Micro CoGen.

just in case there are members of our sister forum, yes it is down, but payment has been made to re-up the dues for the domain name.

so it should be up soon, i will be checking to make sure it does come back.

i have been very busy and the domain dues came up and of course i missed paying them.

i will try to do better next year   

bob g

This engine was built by a former member of the LEF, utterpower.com and this forum
he passed away suddenly and without warning at home a bit over 10 months ago now

he was a dear friend and many will remember Quinn F (Farnes) he also went by oddjob here
and i don't recall what screen name on the LEF

he purchased one of the earlier listeroids back around '03-'05  and documented the complete
tear down, and rebuild form dirt to sky, using every means possible and attention to detail seldom
found anywhere outside a real OCD type of fellow. 

the engine is a 6/1 ashwemegh, driving an ST5 head, and has a gear reduction starter motor, friction wheel drive with an air cylinder to engage it.

he referred to the engine as "old silver" as he painted it silver which created quite a bruhaha
back in the day,  lots of good hearted jabs about it should be lister green and all that.

George is also going to put up the offering on utterpower.com along with links to the original writeup

Quinn's widow has no use for the genset, however i don't want to see her get taken advantage of either.  this in my opinion would be one of the best built engine/gensets that has a pedigree where one can see exactly what was done to it, rather than taking someones word for what was done.  that should add value to the right person.

as soon as i can find a link to the utterpower story, i will post it here.

and anyone interested can email me at notblueeyes@hotmail.com and i will pass along the contact information to George who is tasked with managing the sale.

this sort of thing doesn't come up everyday and we all know that there are not likely ever to be more imported to this country, so if anyone is interested i would suggest letting me know asap, because i think this thing will sell pretty quickly.

fwiw

disclaimer:  i am not connected with the sale of this item, nor will i receive a commission on the sale. i am simply passing this along for a departed friends widow to the forum members in the hope that there is someone that has a need for this unit.

bob g

Thanks to all the hard work of forum member Tom Reed, the forum has been updated to the latest version
and is being transferred to a new host as well.

Tom has put a lot of time and effort into saving the forum, and for those that don't know what happened, we are still not sure of.

In the past our host (hostmonster) updated their php software and the forum would go down, i would call them and have them roll back our php to the earlier version and back up we would go.

somehow over the course of time, backups were not working as they should. and when the host started another upgrade the forum went down and that is when things got really messed up.

the foregoing is my less than educated summation of what took place, in other words... blah blah blah.

We are very fortunate to have a member that has the experience and know how to recover the forum, get it upgraded and most importantly recover most if not all the attachments, particularly the pdf files.

my understanding is we have some/many picture files that are corrupted, and maybe over time we can get them repaired or replaced and get that content back as well.

bottom line?

Thanks Tom Reed for all you have done and continue to do for this forum.

bob g

been so darn busy over the last few months, being mayor is more than enough, but then to
be the spark that ignited this, and wahooo

lots of work, but it all worked out to be a great weekend

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CObzW542gQ

watch the first lap, then skip ahead about 1:30 or so to get a feel what this thing evolved into.

insanity! 

bob g

the forum is having technical issues,  and i will be working to find someone on the simplemachines forum to help do the work of fixing the issues and doing an upgrade that is badly needed.

more as i know it

bob g

i think maybe part of why we have been so slow these last few months is due to my
being or rather getting old an forgetful

a few months back i shut off new member registration because of an onslaught of questionable/bot/who knows who registrations, so i just shut off registration thinking i would wait a bit to let the thing settle down...

then i promptly forgot to turn it back on!

oh well,

maybe now we can get some new blood in the room? 

it sure couldn't hurt!



sorry guys
bob g

ok guys, i just paid the forum renewal fee's for another 6 months

so i want to know from all of you, is this place relevant any longer? 
we are going to have to either make it so over the next 6 months or have a fund raiser to raise the needed monies to renew
it next time it is due.

i no longer want to keep reaching in my pocket to support something that doesn't seem  to have much interest anymore.

so what do you guys think?   with the changing world wide political climate, higher fuel prices make forums like this more relevant and drive the next generation of folks here?  or not?

bob g

i have a 4 ton grain press NOS still in original crate for sale

i bought it in 2006 and have been sitting on it ever since

not much demand when fuel price were low, but now with diesel prices going to record highs
and who knows when the powers that be will ever allow for production to increase again, i think maybe
there might be someone that has a need for a grain press.

