Stirling engine redesign

First of all, what is a Stirling engine?
A Stirling engine (SE) is an external combustion engine powered by heat. What did that jumble of words mean? Basically, unlike conventional engines, SEs don’t require fuels inside the cylinder to react. Instead, they use fuel or fluids outside of the cylinder, the aforementioned hot air. Interestingly, SEs can also be powered by cold air, so technically SEs are actually engines powered by temperature differences, not simply heat.

Okay, but what’s a beta Stirling engine?
Stirling engines have so many types! The alpha, beta, and gamma are the main ones. What these random names describe are the different configurations of a SE. The beta engine is a specific structure.

The dilemma
I was working on the SE in Onshape until I reached a pit stop. I was using mechanical cranks, but they cut through the axle! I checked some simulations and found that there had to be literally no axle in between––meaning that the axle would have to be cut. So I’m wondering if I should switch gears to a Rhombic drive mechanism. I’ll delve more into that next devlog. Seeya there! :)

(I know the video assembly looks wonky because it’s not put together properly, but you can see the issue pretty clearly)