it will run 100% fine on gasoline but maybe no so on wood gas
Yup those 9000 units are good machines. Ive had a lot of them and I could run the entire shop on just one. Not the case with the 9500 they will fault if pushed to the max to many times where the 9000 watt units just laugh and keep going. lol
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I dont know if Im the first to wood gas the 9500 or not. But so far the 9500 I have converted has ran great on chargas. We ran in hybrid mode the other day. Ran one on gasoline and the other on chargas and ran the whole the shop under daily production loads (basically all of our equipment at once). The plan is to run gasoline only when we need to run the second unit in the future. I will need to have two VersiFire units running around the clock providing gas for heating in the shop and the charcoal yield should sustain daily power requirements in conjunction with a battery bank and inverter system. It all cost money so slowly building all this. The DFX-S4 will soon be coming out and we will have full team of them that can run one or both 9500 units.
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Yeah, it is I who must apologise.
Brian Whites 8750 I thought was an open frame inverter unit. Nope.
Iād thought Cody had an inverter unit too in his 9000. Nope.
My Yamaha EF2800I is an open framed inverter unit. At 80 pounds I can pack it around. Itās actually pretty power weak. A Honda 3000 wups itās ass.
I will be able to sync it to the Predator 9500 now.
Dave, Iāve left the side panels off of the 9500 when running a lot. Still as you say a lot of internal sheet metal and actual engine generator end casting enclosures. Good news is this all concentrates all of the itās two fans cooling air out a 3" be 4" side duct just below the hot blowing engine exhaust. Lot of blowing hot wet wood fuel drying opportunities there!
Cody all of my three now inverter units have bell rotating permanent magnet fields. The magnets bonded onto their insides. Like a brake drum. The star poled output coils are stationary bolted into the center.
All of your conventional units youāve listed are actually wound wire energized center shaft rotating magnetic fields. Not PM types. The rotational energy and magnetic mass in that rotating field armature is mostly why they have better motor loads cutting in guts.
I, Matt and Dave are after the any reasonable variable engine RPM gives us stabilized clocked safe frequency outputs. No more slaving engine controls fighting gasifiers variability for frequency.
S.U.
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The generator heads Iām looking at seem to have a range of RPM, from 3480 to 3780 RPM. From the Northern Tool link they also offer belt driven models. Highest rated one is 10kw and lists that RPM range.
Not sure what design these are, canāt see any specific description.
Iād like to find some capable of engine swapping like these that arenāt RPM sensitive. Iām guessing with this you use the Volt meter to find the RPM sweet spot?
https://m.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_8795_8795
This one requires a minimum of 18hp to turn it. Maybe a Motorcycle or small car engine? With a car engine you could probably run two of these.
A quick Google gave 116090btus per gallon of gasoline. What fuel counts as diy fuel? Certainly not biodiesel as itās made with store bought methanol, or gasoline from plastic. Does wood cut with solar electric count? Probably not, seeing as itās just like chunking wood with a diesel tractor, laddering down store bought batteries and panels.
I think I could use what I have on hand, to perpetuate some sort of fuel production, and burn it in a machine I already have to make more fuel. I donāt think I could Dave Gingery some kind of machine together to make electricity. It was tough enough scraping the ways for my Gingery lathe. I canāt imagine smelting copper and drawing wire. How do you make shellac anyway?
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Shellac is from a Lac bug, very tiny. Melted down in alcohol.
Itās also in jelly beans, sprinkles, lots of candies.
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Ha! Ha! If you are referring to my topics title goal BruceJ it was easy once I realized not being a woodgas driver that I did not have any good engines or generators back then to fulfil my challenge using engines. Not the money then to fix that.
So I cheated. I used property grown wood.
Just 20-22 pounds a day burnt for heat for any useful purpose then.
Heating season wood stoving covered 200+ days of that. For the other 100+ days . . .
Heating water. Cowboy coffee. Teas water. Washing water for dishes. Maytag Neptune front loader for the cloths so I could not just dump in wood heated water.
