Economics of waste motor oil....

[fabricator]

Yeah well, that's what we are all looking to do, but it's a long expensive road, and it's awfully damned hard to beat the cost of grid power right now no matter how you slice it, unless you have a good source for hydro.

[BioHazard]

Yeah well, that's what we are all looking to do, but it's a long expensive road, and it's awfully damned hard to beat the cost of grid power right now no matter how you slice it, unless you have a good source for hydro.

I totally agree, but the power company has a $1500 deposit they owe me back if I cut service, and since I use so little power it works out to about $0.20/kwh.

[Jens]

My 2 cents .... get a burner rather than a Listeroid.
I think 2000 hours is optimistic on 100% wmo, 1000 hrs seems more in line. Don't forget that you need diesel for starting and stopping. You need to spend considerable more effort on filtering the fuel for the Listeroid whereas straight settling is probably fine for the burner. You will need a heat storage system for the Listeroid, especially if you run one of the smaller units. You need to have some sort of load control for the Listeroid to ensure that you are running in the 80-100 % output power slot, especially when running waste oil. This is fine if you have a constant electricity requirements such as light but is not going to work if you are running demand loads such as machinery. Your lights will flicker which may or may not bother you but forget running a lathe, a mill or similar tooling if you want a good surface finish.
Buy an engine if you want to play but do not expect it to make economic sense.

[tinkerer]

I'm gonna throw my 2 cents worth in here on burning waste motor oil. I personally do not have any experience burning WMO in an engine, but my father in law has been burning it for about 6 years now in farm equipment and a Dodge Cummins. He mixes it 50/50 with No2 diesel in the winter and goes as high as 70/30 in the summer. He hasn't noticed any difference in power or starting. I've been around and ran some of his equipment some and I did notice a little more smoke when working hard. As far as the engines holding up to it, I can't say alot, but I will tell you that he's had some injection pump and injector problems. I know he's had 2 injection pumps fail and had a little trouble with injectors here and there. He filters his WMO through a series of filters and through something that absorbs the water from the oil.  Just my 2 cents.

Ben

[BioHazard]

The thing about my shop is I don't have any big tools that require dedicated circuits. (not that I might not in the future) My biggest loads would be an air compressor and a welder, both of which I could run off a lister or other engine via belt drive. I'd kind of like to setup a "slave" engine in the shop with a nice welder, air compressor, backup electricity, etc, but it would only be run for short periods. Right now I only have one 20 amp circuit at the shop and I'm making do, not counting what I plug the heaters into.

At the same time I'd like to experiment with going off grid entirely, and take my house off as a next step.

[JohnF]

Bio;

I was off grid for 5 years and have a fairly big woodworking shop - 16" planers, 240 volt saw, 5hp compressors, that kind of thing.  For the most part my 6/1 could power everything I needed but the big equipment needed more.  My solution was to use a 6/1 for the normal stuff and employ a bigger single Chinese diesel when I needed to fire up the power hogs.  It worked out very well, I did not lack power at all.  Given that your goal is to get off grid completely you NEED at least 2 engines, preferably 3 - IMHO at least.  Where I live a complete power outage in January can result if frozen wifey toes very quickly and that's not a route I'd ever be willing to walk.

Right now a 6/1 Listeroid seems to be a bit more expensive that a larger (say 20hp) Chinese unit (merely from eBay observations).  While it is a pricier option than you are looking at, you could probably get the whole shebang for around $5k - and be sure you have power at all times.  Really depends on your needs and your risk acceptance......

[dieselgman]

Thanks John,

If heat production is one of the objects of operating the setup, and if a larger kW output is also required, then I hope that folks do not overlook the availablility of the larger Lister clones - up to 20hp in a single, and up to 30hp in a twin. I have also read of some fairly slick uses of battery banks and inverters for transient loading beyond what a small generator can pull... also worth careful consideration in this kind of planning!

dieselgman

[JohnF]

DieselG;

Having dealt with Listeroids for a number of years and having experienced the recent marked drop in Indian Q.C. I am reluctant to recommend a larger single (due to the higher speed) or a multi-cylinder (due to the piss-poor placement of the cam lobes).  Particularly on the twins - and I have had many, the camshaft WILL break at some point.  I have had them go in as little as 25 hours while others lasted 2,000 hours.  There are fixes, but people need to be aware of the problems. 

Having said that - anyone want a 12/2?

[dieselgman]

John,

The larger single I am referring to can be run at 850 rpm and 18 horsepower per original specification, and most likely can be tuned for even slower operation. I concur that the ones running 1000 rpm are much less desirable and we avoid them!

We have not experienced any 'recent drop in Indian QC'... although that problem has been long-standing and is fully known to us. If anything we believe the trend is towards better quality as we gradually weed out the problems from our supply chain.

