John Ferrell earthlink.net> writes: > A lot of things to consider here... > A lot of energy in the kitchen application is radiated. A fiberglass > jacket would save a lot of energy loss. I agree, and for a sun collector even more so. > A six quart pressure cooker filled to 4 quarts takes about 10 minutes on > "high" to come up to pressure, it takes half power to maintain pressure > with a minimal "hiss". Ok, 4 quarts ~= 3.7 liters, with 4.2J/g*K and dT=100K in 600 seconds is about 2.6kW in. I assume this is an electrical heater ? > 15 pounds of pressure may not seem like much but when it is superheated > water a sudden breach releases a lot of energy. A smaller pressure vesell > would minimize the risk. I agree. The pressure cooker I had in mind was the small kind, 2 liters capacity. > I cannot recommend a pressure cooker for anything other than its intended > use. It excels as a cooking tool. Yes, but this is an engineering-related list ;-) ;-) Also making a pressure and heat-proof boyler from scratch is much harder than adapting something like a pressure cooker. Sorry about the joke about the distillation use. Please see attached photos of a 10 Watt 2 in. impulse turbine I built in 2002. This would run on Victorian steam with a different nozzle. It requires 2.2-2.5 bars for optimal operation. It has a shunt type voltage regulator that also prevents turbine overrevving (by loading it down), but not overtemperature. Air consumption is about 1l/sec at 3bar with 8.1 W out on load (9Vdc at 0.9A into 10 Ohms - this exceeds the limits of the generator slightly, the turbine is not the limiting factor here). thanks, Peter PS: The photos did not go through, sending them 1 by 1 --------------------------------- Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta. -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist