Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Would be interesting to see if this would work and how high it could lift, particularly the liquid piston pump described at the start of the article and the fluidyne II.

I notice that no photos or dimensions are given.

http://www.linux-host.org/energy/sstirling.htm

If it works I could see it being used to lift water from ponds to growbeds.

Everybodies trying to beat Monya's fire hydrant now

Robert Stirling - a name which has been passed around our house a few times (as a kid)
My father is a steam enthusiast and has helped restor many old steam engins and the like and greatly respects stirling's work, amongst others.

Although I helped him out on several occasions I never saw (or heard of) one of these - the closest I came to something like this was a hot air engin (worked on similar principals)

Would be great to have something like this - if for no other reason than to amaze people

I used to work at Harwell laboratory, but somehow never managed to see one of these fluidynes in action.

The liquid piston is a good idea, and I can see that in theory it should work. However, regards the web site, seems a shame that dimensions etc. were not posted.

I may try and mess around with it in the summer holidays.. seems to me to be as intriguing as the autosiphons that several of us have had so much fun messing about with!

Any bets as to who would be first to come up with a working system?

Some of you giuys and girls are amazing regards the art of "tinkering"!

Hmm, if I could get some students interested, then claime it as my own work.....
*evil laugh trails off into the distance*.......

edited (off topic).

Mate, I know the feeling! Outcomes suck, but we do it because that is what the government demands
I dont fully agree with outcomes based education, I often think it needs a rethink!!!
With the previous tried and tested ways of teaching you would have been able to include aqua into a whole term, with all its challenges and areas to learn from - but now we are WY too focused on a prescribed list of outcomes which stifels a lot of the creativity we would otherwise include into our lessons and approach to work!
*hmmm, feels like there is a big rant a-brewing here*

Yep .. rant .. imminent .. We have a few teachers around here ..

but we should move it to a different thread my friend!

Kewl

so true!...

Stirling cycle engines are fascinating. They seem to offer so much promise. My favourite home cooked one is at http://www.innerlodge.com/TechLine/Harr ... /index.htm

This gent could hava pump a pumping in no time :-)

WSA for my kids , kids. I hope

The fluidyne concept is about temperature difference ... low grade heat transfer and liquid pistons...

What I like about the "fluidyne" idea as presented in the link I posted .. is that is seems to take very few tubes and coke bottles , simple plumbing and somehow it all manages to pump water .. without any sort of "precision" engineering ... (if you believe what you read!)

ie. glue up a few pipes and add a couple of cheap ball valves, put one part in the sun, the other in the shade and .. hey presto .... U got a pump! (too good to be true?)

Surely it can't be that simple ... what sort of head of water and flow rates can can it lift or deliver, under what circumstances ..?

Why no dimensions or photos?

So on this thread .. I am really thinking about trying to see if we can make a good shot at this particular idea of the FLUIDYNE rather than experimenting with more complex Stirling engines in general.

Anyone up for having a shot at building something like this?
How does it compare with the "dipping duck" .. (I loved those things as a kid!)

I am, but only at the end of the school year - then I will be looking for things to do (other than the long list the missus has been building up for me (she is SOOOO kind)

AM .. we are in the same boat!

I might have some time to work on it and play around. Used to be an engineer before i moved into Social work so have some background. Just finidng parts may be hard here in indonesia. But what can't be found can be made