changing the forum ideas?

[SteveU.]

Good MENZA joke:
"Why insisting all this talk about a woman's time of the month, eh? It's natural. It occurs. Ain'cha figured out where babies come from yet?! That ain't Smart at all."
S.U.

[playdiesel]

As for people getting mad and taking their stick and ball and going home all a person has to remember, is who we are, independent thinkers, individuals who look out for themselves . That in itself leads to squabbles when gathered in one area. 

Back to traffic
with fuel dropping back into the $2 range I am a bit surprised that cogen has made a comeback? Not many off grid types locally but the ones I do know about invested in solar and wind when fuel got too high for the budget. The equipment still runs even though fuel has dropped and from what I gather they dont miss fooling with the engine. 

Now me being the engine nut I am will much enjoy fooling with the engine each day and burning all sorts of whatever can be found for free or cheap,,,when I retire that is.

[LowGear]

Dreamer Alert!

I've been hanging out around YouTube U.  There are some people there with pretty nice credentials that believe, yes brothers and sisters - believe!, that in less than 5 years internal combustion engine production for automobiles will be in the minority.  This implies quite a change in all facets of transportation and travel. 

While LF and Microcogen have a lot of space about the past shouldn't we spend some of our time looking to the future of more than 90 days?  The Nissan Leaf with their battery sharing device is a form of co-generation.  Ok, co-utilization.  I'm shopping for a wrecked Leaf right now that could serve as my solar storage unit and chicken coop or remote hoarding unit.  Is it Denmark that is working towards 15% of their energy (electric and heat) from biomass?  I really believe that the next few years are going to be extraordinary.

Casey

Have you  ever considered that gas prices are only really important if you pay attention?

[Stevem]

Hello;
     Will try this again.  Just typed for 3 minutes and the screen went away.  Only got interested in slow speed diesels generating power about 10 years ago.  I am now 66 and it looks like interest is disappearing.  I guess that I secretly hoped the world would come to an end and I would be the last guy with power.  It makes me sad when I come to this web site and most of the most recent posts are years old.  I will keep plugging along and thank goodness that stuff on the internet never goes away. 
     I also monkey with old ford flathead stuff and the alternative power people are not as arrogant as the car guys, though it does thrust it's ugly head up from time to time.  I like my Listers and Changfas and will have them till I check out.  We live in a beautiful place in the country in the Pacific Northwest and at my age I think my wife and I may still move to a more remote area to finish up.  I'm guessing that most of you folks are closer to my age than youngsters. 
      I wish there were some young kids who would get interested in alt power.  It would be fun to encourage them.  I will always check in here from time to time and wish you all the best.  Not interested in living in a tiny house though.  Take Care.  Stevem

[oiler]

In Denmark currently has 14 pct of it's energy from biomass.

http://energinet.dk/EN/KLIMA-OG-MILJOE/Miljoerapportering/VE-produktion/Sider/Biomasse.aspx

[LowGear]

I'm slightly amazed.  I can remember reading a bit about biomass energy production on this and LEF and thinking "These guys are drinking too much kool aid.  So I'm going over to our  Methane, Producer Gas, Propane, etc. section and starting a thread entitled "BIOMASS"

http://www.microcogen.info/index.php?topic=3540.0

Any interest?

Casey

[vdubnut62]

Look, I am seriously building my shed for co-gen. Finally!! I watched the conversations here, took note of the good ideas and watched how things turned out over time.
I took me close to what? Ten years? Maybe I am just a slow learner. Anyway I wanted to be sure what I was getting into. And now I know that going full Cogen with the state of
"things" as they are now is not a viable choice for me. I will continue to watch and probably copy what someone else has done, unless I have a huge unexpected brain fart and trip over some unbelievable discovery, not likely!
I will run a quite limited setup with a 'roid and a Changfoid 1115  recovering waste coolant and exhaust heat to supplement the Tarm wood boiler.
  My long-winded point is that what I have accomplished thus far has been made possible by what I have learned here. Without the combined knowledge of the members here
I would still be pouring gas into a flathead screaming 3600 rpm Briggs and hoping it ran out of gas before it ran out of oil and siezed!
I do have to admit that much of the discussions are way over my head, but I am hanging in.
Ron

[SteveU.]

O.K.
Want to change the whole tone of the microcogen?
Insist on DOing MICRO CO Genrating working on a daily use basis.
MICRO means small at a personal use/family use . . . or at largest a community/church/village personal touch size organization.
CO means using the waste process heats of the electrical generating process meaningfully. Not just blowing them off into the air, wasted away.

This is incredibly easy to to anymore with a relitivly cheap get-going, buy-in commitment.

