Keep a parked car cool(er)

[russell198x00]

After a typical car has been sitting in the sun for even a short
time, the inside temperature begins to skyrocket. On a hot cloudless
day, the inside temperature can easily exceed 120 degrees F. IÂ’ve
often wondered about ways to keep the passenger compartment cool,
such as solar panel powered fans or even air conditioners, perhaps
arranged so as to hang over a window that is only open a crack, but
then I remembered about the nature of the way a Sterling engine
worked and it seemed the perfect solution. Do you think that this
could be a practical application? Especially if a method could be
found to retrofit it to existing cars as opposed to only being
available on new cars. I'd love to see this available for purchase
soon (this summerÂ’s going to be a scorcher!)

[stan.hornbaker]

The hot enviornment inside a parked car in direct sunlight would provide a heat source for the engine. But where are you going to find the heat sink or low temperature to run the engine. Of course if you had the heat sink you wouldn't have any need for a Stirling engine or Stirling refrigerator. Don't forget that the refrigerator has to have a power source such as a Stirling engine or other prime mover to drive it also.

[russell198x00]

OK, let's look at combining technologies... Using a relatively inexpensive solar cell array to run at least a fan and at best a small pump (or both) to form a heat exchanger to take heat from the inside of the car cabin to the outside. This of course could be done exclusively using electricity derived from solar power using a fairly standard heat pump arrangement, but I was hopping that someone that was familiar with Sterling technology could see a way to bring that technology to bare on this problem resulting in a far more efficient and “real world” actual working device. I assure you that people would pay a decent sum of money for such a thing. An informal survey of some folks along the gulf coast yielded results indicating that they would easily consider buying such a device for a price of approximately $100 US. If a way can be found to do this, there is a market… If you build it, they will come… with their wallets open!

[dontspam]

Monte,
This is something I've been thinking about for a while, and I feel that the time is right for it. People would pay for it. I live in Houston and this summer's really hot. I've been wanting to create something to cool cars while they sit. I talked to Davison (an invention company) a little before becoming wary of them. They want my money and we haven't even done anything yet. I have some ideas about it, but I don't know the technical side of things. If you'd like to talk with me about it, I'd be glad to hear from you (dontspam -at- siteconcise.com). I'd be hard-pressed to give an answer one way or the other about the use of Stirling engines for this.
Tony

[marysconover]

I live in Tampa Fl. Hot cars are a real problem. I have an idea that a simple cooler type box with properly designed vents could be placed on the empty car seats. These boxes could hold ice or frozen units and help keep the car cooler. They could then be stored in the car trunk. I would like for someone to talk to me about this general concept. If it worked even a little bit it would be a huge seller in Fl. I am a Realtor and I could write a book on how horrible it is to get in and out of cars in this heat.

[stan.hornbaker]

Mary: Good thinking a simple approach. It would be even better to use the PV cells to drive a fan to blow air over cracked ice in vertical mesh stacks that could be refilled from the top. The ice would have to be replenished periodically. A drain for the water melted can be run thru the floor. The cooling is provided by using the heat in the car to melt the ice and to a smaller extent warm and evaporate some of the water.

An old motto says: "Do nothing simply if a way can be found to make it complex and wonderful.

[balabano]

Hi all
The best solution for such problem IMHO - absorption cooler-

[dcorser]

Energy can not be created or destroyed, but it can be converted. I've been thinking about this, since I first read about stirling engines (as a child) in the early 70's in Scientific American. Everyone I've talked to about it has told me I'm crazy it's a perpetual motion machine, but it's not. It's a solar engine that uses the atmosphere as a collector. I'm a "ner do well" high school, drop out,with a genius IQ (what ever that means). I would love to talk to someone about it, whom could either bring it to fruition or dispell it. Don Corser dcorser@hotmail.com

[dschmetterer]

Better solution is to not let the car get hot at all - use those reflective sheets that you can velcro to the inside of your windshield and park in the shade. Dragging around a stirling engine and an icemaker would work - but its such a complicated answer to such a simple question.

http://walkthelion.blogspot.com

[binraking]

Hello,

I just purchased and read the book "Around the World by Stirling Engine" by Brent H. Van Arsdell. Which is available here on the Stirling site. One of the points the author made was that a great deal of time and energy (in the form of human mental/physical effort) has been directed towards researching and developing stirling engine applications for which a simpler and cheaper alternative already existed.

Problem: Car gets hot when parked in the sun

Possible solutions:

1. Park in the shade
2. Leave windows down
3. Drive a convertible and leave the top down
4. Place reflective cover on dash, and park car so windshield is facing the sun. (This would ensure that the most sunlight gets reflected back out of the car).
5. Use the commercially available solar powered window fan.
6. Have a friend wait in your car with the engine and A/C on if you will only be gone a few minutes.
7. Use a remote engine starter to start your car before you go out side, that way your car will be cool by the time you get into it.
8. In the future when everyone drives electric cars, your car could be plugged into the national power grid while you are not driving it, and a timer in your car or a call from your cell phone to your car could tell it to activate the electrically operated ac and have it ready for you.

I am sure all of you could come up with a few more ideas that would also be cheaper and more effective than a stirling engine. I guess what I am trying to say is that before any discussion of how a particular stirling engine could be built, there should be some thought put into weather or not a stirling engine would even be suited to the problem in the first place.

How about a stirling engine that you build a campfire in that would power your portable TV while you camp in some remote location? People love their shows! Or how about a stirling Lilly pad that would float around in the ocean with one end in the cool water and the other at the focal point of a huge bowl shaped reflector? How about sticking one end in the ice at the north pole and have the other end at the focal point of a large mirror? Of course that might further accelerate melting of the ice caps. Electricity or IceÂ…. Hummm.

This was my first posting, I apologize for any feathers that I might have ruffled.

V/R
Dave