On Nov 3, 12:50*am, gregz wrote:
harry wrote:
On Nov 2, 5:36 pm, gregz wrote:
gregz wrote:
"Stormin Mormon" wrote:
Do you have any water for drinking and cooking?

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
*www.lds.org
.

"gregz" wrote in message
...

Clean well, refill ever o often. I use kitty litter jugs, some at least 5
gallon. I treated with chlorine after filling. Right next to storage is 40
gallon hot water heater. More water. I could have really used a medicine
dropper, will get one.

Greg

I got water as above. It's a long walk to the river.

Greg

For long term survival, a water filter would be nice, and a rainwater
collector.

Greg

Just boil it.

That does not remove contaminants and odor.

Fresh polyethylene or polypropylene clay kitty litter buckets are easy to
clean, unlike containers containing strange liquids, and small lids.
Sometimes I buy the 40 pound plastic containers with handles, and snap lid.
There are also 27 pound, and smaller containers with large lids. I just
bought a large plastic kitty food container.

Greg

Are rivers in America so polluted?
The main danger is faecal bacteria.

On Sat, 03 Nov 2012 02:30:58 -0700, Gunner
wrote:

On Wed, 31 Oct 2012 20:51:48 -0500, Nicholas
wrote:

On Wed, 31 Oct 2012 21:30:27 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 01 Nov 2012 09:54:13 +1100, terryc
wrote:

On 01/11/12 02:01, Jim Elbrecht wrote:

Am I all wrong here? Do traffic lights need more juice than an
inverter could supply? [granted there are 8 lights at the
intersection, but they are LED-- plus the switching equipment]

Yes. There is a fair bit of power involved in lights and cabinents.

Also, it is easier to train people to start, refuel and stop a
generator, than it is to deal with deep discharge batteries and the
inverter.

Also, when you start doing the figures, there can be some heavy currents
running through the cables from the "battery" to the inverter.

Generators are heavier and less portable than batteries and inverter.

then there is the question of the wave form in the inverter Vs the
desired sine wave form of the generator.

Which for the traffic lights could likely be a square wave with
little or no effect.

These days inverters produce "modified sine waves" which is a
stair-step kind of output. Not a square wave, not a sine wave, but a
blend of both.

Some do modified..others do true sine. The better ones do true sine.

Now the big question is...what will you be running from it? Lights
and heaters and electric skillets simply dont care what you feed it.
Your laptop..that might be different.

Actually, I've use MSW inverters exclusively to run all my computers
at one time with no discernable problems, until one PS died. That was
many months after I began the experiment. "switching power supplies"
seem to be OK with MSW as an input, at least for Emergency Purposes.


I know from experience that electric motors don't like that kind of
input. They run at very low rpm with an MSW. I don't know what the
root mean square (rms voltage) is but I suspect it is a lot less than
0.707 of the peak to peak voltage that you would get with a pure sine
wave.

Some will do fine. Universal Motors dont care. Motors with poles..may
or may not. Running an electric motor from an inverter is a waste of
time in most cases however. Better to simply run em from a far less
expensive genset.

Gunner

Lg

harry wrote:

Are rivers in America so polluted?
The main danger is faecal bacteria.

Where do you think a bear in the woods takes care of business?

On 11/3/2012 4:43 AM, Gunner wrote:
On Wed, 31 Oct 2012 21:33:18 -0700, Larry wrote:

In article a843e813-2d97-4a4b-b171-
, says...

On Oct 31, 8:40 am, Frank wrote:
On 10/31/2012 8:31 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:

For me, they include:

* Run the generator every year
* Boredom is a terrible thing
* Candles don't put out enough light to be useful.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

Things you should have already known.
Family here learned also that you should not run your generator indoors.

My neighbor who came over for water an outage or two ago was complaining
that they could not find any D cells for their portable radio.

Some people never learn.

A inverter is a wonderful thing, just connect to your car battery and
let engine idle. for a 100 bucks you can get a thousand watt inverter,
for lights, radio and a tv if the load isnt too heavy

A thousand watts is 85 amps at 12 volts. Most automotive alternators will fry
if you try to run them at that level, though some heavy duty truck
alternators will handle 1000 watts continuous. Your typical car alternator
will put out 50 amps at 14 volts at 4000 RPM, which is above engine idle. You
can retrofit a heavy duty 150+ amp alternator with a small pulley to make it
spin faster, but modern cars with their tight engine well and serpentine
belts make that a PITA. It would be easier to just get a 3 hp lawnmower
motor, mount a heavy duty alternator and a battery, which would give you 1000
watts easily while running the engine at moderate speed.


Actually..you are better off snagging the complete front end from a
Honda, or other small car, pulling the engine, mounting it on a stand
and adding a set of pulleys and a gen head.

http://www.harborfreight.com/engines...ead-45416.html

As an example. A regular automotive small engine will simply idle and
drive that gen head quite nicely. Anything bigger than 20 hp will be
more than enough. Hell..a motorcycle engine from a 450cc or bigger
should drive it nicely

Gunner

--

If you can set up the pulleys correctly to get a small liquid cooled
engine to run at 1800rpm and spin the generator at 3600rpm, you will
wind up with a very quiet, reliable genset. A heavy flywheel could help
but I suspect the mass of the armature would be enough to keep power
output steady. I installed a lot of generators in homes and businesses
back in the 90's after a major storm upset the power grid in my area and
my favorite gensets and the ones that had the fewest problems were those
that had liquid cooled engines running at 1800rpm. The 3600rpm
gensets with air cooled engines are called "screamers" by my suppliers.
Yes, I know all about insulated sound dampening enclosures. ^_^

TDD

On 11/3/2012 2:57 AM, harry wrote:
On Nov 3, 12:50 am, gregz wrote:
harry wrote:
On Nov 2, 5:36 pm, gregz wrote:
gregz wrote:
"Stormin Mormon" wrote:
Do you have any water for drinking and cooking?

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

"gregz" wrote in message
...

Clean well, refill ever o often. I use kitty litter jugs, some at least 5
gallon. I treated with chlorine after filling. Right next to storage is 40
gallon hot water heater. More water. I could have really used a medicine
dropper, will get one.

Greg

I got water as above. It's a long walk to the river.

Greg

For long term survival, a water filter would be nice, and a rainwater
collector.

Greg

Just boil it.

That does not remove contaminants and odor.

Fresh polyethylene or polypropylene clay kitty litter buckets are easy to
clean, unlike containers containing strange liquids, and small lids.
Sometimes I buy the 40 pound plastic containers with handles, and snap lid.
There are also 27 pound, and smaller containers with large lids. I just
bought a large plastic kitty food container.

Greg

Are rivers in America so polluted?
The main danger is faecal bacteria.


You Limeys did a pretty good job cleaning up The Thames. Perhaps you
could share your superior knowledge with us poor ignorant colonists
about keeping our environment in pristine condition and the practice
of good personal hygiene? Maybe you could train some dentists for
us too? ^_^

TDD

On 10/31/2012 10:15 AM, wrote:
On Wed, 31 Oct 2012 09:17:26 -0400, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

Nice thing about the car. You're fairly sure it runs. And you probably have
some fuel in the tank. Did the TV have static and such on the picture? Or
did it run properly?
A TV or computer is fine on a regular inverter. We have done it a lot.

In fact this was my first generator

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/redneck_power.jpg



I like it!

Had something similar at the last place i worked. No power out to the
barn where we stored the trucks and eq, so I rigged up a piece like this
(without the inverter), and strung up 12v bulbs around the place so i
could see what i was doing in the early morning hours. (i opened and
got the trucks ready to go out)

--
Steve Barker
remove the "not" from my address to email

On 03 Nov 2012 03:27:36 GMT, frag wrote:

...get out when they tell you to.

You can do that. Now if your job requires you stay - you stay.

Many jobs are critical and essential, so you stay.

On 11/3/2012 10:12 PM, Gunner wrote:
On Sat, 03 Nov 2012 07:41:55 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 11/3/2012 4:43 AM, Gunner wrote:
On Wed, 31 Oct 2012 21:33:18 -0700, Larry wrote:

In article a843e813-2d97-4a4b-b171-
, says...

On Oct 31, 8:40 am, Frank wrote:
On 10/31/2012 8:31 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:

For me, they include:

* Run the generator every year
* Boredom is a terrible thing
* Candles don't put out enough light to be useful.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

Things you should have already known.
Family here learned also that you should not run your generator indoors.

My neighbor who came over for water an outage or two ago was complaining
that they could not find any D cells for their portable radio.

Some people never learn.

A inverter is a wonderful thing, just connect to your car battery and
let engine idle. for a 100 bucks you can get a thousand watt inverter,
for lights, radio and a tv if the load isnt too heavy

A thousand watts is 85 amps at 12 volts. Most automotive alternators will fry
if you try to run them at that level, though some heavy duty truck
alternators will handle 1000 watts continuous. Your typical car alternator
will put out 50 amps at 14 volts at 4000 RPM, which is above engine idle. You
can retrofit a heavy duty 150+ amp alternator with a small pulley to make it
spin faster, but modern cars with their tight engine well and serpentine
belts make that a PITA. It would be easier to just get a 3 hp lawnmower
motor, mount a heavy duty alternator and a battery, which would give you 1000
watts easily while running the engine at moderate speed.


Actually..you are better off snagging the complete front end from a
Honda, or other small car, pulling the engine, mounting it on a stand
and adding a set of pulleys and a gen head.

http://www.harborfreight.com/engines...ead-45416.html

As an example. A regular automotive small engine will simply idle and
drive that gen head quite nicely. Anything bigger than 20 hp will be
more than enough. Hell..a motorcycle engine from a 450cc or bigger
should drive it nicely

Gunner

--

If you can set up the pulleys correctly to get a small liquid cooled
engine to run at 1800rpm and spin the generator at 3600rpm, you will
wind up with a very quiet, reliable genset. A heavy flywheel could help
but I suspect the mass of the armature would be enough to keep power
output steady. I installed a lot of generators in homes and businesses
back in the 90's after a major storm upset the power grid in my area and
my favorite gensets and the ones that had the fewest problems were those
that had liquid cooled engines running at 1800rpm. The 3600rpm
gensets with air cooled engines are called "screamers" by my suppliers.
Yes, I know all about insulated sound dampening enclosures. ^_^

TDD

With a small automotive engine..you can simply idle it at 700 rpms and
have no requirement to drive it at 1800 rpm

Gunner

--

When you write "small", are you referring to a small block V8? The 10kw
Generac units I installed had a 4 cyl Turkish Fiat liquid cooled engine
running at 1800rpm. That speed gives 60 cycle AC power from a 4 pole
generator. The 2 pole generators run at 3600 rpm. The 1800rpm speed lets
the genset respond well to changes in power demand and electric motor
start loads. I think it takes something like 1.5hp per kw to run a
genset so a good sized engine would be needed to get that kind of power
at idle speed. O_o

TDD

On 11/4/2012 12:24 AM, Gunner wrote:
On Sat, 03 Nov 2012 23:57:24 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 11/3/2012 10:12 PM, Gunner wrote:
On Sat, 03 Nov 2012 07:41:55 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 11/3/2012 4:43 AM, Gunner wrote:
On Wed, 31 Oct 2012 21:33:18 -0700, Larry wrote:

In article a843e813-2d97-4a4b-b171-
, says...

On Oct 31, 8:40 am, Frank wrote:
On 10/31/2012 8:31 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:

For me, they include:

* Run the generator every year
* Boredom is a terrible thing
* Candles don't put out enough light to be useful.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

Things you should have already known.
Family here learned also that you should not run your generator indoors.

My neighbor who came over for water an outage or two ago was complaining
that they could not find any D cells for their portable radio.

Some people never learn.

A inverter is a wonderful thing, just connect to your car battery and
let engine idle. for a 100 bucks you can get a thousand watt inverter,
for lights, radio and a tv if the load isnt too heavy

A thousand watts is 85 amps at 12 volts. Most automotive alternators will fry
if you try to run them at that level, though some heavy duty truck
alternators will handle 1000 watts continuous. Your typical car alternator
will put out 50 amps at 14 volts at 4000 RPM, which is above engine idle. You
can retrofit a heavy duty 150+ amp alternator with a small pulley to make it
spin faster, but modern cars with their tight engine well and serpentine
belts make that a PITA. It would be easier to just get a 3 hp lawnmower
motor, mount a heavy duty alternator and a battery, which would give you 1000
watts easily while running the engine at moderate speed.


