Micro CoGen.

Howdy Folks,

Off grid and in a cloudy/rainy spell. Of course, that's when I discover the output voltage of my generator is low! I'm getting 115 and 230V and it drops as low as 90VAC under any sort of load. The generator is a Winco LLC5000H. Engine speed is not too low and load is not too great. The trouble shooting guide in the owners manual says the diode, the field coil or the stator. Any ideas which is most likely? I'm trying to determine a course of action, if it is the stator, probably too expensive to fix. Field coil maybe and diode, sure no problem.

Thanks!

Hi All,

A good friend of mine is over in Shanghai. I have been looking for a reasonably priced 48V alt in the 100 amp range. Alibaba has all kinds of 'em but they have big minimums. I'm thinking I could get my friend to track me down a single, or possibly a few. Here are some I have located, what do you guys think? Or has someone been holding out with a US supplier?

http://www.cs-istar.com/products/48v-alternator

Or these:

http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/A0014417JB-Prestolite-Alternator-48V-90A_1029770169.html

Thanks!

Jonathan

Hey Folks,

So, I thought I'd start a thread rather than hijack the others. Here is my situation:

I live off grid. Currently I have a 12V system, but I am just about to make a major purchase and upgrade to 48V. I have a Honda 5000S generator that I replaced the usual gen head with a LN 110-555. It's a direct drive set up and it came out nice, looks just like a regular generator. I was very, very naughty and didn't even use a lovejoy, I just made an adapter to connect the two drive shafts together, figured out some mounting for a couple of bolts and voila. I know this isn't recommended, I don't endorse the idea but it has indeed worked fine for several hundred hours and still sounds great. The bummer is that it is way too much motor for the alt and fuel economy sucks. Charges the bank up pretty quick though and shuts itself off when done. I am in the process of making a new controller, this one has a fuel sensor that will track volume consumed and a few other fun features.

Anyhoo, with the upgrade to 48V, my battery bank will be eight golf cart batteries in series, for a 10.5kWH bank. I'd like to be able to charge it between C/10 and C/15, so say 80 amps would be nice. Eventually, I will need to charge a 31.6kWH bank with it, within a couple to 5 years. So my ideal would be to make something that could handle the larger load, but I may settle for just being able to charge the current bank. Of course I would like to be able to equalize, but could use my solar for that, my charge controller has that capability. So I could charge the bank up in the AM with the genny, then let solar do the EQ.

I just remembered I have a Leece-Neville model A0014864JB. It's used and untested. If I could strap that to the Honda 5000S frame and use it to charge a 48V bank, I'd be very happy. However, since this upgrade is bleeding me dry cash-wise and is going to be a black hole of time, if I could just modify the 555 to charge for 48V in the current direct drive set up then I could at least do that. While my new inverter will have a charger built in, I just feel naked without a second charging source. I make my own controllers, so no overcharge issues with large alts or anything like that.

Ultimately, I have a new, never run China diesel 8kW generator that I will be using. At that point I want to capture waste heat etc. But I have to build a permanent shed and I am still having to deal with the building dept. and don't want to get them *too* interested.

So bent, I may need those alt frames or not, depending on what the verdict is.

Bob, All,

Well, as the subject says, I finally got around to using the Leece-Neville 555 alternator that Bob talked me into buying a couple of years ago. It's now connected to a 11hp Honda GX340. I pulled 165 amps out of it for a few minutes, 5 amps over it's rated current. I ran it at about 120 amps for 30 minutes and while it was hot, it wasn't too hot. One odd thing was I had to adjust the frequency of the PWM to the field coil to get smooth output. All the other alts I have tried have been fine with 10kHz, this one likes about 7kHz. Anyway, thanks for talking me into this not cheap but great alt. Winter is coming up and we will find out what it's really made of.

Jonathan

Hey All,

I'm working on converting a Honda EM5000S generator to drive a 160 amp Leece-Neville 555 alternator. I got the unit free because it had blown the gen head, but the motor (GX370) is a sweet one, runs real solid. I have most of the mechanical stuff worked out and I think it is going to run sweet. I will be using my own charge controller, so no issues there.

Anyway, I have a few questions if there happens to be anyone that has some experience with these Honda gen units. I can find the shop manual for the engine but not the gen unit, which means that so far I am left to figure out a few things on my own. So the first question is: Does anyone have a PDF of the generator shop manual?

Here are a couple of general questions:

The unit has auto idle. I think the way it works is if there is no load, the engine idles and as soon as there is a load it slams it to full throttle. There is a solenoid that does the throttle movement. Anyone know if these can be PWM'd so as to have actual RPM control instead of either full throttle or idle? Mostly I am just concerned about overheating the solenoid if used continuously. I could swap the solenoid with a servo, but it would be easier to use the solenoid if it won't overheat. The object of course is to lower the RPM as we enter the absorption stage of charging to save fuel.

There is a vacuum do-hickey that seems to be an auto-choke. It has two wires as if it is  a sensor of some variety. Anyone know what is up with that? I'm guessing I can muddle through, but if anyone knows what's up with that lemme know.

Thanks for the help!

