If you can’t find the book, I still don’t have time to find the posting. I did find it in pdf form. I might still have it… But here are a couple that can make your head spin… 
Capacitor_Bank_Sizing_for_Squirrel_Cage_Induction_.pdf (855.7 KB)
AC_Electrical_Generators_ASOPE.pdf (1.6 MB)
Hi Bruce in answer to your question about me having a big diesel generator , yep yep i do indeed have 2 big diesel generators and i have this winter used them both to provide my needs of many KWH of electricity for charging batteries and running drop saw’s ect , the trouble is i think i may have stuffed them both up !, and i am in the middle of replacing the rings and honing the bore out ,on the first one i ran for about 2 months before it just wouldn’t start the next day after shut down in the end i just could not get the compression up enough to run , after stripping it down the oil scrapper ring was in 4 bits and the compression rings were stuck well and truly in the gap , so i am guessing its the same problem on generator number 2 , gaskets and new rings came in post today so i will try getting it back together again maybe over the weekend .
The reason i am guessing is these clone Yanmar engines just don’t play nice with waste veg oil on long runs , short runs no problem but day after day for 6 hours i think they gunk up too much , my fault i should have connect up the spare diesel tank to flush the system before shut down .
I know you said your one ran on all kinds of stuff so no idea why it seems to be happening to me .
I like the idea of asynchronous generator if i can maybe use it on any petrol engine running on charcoal for Brian or even me if i cant get these diesels running again but time will tell if i am smart enough to do it without blowing myself up .
Dave
There was a guy from Thunder Bay who ran WVO exclusively in his Yanmar. He posted to the biodiesel infopop forum. He wrote about having to decarbonize his engine quite frequently.
My engine is a Yanmar actual. I never run WVO in it, only biodiesel (methyl esters).
Ok, now I understand why you want a charcoal burner.
I doubt you will blow yourself up.
What is your power, normally, that you want? 50hz, single phase, 220vac?
See, I like 4pole motors or generators, because I can tolerate an engine running at 1800 for our 60hz, power here. I get irritated if I have to listen to the flathead 3600 rpm screamers.
So if you go this, motor to generator, route, it’s really helpful to gear the engine to motor so that your engine rpm is at the most sensitive spot on the governor. The governor will dictate the hz.
Immna try and make some time to fab some caps for a 50hz, 220vac setup. Lemme know if it’s 3phase tho, as that’s a little different.
I would try adding Marvel Mystery oil or Marvel Ultimate Fuel & Motor Treatment to your fuel and see if that clears up the gunk during run time. The Marvel Mystery oil is not good for vehicles made after 2007. I assume it has to do with either emissions equipment or they changed the formulation of diesel fuel around that time as well.
It adds to the sulphur content of the fuel.
One thing you can do with the veg oil is add maybe a 90/10 mix of oil and gasoline or an 80/20 oil and Turpentine, but mix it and wait for the crud to drop out of solution. The junk will fall to the bottom.
Hi Bruce,and all just to say i think the biodiesel infopop forum is no longer going shame really , but i am almost 100% sure that my problems are due to not shutting down on diesel and running on it for 10 mins to help clear up any excessive carbon build up from the 6 hour run on the WVO , i now have stripped down 2 engines to find that the rings are well and truly stuck in the pistons, presently have them in a pot of diesel on the BBQ just another hour or two and the last half of the stuck ring will pop free then i shall remove rings and check under there see what if anything is stuck there helping to hold them rings in.
Next winter i will be back running the gasifiers i think ,but at least i can say i gave WVO a try
Dave
I’m not an expert on bio-diesel but I remember reading that it is really effective at releasing carbonization and “gunk” from diesel engines. It is so effective that first runs of bio-diesel on old engines can cause clogged injectors and related problems. You might try a periodic bio-diesel “cleanse” after a long run of straight WVO.
Thanks for that info Anthony, i had looked into the making of bio diesel when i first started running WVO but it looked a bit drawn out and complicated for my small brain and reading warnings when mixing just made it sound like too much bother plus if you take into account that here in Australia the price of ethanol is over $10 a litre ,also kerosene / paraffin for mixing 30% with straight WVO costs $ 13 a litre .
I might ask around and see if anone locally makes a bio diesel and maybe buy a few litres off them to see if it helps the cleaning of the internals.
I think once i get the rings free from both pistons and back in there engines i shall do a half too 1 litre petrol for every 5 litre WVO mix as i am told that will thin the oil down good enough ,and i will also try heating the oil with a submersible heater in the tank,and also make sure i run the last 10 mins on straight diesel fuel to help burn up as much carbon as possible before stopping for the night,that way at least i can use up some of the few hundred gallons of WVO i have in tanks.