i know little about these things, other than back in the mid 2000's there were a lot of guys using them to press
oil out of grain stocks, to then make fuel out of and feed the press cake to their cattle or other folks cattle.

so i thought i would kick this out to see if there is any interest

i still have a 28/2 indian petteroid NOS still in crate 2 cyl diesel (preban engine) and a 15kw st head
paired with the grain press one could go into fuel production and make their own power for a small farm/ranch/shop

if you are interested, lets talk.  i am likely never going to be young enough to use these things, so i am agreeable to making a deal.

lest i forget, these are located in central kansas
bob g

he was known as odd job on our forum and i don't recall what he went by on the LEF
but he was a solid guy that i met face to face when a few of us got together back in  i think '07 at magicjack's place in idaho

he was a decent and kind man that was hard to get riled up, someone that was a calming and reasoned voice when things got heated on the LEF back in the day.

he built one of the 6/1 listeroids from powersolutions and painted it silver, he caught a lot of flack for doing that, but that was Q, someone that marched to his own drum, and for that he was a really interesting guy.

"ol' silver" as that 6/1 was known, was a test bed for early development of these engine's within a smaller group of guys that were working with then and putting large amounts of run time on them. everything he built was first rate, clean, well thought out and executed.

i could go on, but suffice it to say he left this world far too soon, at age 65 he was just getting into his retirement when he was called home.

he was my friend, and i miss him

bob g

https://www.havenrest.com/obituary/QuinnEldon-Farnes

ps. his wife requests no flowers be sent

hope you all have a merry Christmas, and stay healthy

bob g

i haven't looked into solar panels for years
last evening i checked ebay and there are several sellers selling used panels

now they are used, and reported to still put out 80% of new panels, however old panels put out power for years and years
even if reduced.

now i see them listed at 20 cents per watt!  (pallet of 20) plus freight (or a trip to pickup)

i need to re roof my house, now i am thinking these panels might be cheaper than shingles!



what a time to be alive!  just wish i was more able bodied.

i remember 20 odd years ago thinking that to build my place i might be able to afford 500 watts worth of panels,
now 500 watts is what?  100 bucks plus shipping?  coffee money for a month or so?


bob g

after wanting to do so for over 50 years, i finally sat for the fcc testing to get my amateur license last friday.
and am getting set up to get on the air

i was wondering how many folks here are ham operators?

bob g

AE0NX

not sure if we have this or not
but thought it might be useful for some folks here
here is a link

http://www.devill.net/Infos/Electricite/alternatorhandbook.pdf

had a phone conversation with Henry today, and it got me to thinking

while we are concerned (or at times at least some of us are for a variety of reasons) my thinking is it is possible that one might get hung up on a component of a systems efficiency without considering its integration and affect on overall efficiency of the system.

so what i am wondering is what factors might one consider or include in the consideration or development of a "system" efficiency?

some i think one could include might be

1. the prime movers efficiency, particularly where it will be spending the majority of its time running.
2. the generator/alternator head efficiency
3. heat recovery from cooling and/or exhaust exchangers, that is if it is harvested and put to beneficial use.
4. drive systems,
5. accessory drive systems, like pumps, fans, etc.
6. ?

then i wonder if as part of an equation might we also consider

1. ease of use/or implementation
2. first cost in dollars
3. ongoing maintenance costs, maybe per kw/hour? or per kbtu?
4. live with factor?  such as noise, db levels
5. cool factor, (most folks like things that are cool to look at or be around)
6. ease of modification, or adaptation for unplanned for down the road use
7. availability of repair/replacement parts, and consumables
8. ?

my thinking is that some of the listed factors have much more weight in the consideration than others, however
not many would want a unit that is noisy, expensive to maintain, a bitch to work on, and ugly even if it were able to produce 10% more power than maybe something more agreeable for each gallon of fuel burned.

that extra pint of fuel burned per hour adds up for sure, but maybe that extra expense is worth it if you have a unit that is in the end easier to maintain, cheaper/more available  parts, less noisy or any number of other factors.

i figure my time is worth something, and maybe i would be willing to settle for a bit more fuel burned if it were more agreeable all around?

does that make sense?

if so what do you guys think?  how would you weight these and other listed items, so that maybe a formula could be constructed so as that one could use it to maybe do an evaluation of a proposed system before he buys a bunch of iron, copper, nuts and bolts and heads out to the shop.

