Blue Heeler,
You may well soak up the empty coplliments from certain posters, but please be aware that compliments provided for ‘grace and favour’ are actually worthless – some, on the forum, seem to be prolific complimenters, for just that purpose.
However, for these ‘impossibly difficult mathematics’ let me demonstrate the ridiculousness of that statement.
EFFICIENCY = WORK DONE divided by the ENERGY INPUT.
Work done can be measured in several ways. It coould be measured mechanically as FORCE X DISTANCE MOVED or it could be measured electrically as VOLTS X AMPS X TIME. Both would be perfectly acceptable and accurate.
However, as I posted, in the form/operation you presented your engine it was doing no work. It was neither providing any force to move any mass, nor providing any electrical energy output. The energy input was a simple function of mass of fuel used multiplied by the energy content, per unit mass, of that fuel
Any mathematician worth his salt would know that zero divided by any number (other than zero) = zero
To convert to a percentage efficiency vale the above result would need to be multiplied by 100, of course (still zero in this particular form/operation).’
(Zero divided by zero is, of course, an indeterminate value as it could be any value between 1 and infinity).
While I actually have little desire to buy a flame licker engine, I would almost certainly make one – not buy one. I am aware that some designs are very poor examples of the type and some even are difficult to actually get running – let alone to do any work. Novelties for the grandchildren is the most likely reason, I suppose? I was going to purchase one of the chinese stirling engine designs, for my Grandson, which could run for as long as an hour, just sitting above a mug of hot water…
I’ll stick with my previous post – in that the example was a ‘good little engine’ – and also my comments. While tight, that lid and can only need to fall apart once to cause a conflagration (being as the flame was still alight on at least one occasion).
Enjoy your (expensive) toy.