Chris did a nice job too. It really has been an evolution of designs over the years.
The PTO looks fine. But if it is acting rough, it probably isnāt balanced.
I would put a sheath over the shaft to protect yourself. Those can tear off arms if you get a piece of loose cloth stuck in it. They arenāt a whole lot more then a piece of pipe/pvc attached to the shaft with bearings so they can spin independently of the shaft. (Most of the time they spin with the shaft).
Good! I hope you had fun too! It always sounds like a great time!
Just dragging the chunker thread back up. I spent a week acquiring pulleys, belts and sheaves. I also temporarily dis mantled the ability of the 5 hp electric motor from the chunker. I felt comfortable with doing this after seeing how well the tractor ran the chunker. All I will have to do is mount two more rails for the motor to secure to. In the meantime itās all about the tractor chunking wood or making electricity from one unit.
Hereās a walk around video showing my set up. Yeah I suck at taking videos but you should get the idea.
Hello Bill
I like your generator idea .Bill you might have to send the flywheel out & get vee groves cut into it for the belts.I received the nozzle here on Monday, Thank you very much Bill, canāt wait to try it out.
Using 120 volt vacuum motors involves a lot of extra electrical work & bucks when you run them of the truck.
But I am getting closer.
Thanks again
Calvinā¦
Calvin, Iām glad it made it across the border. It is a used one but it is SS so should last many years.
You may be right with getting vee grooves cut but I will try everything I can to avoid that.
I canāt wait to see that truck burning wood or maybe Flax straw pellets? Keep us posted.
Any generator experts out there? I had power for about one second and then it quit and no power after that. The circuit breaker was not tripped and the rpms on the tractor were in operating range.
check and see if it has a automatic voltage regulator it should be the first thing that the brushes hook to.two wires go from the brush to the AVR.
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ray_menke
(Ray Menke (Lytton Springs, Texas))
#149
When I was running a Northern Tool Powerhorse Inverter Generator (2000 watts surge, 1600 continuous) on a Simple-Fire charcoal gasifier, it would output a bit more than 800 watts, into lamps and heaters, as measured on a Kill-a-Watt meter. When I hooked it to my chop saw, a red overload light came on, and the inverter output dropped to zero. The only way to reset it was to stop the motor, and then the light would turn green. I learned to restart the motor when the rpmās were very low, the red light would turn green, and the motor would rev back up, so I would not have to be yanking on the starter rope. It could be that your inverter generator will reset next time it starts up? Hope so. (I realize your unit does not have an overload light.) FWIW, Ray.
Bill, donāt measure RPMs at the tractor, you need to measure RPMs at the gen head.
Whatās your pulley ratio on the two smaller pulleys? RPM times pulley ratio will give you the genhead speed. If itās around 2:1 then multiplying it out, you were running the generator up over 7,000 RPM and way overspeeding it.
EDIT: forgot to take into account your PTO pulley. You have two ratios to figure, the PTO speed then the genhead speed.
Pretty much what chris said. The rpm in theory is 540rpm, and the max speed was 3000rpm for the generator, which means no more then 5.5:1 increase. by just looking at it, it looks like you are way over that. Hopefully just a fuse blewā¦ Are you getting any lights on it?
I didnāt have much time to work on the generator tonight because I had dinner with all my adult children and my new grandson. When I returned home I had to try this again. I was and am certain now Iām not getting enough rpmās to the generator. There are a series of led lights to indicate ideal to dangerous rpmās. I was at the bottom of the scale which was hard to see in the daylight. This meant I didnāt even have enough to illuminate a 125 watt flood light. I verified this by having the light plugged in at start up when engaging the pulley. The light illuminated right away and then went out. This also told me a belt was slipping and I believe it is at on the pulley at the engine. I believe if I tighten the belt up, it will reduce the slipping and maintain speed. I also believe I need to still increase the speed of the generator by using a 4" pulley in replace of the current 4.5"
My PTO is spinning at 900 rpm or less. That turns a 12" pulley which is turning a 22" fly wheel. From the fly wheel I am going down to a 4.5" pulley on the generator. I was unsure of my math and that is why I went to a 4.5" pulley instead of a 4". I will see if I tighten the belt to the PTO from the engine if I get a steady amperage before I reduce the pulley size on the generator.
The belt was actually getting hot. Hot enough that the idler pulley were too hot to touch. So maybe a lot of slippage?
The cloth covered belts looked like they had a lot of slippage at Argos. Rubber v belts or even a serpentine belt would get a lot more traction on the flywheel. What speed is the pto shaft running at? I think I would try to run the generator directly from the pto shaft.
Thanks for the link for the laser tach Marvin. I did purchase it because I think it is necessary and reasonable enough.
I believe the PTO is spinning at around 900 rpm. My theory on using the flywheel is that it will absorb some of the initial drag when loading down the generator? Iām not sure if my thinking is right though.
Marvin might be onto it.
I got 2.33:1 as your ratio.
With 900rpm, you are at around 2400rpms. I assume it cuts out at around 2200 or pto 825rpms, with a centripetal clutch. so it might just be derated from woodgas by 10%.
I didnāt pay attention to what load you put on it.
I would try belt dressing if you havenāt put any on yet. or rosin or something.
I would think about wrapping the flywheel in neoprene or spray on adhesive/sticky stuff.
Also, I would put a lever under the genset and lift that up, when you first start it up to get the flywheel up to speed.then engage it by dropping it back down. I assume you are tensioning those belts with the weight of the genset. (if not the belts may have stretched a bit as they got hot, but I am sure you are aware of that.) Then you let it get back up to speed before applying any load.
I would try it straight off the pto shaft. Sounds like you need to step it up about 3 to 1. The belts will transfer the flywheel power back through that shaft if you need it and they are not slipping.
Hi Bill, I didnāt read what rpm the gen head calls for(may have missed it) most are 3600 rpm, and this has to be constant for it to operate properly (60 cycle) this set up will be nice at your new property. Al
Al, it says 2200-2800 on the nameplate. It is actually a pretty neat genhead. It is an alternator, then they run it through a rectifier to DC and then through a full synewave inverter to get back to AC. It is great for variable speed loads like wind and water. Because you are rectifying to dc, it doesnāt matter what frequency the alternator actually has, and you donāt need a constant speed. Electrically it is similar to using an AC induction motor (with a tickler), rectifying the current to run DC into your solar inverter. It is also what an automotive alternator uses minus the conversion back to AC. AC generators are smaller packages, and AC actually has less resistance (ie you can use smaller wires to go longer distances) then DC. (pulsed High frequency DC is another story.)
Bill,
the āidealā ratio at 900rpms is 3.11:1 to get to 2800, then you have a bigger buffer before it cuts out.
If you have another pulley handy, i would look for a 3.75" one or 3.5" 3.75 puts you at 2880 which is 3% over. And 3.5 puts you at 3085, which you may have to back off the throttle. but I assume the genhead is cutting out from slow speed. 2400 ideal/2200 real is about 10%, and 3085/2800 is roughly 10%. You might actually be able to go smaller. but I would wait until you got the tach before doing that. (although you probably have a good estimate based on the chunker performance.)
Al, this is an inverter generator head. Itās supposed to have a pure sine wave. It gives a range to run in which is 22-2800 rpm not to exceed 3000. @MarvinW , another intention with having the generator head on here is to just be able to chunk wood but if I needed electricity, I could easily just add two belts. I know I am wasting energy to the gear box but the tractor has more power than the gen head needs. To go directly to the gen head from the PTO I would have to remove the pillow block bearing and change belts. I was hoping to avoid that.
