Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

When disaster strikes, my deep freezer goes down. Is were can a find a discotion about genarators? Thanks.

Are those your videos, carlb? They are very, very cool. That is a great setup. Things that I loved:

- Big exhaust setup with expansion tank and automotive muffler, vented out through a wall (at least in one of the videos).
- Radiator plumbed in, with an overflow tank.
- Exposed pushrods (!)
- The air starter is fantastic. Air powers both the motor and the cylinder to automatically bring it in contact with the belt. Brilliant.
- Wild dual-fuel setup (again, in at least one video), with an electric valve for the natural gas, which is powered by the generator itself. Any loss of power means the gas valve closes automatically.
- Seems quiet. Certainlyl low RPM. Will probably run forever, from a durability standpoint.

As I was watching some of the videos, I kept thinking of Rube Goldberg. That typically has negative connotations, and I don't mean it like it that at all. I mean it as a compliment, because the narrator kept showing additional features, tweaks that were made, valves for this and that. The list appeared to just keep going. This was not a drop-it-in-and-go setup, it would appear. A lot of time has been spent to tweak & optimize, and tie it into the house and utilities. I assume that the dual-fuel setup would let you practically run indefinitely as long as you have natural gas. Even if the gas supply goes out, I'd expect this is pretty fuel efficient.

Can you start it by hand somehow? If the flywheels are 250 lbs, I expect you can't simply grab their spokes and give them a flick. I could see something going around on the inside of the flywheels, where the spokes meet the outer wheels. As if the ends of the spokes are not all the same size or something (there's also a white thing going around with the flywheels, maybe that's it). Is there something like a balance weight on there?

The biggest downside I can see may be that now I want one If your power goes out frequently, and you have the space, that must be great to have ready for action. Fantastic work on getting that all sorted out!

yes that is my setup and i am the one narrating the video's as i took them.  There were a number of refinements since the early video with the exhaust going out through the roof.  There is a balance weight on the flywheel and that is what you see.  There is a hand crank that slips over the end of the crankshaft to hand start the engine.  It has a manual decompressor so that you can crank it up to speed remove the handle and disengage the compression release. 

at at 3kw load it only uses a quart  of fuel per hour running on diesel. Running natural gas and diesel just about 6 oz of diesel per hour.   It can run for many days on the 2 gallon tank.


The pushrods need to be oiled about every 10 hours or so of running (just a little squirt)


This setup was built from pieces the engine and generator were sourced from a guy up in main.  The frame  I built using 1 beam and some large timbers.

It was a fun build and it should last a lifetime.   Very slow speed huge crank shaft, a connecting rod as big as your lower arm and almost as long.  The piston and rod weigh over 8 lbs.

Ps.  About wanting one.  These are getting hard to find in the states because the EPA has banned import of these engines but some are still to be had.  Here is a link to one of the sites that i belong to that deals with a lot of these engines.   Look under the listeroid/perteroid section for this type engine.

http://www.microcogen.info/index.php


Carl

If this is your generator rig, can't wait to see what your water heater / boiler looks like.  :)

aa335 wrote: Here is a picture of my water heater