JohnM wrote:
George wrote:

SomeBody wrote:

I'm finally getting my generator project wrapped up.

I'm looking for ways for unattended shutdown in case of low oil pressure
conditions. What would be the easiest and cheapest way to accomplish
this?

Either by shutting off the air or fuel supply? I'm sure you could use
some
kind of "fuel line solenoid" to cut off the supply of fuel. Any ideas?

Thanks

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jeffgnu/my_photos

To stop a diesel you don't need to shut down the fuel, merely stop the
air flow. Worked for the diesel gen sets I ran in Vietnam and works
for an emergency shutdown for the 8V-92 Detroit in the bus here on
campus. Merely rig a flapper over the air intake (needs to be a
positive seal) that is spring loaded to close, use a solenoid to keep
the trip mechanism armed until oil pressure falls below a preset
point, then trip and let the flap stop all air.


Yeah, but that's about the worst way to shut it down. The flap is for
killing a runaway engine, which is one of the charming properties of
Detroits.. Each time you use it you have to manually reset it (as it's
set up on the Detroit anyway, but you could set one up that resets
itself) and you'll put a lot of fuel in the oil doing it too.

John


You can buy a oil pressure guage with adjustable stop point so that
you stop at some point before zero pressure is reached. Avoid oil
starvation damage that way.

Georg V.
What you said is right on the mark, but wasn't the OP worried about
shutting down in the case of oil pressure loss?? That doesn't happen
unless something has gone badly awry and in my mind at least that calls
for stopping motion as quickly as possible to minimize damage. You
wouldn't want an automatic restart condition, rather you would want to
determine the cause and correct before a restart. And oil loss would
cause me to want to drain and check the lower end, if not more.

George V.