The specific camshaft issue with the smaller twins has been pretty well documented, it seems that a precision part of proper materials could be engineered... thus far, none of ours have exhibited the breakage issue so this is a little difficult to get a firm handle on. Who supplied your problem engines/camshafts?

dieselgman

[squarebob]

You know deep inside you really want the roid. Let your hair down and have fun with it. Even if you ran 60% wmo and 40% diesel or whatever mixture you want, think of the FUN you will have making the system of your dreams. Get off the fence and GO FOR IT !!!!!!

Bob

[JohnF]

DieselG;

What I am talking about here is engines that actually work for a living - putting in 12-16 hour days 365 days/year. A lot of people buy engines then put 'em in the garage and don't fire them up - of course they won't break.

As you will know, all of the Indian 'roids are made in or near Rajkot.  No one company builds every individual part, they all buy, say camshafts, from one manufacturer. Same with connecting rods, pistons etc.  They might label them as being "their" product, but it isn't.  The only difference is in the number of units that are rejected by the assembler - whether that be JKSon, Aswamegh or whoever.  That's why you get connecting rods and pistons so different from each other in a twin - no-one is measuring and rejecting.  As for the camshafts, the faults are not visible to the naked eye.  Typically the holes are drilled off-centre and the much-too-large pins are driven in with a sledge.  Additionally, because of the way they are assembled, the location of the cams on each cylinder is not optimal.  Further complicating things is that demand for the engines is dropping and the companies lay off their assembly people in between builds.  New guys are hired each time, so there is no corporate knowledge in engine building.  None of this is unknown and the QC problems have been showing up over the past two or three years.  Even before that it was a bit of a crap shoot.  Unless you have someone on the ground in India actually doing QC on a daily basis I just cannot see how things are improving.  I have investigated the camshaft issue to death and have measured every cam, even going so far as to compare them to a British original - the results were horrendous.  I can produce exact and properly set camshafts, but it is not a cheap option to have it done in North America. 

     

[cujet]

Of course, you could go crazy and run a heat pump with your listeroid. That way, the heat pump's COP (co-efficient of performance) of 3.0 could/would provide MORE heat than simply burning the oil. However, to achieve this wonderful "over unity" situation, you must efficiently use the waste heat from the exhaust and cooling system. Probably have to locate your listeroid inside your shop too, with the intake air sourced from outside.

Otherwise, just use a reliable waste oil burner. I don't understand why they are so expensive...

[dieselgman]

John,

We have a firm under our employ (man on the ground) to perform our QC in India (this is an independent agent not associated with the manufacturing folks). Of course they sometimes pass stuff that we would prefer to reject here anyway. This has always been the case. These days we only purchase parts and this helps out a bit because everything is open and subject to a much more thorough scrutiny (harder for them to hide any obvious defects). Manufacturing has not changed. Most of the parts rely on 6 or 7 sources who only supply the domestic Indian market directly - (they generally do not export). Of course none of this addresses the lack of a consistent skilled labor force and with a precision part such as the camshaft assembly it is always a potential issue. It is possible to purchase the raw unassembled components and avoid a few of the pitfalls, but once again it becomes a question of $$$ investment and what the market will bear. I think if you were interested in offering a precision set camshaft it could be marketed here, but how does this address your complaint about them breaking shafts?

dieselgman

[JohnF]

The Indians don't break shafts per se.....It is merely a result of the assembly process.  Holes are drilled into the shaft (to start with, a very poor quality steel with virtually no hardening) probably using old and worn equipment.  I doubt if the shaft is filed first to ensure a blunt drill bit doesn't wander, and this results in the holes being off centre.  Meanwhile, the cam collars have been drilled in a seperate process - the cams are then mated to the shaft and even if the holes are off, the pins are drifted in.  This results in stress risers on the smaller (weaker) side of the shaft.  That, coupled with the misplacement of the cams (again, especially in a twin) and the soft camshaft steel eventually leads to a shaft failure.  Nothing strange about it, they are just set up to fail.  The problem is that no-one can see the problem, the cam collar hides the misaligned hole in the shaft.  Similarly, unless you have someone on the ground in India actually measuring the degrees of separation for each cam, you will not be able to tell from a superficial look how far out they are.

A single can usually get away with misaligned cams but likely will not run very smoothly.  A twin ends up with each cylinder fighting against the other one causing extreme back pressure a flexing on the camshaft.  Breaks generally occur at the cam gear pin and funnily enough the first clue is that the cylinder on that side stops working due to the fact that the IP is not operating.  The rest of the engine will run for a while until the gear breaks with inevitable results.

Buying only parts is the best way to go, but as you note it sure does drive up the cost of an engine.  I have had camshafts manufactured in North America and my break-even point on them is around $300.  The camshafts I have have been precisely machined so that each cam is within a couple of thou of where it should be - the difference between an engine running an original shaft and one of the new ones is astounding.

[dieselgman]

So, we like pictures and vidoes here!!! Also technical details! Have you been able to document the improvement?
Would you be open to the idea of having someone like us get you some dynamometer test specs for before and after? I think that would be the clincher for marketing that kind of improved part!

dieselgman