it seems like something like this might be useful, if not in absolute detail, surely in that it would make one go through the thought processes more completely before he moves forward with a project.

lets face it, at least here in the state, we aren't going to be getting any chinese/indian or even first world small diesel engine, in quantity, and at a cost most of us would be willing to pay.... and for those that might consider paying 3-4 grand for a water cooled tier 4 compliant small diesel, maybe what i am talking about would be very useful for that guy. that is before he drops the cash?

just kicking around some thoughts, getting late here so maybe it makes sense? maybe not? 

thoughts?

as you all probably already know we have had numerous issues with the forum
everything from hosting, to lost posts, to inability to get a recent backup, to name a few

i have made contact with the member of the "simplemachines" forum, those guys live and breathe the
software/platform that our forum is based on.

the version we are using is way past its "sell by" date and it is not an easy task to make the upgrade to
a modern version, also i am told that the host we are using is not well regarded for customer support.

so anyway, i have a couple of folks that relate to me that they would be willing to do the upgrade and migrate
the forum over to a new host server.

i am working to get this resolved, and also am going to see if i can get an archive going as well.

your continued patience is appreciated guys

as most of you also probably have figured out, this forum makes no one a single penny, we don't do advertizing
as i despise pop-ups and banners cluttering things up.

my hope is to get these problems resolved, get things running smoothly again, and maybe after all that we can plot a future
for this forum.

having said that, i am concerned with the state of our political climate, both here in the usa and abroad, where everyone is all nutted up
about carbon and global warming (climate change) and the affect all this has had since '06 with the banning of new engines at least here in the states (maybe elsewhere too?) and the rather short supply of used engine's. 

all this makes for a very difficult hill to climb as a forum trying to attract new guys/gals, as my thinking is reading all this and not being able to find
an engine has to be frustrating as hell.

so maybe we have to rethink the prime mover and figure out how best to work with what we can get our hands on readily?  i don't know!

it might be that we have to redirect our attention toward honda's and the clones? or we sit down and figure out how to build an engine from the ground up, make the patterns, get the pieces cast, machined and then maybe use injection parts, from china/india or where ever?

maybe we can make a work around the epa as these would be viewed as hobby engine's and not finished/manufactured non-compliant engines?

it might be quite a hurdle?  then again with enough folks working on individual bits and pieces, maybe it is doable?

we only need to look back on the wright brothers and them building a 4 cyl aluminum engine for their airplane?  they seemed to pull it off!

maybe we can do a single cylinder? use chinese cyl kits, indian injection systems, and leaving the block and head castings, and flywheels for us to pattern and have cast?

years ago, perhaps 25 now, i was looking to get a small engine lathe bed cast, i went to atlas foundry in tacoma washington, they told me to make a pattern, bring it in and their pattern guy would look it over and make the needed mods, and they would cast it at the end of their regular casting run... it was to be a fairly large casting, nearly as complex as it had an integral head stock, and the cost was 300 dollars for the first one, if i wanted 3 copies they would cast them for 375dollars total,  or 125 dollars each.  oh yes lest i forget they were to be cast from cast steel so they would be tough as hell, much more unbreakable than grey iron and if you needed to weld onto a casting it was a straight forward proposition.

they showed me some casting they had done for other small one off guys, and the quality of work was certainly much higher than indian castings.

something to think about? 

sorry for the digression.  its been a while i guess

with large parts of texas without power, i wonder if there will not be a lot of folks starting to get into the cogen game

it is colder than a well diggers hiney in the klondike here in kansas
colby kansas was -25F last night and with the breeze windchill -40F

we got down to -14F here in central kansas

and they are calling for -15F in wichita tonight so we will probably be a couple degree's colder

luckily it should be passed us by thursday and we can get back into the 30's and above by weekend.

hope you all are staying warm?

bob g

to all of you guys

hope you have a healthy and happy holiday and a prosperous new year

bob g

the forum was down yesterday afternoon (central time) and it took quite a bit to get it back up on the host
server so that it would load again.

found the problem and got it fixed for now, still have a backup issue, but at least we are ok for a bit, giving us
time to upgrade the forum software to use a modern php

anyway we are back up and going again.

