I just ordered up a SuperTrapp muffler for my 16hp Vanguard... but it
was NOT cheap.
The info is here, it might be useful for comparison at least:
http://www.jackssmallengines.com/strapmain.cfm and
http://www.jackssmallengines.com/strapmod.cfm
I bought a 5S with the 6" resonator because I need "stealth" for
sneaking through the woods in my Coot... but I would think one of the
smaller ones (3S?) would be adequate for what you need.
There's an article about adding one of these to a generator, but the
conclusion was sort of hard to interpret... like, "It's done, I'm happy"
without any real comparison between before & after:
http://www.jackssmallengines.com/faqsupertrap.cfm
Good luck,
David



"Ernie Leimkuhler" wrote in message
...
I bought a Coleman Powermate 5000 a few months back.
It works fine for the ocasional location welding I need to do.
It only has to power my inverter.

My only problem is the noise.
It has this tiny little spark arrestor, and no real muffler.

I am hoping that one of you guys has successfully added some kind of
muffler from a moped of small motorcycle.

The engine is a 10 hp Tecumsa Sno-King engine as used on snowblowers.

http://www.colemanpowermate.com/gene...45004_17.shtml

I am looking for a simple cheap solution, but I don't know enough about
small engines to know if the muffler provides some kind of back
pressure to the engine.

Howdy,

One thing to be careful of with these engines, if the muffler is the type
that screws into the engine head with a pipe nipple, the mass of the muffler
vibrating as the engine is running can be enough to crack the aluminum
around the hole where the muffler screws into the head.

There may be couple of 1/4" or so tapped holes around the big hole, and
briggs may have a different muffler that fits using that kind of mount. But
on generators the plastic gas tank is overhead, so too much heat at the
wrong place under the tank could get exciting. Some kind of flex pipe from
the mount to a big rigidly mounted external muffler assy. might be the way
to go.

Show us what you come up with.

--One of the neatest mufflers I ever saw was made out of wood.
This was for a model airplane engine, but there's no reason to think it
wouldn't work in your application. Pick the right woods and the thing will
sound real nice...

--
"Steamboat Ed" Haas : Quando Omni
Hacking the Trailing Edge! : Flunkus Moritati
http://www.nmpproducts.com/intro.htm
---Decks a-wash in a sea of words---

A friend of mine fab'ed a pipe and then used a car muffler on his lawn
mower, now the blades are about twice as loud as the engine noise. It worked
so well he put one on his RV which wasn't that noisy to begin with, now you
almost can't hear it at all ( the generator is in a insulated box and the
exhaust is plumbed through an car muffler all the way out the back).

Good luck
tHAT


"Ernie Leimkuhler" wrote in message
...
I bought a Coleman Powermate 5000 a few months back.
It works fine for the ocasional location welding I need to do.
It only has to power my inverter.

My only problem is the noise.
It has this tiny little spark arrestor, and no real muffler.

I am hoping that one of you guys has successfully added some kind of
muffler from a moped of small motorcycle.

The engine is a 10 hp Tecumsa Sno-King engine as used on snowblowers.

http://www.colemanpowermate.com/gene...45004_17.shtml

I am looking for a simple cheap solution, but I don't know enough about
small engines to know if the muffler provides some kind of back
pressure to the engine.

Check with a motorcycle shop. They might have one for a small cycle
that is really quiet. Those seem to never sell!

I have replaces mufflers on small 4 cycle engines with water pipe and
no muffler. The head for most of the small engines is tapped for pipe
threads.

Paul

Ernie Leimkuhler wrote in message

...
I bought a Coleman Powermate 5000 a few months back.
It works fine for the ocasional location welding I need to do.
It only has to power my inverter.

My only problem is the noise.
It has this tiny little spark arrestor, and no real muffler.

I am hoping that one of you guys has successfully added some kind of
muffler from a moped of small motorcycle.

The engine is a 10 hp Tecumsa Sno-King engine as used on snowblowers.

http://www.colemanpowermate.com/gene...45004_17.shtml

I am looking for a simple cheap solution, but I don't know enough about
small engines to know if the muffler provides some kind of back
pressure to the engine.

