Friday, February 14, 2020

Wood stove radiator rig - with pressure cooker

So... I moved the stove further away from my Uncle Meat station and shortened the tube, as part of a family-enforced remodeling effort.

Results: it looks prettier, but it heats my side of the room quite a bit less.
So I did some experimenting with an old and malfunctioning pressure cooker I had lying around, and in the end... convection wouldn't quite cut it.

Tweak this, optimise that, nah. I need a pump and a radiator.
I actually did some experimenting with a miniature steam engine as a pump and a miniature Stirling engine as a motor for it, but they wouldn't quite cut it either.
So I got me a standard furnace pump. Some €25. It works perfectly and it's completely silent. It uses 44 watts of power (measured).

I stuck two tubes into the pot's lid. One, a standard 12 mm. copper tube, fit one of the holes perfectly.
The other hole is smaller, but a flexible sink tube fit that one just as well, with a nut on the inside too.

So, the pot looks like this:


The orange thing is the pump.
I tried to put it on the radiator itself, but even filling it and the tubes with water, it wouldn't pump at that distance. So there it is. Pumping away quietly and efficiently.

The stove:



The radiator side:


The tube from the pump goes in at the bottom, the return tube comes out the top.
The transparent tube at the top was basically used in experimenting, but it's good to have to adjust the water levels, vent air, etc. It's not really needed.

The tubes go around the room and actually help heating it:


The temperature at the pump:



At the radiator:


In the room:


Yes, I have three thermometers. They came as a pack of three for €7.50 (€2.50 each :·)
I didn't take actual pictures of them though, I generated the images. With real values.

The efficientometer is a nice touch... ;·)



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