Actually..you are better off snagging the complete front end from a
Honda, or other small car, pulling the engine, mounting it on a stand
and adding a set of pulleys and a gen head.

http://www.harborfreight.com/engines...ead-45416.html

As an example. A regular automotive small engine will simply idle and
drive that gen head quite nicely. Anything bigger than 20 hp will be
more than enough. Hell..a motorcycle engine from a 450cc or bigger
should drive it nicely

Gunner

--

If you can set up the pulleys correctly to get a small liquid cooled
engine to run at 1800rpm and spin the generator at 3600rpm, you will
wind up with a very quiet, reliable genset. A heavy flywheel could help
but I suspect the mass of the armature would be enough to keep power
output steady. I installed a lot of generators in homes and businesses
back in the 90's after a major storm upset the power grid in my area and
my favorite gensets and the ones that had the fewest problems were those
that had liquid cooled engines running at 1800rpm. The 3600rpm
gensets with air cooled engines are called "screamers" by my suppliers.
Yes, I know all about insulated sound dampening enclosures. ^_^

TDD

With a small automotive engine..you can simply idle it at 700 rpms and
have no requirement to drive it at 1800 rpm

Gunner

--

When you write "small", are you referring to a small block V8? The 10kw
Generac units I installed had a 4 cyl Turkish Fiat liquid cooled engine
running at 1800rpm. That speed gives 60 cycle AC power from a 4 pole
generator. The 2 pole generators run at 3600 rpm. The 1800rpm speed lets
the genset respond well to changes in power demand and electric motor
start loads. I think it takes something like 1.5hp per kw to run a
genset so a good sized engine would be needed to get that kind of power
at idle speed. O_o

TDD

Im thinking more along the lines of a Pinto engine or similar. When
one simply changes the pulley sizes...an idling engine can spin a
genny at 1800 rpm easily. How many hp is the typical small engine out
of a Saturn or Pinto or similar?

the little 1.9l Saturn engine is 85hp out of the box. At idle...how
long will it run on 5 gallons of fuel? 10-15 hours or more?

And they can be had very very cheaply out of wrecks and other sources.
A buddy of mine built one using the HF 10kw gennhead and a Pinto
engine. It runs for days on a 20 gallon gas tank. At something like
800 rpm

Gunner


What is he using for a speed governor to keep the frequency stable? I
know there are a lot om OEM parts used to control idle speed on modern
vehicle engines that could be used to make your own governor. The HF
generator could be directly coupled to a small engine running at 3600rpm
using a Lovejoy coupling. The specs call for 16hp for full output so I'm
wondering if you could couple it to the existing pulleys
on a small 4cyl auto engine keeping the bell housing, flywheel and
starter to make things easier. Of course many modern vehicle engines
don't have a simple ignition system with a distributor and coil, so what
could you do there. I know an old Pinto engine didn't have an ECU
but a simple, possibly electronic ignition with distributor and a carb
which would make for a easy conversion to a stationary engine. My old
89 Dodge van has an engine control computer and TBI which could be used
to build a stationary engine for a generator but I'm wondering about the
new super whiz bang computer controlled engines of today's vehicles? O_o

TDD

On Nov 3, 12:53*pm, The Daring Dufas the-daring-du...@stinky-
finger.net wrote:
On 11/3/2012 2:57 AM, harry wrote:









On Nov 3, 12:50 am, gregz wrote:
harry wrote:
On Nov 2, 5:36 pm, gregz wrote:
gregz wrote:
"Stormin Mormon" wrote:
Do you have any water for drinking and cooking?

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
*www.lds.org
.

"gregz" wrote in message
...

Clean well, refill ever o often. I use kitty litter jugs, some at least 5
gallon. I treated with chlorine after filling. Right next to storage is 40
gallon hot water heater. More water. I could have really used a medicine
dropper, will get one.

Greg

I got water as above. It's a long walk to the river.

Greg

For long term survival, a water filter would be nice, and a rainwater
collector.

Greg

Just boil it.

That does not remove contaminants and odor.

Fresh polyethylene or polypropylene clay kitty litter buckets are easy to
clean, unlike containers containing strange liquids, and small lids.
Sometimes I buy the 40 pound plastic containers with handles, and snap lid.
There are also 27 pound, and smaller containers with large lids. I just
bought a large plastic kitty food container.

Greg

Are rivers in America so polluted?
The main danger is faecal bacteria.

You Limeys did a pretty good job cleaning up The Thames. Perhaps you
could share your superior knowledge with us poor ignorant colonists
about keeping our environment in pristine condition and the practice
of good personal hygiene? Maybe you could train some dentists for
us too? ^_^

TDD

Most of the cleanup happened spontaneously when certain industries
disappeared.
Over the last twenty years there has been major improvements/upgrades
to sewage treatment plants.

There are still major problems when there is heavy rain, in some areas
the surface water and sewage is in common drains

On 11/4/2012 1:26 AM, harry wrote:
On Nov 3, 12:53 pm, The Daring Dufas the-daring-du...@stinky-
finger.net wrote:
On 11/3/2012 2:57 AM, harry wrote:









On Nov 3, 12:50 am, gregz wrote:
harry wrote:
On Nov 2, 5:36 pm, gregz wrote:
gregz wrote:
"Stormin Mormon" wrote:
Do you have any water for drinking and cooking?

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

"gregz" wrote in message
...

Clean well, refill ever o often. I use kitty litter jugs, some at least 5
gallon. I treated with chlorine after filling. Right next to storage is 40
gallon hot water heater. More water. I could have really used a medicine
dropper, will get one.

Greg

I got water as above. It's a long walk to the river.

Greg

For long term survival, a water filter would be nice, and a rainwater
collector.

Greg

Just boil it.

That does not remove contaminants and odor.

Fresh polyethylene or polypropylene clay kitty litter buckets are easy to
clean, unlike containers containing strange liquids, and small lids.
Sometimes I buy the 40 pound plastic containers with handles, and snap lid.
There are also 27 pound, and smaller containers with large lids. I just
bought a large plastic kitty food container.

Greg

Are rivers in America so polluted?
The main danger is faecal bacteria.

You Limeys did a pretty good job cleaning up The Thames. Perhaps you
could share your superior knowledge with us poor ignorant colonists
about keeping our environment in pristine condition and the practice
of good personal hygiene? Maybe you could train some dentists for
us too? ^_^

TDD

Most of the cleanup happened spontaneously when certain industries
disappeared.
Over the last twenty years there has been major improvements/upgrades
to sewage treatment plants.

There are still major problems when there is heavy rain, in some areas
the surface water and sewage is in common drains


My favorite pollution story:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal

I wonder how long the land will remain toxic. I've always said,
radiation doesn't scare me because it's easy to detect but toxic
chemical pollution is not readily detectable. O_o

TDD

bob haller wrote in
:

On Oct 31, 8:40*am, Frank wrote:
On 10/31/2012 8:31 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:

For me, they include:

* Run the generator every year
* Boredom is a terrible thing
* Candles don't put out enough light to be useful.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
* *www.lds.org
.

Things you should have already known.
Family here learned also that you should not run your generator
indoors.

My neighbor who came over for water an outage or two ago was
complaining that they could not find any D cells for their portable
radio.

Some people never learn.

A inverter is a wonderful thing, just connect to your car battery and
let engine idle. for a 100 bucks you can get a thousand watt inverter,
for lights, radio and a tv if the load isnt too heavy

I have a 150 Watt inverter and finally got a friend to help hooking it up
to the furnace (we went 99 hours without power in NE NJ, 07410). Furnace
is natural gas-fired, circulating hot water. The inverter hookup worked
fine, but I had to have the engine running, of course. It is OK for
short emergencies, but I'd like better. Will be looking ...

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

The Daring Dufas wrote in news:k76h54
:

You lucked out on your heating system. If you have a gas water heater
you can live like civilized people without electricity. ^_^

Yep, we lucked out on that point and many others. The house is well-
insulated, so even with only 2 people rattling around inside, it only got
as cool as 58° for a little bit. That is endurable. We had cellphones
working (recharge from car), LED flashlights, a propane Coleman lantern for
bright light (only one), functioning stove and water heater. I even have a
propane catalytic heater (Mr. Heater portable Buddy), but I was a little
hesitant using it in an enclosed space.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

On 11/4/2012 3:06 PM, Han wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote in news:k76h54
:

You lucked out on your heating system. If you have a gas water heater
you can live like civilized people without electricity. ^_^

Yep, we lucked out on that point and many others. The house is well-
insulated, so even with only 2 people rattling around inside, it only got
as cool as 58° for a little bit. That is endurable. We had cellphones
working (recharge from car), LED flashlights, a propane Coleman lantern for
bright light (only one), functioning stove and water heater. I even have a
propane catalytic heater (Mr. Heater portable Buddy), but I was a little
hesitant using it in an enclosed space.


You're lucky. We could not get gas when our house was built. Oil
furnace with blower takes a lot of juice. So does well. I've got 5,500
watt generator but hot water, stove and AC are all off line when power
fails. Well, furnace, freezer and refrigerator were main reasons I got
a generator and no way could these be handled off an inverter.

Frank wrote in
:

You're lucky. We could not get gas when our house was built. Oil
furnace with blower takes a lot of juice. So does well. I've got
5,500 watt generator but hot water, stove and AC are all off line when
power fails. Well, furnace, freezer and refrigerator were main
reasons I got a generator and no way could these be handled off an
inverter.

Given a choice, I don't understand why anyone would buy a home that
didn't have natural gas. I do understand that sometimes there is no
choice. We had an oil furnace in our previous home, but it was
expensive to run, stinky and not very reliable. There was gas for the
stove. OK, the furnace was an old system. I would definitely ditch it
for a gas furnace if I'd had to replace it. With gusto if I had known
in advance that gas would drop in price by as much as it has.
Luckily, where I have lived there has always been municipal water, gas
of some sort, and electricity. Except for a few years, there has always
been a sewer system as well.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

On 11/4/2012 3:20 PM, Gunner wrote:
On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 14:44:03 -0500, wrote:

On Sat, 03 Nov 2012 22:24:16 -0700, Gunner
wrote:


Im thinking more along the lines of a Pinto engine or similar. When
one simply changes the pulley sizes...an idling engine can spin a
genny at 1800 rpm easily. How many hp is the typical small engine out
of a Saturn or Pinto or similar?

the little 1.9l Saturn engine is 85hp out of the box. At idle...how
long will it run on 5 gallons of fuel? 10-15 hours or more?

And they can be had very very cheaply out of wrecks and other sources.
A buddy of mine built one using the HF 10kw gennhead and a Pinto
engine. It runs for days on a 20 gallon gas tank. At something like
800 rpm

Gunner


Gunner
The Saturn 1.9 is 85HP at 5000 rpm in original form, and 100HP at
5000 with multiport injection.

Torque at 2400 is 107 and 115 respectively.

Assuming 80% torque is available at 1800 RPM, the early engine would
produce [ (.8X107)X1800/5252] =29.33 Hp

The multiport engine, under the same assumption, would produce
[(.8X115)X1800/5252] = 31.53 HP

Assuming 80% of maximum rated torque on an engine without variable
valve timing is being quite generous, from my experience.

I'd call 25 and 27 HP pretty realistic.

Also, idle consumption and full load consumption at 1800 RPM have
absolutely nothing in common. Specific fuel consumption at 1800 RPM
MAY aproach 0..4 per HP Hour. That would mean ABOUT 10 lbs per hour
for the low powered engine. At 6 lbs per american gallon of regular
gasoline, we are looking at just under 1.5 gallons per hour, so about
3.3 hours at full load - of approxemately 15 KW with an average
generator head and a reasonably well set up belt drive.
At anything less than full output, the efficiency would drop quite a
bit, so half load MIGHT give you 5 hours of running.

Take off the OEM fuel injection system and replace with a custom
tuneable unit, and retime the camshaft to move the torque peak down
closer to the running speed, and you could perhaps improve efficiency
a bit and squeeze, say, 7 hours at half load out of the system.


Oh...I went to sleep one night with my 3.0 Ford Ranger idling out
front and didnt remember it was running..and 2 days later, got ready
to go to work...walked out..and my truck was running. Used about 3/4
of a 14 gallon tank of gas.

Just a heads up.

Gunner

--

There was a well known party girl here in town who'd get sloppy drunk
and not remember where/what went on many nights. She left her little
Toyota idling outside of the local hangout over a weekend and found it
Monday morning happily idling in wait. I never walk away from a vehicle
unless I secure it and lock it even if I'm letting it warm up. ^_^

TDD

On 11/4/2012 2:49 PM, Han wrote:
Frank wrote in
:

You're lucky. We could not get gas when our house was built. Oil
furnace with blower takes a lot of juice. So does well. I've got
5,500 watt generator but hot water, stove and AC are all off line when
power fails. Well, furnace, freezer and refrigerator were main
reasons I got a generator and no way could these be handled off an
inverter.

Given a choice, I don't understand why anyone would buy a home that
didn't have natural gas. I do understand that sometimes there is no
choice. We had an oil furnace in our previous home, but it was
expensive to run, stinky and not very reliable. There was gas for the
stove. OK, the furnace was an old system. I would definitely ditch it
for a gas furnace if I'd had to replace it. With gusto if I had known
in advance that gas would drop in price by as much as it has.
Luckily, where I have lived there has always been municipal water, gas
of some sort, and electricity. Except for a few years, there has always
been a sewer system as well.


There are a lot of older homes in my area that I describe as having an
"octopus" furnace in the basement. The furnaces were originally coal
fired and you can still see the coal bins and coal chute in many of the
old homes. The supply ducts slope diagonally up to the main floor like
limbs of a tree or octopus tentacles and the air flow is via convection
with no blower and the ducts are fairly large in diameter. All of them
I've ever seen were converted to natural gas in the middle of the last
century but as inefficient as the beasts may be, they will keep a home
warm in the winter during a power outage. ^_^

TDD

On 05/11/12 08:07, Gunner wrote:

The 150 watt inverters work fine for things like camera battery
chargers, electric shavers and the like..but thats about all.

