Changfa questions

[Cliff heatpower]

Hi Peaple!

first post in any group, i'm in Canada and want to build a gen with co-heat recovery.
been doing some research but still a newbee in this arena. looks like a (used?) changfa would
work , size unknown at this point.

what are the smallest size (195?) that have counter balance shafts?
and do the smaller ones realy need counterbalance?

are some sleave engines or are they just bored cast iron?
chrome steel liners?

it seems at least with the 195 that there
are several bearing types ie doube ball bearing , do they all have ball bearings in them though?
and are any of them roller bearings?

direct injection or indirect injection better? ( i know fuel efficency seems beter for direct but
i'm wondering how much more noise direct would have).

low speed running better on direct or indirect injection?

i also noticed that theres a kobota ea300 out there but the local quoted price from the kobota dealer was 3300 canadian. a bit high for me!!!!
http://www.kubota.ca/index.cfm?app=products&a=list&productID=182&product_catID=4&CFID=1689032&CFTOKEN=51368039

i could not find any yanmar horizontal one cylinders that are available  is there a epa tieir 4 yanmar? (ya i know epa even reaches out here in canada at the moment engines have to be tier2 , which will change to tier 4 soon, there giving me an aneuryzm soon )

thought of listeroid but just to big and quality seems poor as well as they sound like they nead 2 ton bases so your house does not fall down from the shaking.

thanks,
Cliff, edmonton, Alberta

[mobile_bob]

as far as i know, the changfa 195 is the smallest with counterbalance shafts

i have some smaller changfa's, and of those the r175 does not have counterbalance shafts, and doesn't seem to need them
the little bugger runs surprisingly smooth.

as far as i know all the water cooled engine's are wet sleeve, none are chrome plated though

there 195 comes either as a standard sleeve type main engine or as a roller engine which uses a ball brg on the flywheel side

i don't really know that there is an advantage to having the roller engine, in that most are setup as direct drive and aren't carrying
heavy side loads even if belt driving an st head.

direct is supposed to give better fuel economy, however the indirect is reported to be more tolerant of alternate fuels

either way if you are going for heat recovery it all works out to par anyway.

noise?  i don't know how much difference DI is from IDI as it relates to combustion noise, either is noisy from load intake bark
gear train noise, predominately.

running slowspeed?  i don't know, more research is needed to say for sure, and likely will depend on various other factors.

kubota and yanmars are expensive and too much so in my opinion to make them viable for cogen purposes.

listeroids have their issues, but most have been addressed by folks either here or on other forums, none but the worst examples need 2 tons of
concrete, most will do quite well with half that, and some will do quite well without being rigidly mounted to anything.

fwiw

bob g

ps. welcome aboard!

[Cliff heatpower]

Thanks Bob!

I'm not sure how big of a engine I want at this moment.
Looking at you tube there's some German setups using small chanfa style engines

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chbsh_oKN2o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btFQhAktUi0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Simef6shyHI

And the larger ones,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVHHOBH8GQ4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U088rFE0I1o

That last one was putting out a lot of heat, hope that was just s test set up
With all that water and wiring .

The nicest demo of m-chp I've seen so far,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpl3cB6C1As

I've looked at the Baxi systems as well online, they have small engines in them as well.
What there doing to get what 40-50000 hours life is beyond me


Being a perfectionist for some stupid reason I also am looking for something
That will last "forever or at least a long long time". the speed of the engine must relate up to a point on engine wear.
1800 rpm sounds ok, but how many thousand hours say compared to 900 rpm.
I would assume ¼ life span at 1800 (square root).
That being said those 175 and larger 185's (or little 165? maybe) look robust and heavy duty.

Been doing some research and tried to contact environment Canada to see (and plead) if these engines
Are importable as stationary engines. Received a nice letter of cepa and off road regs but no answer
As to stationary. I noticed that veggie said that we can still get these as stationary here in Canada and
Sent him a email to see what I would need to do to hopefully get some engines from china, From enquiring with those Chinese manufactures there 1/10
The cost of the koboyanma 3300 bucks of overpriced cast iron. . I don't have a clue about Shipping costs though .

Cliff,

[mobile_bob]

Cliff:

the following is my opinion only, mixed with what my understanding of the US EPA's position on cogeneration

it is very important to size appropriately in order to get full credit with the EPA, just because we can build a unit
and recover the heat efficiently, does not make the unit fully credible in their view.

they rate the unit based on the following factors, how many units of electricity does it produce per unit of fuel burned, plus
how many units of heat can the unit recover "and" put to effective use.  the latter is the devil in the details

its one thing to build a highly efficient unit that recovers maximum amount of both heat and power per unit of fuel consumed, but
unless you have use for what is harvested you will not be allowed to claim what is not put to use, you have to discount the overall efficiency
of the unit for each unit of heat shed via a dump load such as a radiator.

a larger unit would be useful in the winter months up in your area, because you will likely be able to use every harvested btu of heat, but
in the summer months the unit will likely be very oversized for the application because you will be dumping the excess heat.

in my opinion, if you are using these systems as a primary source of heat and power, (not as a supplement to solar, wind or hydro) you will likely
need to operate at least 2 different sizes of units, one that is larger for the colder months, one that is dramatically smaller for summer months.

in the summer months you still have use for domestic hot water, so a small unit can be sized appropriately to provide for domestic hot water and the electrical power needs of a home,,, if you do your homework, which it appears you are willing to do.

all this would change if and when someone develops an absorption chiller to take the excess heat production in the summer months to provide for
space cooling and refrigeration.

each installation is unique and there are many things to consider and engineer for in order to get a system that is as efficient as possible and provides maximum credit with the EPA, (i know you are in canada, but maybe they will also have a partnership program at some point as well)

perhaps starting with a smaller unit like a r175 would be something that would allow you some experience, and have something that is useful
for you a good part of the year anyway. Then later once you get a better feel of what it is you need, you can step up to either a 195 or larger
or for that matter another type of engine altogether.

bob g

[Cliff heatpower]

>it is very important to size appropriately in order to get full credit with the EPA, just >because we can build a unit
>and recover the heat efficiently, does not make the unit fully credible in their view


You probably know more on the EPA side of things. I didn't think that they were even  considering
A whole m-chp unit and just cared about "tier 4" engine side. Do you think that they might ease up on
Tier 4 regs for co-gen systems?  I have a feeling that they wouldn't care.