Hand washed the cars and pick up with wood heated water.
Even did burn reduce some DF knots to make charcoal to give to the wife for use in her yard BBQ.
8,030 pound of air dryed wood for the year.
Thatād be 2 cord of a good hardwoods.
3 cords for me using D.F.
Ha! Gonnaā ding me for the 2 gallons of gasoline in the chainsaws?
O.K. I owe for 2-3 more days.
Regards, your friend
Steve Unruh
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Cody on your Northern Star generator head Iām sure you are looking in detail at the product manual download, yes?
This is a two pole (3600 RPM) unit for 60 cycles per second. I am pretty sure it is an Italian Mecc Alta design. World class. A not contact brushless design.
I bought a 3X heavier Mecc Alta brushless four pole (1800 RPM) 10kw generator head back in 2008.
As you read these have to be driven in a narrow range of RPM. Folks in 50 hertz lands just spin these at 3000 or 1500 RPM.
So the driving IC engine MUST be kept in the narrow range of RPM that the pulleys or power drive gear box is set up in.
Relatively easy if your engine fuels are spec grade gasoline, propane, street gas methane, or diesel.
Variable quality-quantity woodgas out of a batch gasifier? Hard to juggle the variables of cutting in and out consumer loads versus batch variable woodgas made.
What helps non-electronic easiest is to just use an engine 2X-3X the size of that maximum needed 18 hp.
And then you end up with a fuel-use hoggish system. Even āfreeā wood required a lot of labor sweating.
But that saves the skull sweating of making up rapid response electronic gasifier and engine controls. Mechanical governors adapted are too slow in response. Guys trying to adapt vehicle speed control systems fall down into a different rabbit hole distraction.
Look at the unit heads sold by Central Georgia Generator too. Made in China copying US and European designs.
Regards
Steve Unruh
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That is fun mr SteveU, i was just going to ask you whats your opinion about redneck-engineering, using a unnecessary big engine, and maybe bolt-on double or triple flywheels, for a generator, and you mostly answered it before i was done typing.
Reason i wonder was just that i have an enormous old generator that i saved just to maybe woodgas it in the future, i have an old Mopar slant six i believe would power it.
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I was thinking the same thing. Something that even on woodgas is twice rated than the demand. I wish I had picked up a Chevy inline 6 from a coworker he only wanted 100 dollars for it but I took too long to get it, Iām sure heās gotten rid of it by now.
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Right now I like the assembled generator idea a lot. I dearly love my Onans, but their parts are unobtainable. It would be easier to operate a FE Ford engine on wood then an Onan.
I struggle with ignition parts for my slant sixes.
I think itās critical to have electric start. Itās also critical that these starting systems have parts available.
I am coming around to the Chinese generator idea, but havenāt wood gassed any yet.
Farm H enginesā¦150 cid @20ish HP. Easy to work on.
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Well there is some merit to the approach of just make it all big.
I was on a once very active still existing group called the MicroCoGen. Thier primary pursuit was wring out the very last bit of energy useable from small DIY made up engine generator systems. Primarily diesels. Then a separate board set up for gasoline and gaseous engine systems.
On the engine side of it the grams per hp/hour fuel usage was the comparisons pursuit. And an engines base energy needs just to sit and run itself was the beginning. The more cylinders, the more frictions drag and pumping losses. An oil pump takes energy to pump - so splash lubrication wins. Super low speed at 1000 or less RPM was pursued. Slower just must be better, right? Right?
Easy to chase all of these better angelsā idealisms rabbits at the expense of practicality. Elephant eating one bite at a time will never be finished because you will rotten meat poison yourself with Bedeviling details, and too damn slow to achieved useable end results.
The super low speed four stoke single cylinders had voltage/wattage flicker under an electrical loading. Moderate (1500-2200 Rpm) speed twins not so much. Medium speed (1800-2600 RPM) three cylinder guys saying; what is your problems guys? I have zero flicker. And my pumped water cooled gives the way to easy way to farm for the āHā in true CHP. Your open to atmosphere old gravity thermal syphoning liquid hopper systems you then have to add a power driven water pump to move your heater water anyway.
