Stirling Engine Fan

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

I find getting smaller paraffin heaters to work very challenging and can spend ages trimming wicks and messing about and finally giving up. As a Student we had one of those Aladdin heaters that worked a treat but my most recent excusion with greenhouse paraffin heaters was a disaster. I got the things buring nicely before i left them for the night and a.m. found the whole inside of the glasshouse covered in oily soot that took hours to clean off with soft brooms and detergent.
Hopefully you'll do better. Or do what i did and go electric heat..

[Tim StevensParticipant @timstevens64731]

If your burner was designed to run on meths (ie alcohol) it is not likely to perform properly (unmodified) on paraffin. Alcohol as a fuel needs a lot less air than paraffin, which is why paraffin will produce smoke – incomplete combustion and soot and carbon monoxide in the smoke.

There is no likelihood of a problem from a reaction with residue meths. Parffin is so called because it is fairly inert, chemically (parvum affinitas if my O level latin (failed) is any good).

There are (or were) stoves that would run well on paraffin, for greenhouses etc, or you could perhaps find a pressurised stove (Primus, Optimum, etc) or blowlamp which run very well on parafin with no smoke, but a lot more heat than an 'ordinary sized' Stirling engine can cope with. I think.

Cheers, Tim

[Chris VParticipant @chrisv]

Thank you for your replies. The burner was designed for Kerosene which I understand is the same as Paraffin.

I mistakenly first tried the engine with Meths which smoked & smelled, and did not give out as much heat as Paraffin that I have been advised will do. Further advise was to get white Paraffin as this is the cleanest burning, but as mentioned not going out limits what one can obtain, so mail ordered from the description I have supposedly got clean burning 'lamp' oil.

The retailer has got back to me and suggested the wick may be exposed too much,…. with no mechanism for adjusting that I had not thought about that!

I will try trimming the wick tomorrow to see if that helps.

Cheers

Chris.

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