The start of my project

[playdiesel]

Welcome, playdiesel!

Thanks for the pics. You'll probably get tarred and feathered around here for your choice of vee belt drive (shields on!). I'm a big vee belt believer. They are cheap, dependable, easily available and proven for over a century. They also can live with misalignment and abuse, and act as a shock absorber in the drive system.

To get efficiency  from a vee belt drive system you need larger diameter pulleys than what I see in your photos.
A single  B series belt is enough for an ST5 head if the pulleys are in the ten to twelve inch range. The slip and hysteresis losses will then be very low. Small pulleys have small contact area, high foot per minute speeds and require multiple belts and high tension to prevent slip. You can get away without the expensive common backed belts if you have the right pulleys.

Regards,
Tim

LOL, wont be the first time I went against the grain
Have you ever looked at a Dodge V-belt drive engineering catalog? LOTS of info to design the drive but a person needs to be a smidgen or two smarter than me to figure it out so I called Reliance(dodge) for assisance told them 23HP at 1800 RPM 6" pulley with 4 B section grooves, will it hold the power? Guy says need to know the arc correction factor I said what? he said how big is driven pulley going to be and I said same size? Seems that arc correction has something to due with how far the belt wraps around the sheaves in degrees. Anyhow same size sheaves equals no correction. Best I can tell 4 belts equals no problems, 3 equals better keep'em good and tight and 2, no way. Using 4 belts is cheaper way to go than redesigning the wheel on the engine sheave I think. Going to redo the the engine mounts (Old ones make trading material for a headlight yes? No? Maybe? ) and ad some braces as advised here, do you guys know what steel costs??? LOL Need to go to junk yard to find radiator for it over the weekend. How to heck do you create a load to check a 15KW genhead anyway? 150 light bulbs? Got a electric range at the house and lectric cloths dryer?

[mobile_bob]

go to a used appliance shop or scrap yard and recover a stack of the large top heating elements, they are about 2800watts each

don't forget to get the sockets they plug into as well.

you can then hang them up overhead with tie wire to support the elements and keep from burning your hair off while testing

i use a large element in some tests, and also use 4 of the 750/1500watt space heaters as well, they allow for a variety of steps
in loading, and are fairly inexpensive and useful later for,,, well... what they were designed for.

the cook top element should be the cheapest route in my opinion, i gave a buck a piece for mine, and then had to buy new sockets
at about 10bucks each because i was in a hurry and needed them, so i bought new ones at a hardware store.

whatever you use, remember not to accept the value as gospel, just because you have four 1500 watt heaters does not mean you
necessarily have 6000watts of load, if the frequency droops, or the voltage droops, or a wind blows in the door the heaters will change
value sometimes dramatically.

the use of an accurate kw/hr meter is the only way to get an accurate measurement of load if accuracy is important to you, it will
account for shifts in voltage, drafts, etc and calculate kw/hrs to a much higher degree of accuracy than a clampon ammeter and a voltmeter
or simply trying to gauge based on name plate rating of a heater.

bob g

[vdubnut62]

Aw heck Bob, I just hooked mine to the house and started turnin' stuff on till the engine was struggling. That equaled all the normal parasitic loads, lights, tv, satellite, aquarium etc. the water heater and 2 burners on the cooktop. If I killed the water heater, it would manage 3 burners and 1 section of the double oven.
Yeah I'm way too picky about my testing and I'm no stranger to being called a smartass.
Ron

[mobile_bob]

my mistake

i misread "check" as "test" which changes the required load by quite a stretch

apparently after rereading the OP is asking how to "check" the output of the 15kw st head
that can be done as you describe easy enough, however

had he instead asked how to run some "tests" perhaps a more accurate load and metering would be in order.

i get so caught up in testing that is is hard for me to remember that there is a whole nother world out there!



bob g

[playdiesel]

remember that there is a whole nother world out there!



bob g

Yup, think of me as the local micro generation redneck, LOL

[playdiesel]

Well sorry for no pics guys but the dang camera was at home. We removed the chinsy legs and fabbed up some H-D units. Mounted a '90 Honda Civic Rad up high and have it plumbed to my homemade plate. Had it running today and the thermo syhon works great. Have the Civic fan switched with a Civic temp switch, no clue what the turn on temp is becausewe havent got it warm enough to trip it. Found we need to remote mount the fueltank also as without the hopper to hold it it shakes bad. Should have my second shipment of gen heads here by the first of the week and wont take long for that to be attached and tried out. Anybody know what the amp rating is of the flywheel alternators?