And for a time was fellow cutting in laughing he was in his basement of his Seattle area urban home with an old Chrysler slant six direct coupled to at big old herkinā generator head 1800 rpm making full house electricity and pumped whole house water heating on street gas as his fuel. He claimed in the city and off-grid. Put together his whole system for under $1,000 a decade previous.
So . . .
Just remember big old easy heavy you have to wire out the power to where it is needed. Water wells always a distance away. Make it wheeled self-powering movable? That works. Old tractor. Cut down into the bed of an old pick up truck. That truck already woodgassed. Donāt wreck your multipurpose then! It is too useful valuable, needed.
Small portable, do get stolen. Stolen a lot. Especially if they are a shiny brand name that can be sold, easy, no questions asked. One guy. Security points then for an ugly DYI made up system.
One guy and three drinking buddies can and do pack off 500 pounds units.
My current near 400 pounds wheel barrow style handled, move around unit.
So . . .
Pick your choices, struggle with your fears, eh.
S.U.
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Cody your rolled cab flattened Mazda pick up truck.
It did power with a charcoal system.
Your manual transmission output in fourth or fifth gear giving direct drive.
The other end of the driveline rear end input at the same driveline rpm.
No longer all-weather road worthy. Block set and weld solid the rear suspension at the bottoming out pads.
Fudge weld on an Industrial-Ag roller chain sprocket onto one end of that driveline. Bed mount a big 1800 RPM double ball bearing four pole head. Roller chain sprocket that, Drip lube the roller chain. Block up the rear wheels.
Generate as you please. You monitor the hertz. Simple mechanical govern. The system will take care of the voltage with an AVR.
Unblock the rear wheels to property move around.
On the easy end of the DIY scale. And cheap depending on used; and scrounged.
Not being a welder Pro is an advantage. you will not over strip down just to have fabricate build back up. The vehicle hood giving weather protection. Bed cover in the back for there.
The cab left crunched open to weather and disguise the value of the system. No. No. Go steal the shiny car.
S.U.
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Well I really wanted to go out and take a picture of my old Miller welder, generator and the Honda civic engine I have to try and make a new set up but Steveās post got me to remembering something I was thinking about a while back. Remember the headlights you used to have on bicycles where you had a small generator that rubbed on the tire of the bike for power? I had thought of something like that to power an air compressor on a truck, possible because of the unloader valve on the compressor, but if you tried something similar on a generator would the varying RPM be a unsolvable problem.
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The other angle on this thread is the commitment part. I need to commit to use at least 116090btus of homemade fuel per day inorder to work out all the problems such a use creates. The engine part is the fun part. Acquisition, storage, waste, transmission, and use are the boring parts.
A real challenge would be to use that much energy and profit from it.
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The North Star heads are Mecc Alte but are assembled here in the USA. The majority of the heads are parts produced by Mecc Alte, however some parts are produced by the manufacture.
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If you are looking for inertia load. Forget the North Star and go with a 4 pole ST. They have way more rotational mass. Ive used those North Star 3600 rpm heads, they are difficult to set up and have capacitors for voltage regulation that does not work all that well especially with woodgas.
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These are pictures of my Miller 200 amp AC/DC welder and two possible engine choices I own to power it. One is a Honda civic in a whole front drive train assembly and the other is a 2.9 GM engine in a wrecked 1985 GMC Jimmy. The GMC was rebuilt about a thousand miles before it was wrecked 25 years ago, so it would need new seals at best. The Honda had 80 K on it when it rear axle mounts rusted out. Iām guessing it would need more work. The generator is 4 pole and puts out full electrical wattage at 1700 RPM.
Open to any suggestions and advice.
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If it were me I would do what ever it took to get the Honda engine running. It will run and run more eficiently. The 2.8 was a hog and they are not very well liked by those that had to work of them.
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