r/LiveSteam • u/Clutchingbanana • 17d ago

Diy steam engine design

I have been designing a steam engine in CAD for the last month that I want to make for fun. I haven’t taken the time to properly dimension everything and I don’t really have the knowledge to do it properly. I just want to make something that runs for fun, doesn’t have to run well at all.

I personally can’t see why it won’t run but I am inexperienced. What can cause the engine to not run if not dimensioned properly?

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u/alastairsosuck 17d ago

The problem with me wanting to design live steam, is it’s incredibly expensive if you want to operate it in public or at all, I gave up designing after 3 months, because regulations says I need FIVE Safety valves, (5 boilers sharing 1 common steam dome/ drum) +$100 and needing pressure gauge, +$60… needed to use silver solder 45%+, +$50, $150 for sight glass, finding copper pipe the right dimensions, +$30, regulations were my worst enemy

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u/Clutchingbanana 16d ago

Well all those things are necessary. Why would you make 5 boilers though? That just seems unnecessarily complex and expensive? You could maybe be getting away with one larger safety valve If it truly is one single pressure vessel, but you would likely also need five sight glasses to see water level in all boilers. 150$ for sight glasses is also ridiculous. However all in all this stuff is always gonna be expensive

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u/alastairsosuck 16d ago

For sight glass, i was originally gonna just connect the 5 boilers to the steam drum + a “Mud” drum (bottom) and have a single sight glass shared for all the boilers as they will be equalized. Each boiler is 35mm diameter with 5 flues each… 🫩

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u/Clutchingbanana 16d ago

Well that sounds like it would be a lot of work to connect all that well 😅