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Greetings, community of Stirling Engine enthusiasts!

I'm a new member of the community. Over the last few months I've
looked at a variety of Stirling Engine designs, with the goal of
designing, evaluating, and hopefully building a solar thermal electric
generator for my home. I've gone about as far as I can on my design
on my own, so I'm hoping some of you can give me some constructive
criticism and perhaps some construction advice. Think of me as a
middle-aged, reasonably intelligent and serious, but rather
fumble-fingered and tool-poor hobbyist.

You can find my design in a text file on my homepage:

http://www.stirlingengine.com/users/Max ... erator.txt

I don't think my design is too radical or far afield, I'm really
hoping you'll find it practical and worth building. One thing I could
really use help with is how to get started on building the pistons so
they hold pressure, and on the entire topic of the importance of (and
how to) lubricating the piston end.

Thanks for any comments or advice you might have; I'll probably be
checking back on a daily rather than minute-by-minute basis.

Cheers,

Max

The only thing I think that might not work with this engine, if I understand the way you have designed it correctly, is the two chambers per cylinder.

Because if you have 2 chambers, one above the piston, and one below(with the connecting rod running through it) They will be opposing each other. When the one above the piston is trying to expand, the one below will be trying to expand as well, and they will be pushing against each other. But if you took out those connections, and only had 4 engines, instead of 8, it should work just fine.

I'm not sure if I understood the design completely, but that is my take on it.