A Ten Beam Engine                                                                                                  

Now I know why the SunPulse folks went with a Beta type engine. The timing and volume of single power stroke is much easier to adjust and the controls make intuitive sense.

To make an alpha engine act  similarly to a beta engine, the vessel containing the displacer moves and the displacer remains stationary. Think of both pistons moving together as one, surrounding a stationary displacer. Here, the displacer is the regenerator with the heat exchangers inside. I want to do it this way so the pistons can pump air though the heat exchangers, hopefully improving power.

The ten beam engine design uses an adjustable chain and four sprockets to change crank phase angles. Changing a piston volume is done with a cantilevered lever system. The changes these controls make in the piston volumes and timing are now independent of each other, so adjustments on the fly should make intuitive sense. 

I have a space in the garage corner that is 5 x 3 feet where my table saw now sits. I am thinking a full size engine should have a 4’ x 3’ footprint. The pistons each would be 24” in diameter with about 2.5 inches of travel giving a volume of 1130 cubic inches . A half scale model would be 24” x 14” with 141 cubic inches per piston. The quarter scale 18 cubic inch piston is probably too weak to get an engine to turn. There is an eight foot space behind the garage where  a monster 5.2 cubic foot engine could sit. My neighbors would probably call the cops on me.