Micro CoGen.

Thank for all the suggestions. As I said in the initial post I have an MEP 531A. It's a keeper. It's over designed as is typical with military stuff. It's pretty capable though. Funny thing about that engine, it's loud and it's more stinky than any diesel I've seen. Generally I like the smell of diesel exhaust but not this one. It had a stupid spark arrester exhaust that pointed to the side and pretty much guaranteed that if you start the generator you'd smell diesel smoke afterwards. I took this off and put an elbow pointed up that made sort of a vertical stack. This is better.

Anyway, just thinking at this stage. I was looking more at the specs last night and the L70 and L100 do get pretty heavy. My interest here with this post is for a small and quiet as possible diesel generator for tossing in the back of the truck. Part of what motivated this is that I was working on my deer stand a few weeks ago. As I headed out there I plugged my Makita battery charger into a 400w inverter and it didn't have the umpf to do the job.

I was thinking belt drive.

I have an MEP 531A generator. It's pretty nice in many ways. But, what I don't like about it is that it's about as loud as anything I've ever heard.

I've been wondering if the Yanmar L48 engines can run at speeds that are slower than 3000-3600 rpm. I was thinking like 2k rpm or so.

The Yanmar data sheet I down loaded had a curves down to 1800 rpm or so but I've never seen it done.

It seems like it would be a fun project to try to get one and belt drive a 2500w head with it as a small generator.

That's good advise! I will look for a breaker. Currently it has a 50 amp breaker.

I received the second meter today. I want to add a 20amp 240v outlet to it as well. Some things have that plug and it would be a good thing to add.

An interesting thing about this is that the engine actually as written on it that it's a 3600 rpm engine. I had no trouble adjusting the governor down to 1800 and it seems to do pretty well at regulating the speed.

I looked at some parts diagrams for these engines to see if there are different governors for different speeds. I couldn't find anything.

Anyway, I think it will be a useful thing for the future.

I hooked it up to the house and put some loads on it today. It seems to be about 7-7.5kw max. I couldn't get a great read on it. I was switching between the clothes dryer, an electric heater, and some space heaters. Anyway, at about 30-32amps per leg was the max. Past that it got down below 57 or so hz and the voltage dropped off quite a bit.

I do see D1005 engine generators on the net that are rated anywhere from 7kw to 9kw. I bet the 9kw is a little optimistic. I couldn't find it today but I have seen in the past a kubota spec that specified the  d1005 as being rated about 8kw.

I suppose I could tweak the governor up just a little. It's at 62hz unloaded now.

The chicom panel meter I installed on L1-N is pretty accurate. It matches my Amprobe clamp meter very well. I did find the guy on ebay I bought the first one from and ordered another for L2-N

And put together.

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Right Side

Photos won't fit in one post

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Sorry for the big delay. I got busy with other things this summer. Also, it was very humid and rainy so not much motivation to mess with this under those conditions. I have it pretty much done.

I had to disassemble it a few times to get the flywheel and generator head all degreased and torqued as they should be. After getting it all back together the next step was some body work on the welder enclosure to get the fuel tank in. This CGG generator head and SAE 5 bell housing are wider than the original Miller welder generator head. As a result there wasn't enough room to fit the fuel tank (about 10 gal) where it used to sit beside the generator. After lots of head scratching I figured out I could do some cutting and widen the thing to one side by 2". I had some 2x2x1/8" angle laying around and some 1/8"x2 flat stock. With some cutting and welding I now have it all fitting pretty well.

I also got all the wiring tweaked so that the overtemp and oil pressure switches will shut the engine down. I plasma cut out the part of the panel that had the welder controls and made a panel to install a few meters. I bought a chicom v,a,hz meter on ebay. I meant to buy two but figured I'd look it over and test before buying the second. Now I can't find them. I want a meter for both L1-N and L2-N. I wound up buying another that's close. It hasn't come yet. I also want to add another plug. It has a 50a, 240v plut, and two 20a, 120v plugs. I want to add a 20a, 240v plug and a breaker for it. Anyway, that's what the rusted panel you see in the photo is about.