Dave
You might not need much to keep your engine happy and a happy engine is worth some $. It doesn’t have to be a lot or all the time. You’d just need enough to keep the carbon managed.
Bio-diesel is WVO, methanol and lye (NaOH/KOH) if you want to DIY it. 10 gallons would probably last you a while.
That said… I’m stunned by the price of methanol in Oz. It is MUCH cheaper in the US. I see 20 liters for A$90 online in Melbourne? That’s not so bad considering ~70 US cents to the A$. About half the methanol can be recovered from the diesel making per batch.
Hi Anthony, if you have that link could you post it here , i have a feeling knowing how much postage is here i bet its over $30 on top of the cost , i would be willing to try making a batch , i did try looking around for anyone locally that was making / selling it but it seems very under ground if there are people making it ,
Dave
Here you go brother. Looks to be A$99 today. I thought I saw $90 the other day. There were a couple of other suppliers of the same form “city” solvents… Sydney maybe?
This guy. He knows.
He was on the biodiesel infopop forum.
1/4lb sodium hydroxide
1 gallon methanol
5 gallons WVO
Heat the oil until you can barely keep your wrist on the vessel. Add the methanol to the lye, seal and shake until the lye is dissolved. Add to the heated oil and stir ten minutes or until the mixture turns orange. Let sit and cool. Decant the biodiesel off the top. The lye, methanol and glycerine will fall to the bottom. If you store the byproduct in sealed containers you can recover the methanol later.
The biodiesel can be burned immediately, or stored in sealed plastic containers. Long term it’s best to wash the fuel with water, to get out the residual soap and methanol.
This is best done in large batches. If a batch doesn’t turn out, slop it back into the next batch.
I have been making biodiesel (methyl esters) for 20years. Since 2002, with a hiatus while in Iraq.
If your lye is anhydrous (dry/powdered) NaOH/KOH, you will want to pour dry into liquid, NOT the other way around.
Liquid into dry is SUPER dangerous. The heat of dissolution can/will boil the initial liquid as it hits the dry chemicals. The boiled liquid blows a cloud of lye particles in your face, which is… bad.
So I guess Willie Nelson running his tour bus on bio-fuel by stopping at fast food places and filling his tank with french fry cooling oil was total BS. How gullible am I?
I don’t think it’s total BS, older design diesels run veg oil better.
Thank you for the links and your help, the old saying cant see the wood for the tree’s springs to mind where i am concerned blind and dumb these days ,
Tom , not BS at all if its set up correctly , mine was not, and looking at the problems i ran into
i was running mine during winter here ok not so cold as other places lowest we got down to was maybe 3 degs c , i had no tank or pipe heating and i did not mix in any petrol or diesel to help thin the oil down , as i have said before my brother inlaw and sister both ran veggie oil for years up untill Covid crap they were stopping at super markets when low on fuell and buying a trolley full of new oil and filling up there in the super market car park .
Since then the price of veggie oil has shot up almost as high as diesel so now its not worth the effort until the price drops again, getting hold of used cooking oil where they live down in Devon is near impossible as everyone is after it and now the big companys are paying for it from cafe’s and chip shops and other take away places .
Dave
Anthony, I am sure, from a chem lab safety perspective you are right. But… The methanol has to be poured onto the anhydrous sodium hydroxide to leverage the heat of solution, to completely dissolve the lye. It’s more dangerous to try and smash clumps of lye in a jug of methanol mechanically. The splashing, and impact of the stick on the jug wall, can cause the jug to split and leak.
The question arises several times, why more people do not deal with the most “ecological” fuel - wood, why electricity is not obtained from this energy source, only a few individuals convert some electricity from wood.
The principle that applies to us is that we do everything at home, that all components are simple and understandable, that system management is easy.
Here we are talking about a generator with an output power of up to approx. 4 kW, manufactured by Giorgio. From past experience, I can say that this power could be provided by a good wood gas engine with a working volume of 400 cc at 3000 rpm, well, because we know that the generator itself does not have 100% efficiency, that there are frictional losses in the belt transmission, that older engines have a low compression ratio,… we can say that we need an engine with approx. 500 cc to drive such a generator.
Today was a rainy day and I was practicing welding aluminum, …maybe someday this Acme al 480 engine head will be mounted on a generator drive motor
looks fine, tone…it is a miracle what you produce in short time!
Other ACME products. Your pictures are what most of them look like after use by Wile Coyote. These are from an annoying American Cartoon. If you enjoy working on stuff in that condition I have a whole shed of “I’m gonna need that someday” crap you could have.
