Twinbird Corporation, founded in 1951, is a manufacturer of household electric products with headquarters in Tsubame City, Niigata Prefecture, Japan. Shigekatsu Nomizu is the President, employing 284 people as of March 2010.

Twinbird Corporation
Company typePublic KK
TYO: 6897
HeadquartersTsubame, Niigata
Websitewww.twinbird.jp

It was founded as a plating company in 1951. In the 1980s it expanded into small electrical appliances and began developing products occasionally in conjunction with other companies. The free-piston Stirling cooler is one such product that was developed jointly and under license to Global Cooling.[1] By 2002, Twinbird released the first ever consumer product utilizing the free-piston Stirling cycle process.[2] Before this, free-piston Stirling machines were only available at extremely high cost generally used for specialized aerospace applications. A branded version of a portable refrigerator using the free-piston Stirling cooler was sold for a time by the Coleman Company.

References

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  1. ^ Berchowitz, D.M., McEntee, J. and Welty, S. 'Design and Testing of a 40W Free-Piston Stirling Cycle Cooling Unit', 20th IIR/IIF, Sydney, 1999
  2. ^ Edwards, J. 'Cooling: Stirling Strikes', Appliance Design, April 2008
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