One. Go get one of the been in service now for almost ten years now suitcase inverter engine generator units.
Honda, Yamaha, Generac, Harbor Freight Predator, now Firman and others. $1,000 USD to as low as ~$320 USD.
These units right out of the box are at least 40% to as high as 50% fuel-in to kW out conversion efficient.
The Honda EU2000i (and EU20i 240volt) are the most widespread worldwide available and work-use proven. So have the most extensive offered up now add-on accessories.
US/Canada E-Bay offerings now for at least three different 3/4" and 1" NPT exhaust extension add-on stubs. Some with the exhaust flex hose.
Two different US/Canadian E-Bay offered up end unit hot air exhaust collector/flex tubing kits.
The plastic suitcase unit sound damping enclosure directs ALL inverter/AC generator/engine heat out the one end.

Two. Dual kit up your unit. Let the engine flywheel fan just naturally blow this heated air for space heating or drying purposes. Washed cloths drying!
Exhaust wrap insulate the hot engine exhaust out to a water exchange for domestic hot water. Yeah. Need a little DC r.v. pump there for assured flow and pressure delivery. Hey. These unit DO have a separate low wattage DC output too.
You will now have achieves at least 60% to 70% co-generation use of the grams of fuel fed into the unit.
And doing this with 21st century world-class 90% efficient PM magnet generating. Doing this with 21st century digital controlling.

Other fuels that gasoline/petrol?
Different sources offer up propane and natural gas fueling conversions for the HONDA and Yamaha units.
Honda themselves have for Japan domestic markets butane canister fueled units. In the  India/Pakistan markets, kerosene/carburetor fueled units. "It's just nut and bolts"
Charcoalman Gary Gillmore has converted and been vidioed/witness loaded running his 125cc 1st Gen H.F. Predator inveter unit on both charcoal gas and wood gas.

Ha! I use my Honda and Yamaha inverter units to usable dry winter 60% wet picked up fuel wood while they Grid-down generate for me. Plenty of space heating and domestic hot water in my always in-use, eat amost anything, 72% efficient QuadraFire woodstove.

See. It's easy once you just take a gitter'done attitude.

Produce/generate FIRST. Improve as you go.
This should give the I-Made-This itch scratching.
For you " I can do better than anyone else's - I am a modern smarty types"; you are hopeless to convince of anything reasonable.
Idealist's suck. Never achieve usability. Just churn up hot jabber air.

J-I-C Steve Unruh

[veggie]

Steve,

Are you capturing heat from your Inverter Generator exhaust?
If you are, I would love to see a picture or an explanation of how you connected to the muffler.
I am considering the same thing.

Veggie

[SteveU.]

Hey Mr veggie
Always realize that the better/more complete the combustion process the wetter the exhaust will be.
The inverter/AC generator/engine surface hot blown air is dry.

For now I am just placing an expanded metal screened basket with wood chunks in-front and above the blow out end of the inverter unit. O.K. for this.
For actual washed wet cloths drying it needs a rectangular metal adapter bolted on the blow out end feeding into a 5-6" flex drier hose. This could be fed into an actual tumbling drum cloths drier. The inverter output driving the controls and drum motor. Have to go inside the drier if electrical heated to split into the 120 volt circuits. Gas driers I think easy?
A separate exhaust/muffler stub out getting the "wet" hot engine exhaust out of this "dry" hot stream would be needed. Same exhuat splitting out would be need to use the blown air for shop, chicken house heating.
I've looked at many E-Bay offered up pictured solutions now. Could not find a direct-able link to post up.

Net search up Honda EU2000i accessories. Look at the pictured, put up. Go from there. Some of the prices asking are stiff . . I'd make up my own. Realize this could be done to any of the suitcase inverter generators, not just the Honda.
Many now doing this for on-board marine and other enclosed applications.

I myself may never farm the actual exhaust for water heating. We are set up for direct wood on this already.
I think Mobile Bob did somewhere here describe his engine exhaust to water heat exchange design.
These gasoline inverter units exhaust is so soot clean I think a boned out heat exchanger out of a natural gas tankless water heater should work Ok.

Regards
J-I-C Steve Unruh

[David Baillie]

Hello again,  had to go away, babies it seems takes up a lot of time...
So glad to see the new sections.
I am 48.  I cant speak for millenials.  As far as tiny homes they fill a yearning no different then the vw van, hippie commune, Nearing homesteading, Shaker colony, or longing for Thoreau's cabin of earlier times.  When life gets hard and troubling people want out. The financial picture for Millenials SUCKS and they know it. I think the tiny home movement will mature into just smaller more affordable homes. The smaller home trend is picking up too.  My township just shrank minimum size dwelling to 650 sq ft. We live in a 1300sq ft well insulated home that was originally off grid. Even on grid now we only use about 7 kw of electricity.  When we were hardcore we used 3kw. When we were off grid I scoured the internet looking for small or micro power solutions.  What I found was this place.  I've learned a great deal from it and the brain trust here could rebuild the electrical world for the better.  What made me go away for the most part is what you consider "small" and "micro" I consider HUGE. With a smaller better insulated house loads shrink. The Site's emphasis on industrial diesels and antiques 1/4 ton beasts was very intimidating. I follow Steve U. 's work with the inverter generators and that is where the future is if you want to attract some fresh blood.  A project under a few thousand, meet all your electrical need on less then 15 amp at 110ac.  Charge a bank.  Convert an off the shelf genny to run on propane, do some simple heat recycling.  Just some ideas.
Im trying to play with some of those concepts myself
Best regards,   David Baillie

