Another portable battery charger

[jasoncarter]

@ Henry
Construction is simple.  It is made of two flat cnc cut plates spaced apart with two rectangular plates.  The two rectangular plates have about 2" of the end bent at 45°.  Stack it up and weld it all together.  See the picture of it not mounted.  The one in the picture only has 4 mounting hole but I made some with 8 holes so you could rotate the mount in 45° increments.  The bolt pattern is one that is on most 3 to 8HP engines.

@ Lloyd
I don't use the Zena a great deal since most of the welding I do is in my shop and I have other welders to perform that task.  But I have used it enough have some opinions. Welding performance is surprisingly good.  Most people have to try it to believe it because it doesn't seem like there is enough to it to actually work.  It's performance is as good or better than any big name air cooled gas powered welder I've used.  One weird thing about it is the weld puddle seems to whistle.  Probably due to the 18kHz pwm power control.  The welding power generator is nicely made inside of a delco 12si alternator case.  The obvious modifications are isolated ground, large power lugs and instead of a regulator, the wires to the brushes come to where the plug normally goes.  12 volts across the two blade connectors = full power output.  The amperage control is in your hand.  While it is handy it is also subject to all the beating and abuse the welding electrode holder takes.  I've managed to break the knob off of mine.  It's not happened yet but I wonder what will happen when the control wires get shorted.  You only work around metal for so long be fore something falls on the lead or it gets melted.  I wonder what will happen to the control box when that happens.  If the control box ever breaks I'll probably just replace it with a 12v PWM dc motor controller.

@ Cornelius
This mount design won't work with the alternator you have.  The mounting holes have to be a 180° apart.

[Henry W]

It is a very nice and simple setup.

Is that a kit you came up with to sell?

Henry

[jasoncarter]

That was the initial thought.  That's why I made the fancy pictures of it.  I actually sold a few locally but I wound up with more cnc work than I could do so I never put much effort into selling them.

[Cornelius]

I'm waking up this old thread, since i want to update the story of my portable generator...

I've been serious lax in maintaining my 12V, 1060Ah bank of 4x 6V Rolls S-530 batteries the last year; just a peek into the cells to confirm the acid still covers the plates. (It's all Rolls' fault... There's way too large acid reservoir in those batteries; closer to one litre/cell... )

The day to day charge are managed by 800W of solar and a Tristar TS-60 controller; the Tristar seems to do a decent job - bringing the bank up to 14.4V (+/- temp compensation), then keeping it there until the amp-draw are around 1A. (then it goes into float at 13.6V) It also tries to do an equalize every 30 days at 15.3V for 3 hours. I also have a no-name 40A charger that brings the bank up to 14.3V; used in emergencies (more than 4 days without sun).

I could ramble on how i got these batteries for almost free - new, since they're all 'transport damaged' (they leak acid when moved around, since the lids have cracked open some places), but - it's enough to say that two of the batteries has always been a bit 'off'. One, have always had way too high SG; 1.35 fully charged at the worst, and the other one have unbalanced cells. (typical 1.28, 1.23, 1.26), but they've served well so far.

A couple of days ago, i got around to give these batteries some tlc, and disconnected all of them and put them on a standard charge with my 40A charger. (The 'stand-in' battery for my system is a 12V, 55Ah LiFePO⁴ - lovely battery! I want a Big LiFePO⁴ bank! )
After all 4 batteries was fully charged, i dragged the initially mentioned (first post) portable charger out of it's hiding place, to give the batteries a good whopping equalize.
I hooked up the first 2 batteries, and dialled the rheostat up until the voltage was at 16.5V; 30A, and kept it there for 2 hours. (according to Rolls, these batteries really enjoys this!) But... The Noise! And then i ran out of gas... 

Not really enjoying that racket the B&S engine makes for hours, i unscrewed the 4 bolts keeping the engine in place, and put a 3phase, 1.5kW motor in its place...

Oh, joy! The silence!

Since my main usage of this (previous) portable generator has been equalizing, i think the latest incarnation are best suited for me. And since we have a robust grid here in Norway, (and it's close to 100% hydroelectric) it's way cheaper and easier on the ear this way... Besides; it's only 4 bolts - and the B&S are once more in place, if the need arises...

[rcavictim]

You think BS stands for Briggs Stratton?  Let's just say when they in recent times stopped making a long lived, quality engine out of cast iron or at least steel cylinder liners in favor of a short lived disposable P.O.S., they did not have to change the company initials.

[glort]

Damned If I know when BS EVER made a quality, long lived engine!
I remember years ago when they were all aluminium bores and bearings and then they brought in the IC series with the steel liners.
I had a mowing run for a while and went through several of these real quick till I woke up and went to a decent shop that put me onto Honda and I never replaced another engine again.

IMHO, briggs have always made cheap, inefficient, weak crap. And here, the prices of replacement parts was always ridiculous. I could go buy a set of pistons and rings for a 6 Cylinder vehicle engine cheaper than what I could buy a piston and rings for a 5 HP briggs. IT was only the largest engines people ever rebuilt and even that wasn't very often.

I think the ultimate tell of BS quality, or lack thereof, is that they bought out our homegrown Lawnmower Brand. As the ultimate admission of their inferior engines, They actually fit HONDA engines to their own product! Thats the same as Ford or GM fitting the other companies engine into their own product Or cat Fitting JCB or GM engines into their products!

Our homegrown Victa mowers used to have a really tough, reliable and easily repairable engine that lasted forever and was easy and cheap to rebuild in an hour. Now they have a briggs like cheap POS half crankshaft design that lasts no time, doesn't stand up to any type of heavy use at all, Is expensive to repair and of course requires special tools to limit anyone but repair shops charging an arm and a leg to do them.  When they brought that engine out was the day I stopped ever buying anything new from that brand again. The old engines are still going strong. the frames and catchers are getting harder to find that aren't worn out but the engines are awesome.

Here Honda, Kawasaki and  Robin/Subaru are the engine of choice for any commercial equipment and the Cheap chinese stuff is kicking briggs butt in the consumer stuff. Having played with a couple of the China petrol engines, I'd rather have them than briggs anyday.
Briggs is pretty much limited to domestic products bought by people who take their mower to the shop to have the blades changed or think changing the oil in their car is a job only an expert mechanic can do.