These newer engines are not inferior to the I3 and I4 engines either. The cyclinders are lined with some pretty hard stuff. I dont what its made of but when I tear these engines down they never show any wear on the cylinder walls, no ridge and still have factory hone markings. Its the rings that wear they generally need a hone sweep to re set new rings is all. They are now coming with better oiling systems, note they made an effort to make oil changes easier. If thats not easy layzy consumers < (thats us the consumer) dont change the oil.
If you use daily then change once a month and I Imagine these V twins will last 5 years possibly longer using daily.
Chances are pretty high that has cast iron cylinder sleeves, and they are still pretty simple so pulling the engine and doing an overhaul is pretty easy. You could convert that to woodgas and it would be pretty reliable for a very long time. They do make out of the box 3pt generators, you could attach to it.
The generator system using woodgas is going to be half the power out of the box. If the thought it to end up on woodgas, the output needs to be at least double from the start, and running 24/7 is a LOT of work because of fuel processing and keeping it online 24/7. Most people will give up. Batteries makes it easier.
The trick with the solar inverter is it doesn’t matter. Everything is up to code and it automatically syncs with grid power and it gets a rubber stamped from the utility, and inspecters and a large number of them are stackable which is similar to paying extra for a generator that does teaming. Off the top of my head the EG4’s that Matt said were decent, I think you could stack 8 or 16 of them together. While it is enough for a whole house, most won’t start with it if they are looking for just a backup system.
Ha! Ha! It always devoles down to needs; wants; what a fellow can afford and just how big of an elephant project he(she) wants it to grow to be SeanO.
I live, and have lived my whole life backed up just miles away from a No-Grid mountain ranges 70-125 miles wide by 2200+ miles. The Sierra’s up through the Cascades into the Canadian Rockies
Some live in this area by choice with no Grid possible. Many year around camp-stores and developed sites; private and personal, up in them there’ mountains. Needing power for refrigeration. Fuel pumping. Lights. Communications and entertainments.
N-o-b-o-d-y even back in the 30 cents a gallon diesel days ran an engine generator 24/7.
Daily cycle generated. Morning cycle. Evening cycled. Some for 12-14 hours.
And nobody up there in the true snows, rains and cloudy country even now invest much or any PV solar. A true half the year unusable.
Living there you fall into the pattern that your made electrical power will be at least 50 cents a kW/hr. And that’s if you are using rationalized systems.
Ain’t rational to think at all about the Grid you will never have.
So you can have the very best cast iron water cooled Diesel-electric unit possible and you will only get that kW/hr costs down IF you stretch out the useable service lifes into years. J.D.; Yammer; Detroit; Perkins; Cummins; Waukesha parts are expensive.
So what can be done is twice a day - four hour cycling of say a unit like this DuroMax XP16000iH unit on propane to start with. Then later transition over to woodgas.
That’d be 2920 running hours a year.
Betcha’ with a true 24;1.5 quart oil changes of 10-30 synthetic you get two years usable out of that engine. Then as Matt said it would just need rings, bearings and a valve job.
At that point have a second unit bought to to use while rebuilting the first. It then being a back up. A stored set of spare parts on hand.
Needing no more wood making to fuel than the wood needed to be made for annual wood stove heating.
Only later as is may be beneficial; affordable, going into some PV. Then needing PV controllers. And a battery bank.
Doing ALL you want PV from the get-go only to discover you still will need annually for some time a filling-in engine generator anyhow.
So: just Reverse the system setting up priories. To just what will get the needful power from the get-go. Stop developing anytime your true needs are satisfied.
You see I do not think or act like an Urban flatlander at all.
I do not think about what the Gov’mint can do for me. in PV solar subsidies. in Electric car subsidies.
I actually walk away from what geeks say I will need. They have track records of 90% wrong. Reading/listening them is beneficial as a cautionary think thrice before $'s leaping for their spins.
I think about what I can do for me. I am only ever 49% of the time wrong at worst.
I’m a here&now; net-results guy.
Steve unruh
Here watch this one. What convinced me it was worth buying into my 9500 inverter-generator unit. Watch thru to 14:25 for his honest evaluations and opinions:
Steve, alternators are almost always low voltage which means they have to push a lot of amps through copper and rectifiers with associated resistive losses.
