leaving listeroid unattended

[bschwartz]

I now have about 100 hours on my listeroid/ST-5 generator.  How long have others had their systems running before being comfortable going out to the store for a half hour, and leaving things running in their absence?  It still feels like I'll be leaving a young child alone in the house.

[Jedon]

I don't have many hours on mine yet ( 5? ) but my wife and I had a chuckle at this, certainly still feels like that for us, I checked the Onan gas generator and now I check the Lister SR2 as well as the Metro 6/1 ( when it's running ) often.

[oiler]

 I started it at four pm at it ran about 50 hours, and all by itself during night...no problems.
You must learn to let go..............
Torsten

[JohnF]

Once you get used to having the engine running, you learn the noises.  When at home stay out of the genshed when it sounds "good" for a few hours, then start small trips off the property.  Eventually you will just think of it as a tool running in the background.  Mine run unattended for 10-12 hours at a time and then I only go in to check fuel levels before going to bed.  They are a safe engine if put together right and cared for with regular maintenance, one of my guys has around 25,000 hours on it, I recently had to change a camshaft - bummer!

Winter time I run an engine 24/7, I use 2 x 6/1's and run each for a 24 hour period.  I use the engine down time to do scheduled maintenance - I change oil every 300 hours, clean the injector and do a de-coke if necessary.  When you know the engine sounds IT will tell you when it needs attention. 

[Capt Fred]

That "Bonging" sound is a great one - time to de-carbon

Fred

[bschwartz]

Could you clarify a little on the "bonging" sound.  Knowing when to do certain maintenance is always useful.  How exactly does one clean the injector anyway?  Obviously take it out, but do you soak it in something, use a bristle brush?

[BruceM]

Even when I'm home, my 6/1 is over a hill and out of sight and  hearing.  I felt a lot better about it after I installed my Picaxe monitor with vibration, temp, oil level, rpm, and AC voltage monitoring.  One save so far for low oil.

[craigcurtin]

Hey bruce, I am into Picaxes for home automation also.

Could you detail the various sensors you used to achieve your lister automation ?

Which picAxe are you using ? Did you make a board or are you just using one of the develpment boards ?

regards

Craig

[BruceM]

There's a description of my system at:
http://www.microcogen.info/index.php?topic=85.0

I've attached my scanned, hand drawn documentation below.  The program is also available. Advice for modifying to a different situation is available.

I used the 40X1 chip for that project- they were the first Picaxe chip which supported hardware serial input with timeout, which I felt was essential. PHanderson.com now has the 40x2 parts, which are even better.

I made my own board(s), that was before I found expresspcb.com which has bargain prices on prototype boards with no silkscreen and soldermask. Beats the hell out of hand wiring on perfboard.  My interface board is mostly MOSFETs, for driving relays and air solenoid valves (12V), and one opto-isolated RC servo.  The engine sensors (oil high/low, flywheel spoke sensor, temperature, vibration) are all digital 5V.

The Picaxe chips are great, I use a solderless breadboard powered by a 9V battery and 5V regulator as my programming socket/debug breadboard.  Phanderson.com now has the same setup (solderless breadboard with leds) with USB connector so no battery required.

[BruceM]

Here's what it looked like while I was doing some hookup and testing.

There is no need for much of the buffering and RF isolation of the processor for anyone but me.  My epilepsy is aggravated by EMI from even low power digital gear.  The die cast box has 10K ohm resistors and pi filtered DB connectors on all signals, pi filter and extra LC filtering on the power.  This effectively elimnates all high frequency emissions from the processor, which means the rest of the external wiring doesn't act like an antenna for EMI.

For most applications Picaxe chips are capable of driving logic level MOSFETs  and LEDs with no buffer.

[Capt Fred]

The "bonging" is a good indicator of carbon, the "book" recommends de-carbon every 1000 hours - I've had carbon issues after only 300 hours cuz of wvo and light loads (4000 watts on a 12/2 - very bad) the bonging sounds like a bad bearing

Like everything with these engines kiss rules - the injectors are simple and easy to work on - use a brass wire brush.  A friend picked up a pop tester on ebay very helpful. Testing can be done on the engine but the pop tester makes it easy.

(SAFETY ISSUE  ATOMIZED DIESEL INJECTED INTO THE SKIN WILL KILL YOU AND IT'S REALLY BAD TO BREATH - USE GLOVES EYE PROTECTION AND A RESPIRATOR)

for auto-shutdown (temperature only) I use a murphy switchgage and solenoid - simple and reliable- time and patience and you can get them on ebay cheap.  Looks something like this

Gauges and manual emergency shutdown



Murphy Solenoid



Murphy Solenoid and injector pump activated to shutdown



Wiring diagram




Hope something might be useful

Cheers, Fred

[BruceM]

Nice simple monitoring setup, Fred. First class!

I have one of the Murphy Vibration switch units installed, too, got it for $50 on ebay.  Murphy gear is top notch.

Bill R used one of the Murphy fuel solenoids just before the rack and found that it worked as a shut down.

Before switching to pneumatic actuators for rack and decompression, I tried a cheaper automotive fuel solenoid and found that it did not work, the IP was able to suck fuel around it's seals (struggling, slow idle).

[lowspeedlife]

Fred, Nice job on that control box, I especially like the kill-a-watt recessed into the front cover. It looks like the wsitches to the left of it will switch the K-A-W from hot leg to hot leg, is that correct?

   Scott R.

[veggie]

Fred,

That's a lovely setup you have there.
I noticed your air cut-off valve on the intake.
This is something I would like to add to my system. How effectively does the ball valve kill the engine when/if needed?
Any tips for someone adding this feature to a system?

Cheers,
veggie

[craigcurtin]

Hey Bruce,

I am into automation with Picaxe controllers as well.

Would it be possible for you to list where you got each of your input sensors from please ? I am in Australia and will have to order from US firms as these sorts of things are few and far between on the ground here !

I am about to order my 8/1 from Atul at PowerAnand and ultimately wish to run it unattended for 15 hours at a time each day - so it i will be imperative that i have it tightly monitored.

Did you make your own board from scratch or just adapt a development board ?

regards

Craig