Lister Engine Curves ?

[quinnf]

You think?

Right.  Jeff Maier's stuff came from Utterpower.  It might have been Peter who originally posted the data sheets on the forum years ago.  I probably squirreled them away then.  Then a few years later someone didn't credit the source and he took everything down from his website.  In retrospect perhaps I should have just referred Daryl to Peter on the Smokstak forum.  He always provides the information requested, but you DO have to ask.

Quinn

[quinnf]

Daryl,

You asked about a manual.  On John Ferguson's site he has a nice scan of an original manual that you might want to print out and study.  http://www.woodnstuff.ca/images/pdf_files/dursley.pdf

Quinn

[mike90045]

Daryl,

You asked about a manual.  On John Ferguson's site he has a nice scan of an original manual that you might want to print out and study.  http://www.woodnstuff.ca/images/pdf_files/dursley.pdf

Quinn

That's mostly what India sent out with my engine. Several photos were lifted directly!

[mobile_bob]

RAB:

you have made some good points, perhaps i can address a few?

it is my belief that without some serious testing how would one know if what he has done has been a reasonable investment
in time and/or money?

certainly there is much to be said about a hobby engine, but when it comes to spending 5 grand on a genset if it is for practical use
and not just as a hobby, i would think one would want to know how it stacks up against a commercial genset.

also if you build enough quality into the unit, it ought to be very consistent in gr/kw/hr no matter where it is installed, factoring in
for changes in altitude mainly and to a lessor extent various other factors.  not sure about the consistency of the listeroids, but i bet the
genuine listers all run within a percentage point of one another at the same load levels, if elevation is near the same.

if we do some serious testing and arrive at some accepted standards, one could then have a base line or goal to focus on, for instance
if it is determined that a typical 6/1 does burn .125 gallon per kwatt/hr driving an st head at near sea level, then a guy across the planet
ought to be able to get very close to the same consumption numbers with the same equipment. if not he might explore the possible reasons
for any discrepancy? things like an overly restrictive exhaust, injection timeing, etc, etc.

other benefits might be the development of an efficiency curve for the unit, one might find that there is a section of the curve where max
efficiency occurs, and outside this region he might find the efficiency is horrid.

there is much to be gained from testing in my opinion,

things like establishing a baseline enables one to change out a single component and verify if such a change is something that resulted in
a gain? breakeven? or a terrible loss?  one might decide that a certain amount of loss is unacceptable with the change of a single component
like a generator, or a drive system, intake or exhaust system.

testing to some folks will be seen as a huge waste of time, to those that see it as such it will likely appear to be very problematic to get accurate
results. testing to those that see value in it, those issues that are problematic will be viewed as an opportunity to improve methods and procedures to get the accuracy needed.

to me testing is where the rubber meets the road,  i tire quickly of anecdotal claims of "hey, i mixed this fuel with this or that and got a 20% increase in power, or reduction in consumption" or "mine is better than yours because i can get X kwatt/hrs out of a gallon of fuel" blah blah blah

to me accurate testing allows one to compare apples to apples with those published test results from the commercially available units, so one can see how his unit stacks up against the offerings from the big boys.

i don't know if that makes sense to everyone or not? probably not!

its one of those things where, if you don't understand the need, there is nothing i can do to convince you of that need.

some folks are happy with going to the dealer and buying a chevy, take it home, park it in the garage and drive it to work everyday
and as long as it gets them from point a to point b and back that is good enough, to others they have to work to improve on the product
and are never happy until they have maximized some aspect to their expectation, then there is a whole lot of folks in the middle
that might do a bit here and there.

probably no  different with gensets?

that leaves us with KISS, some folks are "purest's" and look at any so called improvement with a jaded eye,   although most everyone now
look at the startomatic as the epitome of the lister powered genset, i bet there was a time when they too were looked at as "what the hell does anyone need with that?"  "that sure ain't in keeping with KISS"

to me KISS is extremely overrated
people run like hell from water pumps, when modern water pumps are likely many times more reliable today than any listeroid ever thought of being. some folks spend vastly more time working out the kinks of a thermal cooling system than they ever would had they just went with a pump system. that is just one example

never understood the fear of technology in some area's when we  all live with it in our everyday life, and in most places the quality of the technology is so poor, yet it has proven to be very reliable.

rambling here, guess it is time to go back to my corner and shutup



bob g

[oliver90owner]

Bob,

KISS in that context was meaning tests that are relatively simple and straightforward that all can do to compare results, not needing complex technology just to get a single piece of data.

Reference to 20% more power or less consumption is easily verifiable by comparison without accuracy.  Ratios are numerical - do not have units so are simple as long as one error is divded by the same error (OK! -  as long as the error was not a summative one!).  I for one would be checking those sort of claims.  I have seen where so many fuel additives, or contraptions, which claim improvements are never demonstrated on a fixed output machine (generator under a constant load) but by some subjective van driver or similar.  A pinch of salt comes to mind.

Simple accuracy needs to be strived for so that results can be easily verified, or repeated elswhere by other operators.  Results which are the same but to several extra decimal places are fairly irrelevant in my book.

Have a happy aqnd productive new year.

Regards, RAB

[mobile_bob]

RAB

thanks for the clarification, should have know that your position was consistent with what i am trying to relate.

i agree, getting a measurement with adequate accuracy is likely more than good enough, sure don't want to spend
more than the test subject is worth to do "one off" testing or low volume testing, and  most especially to get a single
piece of data that fits together with perhaps a dozen others.

sure it would be nice to be independently wealthy or have some research lab with millions of dollars of test equipment
at one's disposal, but sadly that doesn't appear to be in my immediate future, so i guess i will be forced to face a more
modest reality.

sometimes a simple glass thermometer is good enough for the information needed, we ain't building a piano as they say.



thanks for the input

bob g