Any thought to using AC generator heads for semi “wild” AC and running that into a battery charger? Inverting from there? You wouldn’t need to control RPM precisely like you would for direct use (120v/60Hz), instead you tune for a general voltage range with pulley size (or field control? doubt it’s using magnets). The efficiency would be higher and battery chargers would handle the voltage and Hz drift without an issue.
I saw a $309 deal on a 10k/7kwatt Chicago Electric AC genhead at Harbor Freight. Turns out that was a very unusual deal and an old one at that (2020!!) but it put the thought in my head.
The other thought to getting more watts out of an alternator would be pushing the field current and running it at higher RPM. At some point the field coils get too hot but there has to be some headroom. Once you are charging batteries you have a lot of flex on voltage and frequency.
There might be clever ways to use that flexibility to cheaper/more efficient ends.
These engine driven inverter-generator units are PM magnet. Are three phase wild frequency at the initial generation. That initial generating portion runs from ~150vac to 300+vac. Low amps, low heat for the end results system wattages. A true 21st century solution built on the best of wind and late 20th century PV solar controllers working experiences.
As a here&now guy I find it much easier to let others do the development work. Then the proofing in 10,000 hours of working. Then benefit from all of that.
Vehicle alternators were done because it was what was, available, reasonable. Still in my back pocket as an ever needs-must fall-back.
300,000,000+ combined vehicles in the US and Canada will not disappear overnight. Decades in the future possibilities there.
Just think of all of those DC illuminating light bulbs in any vehicle. Thousands of hours of lighting up the nights in any vehicle boned out.
I keep three “unnesasary” vehicles here. Keep two Kohler engines still-run-good old rider lawnmowers here.
S.U.
Opps. I did not address my bad experiences with Harbor Freight generator heads. I was once tasked to build-up a to be woodgas engine driven set up using 10,000 watt 2-pole heads from Harbor Freight. The first did not work at all. The second worked only after I went through and pliers tighten up all of the internal spade connections. The recycled plastic end cover crumbling on each no matter how carefully I was with the screws. Removing.
Then it rattled when spinning. The floating bearing end pocket has been machined too large and the bearings outer race counter spinning. Within hours it would have pocket worn and been dragging.
I refused to even open up the box on the third H.F. unit. Pulled off my Kohler V-twin engine. Loaded up and went back home to my good 10,000 watt Made-in-Italy MeccAlta brushless four-pole 1800 rpm gen head.
S.U.
Inverter generators are permanent magnet based, yes. I’m pretty sure brushless as well which is nice.
I looked up brushless generator heads on ebay/aliexpress/etc and seeing some decent price points for 10kwatt DC and inverted AC as well which was a surprise.
I don’t think I’d trust my major appliances with a no name AC inverter but the DC version would have simple electronics, simple enough I think I could fix/service the electric side of things. I’d run that into a battery charger and feel ok. An EG4 inverter into the house and sleep ok.
My guess is a modern DC generator, is the ac version without the inverter. It is ac generated then run through a filter to smooth the current to dc. It may have some sort of step down to say 12v first. With the inverter generator, you just add the inverter to produce ac.
I think the patent ran out for the true-syn wave inverter circuits, or they have significantly been driven down in cost because of volume from the solar industry. either way, it is far from the square wave or even modified syn wave inverters which were the low-end of the market 15 years ago.
But I agree, I am not sure where they are cutting costs, and would be a bit leary to run expensive appliances directly with a no-name knock off inverter. I have seen too many knock off tear down videos for cheap electronics from China and they almost always skip -something-.
Good Morning All,
Here is an unboxing and first 20 hours working loaded running of a Harbor Freight “Chinese” 9500 inverter-generator unit.
Here is the very interesting part. This guy is a mobile portable metals welder. He wanted something powerful enough yet balls-out-safe for his wide variety of inverter welders that he uses. Open up and view his channel for all of that.
Now. How to fanatically get 3X-4X of the manufacturers intend 400-1000 hours service life on one of these modern precision built air cooled 4-stroke air cooled engines.
Change out the first non-synthetic oil at no more than 5 hours. These modern precision mass produced engine are actually usually been flushed washed clean of casting and machining particles.
But ALL moving metals parts will have wear matching-in; breaking-in metals particles shedding off. You want to remove this while in oil suspension before it would imbed into soft bearing faces and cause ongoing usages wear.
