Bill Gates invests $23m in an engine company

[News]

Bill Gates invested $23m in this engine. It is an opposed piston 2-stroke
engine - not new at all. They have put an electric clutch between the two
cylinders so one can be switched in or out. The exhaust/electric motor
turbo is good, which acts as a genny as well being turned by the exhaust.

An electric motor can be in the crank to have an integrated hybrid.

It is half the size and weight of a conventional diesel engine, with half
the fuel consumption and less than half the moving parts.
http://www.ecomotors.com/news/ecomotors-news

They claim they will have a 100mpg 5 seater car in 18 months or so. They
claim a brief case sized genny as well and cogen applications. The VW diesel
engine designer designed it.

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/inside-ecomotors-revolutionary-high-efficiency-engine/

It doesn't look special to me, but let's see.

 

[Josepi]

$23,000 is peanuts for any decent car.


Bill Gates invested $23m in this engine. It is an opposed piston 2-stroke
engine - not new at all. They have put an electric clutch between the two
cylinders so one can be switched in or out. The exhaust/electric motor
turbo is good, which acts as a genny as well being turned by the exhaust.

An electric motor can be in the crank to have an integrated hybrid.

It is half the size and weight of a conventional diesel engine, with half
the fuel consumption and less than half the moving parts.
http://www.ecomotors.com/news/ecomotors-news

They claim they will have a 100mpg 5 seater car in 18 months or so. They
claim a brief case sized genny as well and cogen applications. The VW diesel
engine designer designed it.

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/inside-ecomotors-revolutionary-high-efficiency-engine/

It doesn't look special to me, but let's see.

 

[News]

$23,000 is peanuts for any decent car.

TOP POSTER!!!!

Read again

 

[Josepi]

TROLL!!!

"m" is the symbol commonly used for 1,000 parts or pieces. Did you mean
something else? Maybe "milli"?

Perhaps if you didn't top post your original post it would be clearer?


TOP POSTER!!!!

Read again

 

[News]

TROLL!!!

You are a TOP POSTING IDIOT!

 

[Josepi]

If you can't keep up with the big dogs just stay on the porch.


You are a TOP POSTING IDIOT!

 

[News]

Interesting!

Part of the "technology" is a "different" way of putting two pistons per
cylinder. The "old way" was to use two crankshafts which were geared
together.

Not quite Rootes in the UK used this engine in the Commer Truck. Rootes was
bought out by Chrysler who dropped the highly efficient engine as it would
compete with their existing lines of rather inefficient engines.

One crank with two knuckles:
http://www.oldengine.org/members/diesel/Rootes-ListerTS3/TS3.htm

The successful Deltic was three cranks forming a triangle, with 6 pistons.
http://rowla.dyndns.org/justin/img/piston_deltic320.mpg

In Olny in Buckinghamshire, a small company is making an aero engine design
similar to the old British Commer TS3 truck engine, which was based on the
Mercedes Benz 1930s aero engine. The opposed piston diesel two stroke is
not dead. http://www.dair.co.uk/

The "new way" seems to be to move the "outboard piston" with some kind of
fancy yoke. Not at all sure that it's any kind of real improvement over
the "old way." But we shall see.

The Lotus 2-stroke Omnivore engine. They do not have a cylinder head. Just
another piston in the top of the cylinder that moves up and down slightly to
vary the compression ratio.
http://www.autoblog.com/tag/lotusomnivore

The main advantage of two pistons per cylinder is reduced vibration. Per
se it doesn't do a heck of a lot to improve efficiency. It can be better
at scavenging at fresh air would come in when one piston is all the way
back and all the exhause would go out by the other opposed piston.

Scavanging is done via the turbo/electric motor.

Because each "pair" of pistons is "pretty well" balanced, it's not
essential that the front and back have to be "synced" although it would be
since from the view of "exhaust timing" so that you don't have both
cylinders exhausting at the same time.

The "clutch" would be an interesting design!

This is good as it disconnects half the engine when it is not needed. They
claim twice the mpg and further 30% better using the clutch to switch out
half the engine when not needed.

The engine as pictured has 8 pistons and 4 cylinders.

But apart from the con-rods it is quite simple. The pistons have a short
travel.

 

[News]

Interesting!

Part of the "technology" is a "different" way of putting two pistons per
cylinder. The "old way" was to use two crankshafts which were geared
together.

The "new way" seems to be to move the "outboard piston" with some kind of
fancy yoke. Not at all sure that it's any kind of real improvement over
the "old way." But we shall see.

