# Hotbulb engines perfect for post SHTF??



## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

The hot bulb engine Hot bulb engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia or a conventional engine modified so, might be an excellent power source if society crumbles and conventional fuel is hard or impossible to find, these engines are said to burn anything oily quite well. For the modifying concept read about the 4 cycle version, the vapor chamber could probably be mounted in the spark plug hole of a gas engine. Food for thought


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## bunkerbob (Sep 29, 2009)

Very interesting concept.


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## The_Blob (Dec 24, 2008)

I'm not sure how modern lightweight gasoline engines would fare, the compression required is lower than diesels, but still quite a bit higher than what happens in a petrol engine; and converting diesels to run this way seems like trying to fix something that isn't broken... :dunno:

if I recall correctly, didn't those engines have detonation (pre-ignition) problems? of course I guess you could build a crude injector system, but if you go through all of that hassle, you might as well just rebuild a regular engine :dunno:

IMHO I would stick with the diesels as they are constructed much heavier & designed to run at high compression


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

The hotbulb engine is a low compression ratio,7or 8 to 1 , the heat in the bulb causes combustion thus a gas engine should make a good starting point
the main advantage of this type of engine is the simplicity of the fuel system's construction, it predates compression ignition diesels.


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## GoldenBoys (Oct 8, 2010)

The hot bulb, or hot tube ignition was in use before any type of reliable magneto came into being. The main downfall is that they are very inefficient and you have to have some form of heat source to get the bulb hot so the engine will run. Even if SHTF, I can't help but think that there would be a lot of better systems that could be used without going back that far. A better type of ignition would be an igniter and coil, which came along after hot bulb.


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## BasecampUSA (Dec 26, 2010)

The_Blob said:


> IMHO I would stick with the diesels as they are constructed much heavier & designed to run at high compression


I agree with you 100%...

-so much more reliable...

And you can run them on veggie oil... - I do

- Basey


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

Are you going to be comfortable running Diesels on veg oil you crush your self from seed ?? All the PAW stories I read every body talks about bad diesel fuel , that won't bother a Hotbulb.:scratch


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## The_Blob (Dec 24, 2008)

Tirediron said:


> Are you going to be comfortable running Diesels on veg oil you crush your self from seed ??


why not? if I can filter out french fry bits I'm sure I can filter out seed husks :sssh:


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## BasecampUSA (Dec 26, 2010)

Yupp... next big purchase:









...about 3 ft tall, 25 gal biodiesel oil a day

Northern Industrial 1-Ton Seed Press | Seed Presses | Northern Tool + Equipment

I grew canola 3 years ago and pressed about 1/2 gallon with a WGJ type juicer (like below) to test it in a diesel generator... canola "diesel" worked fine...


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