Stirling Engine mini RC Car

We had discussed both Stirling Engine and Remote control cars in two separate posts.  In this post we will combine these two technologies. Before we start our discussion, I would briefly describe both of them.

Stirling Engine

1.Piston 2. Displacer, Hot gases in the left side of Heat displacer, push it forward to move piston. 

It is an external combustion engine where combustion occurs outside the engine itself. An advantage with this engine is that, it can be used with any type of heating source both renewable and non renewable. Basic form of engine consists of one cylinder, hot at one end and cold at the other, loose fitting displacer, power piston and flywheel.

When we heat at one end, gas starts to expand and push loose displacer forward, which is connected with piston which eventually revolves the flywheel. With its revolution it pushes back the fitting displacer to its original position having cold gas at both ends again. This cycle continues till the heat is supplied from heat source.

RC Cars

These cars are usually powered by electric batteries can be controlled by remote control. It consists of three components, transmitter (our remote), receiver (which receives transmitter signal) and car itself. Transmitter role is not only limited to receiving signals but it also transforms these radio waves into electric signals and controls the components. Most of these cars use Amplitude modulation but some newer once also use Frequency modulation. If you have never heard about modulation, our fm and am radio works with same transmitter, receiver concept. By the way, frequency most often used in mini remote cars is 2.4 GHz.

RC Cars itself is a big concept and out of scope for this post, for this project idea, I would rather recommend you to buy an RC car from toy store and install our engine on it. If it works, then you can shift your focus to build one car by yourself.