Fascinating Engines and Technology

[Mosey]

Interesting Engine I saw in the Museum of Art & Technology, Paris
Can someone identify this?
Mosey back in the States

[Don1966]

Hi Mosey, welcome home bud. How did you like your European trip? Had mine in July and was glad to get back. I had my wife with me so no chance to see some engines. That engine looks awesome and I have no clue who or what.

Don

[b.lindsey]

Oops....sorry Mosey, I didn't see this post until I had posted in the other one. I can't help on the engine either but perhaps Jo or Jason can. Welcome home.

Bill

[Ian S C]

Is it a steam engine? It could (I'd have to look harder),  be the Lenoir Gas Engine, the museum has one.     Ian S C

[Jo]

Looks like the 1860 Lenior engine to me.





Facinating cycle the Lenior cycle. This was the first engine to use it: the Otto and Diesel cycles are much more efficient hence you rarely hear of the Lenior cycle any more.

Jo

[Jo]

There were less than 500 of these engines ever built (100 made in the UK by the Reading Iron Works).

What is fascinating is that it is double acting, with flat slide valves, parallel to and on opposite sides of the horizontal cylinder, so much like a Corliss you get separately performed intake and exhaust functions. The flyball governor is controlling the gas valve. The cylinder is 5.5" in diameter, 8.5" stroke and watercooled.

Sadly it had a "exceedingly delicate and troublesome" electric ignition system which consisted of two Bunsen-cell batteries, a Ruhmkorff induction coil, a distributor and a sparkplug in each cylinder head. The adjustable vibrating contact in the primary circuit of the coil induces high tension sparks (100 to 150 per second) across the plug gap in the secondary.

The distributor is a insulated disc fastened to the end of the crankshaft.

There is a second owned by the science museum in London which was built a few years after the one in Paris. It is a pretty little thing  but has an ignition as reliable as my R&B 

Jo

[Mosey]

I'm pleased to see you come out to comment on that spiffy engine. It has some kind of switch on the end to stop it in an emergency! Wow, I'd love to see it run. Big guy! I find the flyball governer and the linkage at the main connecting links most interesting. Imagine what it would be like if it were about 1/10th scale. Castings available?
Wife's comments were that these machines were so nicely crafted she found them interesting too. Trained right, huh. Should be no problem if the little castings were to show up.
Mosey

[Jo]

I have just found a couple more snipits of information about this engine. Thankfully well out of copyright as you can tell if you read through the author is talking about these engines still being used now 20 years after their invention  .

I must not add one to the build list 

Jo

[Dave Otto]

Here is a link to at thread on Harry's Smokstack site about the Lenior. This engine is located in the Deutz Museum and recently brought into running condition.

http://www.smokstak.com/forum/showthread.php?t=105966&highlight=nuenen&page=3

The Deutz Technikum Lenoir Engine that has been shown in this thread will be brought to the Nuenen show as a special exhibit for this years rally. As the collection is a national heritage treasure, special permission was needed for this to happen and will likely never be repeated. Here is a chance to see the oldest running internal combustion engine in existence. This coupled with their featured slide valve event for 25th year celebration will surely make this an unparallelled show. If you ever needed an excuse to go to Nuenen this is it.


There are quite a few videos throughout this thread and near the end are ones from this year's Nuenen show. One of my friends was in the crowd when the engine was started at the show.

Dave