Author Topic: AOG's Steam Powered iPhone Charger  (Read 16928 times)

Offline b.lindsey

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Re: AOG's Steam Powered iPhone Charger
« Reply #45 on: September 08, 2017, 11:16:18 PM »
Definitely Tony. It looks like it may go west of you now but better safe than sorry. The boiler can wait a few days. Stay safe.

Bill

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Re: AOG's Steam Powered iPhone Charger
« Reply #46 on: September 18, 2017, 05:22:31 PM »
I made it through Irene without any issues and thanks to the mandatory evacuations I had a few days off of work which I used to good effect. While waiting to work on the boiler leaks I made the door assembly. The door and door frame were filed until they latched together.  Then I drilled the hinges in the frame.



The door was slotted in and drilled via the frame.



Next the mounting holes in the frame were drilled.



The frame was used to transfer the hole locations onto the boiler shell. The boiler shell was then drilled and tapped.



Back to the boiler. A friend of mine recommended a boiler leak treatment that is used on low pressure industrial heating boilers (less then 75 psi) to seal seeps. I filled the boiler with a 100 to 1 mixture of water and leak stop, connected an extension pipe with a pressure gauge and relief valve. (The extension pipe was to give some steam space to the completely full boiler) and fired it up on esbit tablets. That stuff worked like a charm. All of my seeps were sealed. After it cooled down I spent the next two hours cleaning up the esbit residue. I'll never use that stuff again.

Here is a pic of the boiler ready for paint.



I'm going to hold off on painting it until my gas burner comes in incase I have to make some modifications to fit it in the boiler. So with the boiler out of the way, I started on the generator. The first part is the base casting. I milled the base flat.



I put the base in the four jaw and faced the end.



My original plan was to bore the casting on the lathe but I wasn't happy with the security of the part in the jaws. I decided to do the work in the mill. First I spot faced and drilled the top hole.



Then I milled the sides level.



Then with the previously faced side on parallels I milled the other end flat and bored out the casting. It was the first time I had used the quill power feed and it left an amazing finish to the bore.



Then the holes for the end caps were drilled and tapped.



At that point I realized that I had forgotten to drill the mounting holes in the base so that was taken care of.



That completes the base casting. Next up is the back end cap. Both ends of the casting were faced in the lathe.



Then the center hole was drilled and reamed.



The part was Locktited onto a mandril, trued up and turned to fit the bore.



Next the end cap was put in the mill and the mounting holes drilled.



I'll end this segment with a generator family shot.



Till next time.

Tony





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Re: AOG's Steam Powered iPhone Charger
« Reply #47 on: October 02, 2017, 05:21:11 PM »
Time has been in shot supply recently but I have made some progress. The next part to be made was the end cap with the brush holders. I started by cleaning up both faces and then drilling and reaming the bearing holes.



Then the part was put into a collet block in the mill and the holes were drilled.



After removing the end cap from the mandril, I started on the magnet spacer. This is a simple aluminum turning that was threaded in the middle.



Next up was the pulley. The shape was turned and then drilled for a grub screw and parted off.



The following part was the screw that holds in the magnet separator. The plans call for a lifting eye but I didn't care for the look so I made a decorative turning. And then threaded the other end.



The last 2 parts for the generator were the terminal screws. Since they have to have the same shape I made up a form tool and cut them to shape. Then they were threaded and parted off.



The castings were painted and assembled leaving me with this.


 
Under test, it produced 22 volts unloaded at 2000 rpm. At the same time my Bix burner came in.



I took the opportunity to mill a slot in the boiler base for the feed end.



Then I transferred the hole to the boiler shell and filed to fit.



Here is a family shot of all of the components except the boiler.



Here is the boiler in paint.



I need to come up with a base and then I can start final assembly.