Ernie Leimkuhler wrote: (clip)I am looking for a simple cheap solution
(clip)
^^^^^^^^^^
Ernie, with all your skills, creative ability and curiosity, I think you
should build a muffler. I once cut into the muffler on a Peugeot 403, and
the construction was so simple and clever I've been waiting for an excuse to
make one. The inlet pipe goes through the wall, completely down the length
of the muffler to the other "bulkhead" where it is tacked on, but left open.
The outlet pipe goes through the rear bulkhead, parallel to the inlet pipe
to the front bulkhead, where it is tacked on in the same manner

The flow goes down the inlet pipe, back toward the front through the main
chamber, into the outlet pipe, and then out. There and "nailholes" in both
pipes, so the gasses, travelling down the pipe, blow out through the holes
into the main chamber wherever there is a pressure difference to make it
happen. So the flow is "folded" back on itself twice, and there are
numerous chances for the waves to smooth out.

AS the RPM changes, the wavelength changes, but there will always be places
where the pressure differences are cancelling.

With your skills, I am sure you could produce a muffler that is custom
shaped to fit in whatever space is available on the generator. Nothing says
the pipes have to be straight.

Scroll down to the very bottom of this page for an idea:

http://www.kansaswindpower.net/books.htm


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Ernie Leimkuhler wrote in message ...
I bought a Coleman Powermate 5000 a few months back.
It works fine for the ocasional location welding I need to do.
It only has to power my inverter.

My only problem is the noise.
It has this tiny little spark arrestor, and no real muffler.

I am hoping that one of you guys has successfully added some kind of
muffler from a moped of small motorcycle.

The engine is a 10 hp Tecumsa Sno-King engine as used on snowblowers.

http://www.colemanpowermate.com/gene...45004_17.shtml

I am looking for a simple cheap solution, but I don't know enough about
small engines to know if the muffler provides some kind of back
pressure to the engine.

If you decide to build one, you can use the silencer program he
http://www.mh-aerotools.de/airfoils/software.htm to design and build a
muffler that would knock down the key frequencies of your engine, which you
would determine using the spectrogram program he
http://www.visualizationsoftware.com/gram/gramdl.html
You adjust the frequency range to 20 to 20,000hz and turn on the "peak
hold" feature... then just run the generator and watch the screen (or record
the spectrogram to a file).
The "primary firing frequency" is just (rpm x cylinders)/60 which will
most likely come out to 60hz for a small generator... but the pipe
resonances drive you nuts if try to tune the sound "manually". ;-}
I have used both programs for other projects, but time didn't allow on
this project... so I bought instead of built.
Good luck,
David


"Leo Lichtman" wrote in message
...

Ernie Leimkuhler wrote: (clip)I am looking for a simple cheap solution
(clip)
^^^^^^^^^^
Ernie, with all your skills, creative ability and curiosity, I think you
should build a muffler. I once cut into the muffler on a Peugeot 403, and
the construction was so simple and clever I've been waiting for an excuse
to
make one. The inlet pipe goes through the wall, completely down the
length
of the muffler to the other "bulkhead" where it is tacked on, but left
open.
The outlet pipe goes through the rear bulkhead, parallel to the inlet pipe
to the front bulkhead, where it is tacked on in the same manner

The flow goes down the inlet pipe, back toward the front through the main
chamber, into the outlet pipe, and then out. There and "nailholes" in
both
pipes, so the gasses, travelling down the pipe, blow out through the holes
into the main chamber wherever there is a pressure difference to make it
happen. So the flow is "folded" back on itself twice, and there are
numerous chances for the waves to smooth out.

AS the RPM changes, the wavelength changes, but there will always be
places
where the pressure differences are cancelling.

With your skills, I am sure you could produce a muffler that is custom
shaped to fit in whatever space is available on the generator. Nothing
says
the pipes have to be straight.

See the other comments about the threaded holes breaking out, the
high temp and plastic gas tank, etc.

I have seen the add on kits at my power products dealer, usually
quite expensive.

Two suggestions: Make a flange mount (don't use the pipe thread
hole) with a 90 degree sweep elbow. This elbow will get VERY hot
so use some heavy wall tube. Braze on a 12" length of the exhaust
type flex hose from the auto parts store. Run it off to a
standard auto muffler. There is a standard replacement size that
is about 4-1/2" thick by 9" x 18" long. Mount the muffler solid
to the generator frame, add a suitable heat shield.