Depends on the make and model. Better quality inverters quote their
running watts, but have a much higher motor start(peak) rating.

On 04 Nov 2012 17:12:37 GMT, Han wrote:

I have a 150 Watt inverter and finally got a friend to help hooking it up
to the furnace (we went 99 hours without power in NE NJ, 07410). Furnace
is natural gas-fired, circulating hot water. The inverter hookup worked
fine, but I had to have the engine running, of course. It is OK for
short emergencies, but I'd like better. Will be looking ...

You are obviously using something less than 150 Watts and that's only
when it's running. Think about a 100 W solar panel. If your ''on''
time is less than 50%, you should be good to go with not all that big
a battery. In fact you would never discharge it very much so you
should get good service life.

On 04 Nov 2012 20:49:23 GMT, Han wrote:

Frank wrote in
:

You're lucky. We could not get gas when our house was built. Oil
furnace with blower takes a lot of juice. So does well. I've got
5,500 watt generator but hot water, stove and AC are all off line when
power fails. Well, furnace, freezer and refrigerator were main
reasons I got a generator and no way could these be handled off an
inverter.

Given a choice, I don't understand why anyone would buy a home that
didn't have natural gas. I do understand that sometimes there is no
choice. We had an oil furnace in our previous home, but it was
expensive to run, stinky and not very reliable. There was gas for the
stove. OK, the furnace was an old system. I would definitely ditch it
for a gas furnace if I'd had to replace it. With gusto if I had known
in advance that gas would drop in price by as much as it has.
Luckily, where I have lived there has always been municipal water, gas
of some sort, and electricity. Except for a few years, there has always
been a sewer system as well.

Check with your local gas supplier about available rebates for
installing a high-efficiency gas furnace. I replaced the rickety,
20-year-old gas furnace in my daughter's house with a new 97%
efficient unit and received a $800 rebate from the gas company.
----
Diogenes

The wars are long, the peace is frail
The madmen come again . . . .

During ice storm 2003, I got to experience how
wonderful a gas water heater is. A hot shower
in the morning brinigs back life. After a freezing
cold night under a pile of blankets.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"The Daring Dufas" wrote in message
...

You lucked out on your heating system. If you have a gas water heater
you can live like civilized people without electricity. ^_^

TDD

I helped take out one of those. it had several hunded pounds of sand,on top.
The top of the furnace tapred in, sort of like the shape of a paper snow
cone container. That made for a LOT of work to get all that sand out. Then,
the sand up the stairs, and dump in the yard.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"The Daring Dufas" wrote in message
...

There are a lot of older homes in my area that I describe as having an
"octopus" furnace in the basement. The furnaces were originally coal
fired and you can still see the coal bins and coal chute in many of the
old homes. The supply ducts slope diagonally up to the main floor like
limbs of a tree or octopus tentacles and the air flow is via convection
with no blower and the ducts are fairly large in diameter. All of them
I've ever seen were converted to natural gas in the middle of the last
century but as inefficient as the beasts may be, they will keep a home
warm in the winter during a power outage. ^_^

TDD

Why would the gas company pay you to put in a furnace that uses less of
their product? That would be like McDonalds paying people to take diet
pills.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"Diogenes" wrote in message
...

Check with your local gas supplier about available rebates for
installing a high-efficiency gas furnace. I replaced the rickety,
20-year-old gas furnace in my daughter's house with a new 97%
efficient unit and received a $800 rebate from the gas company.
----
Diogenes

The wars are long, the peace is frail
The madmen come again . . . .

On 11/4/2012 3:49 PM, Han wrote:
Frank wrote in
:

You're lucky. We could not get gas when our house was built. Oil
furnace with blower takes a lot of juice. So does well. I've got
5,500 watt generator but hot water, stove and AC are all off line when
power fails. Well, furnace, freezer and refrigerator were main
reasons I got a generator and no way could these be handled off an
inverter.

Given a choice, I don't understand why anyone would buy a home that
didn't have natural gas. I do understand that sometimes there is no
choice. We had an oil furnace in our previous home, but it was
expensive to run, stinky and not very reliable. There was gas for the
stove. OK, the furnace was an old system. I would definitely ditch it
for a gas furnace if I'd had to replace it. With gusto if I had known
in advance that gas would drop in price by as much as it has.
Luckily, where I have lived there has always been municipal water, gas
of some sort, and electricity. Except for a few years, there has always
been a sewer system as well.


Power company would not install new gas lines at time my house was
built. I think some older neighbors have it and line would be maybe 300
yards from my house. No sewer or water lines on my street either.
Electric, fios and cable are underground. Watching fios and Comcast cut
each others lines accidentally in installations, I would not want to be
around if gas or sewer were installed.

On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 13:54:29 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

You lucked out on your heating system. If you have a gas water heater
you can live like civilized people without electricity.

Many hot water heaters require electricity for ignition now that
conservation and safety has mandated no more pilot lights.

Ditto furnaces and they also require a hot air blower of a hot water
circulation pump.

"Stormin Mormon" wrote in
:

Why would the gas company pay you to put in a furnace that uses less of
their product? That would be like McDonalds paying people to take diet
pills.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

"Diogenes" wrote in message
...

Check with your local gas supplier about available rebates for
installing a high-efficiency gas furnace. I replaced the rickety,
20-year-old gas furnace in my daughter's house with a new 97%
efficient unit and received a $800 rebate from the gas company.

More likely the gas company gets a kickback from the installer and the
state pays you a good boy premium for conserving.

I hired a company to oversee the installation of extra insulation in the
attic (foamed between the rafters, and sealed everything in sight,
including the plate on the foundation). I got a check from the state for
50% of the costs. Paperwork was all done by the contractor. Made things
much more pleasant this past summer.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Gunner wrote in
:

On 04 Nov 2012 19:37:30 GMT, Han wrote:

The Daring Dufas wrote in
news:k76faa :

That's right, you did write that it is circulating hot water. I
assume it doesn't have a draft inducer blower like many
boilers/furnaces. Is it one of those small Taco pumps? They don't
use very much power. ^_^

Yes, a Taco, 1/25 hp, using it says 0.76 Amps.


You were right at the limit of that inverter. Just a heads up.

Gunner

That's why I didn't really like it, but it worked.
120 Volt 0.76 Amps equals 91.2 Watt, or 2/3 of the inverter's capacity.


