thinking of exploring another option

[billswan]

Bob

You sure can get a guy to thinking. You see I have an LP line about 6 feet away from my 10/1. Right now I am running the roid so that line is not costing me anything out of my pocket, as the propane furnace in my large shop is OFF. But if the use of some LP would conserve WMO and clean the carbon it sure might be worth the few 100 gallons of propane to get more out of both fuels.

I did test out some dual fueling a few days ago when I hooked up the lp furnace and tested it as a backup to the roid.

I will say it seemed a little LP went a long way Into reducing the fuel rack's position.

I have also thought of using a little anhydrous ammonia to do the same thing, if a guy could only bottle up the exhaust and save it for fertilizer.

Billswan

[mobile_bob]

there was a coop group in canada, that got a grant to use the exhaust off their tractors while planting, the exhaust
was cooled to below 120F iirc and injected underground with the seed drill, the fertilizer offset was very significant.

i don't recall the specific's but the reduction was on the order or  75% less ammonia fertilizer to get the same yields from the crop
planted.

that is another thing i plan on testing, that it pushing the exhaust under a grow bed in the green house to see what the possible benefits might be.

bob g

[SHIPCHIEF]

Having an oversized Cogen system in the summer just means you have to shut it off when you don't need it.
I lived on a boat years ago, it had a 12Kw gen powered by a White Hercules. I ran it in the morning after breakfast, and in the evening after dinner. Longer if I was doing laundery, shorter if I only needed to do the dishes and take a shower. 12 VDC provided lights and radio.
I would start the gen if I needed power tools or to use the welder etc, otherwise, it was off.
You could run your home/shop the same way.
My friend in Granite Falls has a 4 cylinder propane generator and an Outback power systems MPPT 48 Volt battery inverter system with solar panels. The power company wanted about $200,000 to run power down his road!
He frequently goes thru the summer without running the generator at all.
You can do it easily enough, as long as you don't expect to have AC power all the time, or if most of your light duty AC loads can be handled by a battery inverter system.
I'm planning the same thing at my 'other' place.

[billswan]

there was a coop group in canada, that got a grant to use the exhaust off their tractors while planting, the exhaust
was cooled to below 120F iirc and injected underground with the seed drill, the fertilizer offset was very significant.

i don't recall the specific's but the reduction was on the order or  75% less ammonia fertilizer to get the same yields from the crop
planted.

that is another thing i plan on testing, that it pushing the exhaust under a grow bed in the green house to see what the possible benefits might be.

bob g

Got ya, I have read the same stuff but there is this problem it is time and money. To bad there is just not enough of those to go around.

Billswan

[sailawayrb]

To those who frequent George's site, here's the thread on propane I was recalling that was active about the time I built my 6/1 propane system:

http://slowspeedengines.com/forum/showthread.php?t=436

A couple folks reported 500 to 700 watt power gain running propane.  I couldn't find the Quinn's combustion explanation that I strongly recall reading/considering.  It could be on another thread or it could be my recollection is not as good as I believe.  It would definitely be best to do a good independent experiment and record the total quantities of fuel used (perhaps by recording weight change of tanks after running for an hour) and measuring power load accurately.  Frankly, I don't think I trust my transfer switch watt meters to this degree and I certainly didn't calibrate the electrical load of my Costco 1500 watt garage heaters either.

Bob B.

[Lloyd]

Ok,

Now I just had an epiphany...What about SmartPlugs in a Duo-fuel. I did some research on these a few years ago, when I was working on a diesel fired Wankel, using water for flame propagation and seal cooling.and basically steam cleaning the combustion cylinder on each power stroke.

I just checked the website http://www.smartplugs.com/fuels/index.html  it seems a logic controller to control the Propane/NG wouldn't be that hard to resolve.

Have a look

Lloyd

[mobile_bob]

BobB:

while you didn't calibrate your heaters, and question the validity of the power meters, it seems unlikely that both could be off
that much.

it would seem that there is enough evidence in your preliminary test to warrant further testing for sure.

bob g

[oiler]

Lloyd...
How is it possible to assure correct toming withe those plugs. Basically it is only a modified tube ignition.