Here are my rudimentary ideas in motion pardon the mess: A scrapped inverter generator with bad carb.  a propane regulator from a scrapper genny, 10 ft of 3/4 inch hydronic finned copper tubing, a welded on 3/4 inch pipe fitting.  True micro cogeneration

[mobile_bob]

these last few years have been insanely busy for me,  and i long for the day that i have more time to "do" what i am most
passionate about, microcogen being if not the top off the list very close.

one of the things most interesting to me of late is the tiny house movement,  having lived for a couple years or so in a micro apartment, many lessons were learned.   at least for me i proved to myself that i don't really need much space to be comfortable, now having a wife adds to the minimum requirement but really not that much.

what is interesting when we accept a tiny house as possible, is the fact that the energy requirements to sustain the place go way way down, and we can still be quite comfortable.

when the power requirements go down the first costs also go down, and also shear weight (and complexity in some ways) also are reduced.

with the advent of the inverter generators coming about over the last decade or so, and their cost coming down as well it just amazes me the possibilities that abound that simply were not possible for the average joe 40-50 years ago when the back to the earth movement really got started... remember inverters back in the 70's?  dreadful things that were about as reliable as a worn out yugo and as as expensive as a good used car!

now even the cheapest inverters are a quantum leap more reliable and pennies on the dollar of what they were not that long ago.

what i am driving at is this, at no time in the past has it been easier to actually get back to the ground, go offgrid, and do it for far less than ever before and actually be relatively comfortable.

myself i find that fascinating as all get out!  if the crap hits the fan i know i could actually get out and put together something where my wife and i could not only survive but actually thrive and do it comfortably,, even with each year coming with reduced physical capability.

when i started with the s195 i was thinking along the lines of maybe 750-900sq/ft of living space,  i think know the 195 while having a part, likely is too big!  the 175 microgen i started working on a while back is likely all i would really need if the place was designed properly using some of the stuff that has come available even over the last 5 years of so.

ah to be 25 again!   i sure as hell would do things so much more differently... and in that respect i think the millenials have an advantage that is far greater than they might really understand, if they are not student of history.

i recall coming of age in the early 70's and determined to carve out my place in the world, the rat race, the treadmill or whatever the hell it was back then.. big house, cars, wife, kids, tv's etc... never enough of anything and for what?  was i really happy?  if so i don't recall so maybe it wasn't that happy?

so many times i see on tv villages in africa or some other 3rd world country, momma, pappa, 10 kid all living in a mud hut
(relatively speaking) and what the heck?  they all seem happy as long as the hut's roof doesn't leak too bad, if they have clean water, and enough to eat?  not a blade of grass to have to mow, momma at home raising the kids and dad home on time every day if not working at or around home and around all the time.... and everyone is happy? 

so what is the common theme there?  small?  sustainable? simple?   

it all comes down to what really is important in life?  big house, big car, acres of grass to mow? a boat? 

maybe not?

i think this forum is still highly relevant,  i think the time is coming that more of these millenial's will decide to drop out, much like so many did in the 60's and go small, and when that wave hit's there will be a demand for information...

sure would have been nice to have had a copy of thoreau's "walden", the hardware we have available to us today,  and this forum back in '74!

i would be a multimillionaire by now!  or at least feel like one! 

bob g

[David Baillie]

Hey Bob, what were the specs on the microgen 175? your minimum square footage probably matches how I would like to end up.  We have a 5 1/2 year old and a 3 year old kicking around so space is still cherished.  I am resisting rebuilding bigger thinking we are good.  Its hard because there are so few voices of reason telling you NOT to do more.  Finding a sane voice on financial matters or realistic expectations is hard often treated as pariahs or doomers by society. Bankers, food retailers, entertainment industries are all quite willing to offer advice and its being taken; completely nuts.  If you followed through on their "advice" you would have a mortgage on a big house, two car loans, a line of credit for Mutual funds, would eat 6000 calories a day and be parked 12 hours a day watching tv while facebooking about it... 
Sanity will make a comeback.  Give them something to latch on to.
Best Regards,   David Baillie

[LowGear]

I was cruzing YouTube and saw this tiny house builder and I think he is doing it right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwnS23L0ID8&t=97s

Casey

[LowGear]

Point of interest:

Men create their sperm almost fresh as needed. 

Women bring eggs out of storage as surely as the moon circles the earth.  And they clean out the growing area weather it's needed or not.  More motivated house keepers right out of the cradle.