--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Winston_Smith wrote in
:

On 04 Nov 2012 17:12:37 GMT, Han wrote:

I have a 150 Watt inverter and finally got a friend to help hooking it
up to the furnace (we went 99 hours without power in NE NJ, 07410).
Furnace is natural gas-fired, circulating hot water. The inverter
hookup worked fine, but I had to have the engine running, of course.
It is OK for short emergencies, but I'd like better. Will be looking
...

You are obviously using something less than 150 Watts and that's only
when it's running. Think about a 100 W solar panel. If your ''on''
time is less than 50%, you should be good to go with not all that big
a battery. In fact you would never discharge it very much so you
should get good service life.

The solar route sounds very good to me, but I have some doubts. Firstly,
costs for something that won't be very efficient, given the location and
orientation of my roofs, are a concern. Secondly, unless I go for the
gold-plated (figure of speech) install with all the bells and whistles
that pay me back for what I "sell" to electric company, I'd be paying for
something that I won't use 95% of the time, but where I have to make sure
the batteries are in good shape for when the **** hits the fan. Lastly,
with a solar install, I'd want to have most of my home be able to workas
if it was on the grid, not just the most essential things. So it becomes
a trade-off between installation cost and usability. I can't figure it
out and make a decision ...

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Han wrote:
Frank wrote in
:

You're lucky. We could not get gas when our house was built. Oil
furnace with blower takes a lot of juice. So does well. I've got
5,500 watt generator but hot water, stove and AC are all off line when
power fails. Well, furnace, freezer and refrigerator were main
reasons I got a generator and no way could these be handled off an
inverter.

Given a choice, I don't understand why anyone would buy a home that
didn't have natural gas. I do understand that sometimes there is no
choice. We had an oil furnace in our previous home, but it was
expensive to run, stinky and not very reliable. There was gas for the
stove. OK, the furnace was an old system. I would definitely ditch it
for a gas furnace if I'd had to replace it. With gusto if I had known
in advance that gas would drop in price by as much as it has.
Luckily, where I have lived there has always been municipal water, gas
of some sort, and electricity. Except for a few years, there has always
been a sewer system as well.


There were a few who didn't buy my house because gas was not hooked up. So
it cost me $1k to hook it up after I lived with the old oil for a year. The
furnace was 40 years old.

Greg

On 11/04/2012 06:36 PM, Winston_Smith wrote:
On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 13:54:29 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

You lucked out on your heating system. If you have a gas water heater
you can live like civilized people without electricity.

Many hot water heaters require electricity for ignition now that
conservation and safety has mandated no more pilot lights.

Here, electricity was off a couple of days during an ice storm in the
winter of 1999. I was glad to have heat then (central heat wouldn't
work, but water heater and gas logs did).

Ditto furnaces and they also require a hot air blower of a hot water
circulation pump.


BTW, people say furnaces should be hardwired instead of using a plug. Is
that because of the ground? Something else?

--
51 days until the winter celebration (Tue Dec 25, 2012 12:00:00 AM).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us

"Asking if computers can think, is like asking if submarines can swim."

Someone wrote it into the National Electrical Code.

No electrical reason, that I can tell.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"Mark Lloyd"
wrote in message ...

BTW, people say furnaces should be hardwired
instead of using a plug. Is that because of the
ground? Something else?

--
51 days until the winter celebration (Tue Dec 25, 2012 12:00:00 AM).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us

"Asking if computers can think, is like asking if submarines can swim."

Winston_Smith wrote:
On 04 Nov 2012 17:12:37 GMT, Han wrote:

I have a 150 Watt inverter and finally got a friend to help hooking it up
to the furnace (we went 99 hours without power in NE NJ, 07410). Furnace
is natural gas-fired, circulating hot water. The inverter hookup worked
fine, but I had to have the engine running, of course. It is OK for
short emergencies, but I'd like better. Will be looking ...

You are obviously using something less than 150 Watts and that's only
when it's running. Think about a 100 W solar panel. If your ''on''
time is less than 50%, you should be good to go with not all that big
a battery. In fact you would never discharge it very much so you
should get good service life.

I know I live in the northern Appalachian region with the fewest sunny days
in America, my solar panels pretty much useless after over a week. I hear
the sun is suppose to be seen tomorrow ?? Hope it's still there.

Greg

On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 19:57:01 -0600, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 11/04/2012 06:36 PM, Winston_Smith wrote:
On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 13:54:29 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

You lucked out on your heating system. If you have a gas water heater
you can live like civilized people without electricity.

Many hot water heaters require electricity for ignition now that
conservation and safety has mandated no more pilot lights.

Here, electricity was off a couple of days during an ice storm in the
winter of 1999. I was glad to have heat then (central heat wouldn't
work, but water heater and gas logs did).

The gas furnace where I lived in the 60s through 80s needed two things
before the full gas would turn on to the burners. They were both
accomplished in one valve. First it needed electricity to pull in a
coil to supply a small amount of gas to the pilot light. Second an
expanding fluid temperature sensor had to detect the pilot light was
on and hot. Then the valve opened and supplied the gas.

It did have a manual over ride. There was a red button you could hold
down to give the pilot light gas, light it with a match with you other
hand, and shoo the cat with your third hand.

It took two or three minutes for the pilot light to get the sensor hot
enough to operate the valve. That part was mechanical, not electrical.

Then you were off and running. Sort of. There was no power for the hot
air blower and the over temperature detector in the plenum couldn't
shut down the furnace when it got too hot.

The furnace was in the cellar and hot air rises, so some heat drifted
up to the rooms. It was up to the user to judge when the innards were
getting too hot and shut off the gas by rotating the valve.

Fortunately we never lost power for more than some number of hours.

Ditto furnaces and they also require a hot air blower of a hot water
circulation pump.

BTW, people say furnaces should be hardwired instead of using a plug. Is
that because of the ground? Something else?

I have no idea. I'll leave that to someone else to answer.

Parts of USA don't get enough sun shine to be useful.
Yours sounds like such an area. I bet the lack of sun
gets depressing.

Have you seen the movie "The Road"? Now, that is
depressing.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"gregz" wrote in message
...

I know I live in the northern Appalachian region with the fewest sunny days
in America, my solar panels pretty much useless after over a week. I hear
the sun is suppose to be seen tomorrow ?? Hope it's still there.

Greg

"Stormin Mormon" wrote:
I helped take out one of those. it had several hunded pounds of sand,on top.
The top of the furnace tapred in, sort of like the shape of a paper snow
cone container. That made for a LOT of work to get all that sand out. Then,
the sand up the stairs, and dump in the yard.


