Micro CoGen.

Hi Bob,

It's registered through an eNom Reseller - but the actual reseller appears to be Troy's company - and Troy's been out of it for at least 10 years...  Yeah, it needs renewing in the grace period (30 days max), otherwise it gets expensive to sort out & liable to be poached. I have a feeling either you or Andrew sent me the eNom details a few years ago, but my mail server exploded & I lost everything before about 2018. I've not had the details since, & Andrew vanished off the grid around the same time, 2018.

If you can get into eNom, you might be able to access the records. If you do, I suggest you update them to your e-mail address (it's still Troy's on the record), so at least you get alerts...

Let me know how you get on - if it's not going to be resolved in the next, 48h, say, I'll shift over to the backup domain.

Cheers!
Ade.

Hi folks,

The problem is the domain has expired... I've tried contacting Andrew about it by e-mail, and I'm hoping Bob will see these messages here ASAP....

I do have a "spare" domain to move it to, which I'll publish here if I move it.

Rest assured, the data is safe and sound! The forum will be back up just as soon as the domain is renewed. Or poached.... not sure how long it stays unavailable for after it's lapsed, I think it might be 14 days?

Cheers,
Ade.

Quote from: mobile_bob on June 16, 2018, 02:54:42 PM
sorry to Ade and company from me,
i have been so embroiled with political stuff here in town that i have
had very little time to keep  up with what is going on here, or the LEF

No apology necessary Bob; I will remain forever grateful that you rescued LEF from its former owners, and will continue to do my best to ensure it remains a smoothly run, inclusive forum, open to all. TBH I was more confused by stevem's post than anything else; I have no idea where it came from, what it was referring to, etc. In fact, I still don't... Since the gentleman in question has not come back to explain what the hell he meant, I assume that he's either confused himself, or just insensitive. I really don't mind either way. We all have our bad days...

Anyway, for the avoidance of doubt, he's not banned, and if he wants to contribute to LEF he's free to do so. Unless he turns into Spencer Mk2 of course....

e.g. something like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/391822776345

That is a disgustingly good bargain, and makes me jolly annoyed that I don't live in the USA right now!

Note that that does only have a GPIO output, which would be quite a challenge to interface to anything that isn't an old HP.... but who knows, maybe you like that kind of challenge?

There's a couple of major options for you... First, do you want a dedicated 'scope? If not -there's loads of very cheap USB "'scopes" which will capture a waveform & display it on your laptop/computer. As I understand it, they need a beefy machine to keep the sample rate up; and the risk of course is if you throw high voltages at it, you might fry your computer (although I'm sure they have decent isolation). I haven't used one of these things myself, must try one one day....

If you go the dedicated 'scope route, I'd strongly suggest buying second hand. It's one of those tools you won't use much, but when you do you want a good one... and a few hundred bucks won't buy much in the "new" world. There's loads of good machines out there second hand, though. My shopping list would look like this:
- Dual trace
- Digital storage
- Digital interface would be nice
- Something by HP,or Gould.

Alternatively, go proper old-skool and buy something absolutely ancient, but in keeping with the age of the typical Lister

I have both a "traditional" 'scope (dual trace, but 100% analog, round screen), and a somewhat more modern Gould with dual-trace, trigger-hold, and a few other nice-to-haves which make it more useful than the old machine, especially for trying to debug digital stuff. It's something I don't use especially often, but it has a permanent place on my bench because sometimes it's the only tool that will do the job!

If you find a nice HP 'scope, with a GPIO port on it, then you can hook it into one of the older HP computers (non-PC) & do all kinds of magic... the first job I ever had, fresh out of University without even a qualification to my name (I failed my course ) was taking the graph output from an HP scope & drawing it on the screen with the highest peak highlighted & all kinds of other stuff. All written in HP BASIC. I did enjoy that job...

Anyway, hope that helps narrow it down a little

Fantastic video - you can really graphically see why the sidevalve is no longer popular - look how the flame has to move around to get out of the cylinder...

That head looked like regular perspex, I'm surprised it stood up to the full throttle treatment...

Quote from: glort on June 09, 2017, 12:52:03 AM

Korean cars are looked at the same way. Nope, they were crap when they came out and they could not have possibly learnt anything in all these years and improved them, they are still crap....despite the fact they offer the longest warranties and owners that have had them 10 years say they haven't had an ounce of trouble and would buy another one without thinking twice.

I buy only old British cars (Jaguar mainly), but that's because I'm a bloody-minded idiot who loves being stranded at the side of random roads 

(In fairness, my 2001 Jag XJR has been almost entirely reliable, and has never actually got me stuck anywhere, although a couple of times I've wondered if it'd make it.... When it does work, which is most of the time, it goes like stink, I love it).

LOL!

There's a similar - if anything even more surprising! - one on YouTube I found the other day...



Fingers crossed, by the end of next week I'll have my very own 12hp Changfoid!