If you want to make a decent tubular muffler: take a suitable
diameter exhaust tube, make a saw slot in the midle, insert and
weld a plate as a full plug. Drill some 3/8" or 1/2" holes
through the tube on both sides of the plug. Get two suitable
washers and a larger tube, weld it up. Exahust gas goes in,
through the first set of holes, into the space between the tubes,
out through the holes, then out.

Ernie Leimkuhler wrote:

I bought a Coleman Powermate 5000 a few months back.
It works fine for the ocasional location welding I need to do.
It only has to power my inverter.

My only problem is the noise.
It has this tiny little spark arrestor, and no real muffler.

I am hoping that one of you guys has successfully added some kind of
muffler from a moped of small motorcycle.

The engine is a 10 hp Tecumsa Sno-King engine as used on snowblowers.

http://www.colemanpowermate.com/gene...45004_17.shtml

I am looking for a simple cheap solution, but I don't know enough about
small engines to know if the muffler provides some kind of back
pressure to the engine.

Here's the problem with these generators. They use Tecumseh or B&S
engines. They are noisy. It seems that half of the noise is generated by
the exhaust and half by the noise of the rod, piston, and crank as they
do their thing.
I have added mufflers in series to my riding lawn mower to try and quiet
it down, but I think the best thing was getting the pipe down closer to
and pointing at the ground.
I've also played with a Powermate 3000 with a 5HP B&S. My friend had an
old motorcycle muffler we rigged onto the thing that only took that
cackle off of the noise that it produced.
My opinion is that you will need to enclosed the whole engine in an
enclosure and somewhere???? find a muffler that works.

Ernie Leimkuhler wrote:

I bought a Coleman Powermate 5000 a few months back.
It works fine for the ocasional location welding I need to do.
It only has to power my inverter.

My only problem is the noise.
It has this tiny little spark arrestor, and no real muffler.

I am hoping that one of you guys has successfully added some kind of
muffler from a moped of small motorcycle.

The engine is a 10 hp Tecumsa Sno-King engine as used on snowblowers.

http://www.colemanpowermate.com/gene...45004_17.shtml

I am looking for a simple cheap solution, but I don't know enough about
small engines to know if the muffler provides some kind of back
pressure to the engine.

The problem with most of these soultions is vibration. I was trying to
muffle mine same as you but I couldn't find any decent flex to run to
the rigid mounted muffler. I called a couple RV repair outfits about
the small flexible exhaust tubing they use on motorhomes, etc. They
said nobody will sell it anymore because of a law suit (imagine that)
resulting from a fractrured flex like damaging some people in a
motorhome from carbon monoxide/dioxide, whatever. The other flex I
found was like a steam connector setup but it was too expensive for my
tastes. I'm still looking for a solution but not very hard....I got a
looooong extension cord for now.

JohnF



On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 04:12:38 -0700, Ernie Leimkuhler
wrote:

I bought a Coleman Powermate 5000 a few months back.
It works fine for the ocasional location welding I need to do.
It only has to power my inverter.

My only problem is the noise.
It has this tiny little spark arrestor, and no real muffler.

I am hoping that one of you guys has successfully added some kind of
muffler from a moped of small motorcycle.

The engine is a 10 hp Tecumsa Sno-King engine as used on snowblowers.

http://www.colemanpowermate.com/gene...45004_17.shtml

I am looking for a simple cheap solution, but I don't know enough about
small engines to know if the muffler provides some kind of back
pressure to the engine.

I bet you can buy some good exhaust flex tubing at J.C. Whitney.

I bought some there, and it was actually pretty good stuff.

They have different diameters, one of which might suit.

I bought some big 3" pipe and made an adapter so I could vent
generator exhaust out of my garage.

Dave


On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 18:59:52 GMT, (JohnF)
wrote:

The problem with most of these soultions is vibration. I was trying to
muffle mine same as you but I couldn't find any decent flex to run to
the rigid mounted muffler. I called a couple RV repair outfits about
the small flexible exhaust tubing they use on motorhomes, etc. They
said nobody will sell it anymore because of a law suit (imagine that)
resulting from a fractrured flex like damaging some people in a
motorhome from carbon monoxide/dioxide, whatever. The other flex I
found was like a steam connector setup but it was too expensive for my
tastes. I'm still looking for a solution but not very hard....I got a
looooong extension cord for now.