[highwater]

Have the Civic fan switched with a Civic temp switch, no clue what the turn on temp is because we haven't got it warm enough to trip it.

On another different small 3cyl Honda that I monitored the fan activity with an led tied into the circuit, and monitoring the temp with OBD II reader; the fans were coming on at 208F and would go off at around 203/204F.

Randall

[playdiesel]

Got a few pics today.

We took removed the fuel tank today and remote mounted it. If you do this make sure you oput the fuel line bango fittings where they should have been to start with the valve on the TANK end, gesh! The plate is shopmade and showing the Honda fan sending unit. The wiring is tempery  for testing.



From the end. The motor is ticking over at about 1200 here and almost vibration free. The ole china diesels kinda look like motors when you get all the funky covers and tanks off em eh??

[vdubnut62]

Yeah they do. It just looks like it ought to have another flywheel though!
Ron

[OilCan]

Nice job on the radiator adapter plate!  BTW: did you install the cold water return
dip tube under your plate?  Mentioned this just in case.

If you decide to add the T-stat you can buy a 1" dielectric plumbing
union and a standard NAPA termostat will seal inside it between the
two halves.

[billswan]

Nice job on the radiator adapter plate!  BTW: did you install the cold water return
dip tube under your plate?  Mentioned this just in case.

If you decide to add the T-stat you can buy a 1" dielectric plumbing
union and a standard NAPA termostat will seal inside it between the
two halves.

Oilcan

You wouldn't have the thermo numbers that fit that union would you?

Billswan

[playdiesel]

By dip tube do you mean an extension under the return side? Remember I'm a noob  I extended the return side down into the hopper as far as possible with 1" pipe. It seems to work well as far as we can tell with no way to load it. The engine warms up to around 170 pretty quick and stays there without the fan running. 170 is borderline warm enough I think? I should have my generator heads today so real testing can begin.  I forgot to mention that the thread on the Honda sending unit is VERY close to 5/8 SAE. I have no idea what the exact metric thread is as I have no metric taps/dies that large. I spun a 5/8 SAE die on the sending unit with my fingers, it cut almost nothing, tapped the hole with a 5/8 SAE tap and used a 45 degree counter sink to form a chamfer for the sealing ring. The sender wont handle fan loads so we used a Ford relay( one was laying on the bench) To tell you the truth I'm a little bit bothered by all the gadgetry required to run the fan and the radiator location was chosen so I can easily drive a cooling fan with a V-belt from the engine in the future.  The primary use is going to be at our house for emergency power and maybe some prime power if I can find a suitable (read cheap) source of fuel. If we end up using it for prime power I'm thinking about plumbing the cooling lines into our outdoor wood boiler loop. Several advantages to that in heat recovery when operating, rust prevention chemicals are present and keeping the engine warmed for wintertime starts.

[mobile_bob]

the sending unit should be pipe thread, and from what you are describing it is 3/8"NPT

i run a 195 degree stat and the fan does not come on the radiator until the engine is running 205deg F
i am running 50/50 antifreeze and a 7lb rad cap

i run a bosch auxilliary electric heater pump to circulate water from the radiator and admit it back into the
block via the drain port


the engine runs very well at that temp level, burns clean and makes its best efficiency there.

bob g

[Shipo]

  I don't know if that will be a future problem, but just in case I'd recommend tilting the radiator toward the engine to prevent that arc in the lower radiator hose or find the way to fix it since you don't have a water pump... 

see my setup here ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN5-nhcjH_A

[playdiesel]

I appriciate all the tips and sugggestions, thanks.