Till next time

Tony


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Offline b.lindsey

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Re: AOG's Steam Powered iPhone Charger
« Reply #48 on: October 02, 2017, 08:25:39 PM »
You have made a lot of progress Tony. What an interesting exhibit it will make at shows or maybe even at the office :)

Bill

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Re: AOG's Steam Powered iPhone Charger
« Reply #49 on: October 02, 2017, 08:40:38 PM »
Thanks Bill, Oddly enough one of the design requirements is that it has to sit nicely in the center of my chief engineer's round conference table and somewhat match the decor. I think I might have failed on that last part of the requirement.  :ROFL:

Tony

Offline Perry

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Re: AOG's Steam Powered iPhone Charger
« Reply #50 on: October 02, 2017, 11:56:43 PM »
Toni, that's going to be a great conversation piece for sure! Will be charming to see power of steam powering modern electronic gadgets :)
I just tried it with small 9v dc motor with regulator and my stirling engine and it works :)

 :ThumbsUp:
« Last Edit: October 03, 2017, 12:15:49 AM by Perry »

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Re: AOG's Steam Powered iPhone Charger
« Reply #51 on: October 03, 2017, 12:18:39 AM »
Thanks Perry, I'm planning to use a buck converter to take advantage of the higher voltage. Now my challenge to you is can you get your setup to charge an iPad?

Tony

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Re: AOG's Steam Powered iPhone Charger
« Reply #52 on: October 14, 2017, 10:28:11 PM »
Time for a quick update. I found and (badly) finished a small wooden tabletop intended for a nightstand to be the base. All of the components except for the generator and buck converter are mounted. I am in the process of plumbing everything together. As so often happens, I am short a few fittings and the o-ring I am using as a drive belt is to short. While I wait for my missing components to arrive, I decided to try to figure out what to do with the exhaust and condensate. Since the plant is intended to be operated in an office environment, I needed something that could be removed and easily emptied into a sink. That means that a hard mounted condenser was out of the question. My original thought was to make a brass chuff pot with a removable condensate tray at the base like Wilesco uses. Then it occurred to me. Why does it have to be brass? The Wilesco tray is plastic. Why can't I make mine out of plastic. I have a 3D printer and I need to work on my Fusion 360 skills so why not. After much head scratching and YouTube referencing I came up with this.



It's hollow and the hole in the side is where the exhaust and blowdown pipes will insert. Then I hit the next problem. The part was two tall for my 3D printer. With some more head scratching and YouTube videos I split the assembly into two parts.



Each of the parts will be printed individually. This actually turned out to be a good thing. When I imported the files into my slicer I realized that there would have been no way to remove the support material from the inside of the shape.

Here is picture  of the base in work on the printer



When the components are complete I will paint them with epoxy to seal them and we will see if it works.

Till next time

Tony


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Online crueby

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Re: AOG's Steam Powered iPhone Charger
« Reply #53 on: October 14, 2017, 10:39:10 PM »
I would have just piped the condensate over to the boss's coffee cup!!   :lolb:

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Re: AOG's Steam Powered iPhone Charger
« Reply #54 on: October 14, 2017, 11:33:07 PM »
He's an engineering heretic. He doesn't drink coffee.

Tony

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Re: AOG's Steam Powered iPhone Charger
« Reply #55 on: October 15, 2017, 12:02:32 AM »
He's an engineering heretic. He doesn't drink coffee.

Tony
Niether did I - though I did consume mass quantities of cola! Though if I ever started to grow pointy-hairs (you Dilbert fans will get that one), I would have shaved my head and stuck it in a furnace! 

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Re: AOG's Steam Powered iPhone Charger
« Reply #56 on: October 21, 2017, 09:27:19 PM »
It's done and it works (sort of). The 3D printed condenser actually worked. I did learn a few things along the way. If you are going to make one, don't epoxy the inside. The epoxy will melt when exposed to the exhaust steam. (It made a huge mess on the board that I can't completely clean up without damaging the finish.) The PLA is watertight on its own and has no issues with the temperatures required.. You can epoxy the outside for appearance purposes with no issues. Here is the link the the completed  plant in the showcase.

http://www.modelenginemaker.com/index.php/topic,7548.0.html

Till next time

Tony

 

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