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New backup power

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bj:
   Power here is becoming less and less dependable.  Many outages, and I keep losing
electronic stuff.  Some cheap things like CFL's and smoke detectors (wired in system)
but some pricey things as well.  Most annoying.  And the cold season is coming-----so
new backup power is needed. 
   The old one I built a few years ago does the job, but it's noisy and has a fair appetite
for fuel.
   Hence the pic.  Just finishing the overhaul,(complete) and it will become the engine
for the new genset.
   It's a Kubota D1105, and will be direct coupled to a 4 pole brushless alternator.  At
12KW load, and 1800 rpm, it should have about 80% load.
   Total cost will be around $2000 cdn, and a lot of work.
   More pics, as it goes together.

rossw:
Nice looking little power plant. It should be great.
When I built my genset - with almost no idea of what my actual run-times, peak load or base-load were going to be, it was a "stop-gap" project with an anticipated life of 3 years, 5 at the outside. It was built from a decent 4-pole brushless alternator with AVR, and a 4-cylinder 1800cc petrol engine from a popular small car (Ford Laser, a mazda engine I believe).
It's still going fine, 10 years on but it too is a bit thirsty and has some other issues we hadn't planned on - like it's simply too big, and is very twitchy with no load. I used petrol because it was being converted to single point propane injection, but a diesel engine would probably have been a better bet to start with.
Are you planning to use an electronic governor? Building your own genset controller or buying one off the shelf? Keep us posted!

bj:
  Hey Ross----I hope it works alright.  Basically got the engine for free, only had 52 hours, but got hot.
Bored it to make sure everything was round again, replaced pistons etc etc.
  This particular one has a super heavy flywheel, and combined with the rotating mass of the
gen head, I'm hoping the mechanical governor will be OK.  We'll see.  Would rather have used a
Shubaura, but the price was right on this one.
  Controller has been thought about, but that is all.
  As always any and all suggestions are very welcome.

artv:
Hi Bj, Long time no see.
Nice score on that diesel it should last a lifetime.
My back-up is gas powered but was looking into converting to propane, but not really sure if the engine would like it.
Some say it's better others say not ,who do you believe?
If hydro rates keep climbing the way they are it'll soon be cheaper to run the gen and say adios to hydro.
Good luck and looking forward to the finished project.
Hope all's well.
art

rossw:

--- Quote from: artv on October 10, 2015, 05:09:33 am ---My back-up is gas powered but was looking into converting to propane, but not really sure if the engine would like it.
Some say it's better others say not ,who do you believe?

--- End quote ---

The only consistent "downside" I hear with running a petrol (gasoline) engine on propane is upper-cylinder lubrication issues.
My own case, I took a standard 4-cylinder, 16-valve, double-overhead-cam engine, removed all the fuel injection nonsense and added single-point gas injection (mixing). I've seen unbelievably good plug condition, oil remains in very good condition for ages, and apart from oil (and filter) changes every 400-500 hours (equivalent to about 40,000km highway driving), and changing plugs about every 200,000km equivalent, it hasn't been touched.

To address the upper-cylinder lubrication, I vent the rocker cover to the air/fuel inlet after the air filter. The very small amount of oil fumes there seems to do fine.

I've had the oil analysed a couple of times and it shows no excessive wear and no other problems. No performance problems.

Here's a sparkplug after the equivalent of 200,000km (running on pure propane)


Here's under the rocker cover - oil hasn't been changed in 500 hours (around 40,000km), the engine has done in total close to 400,000km (equivalent) here, nothing apart from oil and plug changes.


Apart from slightly harder to start, and slightly less power (not an issue for me), there isn't any downside to the conversion, just do it!

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