You can do a lot of things with steam. You can heat your home most effectively with it, you can cross oceans and continents with its power, you can make things in factories with machines that run on steam, you can even press your trousers with it. Of all the things steam can do, perhaps the most useful is generate electricity.
Unless you live in an area with abundant hydro, wind or solar, chances are the electricity powering your home is generated by steam. More electricity is probably generated by steam than by all the other methods combined. Nothing unusual about it. Gregory Deal’s “Portable Historical Display” however, is the first self contained steam powered electric generating plant mounted on a trailer, that I have ever seen.
The two key historical elements are a 1957 vintage Lookout boiler and a Engberg’s vertical steam engine. The boiler is a vertical fire tube type that has a maximum rated working pressure of 100 psi. If you’ve been visiting this site for a while, you might remember seeing the Lookout Boiler in an earlier post. The steam engine was built by Engberg’s Electric and Mechanical Works, located in St. Joseph, Michigan, most likely sometime from the early 1900’s to 1921. The data plate mounted on the mechanical oiler offers that it is machine number 5842, frame: C, with a bore of 5” and stroke of 5” turning at 500 rpm. No date of manufacture given.
One of the very few tidbits of information I’ve been able to glean about Engberg’s came by way of a small classified ad in a publication called “Power: Devoted to the generation and transmission of power.” Vol. 28 issue 17, April 28, 1908 available courtesy of books.google.com . On page 107 there is an advertisement for an Engberg’s generating set with an illustration of one of their steam engines connected to a dynamo. The ad copy reads, “ Will maintain with perfect steadiness, from 30 to 500 lights, requiring very little steam and less of your attention.”
Mr. Deal’s generator seems to be having no difficulty maintaining the lights strung around his trailer. Note also the box fan that’s available for use on hot summer days.
What else he could power up is limited only by your imagination. So there you have it the winner of The Golden Mule Award for 2018. Look for his trailer at the Western North Carolina Fall Harvest Days next year to see what he’s come up with for 2019.
Resources:
Books.google.com
www.vintagemachinery.org
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