Or.....am i missing something

[mobile_bob]

here is a little more light reading

it has some explanation as to what is happening with gaseous dual fuel operation
with plausible explanations of how pressure vs crank angle might explain what is being witnessed
here.

http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/2259/1/pgs_clarke.pdf

bob g

[vdubnut62]

To those who frequent George's site, here's the thread on propane I was recalling that was active about the time I built my 6/1 propane system:

http://slowspeedengines.com/forum/showthread.php?t=436

A couple folks reported 500 to 700 watt power gain running propane.  I couldn't find the Quinn's combustion explanation that I strongly recall reading/considering.  It could be on another thread or it could be my recollection is not as good as I believe.  It would definitely be best to do a good independent experiment and record the total quantities of fuel used (perhaps by recording weight change of tanks after running for an hour) and measuring power load accurately.  Frankly, I don't think I trust my transfer switch watt meters to this degree and I certainly didn't calibrate the electrical load of my Costco 1500 watt garage heaters either.

Bob B.

Well, I can't read the post, AND registration is disabled! Reckon George would be torqued if the post was reposted here with
credit where credit was due?
Ron

[mike90045]

I'll vote for a repost, I too was blocked from viewing

[sailawayrb]

I'll vote for a repost, I too was blocked from viewing

The referenced post is several pages long.  Reposting might be something that the Admin of this site could do after coordinating with the Admin of the other site.  While the referenced post contains some worthwhile info, I think the reading material Bob G provided in this thread may be more worthwhile.

Bob B.

[TimSR2]

Just a thought regarding governors. We "generator heads" love the diesel's centrifugal governor arrangement  but such a governor is sorely lacking from any easily available gas engine that I know of.

Since about 1990 or so when cars all became fuel injected the OBD system has controlled idle speed. Notice on a standard transmission EFI car how if you feather the clutch the idle automatically maintains the RPM?  This did away with all the carb solenoids which compensated for AC pumps, and such.  It should be a simple matter to hack into the program to get the idle to 1800, or whatever rpm we desire. Anybody know how to do this? I know that the tuner car guys can control every aspect of their OBDII cars from a laptop, so these old dinosaurs should be easy. 

Unlike an automotive application there is no need to recurve the distributor....  set it to whatever total advance you need and forget it.  It's a constant speed engine we are building here. There's lots of propane and natural gas conversion  equipment is just sitting in junkyards in Canada. We had a fad for NG auto conversions in the 90's, but it died out.  Propane was a 80's fad, it pretty much died too... 

Old Chevy base model S10 trucks had a 2.5 liter oversquare pushrod all cast iron TBI engine.  Same engine in Fiero's...   It was a tank of an engine, all torque and no horsepower.  A 2.5 liter TBI chevy pulled from an S10, set up with the ECM hacked to make it idle at say 1200 rpm, with 25 degrees total advance, belt driven to an ST head, running on natural gas. It would be almost silent.  If you need less displacement just take out two piston/conrod assemblies, and 4 pushrods.  Voila! Instant 1.2 liter 2 cylinder industrial gas engine with ECM controlled governor. Ultra cheap.

I think the trick is to find a junked old fleet truck that had been converted to NG and build from there.

[BioHazard]

Since about 1990 or so when cars all became fuel injected the OBD system has controlled idle speed. Notice on a standard transmission EFI car how if you feather the clutch the idle automatically maintains the RPM?  This did away with all the carb solenoids which compensated for AC pumps, and such.  It should be a simple matter to hack into the program to get the idle to 1800, or whatever rpm we desire. Anybody know how to do this? I know that the tuner car guys can control every aspect of their OBDII cars from a laptop, so these old dinosaurs should be easy.

The problem I see with that is that the idle speed is usually controlled with a small aux. electric valve seperate from the throttle. I doubt that would be large enough to let in enough air to run your engine at 1800...especially with a load. Also, if you're trying to use natural gas instead of gasoline, you're going to have a ton of problems trying to use the stock ECU...you don't have EFI anymore.

[mobile_bob]

there are woodward and hoof belt driven flyweight governors that would work to hold the speed steady enough for a genset, also
there are the electronic servo governors that are capable of very tight control.

there is also a couple of other methods based on mass air flow that are fairly accurate once set, although they might require a bit of tweaking
depending on changes in ambient temps, baro pressure  and possibly loading.

far easier to deal with governor control than adding proper lube and filtration systems, electric start and all the other odds and ends one has
to contend with using ancient designs.

bob g