The yolk is just like a little end. He would be better to use the Revetec
lobes not cranks and all those bearings. Then it would be far better.
http://www.revetec.com/development.htm

 

[daestrom]

They have been used a lot, they powered many WW2 US submarines, with
engineers standing watch continuously.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Jumo_205
http://www.fairbanksmorse.com/engine_opposed_piston_model_38.php

The Fairbanks-Morse opposed 8 was even used on some early nuc boats for
emergency power. My boat (a Permit class) had one in the bow compartment.

daestrom

 

[daestrom]

Not quite Rootes in the UK used this engine in the Commer Truck. Rootes
was bought out by Chrysler who dropped the highly efficient engine as it
would compete with their existing lines of rather inefficient engines.

One crank with two knuckles:
http://www.oldengine.org/members/diesel/Rootes-ListerTS3/TS3.htm

The successful Deltic was three cranks forming a triangle, with 6 pistons.
http://rowla.dyndns.org/justin/img/piston_deltic320.mpg

In Olny in Buckinghamshire, a small company is making an aero engine design
similar to the old British Commer TS3 truck engine, which was based on the
Mercedes Benz 1930s aero engine. The opposed piston diesel two stroke is
not dead. http://www.dair.co.uk/


The Lotus 2-stroke Omnivore engine. They do not have a cylinder head.
Just another piston in the top of the cylinder that moves up and down
slightly to vary the compression ratio.
http://www.autoblog.com/tag/lotusomnivore


Scavanging is done via the turbo/electric motor.

No, the type of 'scavanging'[sic] that I think John is talking about
refers to the removing of all the exhaust gases. For example the old
Fairbanks-Morse used a mechanically driven blower on the intake to force
intake air into the engine and push the exhaust out.

As John said, the timing of the upper/lower cranks was such that the
exhaust ports were uncovered by the lower piston slightly before the
intake ports were uncovered by the upper piston. So the pressure of the
exhaust gases were released out the exhaust port and then the pressure
of the intake air-box would push fresh air in from the top, down to the
exhaust ports at the bottom of the cylinder (pushing all the exhaust
ahead of it).

Having this one-directional air flow down through the cylinder helped to
get rid of the exhaust gases better.

The intake blower was even called the 'scavenging air blower' on the old
FM manual.

daestrom

 

[News]

Not quite Rootes in the UK used this engine in the Commer Truck. Rootes
was bought out by Chrysler who dropped the highly efficient engine as it
would compete with their existing lines of rather inefficient engines.

One crank with two knuckles:
http://www.oldengine.org/members/diesel/Rootes-ListerTS3/TS3.htm

The successful Deltic was three cranks forming a triangle, with 6
pistons.
http://rowla.dyndns.org/justin/img/piston_deltic320.mpg

In Olny in Buckinghamshire, a small company is making an aero engine
design
similar to the old British Commer TS3 truck engine, which was based on
the
Mercedes Benz 1930s aero engine. The opposed piston diesel two stroke is
not dead. http://www.dair.co.uk/


The Lotus 2-stroke Omnivore engine. They do not have a cylinder head.
Just another piston in the top of the cylinder that moves up and down
slightly to vary the compression ratio.
http://www.autoblog.com/tag/lotusomnivore


Scavanging is done via the turbo/electric motor.

No, the type of 'scavanging'[sic] that I think John is talking about
refers to the removing of all the exhaust gases. For example the old
Fairbanks-Morse used a mechanically driven blower on the intake to force
intake air into the engine and push the exhaust out.

The Bill Gates engines has a mech/electric scavenge motor.

 

[vaughn]

:

The submariner memoirs I've read were mostly written by the captains
and don't discuss engineering details beyond "it broke". What was the
crew's opinion of FM engines?

Ours (SSBN599) was smoky and hard starting, but basically reliable. Near the
end of a patrol we would place bets on how many starting attempts it would take
to get it running.

Vaughn

 

[daestrom]

The submariner memoirs I've read were mostly written by the captains
and don't discuss engineering details beyond "it broke". What was the
crew's opinion of FM engines?

Ours' (SSN-615) started pretty well. You could tell when it had been
running, the bow compartment upper level smelled a bit.

One time we had replaced the injectors and the darn thing was running
rougher than all get out. Went down with the MM and we checked the fuel
rack. Each injector had an adjustment for the connection to the common
fuel rack and we 'tweaked' each one to line up the same marks and it
then ran fine.

One advantage of ours was that it was a DC generator (on the starboard
DC 'go home' bus). So it was a snap to parallel, even in heavy seas
while snorkeling.

(on AC units, when you're just about to close in, Murphy's law says
that's the moment the head-valve would trip shut for a second and the
darn synchroscope would suddenly start going the other way)

daestrom