Jonathan

Hi All,

I have a chance to buy a Yancheng/Jiang Yang S1100 engine/gen for a US kilobuck. It's brand new, still crated. The engine is 18 horse, water cooled with a 8kW gen head.

So are these good/ok/junk? An aquaintance has them, he has used one for years for backup. He likes it, but then he has several in crates to sell. :-0

A kilobuck is a lot for a dozenaire like me, so I'm hoping to get some input.

Thanks!

Jonathan

Hi All,

Just wanted to make sure the folks on this forum know about this contest:

http://www.parallax.com/tabid/847/Default.aspx

My skills are too limited to enter, but I am looking forward to the results, as with any luck I'll be able to build one. DIY MMPT seems to be a bit of a Holy Grail...

Jonathan

Hi All,

Well, I have a good start on my charge controller/data logger. I can track my solar amps, generator amps, battery voltage and temperture. I have PWM control of the alternator on my lawnmower/alternator rig, and while I don't have auto start, I do have auto shutdown. Soon I will be able to track my load amps as well, waiting on a current sensor. With another unit, a manufactured module that tracks net amps, I know the ~ amp hours taken from the battery bank. (When the current sensors arrive, I'll be doing this myself). So, I have just about any charging scheme at my disposal. Since I don't have anywhere near enough solar even on a good day, I run the lawnmower a fair bit, so I want to optimize my charging scheme. The solar panels are connected directly to the battery bank without a controller. I use all they can give me, and 18 amps isn't going to cook my batteries in any case, but I do want to get or make a MPPT for them.

The basic specs of the system are: 1200aH, 12V battery bank, 10 golf cart batteries in series/parallel. I have a Trace 2512 inverter, about 18 amps of solar and the lawnmower/alternator which is good for about 60 amps. The controller is based on a Propellor chip. I have a keypad and VFD display out in the power shed and a touchscreen in the house (trailer) that is wirelessly connected to the power controller.  Fun stuff, I can see what is going on, change charging parameters on the fly while the genny is charging and so on. Good clean fun, although I still have a lot of programming to clean up. Anyway...

As we all do, I want to hit the sweet spot of fuel usage and battery life. So, does this seem like a reasonable charging scheme? Please feel free to point out any errors in my thinking, this is my first off grid setup and I am learning. I usually charge at about 100aH out, sometimes drawing as much as 200aH before charging but never more. All voltages are TC'd.

I enter the desired number of amp hours needed to charge the batteries, + 20 - 30%. I let the genny pump out 60 amps and allow the voltage to ride as high as 15.5V before limiting the current. I keep an eye on battery temperature. When I have replaced 80% of the amp hours, lower the voltage to 14.4V and allow the current to ramp down to a preset limit (I'm thinking 15 amps) and shut down the genny. The pro's of this scheme is quick as possible charging. The con is more water usage in my batteries, but as long as I keep up on that shouldn't damage the batteries.

Once a month (or when a SG check of the cells indicates), equalize the batteries, running the voltage up to 15.5V, then ramping down the current down for a couple of hours, or until the current drops below x (any reccomendations for x?) or when all cells read the same.

So, how does that sound?

As far as temp. compensation goes, I see some varying figures out there. Is there a consensus here about V/degree?

Thanks all!

Jonathan

Hi All,

Now that I am off the grid, I want to replace the linear voltage regs. (like LM7805,LM2940, LM317) with more efficient types. I want a drop in replacement with input voltage range of 12 to 20V, outputs of 3.3V, 5V and an adjustable would be nice. Any recommendations?

Jonathan

Hey All,

Well, me and my bro in-law just drilled and cased our first well. We got to 60' then hit some really hard stuff. We could see that there was water, so we decided to case it and call it good.

So far we are getting around 2 gpm. Hopefully that will increase as we develop the well. Still, it's enough for now.

We used an air drill attached to a PVC pipe. The exhaust of the air drill goes up the pipe and pulls up the tailings and water, which goes through a settling pond and back to the well. We made 51 feet in the first two days, and then 9 feet over two more days. Need to get a better rock bit. The drill was a kit from howtodrillawell.com.

Total cost was around $1200 US. This includes buying and fixing a compressor to run the drill. It needs a lot of CFM. We used a 27 CFM, 12.5hp, gas engine driven compressor that we bought for $300 because it needed new compression rings. Spent $150 in parts fixing it. It cost 2k plus new. Was well worth it, to rent a compressor would have been $130 a day. We ran the poor thing pretty hard, I suspect the compressor is a little tired.

Now that I have the drill, compressor and so on, I can do another well for a few hundred bucks, depending on what well screen I use. This time we made our own well screen but next time I will buy some. I learned a LOT. If anyone is considering using this system, get hold of me, much to share.

Anyway, exciting stuff. I have water! No more trucking water in every two weeks! I can plant fruit trees this year! Move my solar hot tub over from my old place. Take a longer than 3 min shower. Woohoo!

On to a question: Any reccomendations for a pump? All the ones I see so far are more than I need, I'd like to use as little power as possible. I'm only  60' deep and only need 2-4 gpm. Needs to be 120V and have soft start.

Jonathan