Hopper adapter plates - Thermosiphon

[vdubnut62]

Neither does my 1100. Thanks for the reply.
Ron

[ryanw95]

OK, just read George B.'s writing about using thermostats (http://www.utterpower.com/thermostats-in-thermo-siphon-systems/), and makes sense to me.

What about instead of just having the adapter plate w/o thermostat, you have a manual ball valve (at the top of one of the barbs, or close by) and once the motor gets up to normal-ish temp, you open the valve, and the thermosiphoning effect kicks in. Or maybe having one valve on each barb? Sure, it's a manual effort, but who's not guilty of watching their "little" diesel for far too long after it starts up. 

[mobile_bob]

for me it just seemed too easy to just go to the local "pic a part" and remove a tstat extension housing
from a little 4 banger,  the one i got was from a honda.
it uses and oring seal at the housing to plate interface, this eliminates the need for a gskt
it has a bypass which allows for circulation and warmup, it has a rubber perimeter seal on the t/stat
which eliminates the need for a gskt there...  how much easier does it get?

for about 5 bucks and a little labor one can be had, another 5 or 6 bucks and you got a new t/stat
a couple bucks for an oring, and an 1/8" drillbit and 3/32" short cotter pin and you have the bleed hole.

and best of all the darn thing fits the same bolt pattern as the plate tstat housing pattern from utterpower.

no valves needed,

now for the thermosiphon deal

most folks start out with thermosiphon, until they realize that "hey there is some heat going to waste here, why don't i harvest it?"

so you harvest the heat, but then you have to move the heat to a point of use that is generally at least some distance from the engine, so...  you then go find a circulation pump? a taco pump maybe?

might as well plan for a pump to start with, it would seem to me that would be prudent

so design the system to use a pump, and push the cooler water back into the cylinder drain port, that make for an excellent path for
the coolant water to be heated, rise up through the cylinder, heat the t/stat, and when it opens off it goes to the heat exchanger or radiator or whatever you like,, then returned to the pump and the whole process starts over again.

there are then those that cry, "well bob, that is not in keeping with KISS", "what if the pump fails", "what if the pump drive belt breaks" or "what if the motor burns out on the pump"

what do you do when you leave your house on a trip to go see grandma for xmas?  what if a belt breaks? or a pump fails on the car?

thankfully we don't generally have to worry much about that do we?  proper engineering, and good maintenance has made pump/belt or whatever failure on our cars a very rare event.

so why would it be a more frequent event on our changfa driven cogen's?  are we not capable of proper design? do we not have parts available to use that are at least as good of quality as the stuff that our cars are made of?

KISS had its place, KISS had its day in the sun, and thankfully that day is behind us now.

thank god we don't use thermosiphon cooling on our cars these days, and thank god we progressed from leather flatbelt and rope drives to V and serpentine belts.

i vote we get out the shovels and get together to bury KISS and move into at least the last half of the 20th century at the very least.

end of rant 

btw, it is my belief that most will find that the changfa's will run much cleaner and with higher efficiency with a closed system, using a tstat and pump where the coolant can operate in the 205-215 degree F range.  also most will find that heat exchangers work better with a larger temperature differential afforded by higher coolant temps as well.

bob g

[XYZER]

Thermostats and thermo siphon..... I have learned after trial and error that the bleed hole used to purge the air in the system needs to be larger. On my Listeroids I found with one small hole it will cycle (open and close) many time before it reaches operating temperature. I would rather see a gradual steady rise to operating temperature. The correct amount of bypass through the bleed holes will allow enough coolant to circulate without opening the thermostat and it will rise in temperature at a steady rate. It will open if it needs to protect the engine. ..........

[veggie]

XYZER,

Yes I found the same thing.
I drilled an additional 2 holes (IIRC 1/8" diameter) in the face of the thermostat to facilitate minimal flow (air air entrapment)

veggie

[playdiesel]

there are then those that cry, "well bob, that is not in keeping with KISS", "what if the pump fails", "what if the pump drive belt breaks" or "what if the motor burns out on the pump"

what do you do when you leave your house on a trip to go see grandma for xmas?  what if a belt breaks? or a pump fails on the car?

thankfully we don't generally have to worry much about that do we?  proper engineering, and good maintenance has made pump/belt or whatever failure on our cars a very rare event.

btw, it is my belief that most will find that the changfa's will run much cleaner and with higher efficiency with a closed system, using a tstat and pump where the coolant can operate in the 205-215 degree F range.  also most will find that heat exchangers work better with a larger temperature differential afforded by higher coolant temps as well.

bob g

I agree for the most part. But  I disagree with the KISS principle to begin with. Age has taught me that stupid cant be fixed, simple only prolongs the pain for the stupid. As an example,  if you run a belt look at it when you start up, I dont mean glance at it, LOOK at it. 99 times out of 100 belts dont just suddenly go boom, they frey, check squeak, they get dry checking,  they start neededing fequent adjustments. They give a person 100s of warnings that they need replaced the great magjority of the time. Same holds true for the entire system. Lookit over, carry spares, install them BEFORE failure lleads to more fail parts. Those who choose to act like there can be nothing wrong if the things starts up and the amp/volt gauges read something are better off with a simple set up without a doubt. But I wonder if they should be fooling around with such contraptions to begin with? maybe they ought to think about a condo in town?

Thanks for giving me an excuse to rant myself. I was kind of feeling like I had wronged by putting a radiator, and thermostaticaly controlled fan on my 1115 15KW set up. Too simple to do all it can do is too simple in my opionionated (slightly)  opinion

But then again, I have never lived off-grid

[Tom Reed]

I found my t'stat works better with a larger hole too. My current plan is to get a new 195 and put 3 - 1/8" holes in it. I can really see the thermo cycling now that the water is feed into the chp system.