Hey Bob, a question for you...

I'm on the verge of actually being able to buy a '195 Changfa clone (Changfoid?) and have it imported in the UK. Fricking nightmare, what with the EU and its socialist rules... but anyway, that's a whole nother rant....

Engine is rated 12hp continuous. It's hopper cooled.

I plan to hoik the hopper off, and plumb it into a pressurised radiator system. I'll give it its own t-stat. Thing is, the system it'll be attached to is the cooling system for my bus - think 466cu/in diesel engine - so quite a large system. Depending on whether we just drove somewhere or not, the bus coolant might be hot, it might not be.

So, here's what's probably going to happen. I'll fire up the genny. The t'stat will open when the water in the engine gets hot, which will then pump out & be replaced by, potentially, cold water. Presumably the t-stat will now close & the whole cycle will repeat... I can't imagine this will be healthy for the engine; should I consider some other way of plumbing it?

Quote from: mike90045 on April 18, 2017, 10:28:51 PM
Aside from keeping the engine in proper operating order, how do you perform smoke abatement ?  a 5Kw scrubber unit ?

Jam a sponge up the tailpipe...? Replace hourly if it's REALLY smoky?

I don't have a dog in this fight, being as I'm on the wrong side of the Atlantic (and/or the Pacific... nearer that ocean at the moment), but Casey I have to pull you up one part of your post:

Quote from: LowGear on April 17, 2017, 12:27:56 PM
...You see, this exclusive group has lots of their marbles tied up in fossil fuels and they don't want to loose their marbles...

Surely, in that case, the use and abuse of small diesel engines of ANY description would be welcomed, indeed, encouraged by said people? After all, most will run them on diesel, not WVO or WMO, and they all need "fossil" oil etc.

Just my 0.02 CNY.

Hi Bob,

At the moment, I'm just trying to get info out of the Chinese companies. Difficult! Even now it's obvious they're struggling with English... unfortunately, my wife's English isn't good enough yet for her to be a translator... working on that...

Thanks for the info. Yes, I'll be able to run without the fuel or coolant tanks - the planned application is a genset that lives under a motorhome, so it will be plumbed into the vehicle's cooling system. The vehicle already has an auxiliary fuel tank, so that will be hooked directly onto the fuel filter on the engine. I'll be keeping the electric start as the location will make it awkward to hand-crank. Plus, I want it semi-automatic; i.e. starts/stops on a single switch.

The engines I'm looking at are 12hp units, although the only one with a sensible part number (RBT195) suggests it's the equivalent of your Changfa... and that company are being a bit slow to speak to me. There's another company (the magnificently named Zhengzhou Shuily Machinery Company Ltd - and boy do they make a wide range of stuff! Link to their engine) who are much more interested in talking, but trying to get actual specs and quotes etc. out of them is also proving.... slow...

At some point I'm going to go see these guys, either that or I'll have a wander around looking for a supplier who's not on Alibaba. Of course, the tricky thing then is exporting the engine... at north of 100kg, no way will I get away with hiding it in my suitcase...!

Interesting... I've found a local (to the city I'm living in, in China) supplier of engines, their 12hp claims to be 95kg. I've yet to ascertain whether that's dry weight with or without ancilleries.

I'm planning to try to build a compact and fairly lightweight 6-8kW generator (240vac single phase @ 50Hz), to replace the Ford-powered (also home-built) unit I've got now. Keeping the weight down is the first task, keeping the noise down is the 2nd task...  As long as I'm in China, planning and scheming is as far as I will get... but hopefully while I'm here I'll be able to negotiate a sensible priced engine delivered to the UK... even if I have to buy 10 of them...

My next problem is finding a decent spec alternator that isn't huge... Clarke do an excellent unit (see here: https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/6kva-3000rpm-alternator-1-phase/) which is about 1/3rd the size of an equivalent power ST head, and much lighter (I can easily carry the 6.5kva 3-phase version of that Clarke alternator around the workshop, whereas I can barely pick up my ST-5 head, and certainly couldn't carry it more than a few inches before my back gives up)

OK, I'm currently in the land of the Changfa... but other than seeing lots of them in use, I've no actual specs on any...

Approx how much does a 12hp Changfa (or clone) weigh?

Under my race car transporter coach, I've currently got an old 4-cyl Ford 1.8 diesel engine attached to a 6kva alternator. I'm wondering if a Changfa-style engine would be significantly lighter than the old Ford lump. Probably easier to start too...

The engine in the video is running some kind of electrical generator (there's a light above the stall lit from it), but it's main job is making that long orange stick thing the man is breaking up. It's coming out of what looks like a fertilizer hopper attached to the back of the engine. I have absolutely no idea how it worked, but the long stick-like snack was something corn based, and actually quite tasty! There were a couple of other gizmos attached to the back of the engine, which presumably could be belted on/off at will. Again, no idea what they were for. Sadly, it was too dark to take any decent pictures.