sorry for any delays
bob g

as an aside from the this thread
https://www.microcogen.info/index.php?topic=3658.msg40213#msg40213

the thought of using readily available air cooled engines in cogeneration

the problem historically with the use of air cooled, is the air cooled nature makes harvesting and using that heat source
problematic, making for a max. overall efficiency on the order of around 55-60% (mechanical and recovered heat of the exhaust)

several years back (around '07 or so) i came upon and purchased 3 telecom standby generator systems, they being 6kwatt 24volt nominal they look like little pizza huts or outdoor A/C compressor/condensor units. very well made using vertical shaft twin cylinder enigines belt driving the generator heads, well sound proofed and self contained, set to burn either propane or nat gas.

building on the other thread proposition

the thought comes to mind that for instance if we do the following

take a horizontal shaft engine like  used on a variety of lawnmowers, and other small equipment, say 20-25 hp or so
and to that we couple two A/C compressors and a direct drive generator head, put it all in an sealed enclosure, (by sealed i mean relatively, not perfectly)

in operation use on of the A/C compressors to remove the heat from within the enclosure, and move that heat to somewhere where it can be effectively used, space heating in cooler/cold months being most common usage.

the other A/C compressor could be used to drive a refrigerator/freezer, or to provide airconditioning for living space.
the generator for power production, whether AC or DC

the exhaust heat is recovered in the same manner as it would be on a water cooled engine to be used for domestic hot water, or space heating.

adding oil capacity is not a much of a problem

the unit could be made relatively small, and the overall efficiency would be comparable to other units in its class reaching well into the mid 80% range and maybe higher with good design.

the twin horizontal engine come self contained, so there is no need for wiring harnesses, computers and all the other stuff associated with car engines.

so you trade off the complexity of all the requisite stuff associated with car engines for an additional A/C compressor heat pump system?

might be a good trade off for some folks.
especially in colder climates where the systems heat supply could be put to good use.

and it might well be feasible in closely matched designs where instead of space heating the first compressor could move the heat from the interior of the enclosure through a plate exchanger to double up on domestic hot water production. make for more hot water for showers, dish and clothes washing.

i can visualize such a system that like described in the other thread, where it might be called upon to provide hot water and power in the early morning and evening for all loads described while also providing additional electrical power that is higher demand than the solar capacity one has on hand. 

my thinking is one probably wouldn't put up 10kwatts of solar if the average load is maybe 10-20% of that? and one might well not want the expense of a battery bank being sized larger to cover those times when you might need 10kwatt, but only for short durations?

apart from my horrendous A/C load in summer (46 year old central air, and i have no idea why i still runs, but does 24/7 about 5 months a year) my average power needs could be met with around 500watts of panels, but my short term (less than a half hour needs are on the order of 10 times that amount.

not considering the ridiculous A/C demands (anything would be an improvement) i could design a small system, well controlled and with load scheduling a system such as described and have it work quite well, and not have a need for several kwatts of panels, controllers, inverters and a large battery bank.

it would be easier with a water cooled engine, but i think with a bit of thinking not much more difficult to do with an aircooled engine, especially burning natural gas.

when i consider the local rate not just for the power per kwatt hour, but the demand charges, and all the other cool taxes and transmission costs they tack on, with natural gas i can compete favorably with the power company, save for a A/C costs ( and maybe those costs to if using natural gas, but maintenance costs will be much higher because of long operational hours, although absorption systems might mitigate this issue)

remembering of course, that traveling down this path one might not succeed, but likely will produce idea's and other things that have broader application.

just more of the stuff rattling around in my head

bob g

i have diy books from the 70's, 80's, 90's and some newer

thinking back to the early 70s when going offgrid was the cool thing to do, there was lots of books written
on how to produce power for your offgrid cabin/tent/home.  much was done with an old lawnmower engine, a 10si delco
some old car batteries from the junkyard, and 1156 bulbs from the junkyard (with their requisite sockets).  you had some independence, some power storage, some light.  you could track down and rebuild an old wincharger, or maybe an old delco light plant, and if you had the money you could find a used kohler generator out of a motor home (tall cotton then), there were motor/generators but they were very inefficient.

by the 80's there were some solar panels coming out, bloody expensive, some inverters also expensive, prone to failures, and of course square wave or modified square wave.  folks learned about golf cart batteries and things were better

by the 90's there were better/larger and less expensive inverters, and the market had  pure sine wave if you could afford it, modified sine wave came down in price as well.  solar panels were coming down in price as well.  the listeroids and changfa's started to come onto the scene as did the ST heads, There were several controller, charge controllers, all sorts of other cool things used in the marine industry that found a place in offgrid,

in my opinion the 90's to about 2006 was the golden age of offgrid power production in many ways,  prices came down, and the average guy/gal could actually put together a system that could provide power enough to live a relative modern lifestyle within limits of course.