My house originally had coal furnace of some kind. I can't figure how it
was hooked up. I do know, the second owner must have converted to oil early
in time. My rafters above where the furnace would have been are very black.
I'm well familiar with coal, both grandparents mined it. I remember the
coal stove in the kitchen, coal fireplaces, coal furnace.

Greg

On Nov 3, 7:41*am, The Daring Dufas the-daring-du...@stinky-
finger.net wrote:
On 11/3/2012 4:43 AM, Gunner wrote:



On Wed, 31 Oct 2012 21:33:18 -0700, Larry wrote:

In article a843e813-2d97-4a4b-b171-
, says...

On Oct 31, 8:40 am, Frank wrote:
On 10/31/2012 8:31 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:

For me, they include:

* Run the generator every year
* Boredom is a terrible thing
* Candles don't put out enough light to be useful.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
* *www.lds.org
.

Things you should have already known.
Family here learned also that you should not run your generator indoors.

My neighbor who came over for water an outage or two ago was complaining
that they could not find any D cells for their portable radio.

Some people never learn.

A inverter is a wonderful thing, just connect to your car battery and
let engine idle. for a 100 bucks you can get a thousand watt inverter,
for lights, radio and a tv if the load isnt too heavy

A thousand watts is 85 amps at 12 volts. Most automotive alternators will fry
if you try to run them at that level, though some heavy duty truck
alternators will handle 1000 watts continuous. Your typical car alternator
will put out 50 amps at 14 volts at 4000 RPM, which is above engine idle. You
can retrofit a heavy duty 150+ amp alternator with a small pulley to make it
spin faster, but modern cars with their tight engine well and serpentine
belts make that a PITA. It would be easier to just get a 3 hp lawnmower
motor, mount a heavy duty alternator and a battery, which would give you 1000
watts easily while running the engine at moderate speed.

Actually..you are better off snagging the complete front end from a
Honda, or other small car, pulling the engine, mounting it on a stand
and adding a set of pulleys and a gen head.

http://www.harborfreight.com/engines...or-accessories...

As an example. A regular automotive small engine will simply idle and
drive that gen head quite nicely. Anything bigger than 20 hp will be
more than enough. Hell..a motorcycle engine from a 450cc or bigger
should drive it nicely

Gunner

--

If you can set up the pulleys correctly to get a small liquid cooled
engine to run at 1800rpm and spin the generator at 3600rpm, you will
wind up with a very quiet, reliable genset. A heavy flywheel could help
but I suspect the mass of the armature would be enough to keep power
output steady.


if the load varies, you will need some kind of a governor to adjust
the throttle to keep the speed and hence voltage and frequency
constant.


Mark

On 11/4/2012 8:52 PM, Mark wrote:
On Nov 3, 7:41 am, The Daring Dufas the-daring-du...@stinky-
finger.net wrote:
On 11/3/2012 4:43 AM, Gunner wrote:



On Wed, 31 Oct 2012 21:33:18 -0700, Larry wrote:

In article a843e813-2d97-4a4b-b171-
, says...

On Oct 31, 8:40 am, Frank wrote:
On 10/31/2012 8:31 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:

For me, they include:

* Run the generator every year
* Boredom is a terrible thing
* Candles don't put out enough light to be useful.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

Things you should have already known.
Family here learned also that you should not run your generator indoors.

My neighbor who came over for water an outage or two ago was complaining
that they could not find any D cells for their portable radio.

Some people never learn.

A inverter is a wonderful thing, just connect to your car battery and
let engine idle. for a 100 bucks you can get a thousand watt inverter,
for lights, radio and a tv if the load isnt too heavy

A thousand watts is 85 amps at 12 volts. Most automotive alternators will fry
if you try to run them at that level, though some heavy duty truck
alternators will handle 1000 watts continuous. Your typical car alternator
will put out 50 amps at 14 volts at 4000 RPM, which is above engine idle. You
can retrofit a heavy duty 150+ amp alternator with a small pulley to make it
spin faster, but modern cars with their tight engine well and serpentine
belts make that a PITA. It would be easier to just get a 3 hp lawnmower
motor, mount a heavy duty alternator and a battery, which would give you 1000
watts easily while running the engine at moderate speed.

Actually..you are better off snagging the complete front end from a
Honda, or other small car, pulling the engine, mounting it on a stand
and adding a set of pulleys and a gen head.

http://www.harborfreight.com/engines...or-accessories...

As an example. A regular automotive small engine will simply idle and
drive that gen head quite nicely. Anything bigger than 20 hp will be
more than enough. Hell..a motorcycle engine from a 450cc or bigger
should drive it nicely

Gunner

--

If you can set up the pulleys correctly to get a small liquid cooled
engine to run at 1800rpm and spin the generator at 3600rpm, you will
wind up with a very quiet, reliable genset. A heavy flywheel could help
but I suspect the mass of the armature would be enough to keep power
output steady.


if the load varies, you will need some kind of a governor to adjust
the throttle to keep the speed and hence voltage and frequency
constant.

Mark


True, that's why I asked about his friend's homemade genset and what it
used for a speed governor to regulate the frequency of the output
voltage. ^_^

TDD

On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 13:02:11 -0800, Gunner
wrote:


And they can be had very very cheaply out of wrecks and other sources.
A buddy of mine built one using the HF 10kw gennhead and a Pinto
engine. It runs for days on a 20 gallon gas tank. At something like
800 rpm

Gunner

Gunner,a Pinto 2300 peaks at 96 ft lbs at 3000 RPM
At 800 RPM it would be doing VERY well to put out 55 ft lbs.
55*800/5252=8 HP
Not likely it could run a 10Kw genny at full load.
With proper modification you might get the torque up to 75 or 80 ft
lbs. That would give you 12 HP. JUST, possibly, enough to run a good
10KW genhead at full output, and take over a gallon an hour to run, so
2 days at close to full power on 20 gallons is believeable. Running at
less than half output might increase run time by 25% if he is REALLY
lucky.

On a later model engine 800 RPM could possibly be controlled bretty
well under low load by the idle air speed control after it got warmed
up.
The same engine, running at 1800 RPM would put out about 90 ft lbs,
for 30 HP - and running a 10Kw generator head at full output would use
about the same amount of gas because the efficiency of the engine
would be higher.