Also, have a little more rain proofing to do and patch all the holes so no varmints can get in.

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Another update. I got the generator in and bolted up. I thought bolted for good then I read the directions- "clean the grease/oil off the flywheel and disk with acetone" or something like that. I sprayed it down with some no rust stuff, sort-of a cosomolene, so my nice new flywheel wouldn't rust. Got my fingers nimbled back up to get the bolts back out of the flywheel, pulled it apart and cleaned it.

Anyway, now it's all back together. I did a little test run yesterday with about 4500 watts. voltage regulates very well. The governor seems like it's doing ok. It did drop a few hz about 60 rpm I guess. Seems not too bad for about half load.

Now I'm trying to get the rest of the electrical stuff put back together. The welder had a 50amp 250v 4 prong plug and two 120v duplex recepatacles. I plan to reuse these. The 12v wiring is going to need some bit revamping since some the safety cutouts went through the welder control box which isn't there anymore.

Update:

I have a bunch of stuff going on here so progress isn't as fast as I'd like. I had to plasma cut a few more things out of the way of the generator. I received the bolts and vibration isolators. The engine only sits on two vibration isolators so I had to shim it up till the bell housing was plumb relative to everything else. Then I set the generator in and figured out how high the base that it would sit on needed to be. I got the base all cut out of some scrap channel I had and set uit in, set the generator back in with the vibration isolators in place and did a trial bolt up. I got the base and isolators sitting in place and where they need to go marked out. Looks pretty good.

Next step is to pull the generator back out, clean the whole welder housing out and weld the generator base in place. Do a little painting and put the generator in place permanently.

Another thing I am totally unimpressed with Miller's implementation of this welder is how weather and rodent proof it isn't. Why the heck they would leave the housing full of big holes that mice can get in and the top so it doesn't shed water is beyond me and very poor quality. I hope to address some of these issues.

I have a 25kw Wacker tow behind generator that we use as a backup generator here normally. This thing is very nicely implemented. Very weatherproof.

Henry, I don't know much about what goes into selecting the flywheels for these things. I do figure I'll be ok as you said. It came from CGG knowing the application. Also, the new flywheel is heavier than the old one that was on the welder which was designed for 3600rpm.

Well it's in southwestern pa. In the Morgantown, wv Craigslist. I don't have the time or money for it now.

No the $600 for just the engine. Decent looking engine though. The guy was not 100% sure of the hours. It came from a small generator.

Thanks!

What do you use for a test load. I have some 1kw approx space heaters that I was thinking of using but that won't get me too close to 10kw. I have some big power resistors. Need to see what can be done with those. I stupidly threw some 3-4 kw heaters out.

The advantage to this setup is that much of the little stuff that winds up adding a lot to the price is there. Fuel tank, water separator, outlets, circuit breakers, etc.

It is taking some carving with the plasma cutter to make it fit and some refabricating but that's ok. I'm pretty well setup for that stuff.

Henry- I read your story on building the generator from the Z482(?) engine. It's good I read that. There is a guy near here that has one for $600. Not bad but I don't want a 3600 rpm generator. What I really like about a diesel is it running at 1800.

Ok, disconnected the high/low solenoid, got it adjusted down to about 1830 rpm. Also set the top end limit screw down so it can't be rev'd up much at all. Will tweak later.

Here is a photo of my governor side plate. Looks like the one on your engine Henry.

Thanks for the heads up on the startup speed. Will do.

My bell housing looks just like yours. Hard to see mine in the photo but it's the same. Tom Osborn at CGG said it was the one I need. I also have a light plant with a D905 and it has the SAE 5 bell housing too but it's thinner like the other one I bought. Tom said the thinner ones also had the thinner lighter flywheel and were for applications where good regulation is not needed.

I've done some experimenting with my light plant generator. It has a Marathon Pancake generator head. These are really not good generators for general use. They don't start motor loads well at all.

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