Fuelless Friction Heater And Other Heaters

[SkyWatcher]

Hi folks, have been working on different heater setups.
Built an incandescent light bulb heater using 12 bulbs, 734 watts for now with forced air convection and it is working very well to heat a 350 square foot, vaulted ceiling room to 73 degrees F. and 40 F. outside so far, will see how it does when it gets colder outside.
Will post pics and or video of it soon for those interested.
Also just ran some tests today on a soup can friction heater using vegetable oil.
Outer shell steel soup can is 3-1/4" diameter, inner rotating steel soup can is 3" diameter.
Using a drill press set to 2100 rpm, the outer soup can gets too hot to hold after around 3 minutes.
Using less rpm's, like 1600, does not work anything like using 2100 rpm, as slapstick suggested in another thread.
Seems there is a certain rpm that is a sweet spot or a threshold speed needs to be reached for this heating effect to really take off.
Will post pics and or video soon of this soup can friction heater.
Also planning to build an aluminum pop can, solar thermal collector at some point and will post any progress when that time comes.
Feel free to comment and share any heater setups you may be or have been working on.
peace love light
tyson

[wrtner]

Hi folks, have been working on different heater setups.
Built an incandescent light bulb heater using 12 bulbs, 734 watts for now with forced air convection

What is driving it?

The cans: This is a Frenette heater, is it? It will be very interesting to see how much heat you get into the surrounding water (?) and how much power you provide to the drill press.

I would imagine that the Al can will give mechanical problems. Stainless steel food containers, as seen in pound shops and Indian kitchen suppliers, might give good service.

[SkyWatcher]

Hi wrtner, these are three separate heater devices mentioned.

1) typical forced air space heater using light bulbs and large fan salvaged from above range microwave.

2) frenette type oil friction heater using vegetable oil powered by drill press for now at 2100 rpm, using typical steel soup cans, just a test bed to see the heat up effect.

3) passive solar thermal collector using alum. pop type cans, though will have small pc fan to circulate.

Hope that makes it clearer for now, going to go take a few pics of the first two heaters, so people can see better what we are testing at the moment.
peace love light
tyson

[SkyWatcher]

Hi folks, here is a few pics of the soup can heater and the light bulb heater.
Next friction heater will use a coffee can in the horizontal position.


Uploaded with ImageShack.us


Uploaded with ImageShack.us


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

peace love light
tyson

[wrtner]

i'm concerend about the accuracy of your temp probe.

A twisted wire thermocouple may serve you better:
Thermocouple - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If I remember rightly, you need a short length of constantan and nickel or copper. If you ask your local school physics teacher, he or she may just give you a length of the two wires. I think you end up with a point junction which is araldited to the can and the other needs to be in a small jar of iced water as a reference.

You can buy temerature probes for a test meter but it may not survive being chipped off one esperiment to be glued on to the next.

[SkyWatcher]

Hi wrtner, thanks for the interest.
Thermometer is probably not accurate, as someone said 140 degree F. metal is too hot to touch and the thermometer showed 96 F. after around 6 minutes, 50 degree F. shed temperature, so most likely it is not correct.
Going to start working on the larger, coffee can horizontal axis friction heater and see what we can get.
Have you built any version of this friction type heater wrtner?
peace love light
tyson

[SkyWatcher]

Larger friction heater progress

Hi folks, getting close to being able to test this larger size friction heater.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

peace love light
tyson

[Cherryman]

Great

Hi Skywatcher,

Just wanna say I appreciate your postings and following with great interest!

Keep up the good work. I believe you are on a interesting road. Friction heater - Clem engine - Cavitation heating -water hammer , to me they all seem related.

"Smashing atoms around ;-) "

And probably a good alternative for efficient heat.

( Imagine Hero's turbine combined with a friction heater :-)

[SkyWatcher]

Hi cherryman, thanks for the reply and interest.
I'll have to look at the hero's turbine, not sure if i have seen anything about it.
I think the oil friction heater can be very efficient, especially the fact that as the oil heats up, it becomes easier for a motor to turn the drum or discs as oilpiggy/slapstick pointed out.
The high heat silicon is just about dry within the inner stationary drum, cut out a circular piece of aluminum for the bottom of the drum, since without it, it is just laminated particle board, so that should help for the heat transfer away from the wood end pieces.
Also getting a 5/16" threaded rod tomorrow to use the existing mount on the drill press motor to secure it, if not secure enough, will add second mount point.
It is a 300 watt drill press motor, so we will see how it does.
peace love light
tyson

[the bob]

What speed is the drill press motor? I got one of those tanks that you fill balloons up with. Thinking of using that for outer shell.

[SkyWatcher]

Hi bob, drill press motor says 1720 in manual, though will be using belt ratio for around 1900-2000 rpm.
Would love to see any pics or anything you have or will have to share bob, thanks.
Going to be mounting the motor tomorrow.
peace love light
tyson

[the bob]

I got the tank form the transfer station. Haven't done anything with it yet. Was going to cut the top off, drill and tap the bottom, make a bearing block on the lathe for the bearing and thread and seal in the bottom. Make the drum from sheet metal and get some alum. for the top. Mount a bearing and motor on top.
Need to get a small flux core welder to weld drum and end plates with shaft together. Get some way to mount the top plate to tank. I'v also picked up one of those electric oil heaters ( from the dump) going to drain out oil and use that. Should be good oil and take the heat. Thinking about using one of those motors like you would fine on small electric heaters that run the fan, the ones with a single coil on it and use it direct drive on the shaft. How easy does your shaft turn? I might have to get a bigger motor.

[citfta]

Small fan motor

Those small fan motors from the electric heaters have very little torque. I really doubt one of them could turn your friction heater. If your friction heater was no bigger than a soup can if might be able to turn it but it sounds like yours is much bigger than that. I think you will need at least a 1/4 HP motor. Those fan motors are usually only about 1/10 HP.

Respectfully, Carroll

[the bob]

If the bearings free turning ( no seals, might have to oil the top one) and the turning drum sealed and empty, just have to worry about the oil friction???.
I got one of those motors running the fan on the pellet stove, moves air about 400 cfm. If it does't work I'll just have to find you and ask what size motor did you say LOL.

[SkyWatcher]

Hi folks, Hi bob, the shaft turns very easy, 5/8" threaded rod shaft from hardware store.
Using two flange bearings with seals removed and lighter oil in place.
One bearing on each side of 3/4" particle board shown, for stability.
300 watt drill press motor.
Sounds like that might put out some good heat bob, as long as the side gaps are close enough i suppose, as mine was cut for 1/8" side gap, though since i pieced together the aluminum roof flashing from another previous project, it may be between 1/8"-3/16", we'll see how it goes.
If it does not produce good heat, will build another drum with a fresh piece of aluminum to get it tighter around the rotating paint can drum, that has reinforced aluminum plate riveted to top.
peace love light
tyson