What is he using for a speed governor to keep the frequency stable? I
know there are a lot om OEM parts used to control idle speed on modern
vehicle engines that could be used to make your own governor. The HF
generator could be directly coupled to a small engine running at 3600rpm
using a Lovejoy coupling. The specs call for 16hp for full output so I'm
wondering if you could couple it to the existing pulleys
on a small 4cyl auto engine keeping the bell housing, flywheel and
starter to make things easier. Of course many modern vehicle engines
don't have a simple ignition system with a distributor and coil, so what
could you do there. I know an old Pinto engine didn't have an ECU
but a simple, possibly electronic ignition with distributor and a carb
which would make for a easy conversion to a stationary engine. My old
89 Dodge van has an engine control computer and TBI which could be used
to build a stationary engine for a generator but I'm wondering about the
new super whiz bang computer controlled engines of today's vehicles? O_o

TDD


Keep in mind..that 3600 rpm engines are using 4 times as much fuel as
a 800 rpm engine. Which is why the good gensets only run at 1800
rpm. They took subsized engines, hooked them up to a genny and run
them hard in order to keep the hp ratings up. Which works..but its
hard on the engine and hard on the fuel bills.

The new whizbang engines do exactly the same thing with the new
computers and they can be yanked out by the roots and installed on the
standby, though its a bit more complicated because so few of them have
a distributor anymore. Hence my suggestion about older engines with a
distributor for the hamhanded or those without a decent shop manual
for the engine/vehicle in question.

Gunner

On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 13:16:34 -0800, Gunner
wrote:

On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 14:44:03 -0500, wrote:

On Sat, 03 Nov 2012 22:24:16 -0700, Gunner
wrote:


Im thinking more along the lines of a Pinto engine or similar. When
one simply changes the pulley sizes...an idling engine can spin a
genny at 1800 rpm easily. How many hp is the typical small engine out
of a Saturn or Pinto or similar?

the little 1.9l Saturn engine is 85hp out of the box. At idle...how
long will it run on 5 gallons of fuel? 10-15 hours or more?

And they can be had very very cheaply out of wrecks and other sources.
A buddy of mine built one using the HF 10kw gennhead and a Pinto
engine. It runs for days on a 20 gallon gas tank. At something like
800 rpm

Gunner


Gunner
The Saturn 1.9 is 85HP at 5000 rpm in original form, and 100HP at
5000 with multiport injection.

Torque at 2400 is 107 and 115 respectively.

Assuming 80% torque is available at 1800 RPM, the early engine would
produce [ (.8X107)X1800/5252] =29.33 Hp

The multiport engine, under the same assumption, would produce
[(.8X115)X1800/5252] = 31.53 HP

Assuming 80% of maximum rated torque on an engine without variable
valve timing is being quite generous, from my experience.

I'd call 25 and 27 HP pretty realistic.

Also, idle consumption and full load consumption at 1800 RPM have
absolutely nothing in common. Specific fuel consumption at 1800 RPM
MAY aproach 0..4 per HP Hour. That would mean ABOUT 10 lbs per hour
for the low powered engine. At 6 lbs per american gallon of regular
gasoline, we are looking at just under 1.5 gallons per hour, so about
3.3 hours at full load - of approxemately 15 KW with an average
generator head and a reasonably well set up belt drive.
At anything less than full output, the efficiency would drop quite a
bit, so half load MIGHT give you 5 hours of running.

Take off the OEM fuel injection system and replace with a custom
tuneable unit, and retime the camshaft to move the torque peak down
closer to the running speed, and you could perhaps improve efficiency
a bit and squeeze, say, 7 hours at half load out of the system.

And if its run at an idle with say...4kw load? 15kw is a hell of a
loadout. I dont pull but 2kw with just the basic...CF lights, reefer
motor, and a TV or radio, plus the blower for the gas furnace. Make
that 2.5kw on furnace startup.

Ill have to see if I can get ahold of Gene, he documented his usages
pretty well and I know he runs his homestead on that engine/genset for
about 4 days on 20 gallons of fuel. At an idle.

My genset here at the homestead is a 4kw Onan and it runs everything
nicely, including the popcorn popper (grin) on about 1/3 gallon an
hour with everything running balls to the wall. Its an 1800 rpm twin
cylinder motor out of a wrecked motorhome.

Which btw..is another good place to find gensets.

Gunner

Actually about the BEST place to get one - particularly if you want
dual fuel (propane/gasoline) Take a 12HP twin (at 3600 RPM) and run
it at 1800 RPM as a 6 HP engine on a 4Kw Generator head and it is a
long life unit - particularly with a full flow oil filter set-up.

The liquid cooled systems are significantly quieter than air cooled -
and a lot of the higher end motorhome units are moving to liquid
cooled. More expensive though.

On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 13:20:02 -0800, Gunner
wrote:

On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 14:44:03 -0500, wrote:

On Sat, 03 Nov 2012 22:24:16 -0700, Gunner
wrote:


Im thinking more along the lines of a Pinto engine or similar. When
one simply changes the pulley sizes...an idling engine can spin a
genny at 1800 rpm easily. How many hp is the typical small engine out
of a Saturn or Pinto or similar?

the little 1.9l Saturn engine is 85hp out of the box. At idle...how
long will it run on 5 gallons of fuel? 10-15 hours or more?

And they can be had very very cheaply out of wrecks and other sources.
A buddy of mine built one using the HF 10kw gennhead and a Pinto
engine. It runs for days on a 20 gallon gas tank. At something like
800 rpm

Gunner


Gunner
The Saturn 1.9 is 85HP at 5000 rpm in original form, and 100HP at
5000 with multiport injection.

Torque at 2400 is 107 and 115 respectively.

Assuming 80% torque is available at 1800 RPM, the early engine would
produce [ (.8X107)X1800/5252] =29.33 Hp

The multiport engine, under the same assumption, would produce
[(.8X115)X1800/5252] = 31.53 HP

Assuming 80% of maximum rated torque on an engine without variable
valve timing is being quite generous, from my experience.

I'd call 25 and 27 HP pretty realistic.

Also, idle consumption and full load consumption at 1800 RPM have
absolutely nothing in common. Specific fuel consumption at 1800 RPM
MAY aproach 0..4 per HP Hour. That would mean ABOUT 10 lbs per hour
for the low powered engine. At 6 lbs per american gallon of regular
gasoline, we are looking at just under 1.5 gallons per hour, so about
3.3 hours at full load - of approxemately 15 KW with an average
generator head and a reasonably well set up belt drive.
At anything less than full output, the efficiency would drop quite a
bit, so half load MIGHT give you 5 hours of running.

Take off the OEM fuel injection system and replace with a custom
tuneable unit, and retime the camshaft to move the torque peak down
closer to the running speed, and you could perhaps improve efficiency
a bit and squeeze, say, 7 hours at half load out of the system.


Oh...I went to sleep one night with my 3.0 Ford Ranger idling out
front and didnt remember it was running..and 2 days later, got ready
to go to work...walked out..and my truck was running. Used about 3/4
of a 14 gallon tank of gas.

Just a heads up.

Gunner
With no load 10 gallons will last a while. Put the AC on and it will
last about half as long.