It occurs to me that a fan behind the condenser would help condense steam. I can't find anything using 'search'. Comments? (I have a 12 volt system.)

Ian Cameron, 1919 Stanley Four Seat Touring

The only time that the condenser has any thing going through it is when the Stanley is in motion. When the car is in motion, unless you are in a tail wind, there will be air cooling the condenser. If your water tank is becoming too hot for its water to be pumped, then the question of additional cooling should be addressed. To cool the condenser while at a stand still, it would be non-productive.

During my restoration of Doble D2 over the past 8 years I have come to the conclusion that this car never did nor ever will condense.

Conversely, my Doble E22 fitted with a turbo fan does condense.

Unlike the 11 Doble Detroit cars made by Doble and the subsequent E and F types all fitted with fans there is no space to insert a fan between the steam generator and the radiator on D2. I cannot get even a thin electric one in.

I would recommend the fitting of a fan if you have the space. A 12 volt electric one would be ideal. It all helps to get as much air through the radiator as possible, especially at slow road speeds. You can never have enough air going through the radiator

Barry
You are one of the few with experience using a fan on the condenser.
When I had my Derr boiler powered Stanley I could produce more steam then the car could use safely. Over forty MPH for any length of time the water tank can get good and hot and you don’t condense very much.
Because I had 12V and a good alternator generating more then I needed I thought of pumping tank water back through a sprayer nozzle into the condenser and adding a fan as you described. I never did this as I sold the car to start another one.
My thought was that the sprayer water even though being hot would still help in the condensing of the steam but with a thermostat control set at 170F would help to keep the tank water from over heating. As Pat stated there is a lot of down time, stops at intersections when your not using the condenser. Pumping tank water through the condenser I think would help keep it from over heating.Even pumping the bypass water in a normal condensing Stanley through the condenser before going back to the tank.
Comments

Rolly



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2010 04:37PM by Rolly.

,Rolly,

My only experience with condensing cars is in respect of my two Dobles.

Certainly Abner Doble fitted steam driven turbo fans to the Doble Detroits and to the later E and F types. The early E types were fitted with a fan driven of the auxilliary drive which Abner soon changed to turbo driven ones. The fans are large, being 24 inches in diameter.

None of the 4 "D" types had any fans, nor space to retro fit them without increasing the chassis length..

The best I have come up with, on D2, is to feed any condensed water from the radiator via a splitter pipe into the main water tank by means of a Jabsco pump. Any steam still remaining is passed directly through this splitter and the pipe from this is then led through the bottom of a a 25 gallon supplementary water tank on the rear of the car. This condenses the water as much as it going to and does gradually warm up the water in this tank. The 25 gallons is gradually used to supplement the water in the main tank thereby gving me enough water for one days cruising.

My E type has two vacuum pumps driven from the auxilliary unit and these, alond with the turbo fan, creates a situation where I get a vacuum reading most of the time on the system when cruising. The condensate after passing through the vacuum pumps goes into the main 17 gallon water tank.

There is a lot of hype about the water mileage obtained by E type Dobles. Nobody seems to get the 500-1000 miles out of the standard water tank (17 gallons) that has been reported. Abner was good at marketing and his figures were always to his advantage. The average seems to be around 120 -150 miles, i.e. again enough for a good days touring. Most owners fill up with water when they fill up the fuel tank.

I'm thinking of summer driving, when the ambient temperature might be 25 C, and the speed 30 to 40 kph climbing a hill. It seems to me that air movement through the condenser from the speed of the car won't amount to much. I was thinking of a switched fan (actually a pair of fans, as on the E Type Jag) controlled by the driver, just to have something to do with the left hand, which seems to be the only part of the body not in constant motion while driving a Stanley.

Hi All,

I can't give you road experience yet, but the Keen Steamliner is plumbed so that the water pump bypass goes to a sprayer bar in the top of the condenser, when the pump is not pumping into the boiler the hotwell water is going through the condenser helping to keep the hotwell temperature down, a make up water tank in the rear of the car holds about 12 gallons which can be pumped to the hotwell at the push of a button, this car is also fitted with an exhaust steam driven tubo fan, in tests I am amazed how quickly the large diameter fan gets up to speed when the car is running, I'm looking forward to getting on the road. all the best, Jeff.

Thanks Jeff
Keep us posted when you get the car finished and running. I always wanted to try it on a Stanley and take reading, Looks like Mr. Keen had the same idea long before I had a dream of owning a Stanley.

Rolly