Then change out oil again at 15 hours total running time. Same-same reasoning as in #1.
Still use non-synthetic oil.
Then dump out that second oil change at between a total of 30-50 hours.
Then you can refill with a quality synthetic oil. Loaded running these air cooled especially in the summer run hotter than a water cooled engine. Synthetic oil has better heat resistance breaking down.
Now oil chang not by times intervals. But by the oil darkening from heat changing and combustion contaminates building up. Many of these combustion contaminates are acids. It is clean oil that delays off engine wearing.
Oil changing fanatical I get years and years; and thousands of hour longer service lives than by-the-book types.
Worn out is hard starting. Smoking running; and excessive oil contamination. Excessive spark plug fouling. Low produced power. Higher fuels consumptions.
Change out spark plugs at recommended hours intervals. Before the need. Weak spark; and misfires causes heat and electrical shock over-loading on the ignition coil and ignition electronics. Causes faster oil contamination from the incomplete combustion.
It you stop treating these as throw-aways, then they will serve long and loyal. You will save many $'s in replacement costs.
Steve unruh
Well I just pulled the valve cover off and valves are working, piston is pumpimg but no compresion
So going to lift it up on the bench a yank the power head off and take a looksy at that output shaft. If its a match Ill be heading down the HF to get a replacment motor.
The Odometer reads 2284 hours. Oil was changed monthly.
MattR,
Harbor Freights offering may have changed. . . but
this installed 459cc engine has straight on valves.
Thier bare base engine has a wider valve cover indication canted valves and a hemispherical head. And those I looked at had the second PTO side end cover threaded plug with the oil screen guys are calling a filter.
The side cover may not be interchangeable to the cylinder case. The inverter generator engine side cover special holding the output coils and forming the base of the exhaust chamber.
I do hope you find the replacement engine will work.
Regards
Steve unruh
Yeah thats why Im yanking it apart its hard to see in there. I have ripped the the otherone apart. When I put this back together Im doing away with the enclosure.
Of All the inverter generators i have had i only have 1 (so far ) with the full soundproofing covers and tank on it, saving that one as a back up for when the skeletal stripped downs one go bye bye , there just too damn hard to work on otherwise .
So i fully understand the pain your going through Matt ,if sound isn’t an issue let em purr out in the open ,at least you will hear when they need a hand with something
Dave
It appears it is a straight shaft but cant be certain unless I can get the rotor off. Anyone know where I can find this puller? The thread diameter measures 2.275 / 58mm ish.
Steve I think if you use a replacement, you will need to swap the rear casings out is all.
Found the problem, I just fiddling around rolling that over as I was thinking how I was going to get that rotor off. Then I noticed something. I could see the exhaust valve stem from the port and I was watching and it stopped but the spring kept moving. What is going on there? So yeah it dropped the exhaust valve. The spring retainer can no longer hold it and it slips through it even with the keeper installed.
Ha! HA! Let me help you out MattR.
I’ve been looking forwards for years to when the wife would decide to demand replacing out the front loader washing machine.
Dreams and schemes to convert a direct drive variable speed PM magnet motor into a low speed AC generator.
The front loader started not spinning out the cloths well enough. She decided. New was bought. And I installed, swapped out.
Opened up the back on the old Maytag like kid on Christmas . . . . Oh! No!
Small offset copper wound drive motor. Belt driving the drum by a big pulley using a micro-groove belt.
Just a worn belt slipping unable to loaded heavy drum drive up to extraction speed.
Oh well that machine was at least 29 years old anyhow.
So, anyhow now even with just an engine repair you can get rid of all of the hiding, shielding panels. Be able to re-jigger around the too tight of space at the carbs front.
S.U.
I ordered Honda retainers. But Im going to rob one from the 8750 I have out back. That one still runs but the controls dont come to life any more. Not sure if they just called it quits or if we messed it up pairing with the 9500’s Anyways Ive kept it just for this reason and that engine maybe a possibility for the other 9500 engine replacement.
But tomorrow I got to go and harvest a fallen tree from my parrents house and cut it up so I can haul it back here. Then Ill jump back on this thing when I get back. I have to have that 9500 back up and online by Monday as I start cutting parts for next production cycle. I need both units to run the CNC if running it all day.