>a larger unit would be useful in the winter months up in your area, because you will >likely be able to use every harvested btu of heat, but
>in the summer months the unit will likely be very oversized for the application because >you will be dumping the excess heat.

Sounds like you've read a few studies from Europe as well.
The interesting thing is that these m-chp units are ALL heat first /boiler replacements / power is a bonus as
Opposed to gen first heat is a bonus. I assume that your like me and see the power as the first use,
Heat is the "extra part". and your right , the studies show that m-chp in its current form is almost
Useless in the summer. Bromide chillers (gas refrigeration) might increase the summer use but,,
(there's always a but) in England I don't think A/C  and many places  is used more than a few days a year.
So, how to "soup up" the power side?  Tri-generation? And what type ,and how reliable and of course the cost.

From what I could gather m-chp
Is still in a sort of study phase even though there are thousands of units in the UK alone.PV still leads.
http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/08-09/Sustainable_Glasgow/analysis_energy.html

The baxi dache system over there (as well as free watt and others) is a proven design it seems
But again a heat producer first. (ase with stirling engine designs)
( the HR version on this next link is diesel) but I can't figure out the rpm and the bore/stroke yet.

do you know anything about there intake/exhaust silencer? Seems to be perfect.
http://www.baxi-senertec.co.uk/documents/4798_232_102_Assembly_and_Commissioning_dachs.pdf

Can power efficiency be increased? Just look up "6 stroke diesel" there are problems there I think though
As well. 

I still have many idea's  and ways to explore in co-heat/power. Silencers, heat exchangers, generators,
Regeneration, ect
I still don't have "the system" designed that I want to build yet (would be a progression).  But then again I don't have
An engine to do so with either! Anyone "throwing away" a 175 (or 165,185, 195,1005,1110,1115, 1125, ect ) in Edmonton here?

Cliff,

[mobile_bob]

personally i have been a proponent of viewing the prime mover as a "thermal conversion" unit for some time now

it just seems reasonable to look at an engine more as a furnace than a producer of mechanical work, in that 2/3 of the fuel consumed
is converted to heat.

bob g

[Cliff heatpower]

are you familar with the baxi dachs? what do you think of that unit?
probably closer to 75% heat. so what do you do with the heat?
is 75/25 what your looking for?
or to convert back to power some of that 75% or just use/ store the heat?
i'd like to see that heat converted to power for very minimal fuel use , use whatever heat is left after that two pass regen. not an easy task in the least.
has to be simple and cost effective too,

organic rankin cycle with regeneration (as a second stage after engine) sounds good but its a really really complicated system.
there are large units that can do that but small? then theres stirling,
thermopile and reverse peltier cooler among other things (again second stage after engine).
i'd like to see the power end go up  
might not be very possible at this small scale, seems the guys in the UK like the heat first way. which would be fine through the winter at least, or summer hot water. hard to know. studies showed it seems that the best thing to do is mostly shut them down in the warmer weather.

Cliff,

[JohnF]

Cliff:

I have been importing Indian and Chinese engines into Canada for several years now and so far, there are NO regs regarding emissions standards.  These may be coming soon (I received a notice from the all-important Department of Yada-Yada a while ago saying they were looking into it) but as of right now nothing is in force.  Of course, as a person inquiring at the aforementioned department you will get some greenie-inspired letter back telling you what they are wishing for..Talking to them just makes for time NOT well wasted.

Yes, you can likely import an engine directly but you have to do your homework.  If I get a bad engine in the mix it is not that bad - I can strip it and sell the parts.  For someone who is depending on his engine, that's likely not an option.

[Cliff heatpower]

Hi John!

Thanks for that info!!  Those yo-yo's in the gov  wouldn't answer that question even when I directly asked them several times in emails. Though they did mention that something going to be "under review" at the end of this year . From a correspondence with the NCR

>Environment Canada is working toward amending these Regulations to maintain >alignment with the more stringent Tier 4 EPA emission standards. It is expected that the >amendments will be published in Canada Gazette I for public scrutiny and comments >this summer. Following the comment period, the amendments will be updated (if >required) and it is expected that the amendments will come into force in the winter of >2010/2011


>Yes, you can likely import an engine directly but you have to do your homework

I guess the way to do it that way is to get in touch with a broker or someone like that?
(I've never imported anything before)

I'm still not sure what engine I want in the chanfa (or clone) line,
A 175 seems to be 100 kg and a 165 about 60 kg, I would think I would not want to go to small
In that bearings size and durability would be lower with small small units.
I want a durable unit , one that has or can incorporate 4 litres (gallon) of lube oil
Similar to the baxi unit. which btw is a magnificent looking engine with very wide cam lobes and coated pistons. Have you seen the Baxi engine?  Still don't know bore/stroke, rpm but a fair size lump of
Cast iron.

Cliff,