then about 2006 the EPA banned the import of the listeroid, changfa and their variants for import, and it would seem that put a stop or a slowdown on offgrid development, particularly among those that frequent this sort of forum.

thinking back it seems this game is cyclic,  the 70's with oil embargo, recession and a lot of younger folks wanting to drop out and move out into the sticks, really was the renaissance of the diy offgrid power production. then it kind of died down till somewhere in the 90's, then died down again after about 2006 or so, and has been somewhat down since then.

i am thinking that it is probably about time for the pendulum to swing back as evidenced by the civil strife we seem to be witnessing, the global economy being somewhat questionable by most any reasonable standard, and the fact that the younger folks and older folks are driving this tiny house movement pretty much all over the civilized world (the uncivilized world has been living tiny for eons).

taking stock of what techologies exist, or has changed, or basically what is there to work with?

1. solar panel prices have fallen dramatically, although i am not sure if they are still around a buck a watt or not, they certainly are relatively speaking pretty low in cost, and reliability is probably as good or better than ever.

2. with the lithium ion battery technology being so darned efficient, and coming down in price, it seems that this is a quantum leap from the car batteries used in the 70's and a significant improvement over golf cart and other deep cycle lead batteries

3. i suspect that the inverters are as good as ever, probably more reliable, lower in cost per watt than they have ever been.

4. lot of surplus odds and ends available and useful?

5. all manner of microcontroller stuff and lots of folks able to work out all kinds of control system, only dreamed of not more than a generation ago, and cheap too/

so whats left?  no prime mover?  no diesels?

what i am now kicking around is this, (spitballing so to speak)

if we accept that there "is" a need for a prime mover, especially for cogeneration
then do we really need a diesel engine?

is it possible that a gasoline engine (water cooled) might be nearly as efficient?  maybe if used in a very tightly controlled and specific manner?

i am of the thinking that maybe, just maybe something like for instance a salvage 1.1 or 1.3 liter honda hybrid car engine
direct coupled to perhaps a 15kwatt st head (or equivalent 4 pole head) and used to do both 120/240 volt power generation and also bulk charging of a bank of lithium ion batteries and an inverter system.

perhaps in an offgrid system, where heavy loads could be scheduled to be supplied for short period of time, periodically through the day, or perhaps and hour in the morning and an hour in the evening might be enough to do the heavy lifting, provide enough domestic hot water, and heat when needed, and also run for short runs during the day (cyclic) driving an A/C compressor (or 2 or more for zone cooling) with purpose built tstats and control systems.

not sure, but i would not be surprised to find that the overall efficient in cogen mode could be quite high.

the little 1.1 or 1.3liter engine's run relatively quite, with extended oil capacity and a bypass filter, synthetic lube oil, well filtered air and fuel, the longevity of the little motor might be quite surprising.  the little engines seem to be readily available at relatively cheap prices,  less than 500 bucks with freight, however i don't know how complete they come, but suspect they can be had as complete as one would want to pay for.

the reason i am kicking this around, is i just drove back a 3.6liter VVT DI buick enclave (about 5k lb car/suv) and at 70mph it sits right at 1800rpm and seems to have ample power to run stable, run the A/C and get along just fine... they are known to make 200k+ miles with decent service, (probably a lot longer with the sort of service added oil capacity, and maintenance it would get if it were skid mounted to where you could get to it, and not under the hood of a car that is driven over a wide range of conditions and rpms)

from what i have read the lithium ion battery technology can accept a high rate of charge which would enable the use of more of the available power of a 1.1 or 1.3 liter engine.

then there is the possibility of conversion to propane or natural gas?  lower output of course, but better fuel storage and better control over fuel price, and infinitely longer storage life over gasoline.

i know i have been complaining about local politics and having little to no time these days, however having spent about 4 hours with the wife going after the buick we had time to chat in depth and came to the conclusion that i have done all i can for this community, and it is high time i got back to things that i get enjoyment from.

so maybe i start thinking about this hypothesis and see if i can move it from idea to something with teeth in it?

one thing for sure is this, living in town, running a diesel (changfa) is problematic (noise and vibration), and being able to work with a little 4 cylinder gas engine would alleviate those concerns, and i have ready access to natural gas as well.

interesting to think about anyway?

thoughts?

bob g