efficient cpu cooling system perhaps?

gah, back to wikipedia. LaWlZ

Hmm i cant find anything useful. Im quite sure a stirling engine could provide effiency to a peltier plate though.

peltier plate needs electricity, stirling motor creates eletricity from heat produced by the plate, electricity runs the plate to cool the other side, i mean it sounds like something that would be useful but i am not sure.

maybe some sort of temperature regulator? ill keep lookin around maybe ill find something usefull on this gigantic random mass of information.

I've been using the Peltier effect for years and, as you indeed noted, it needs electricity to transfer the heat from one side to another.

One would think that tranferring the heat would produce electricity.

Well, that's not far from truth, look here: Device could convert heat into electricity

Ogionik,

There are usually several "Stirling cycle" motors on display at antique steam engine shows and meetings. I attended one in Berryville Virginia some years ago. They generally used a candle to power an overhead fan using air as the working fluid.

Most of these designs use heat to expand or vaporize a "working fluid" and then transfer the gas to a cool side where it contracts (or liqufies) with a piston or diaphram in between. Sometimes the piston itself carries the fluid about.

Somebody also had one powering a Datsun down in Arizona twenty or so years ago. It had a rooftop "collector" and an underbody condenser.

The Newcomen steam engine used a similar principle by putting water into a cylinder and then heating it , venting the steam, and replenishing the cylinder with cool water.


Keep looking, they are kind of fun

Don't you just point them at the sun and put the pan of baked beans on the hotplate.

I've seen an egg fried on the pavement. It'll work on the same principle I should think.

sterling engines
In response to your inquiry about solar heat engines, I believe I been to the end of the information superhighway looking for a commercially produced sterling engine in the 5-20 kw range, with or without a generator attached which I could use with a parabolic array. To my disappointment, the only ones I could find could only be afforded by NASA or some power company. There a lot of small power or model engines available but that is about it. It seems that for so many years
with cheap gas and electricity there was no need to mass produce heat engines and the only ones available are out of my price range. They are simple in concept and would be perfect for solar applications. If I overlooked any then please let me know.