JohnF



On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 04:12:38 -0700, Ernie Leimkuhler
wrote:

I bought a Coleman Powermate 5000 a few months back.
It works fine for the ocasional location welding I need to do.
It only has to power my inverter.

My only problem is the noise.
It has this tiny little spark arrestor, and no real muffler.

I am hoping that one of you guys has successfully added some kind of
muffler from a moped of small motorcycle.

The engine is a 10 hp Tecumsa Sno-King engine as used on snowblowers.

http://www.colemanpowermate.com/gene...45004_17.shtml

I am looking for a simple cheap solution, but I don't know enough about
small engines to know if the muffler provides some kind of back
pressure to the engine.

"David A. Webb" wrote:
I bet you can buy some good exhaust flex tubing at J.C. Whitney. ...

Indeed you can (well, I can't be sure about the "good"):

http://www.jcwhitney.com/productnoit...D=14722&BQ=mot

Buy steam flex pipe... Works great...

You can get 304 welded bellow hose from your local Swagelock distributor if
JCWhitney's stuff isn't what you need. Big problem I see with using a large
car-style muffler is the condensation. Make sure you get a muffler with
drain holes and mount it so one of them is at the lowest point. With a
small engine and big muffler mass it will take many, many minutes of running
to fully warm up and dry out the muffler.

--
Regards,
Carl Ijames

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003 02:09:16 GMT, "Carl Ijames"
wrote:

You can get 304 welded bellow hose from your local Swagelock distributor if
JCWhitney's stuff isn't what you need. Big problem I see with using a large
car-style muffler is the condensation. Make sure you get a muffler with
drain holes and mount it so one of them is at the lowest point. With a
small engine and big muffler mass it will take many, many minutes of running
to fully warm up and dry out the muffler.

Not so.
I have an old Kohler Electric Plant (8 hp single cylinder) that I
adapted a car muffler to. The muffler gets warm very quickly.
The muffler does a great job knocking down the exhaust note, however,
the cooling fins radiate all sorts of mechanical noise.

-Carl

Just drill a 1/16" hole at the lowest point in your installation.
For the small engines, you will usually wind up mounting it
horizontal with the shell vertical.

Carl Ijames wrote:

You can get 304 welded bellow hose from your local Swagelock distributor if
JCWhitney's stuff isn't what you need. Big problem I see with using a large
car-style muffler is the condensation. Make sure you get a muffler with
drain holes and mount it so one of them is at the lowest point. With a
small engine and big muffler mass it will take many, many minutes of running
to fully warm up and dry out the muffler.

--
Regards,
Carl Ijames

LOL


On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 16:43:58 -0400, Bob Engelhardt
wrote:

"David A. Webb" wrote:
I bet you can buy some good exhaust flex tubing at J.C. Whitney. ...

Indeed you can (well, I can't be sure about the "good"):

http://www.jcwhitney.com/productnoit...D=14722&BQ=mot

"Roy Jenson" wrote in message
...
See the other comments about the threaded holes breaking out, the
high temp and plastic gas tank, etc.

I have seen the add on kits at my power products dealer, usually
quite expensive.

Two suggestions: Make a flange mount (don't use the pipe thread
hole) with a 90 degree sweep elbow. This elbow will get VERY hot
so use some heavy wall tube. Braze on a 12" length of the exhaust
type flex hose from the auto parts store. Run it off to a
standard auto muffler. There is a standard replacement size that
is about 4-1/2" thick by 9" x 18" long. Mount the muffler solid
to the generator frame, add a suitable heat shield.

If you want to make a decent tubular muffler: take a suitable
diameter exhaust tube, make a saw slot in the midle, insert and
weld a plate as a full plug. Drill some 3/8" or 1/2" holes
through the tube on both sides of the plug. Get two suitable
washers and a larger tube, weld it up. Exahust gas goes in,
through the first set of holes, into the space between the tubes,
out through the holes, then out.

Ernie Leimkuhler wrote:

I bought a Coleman Powermate 5000 a few months back.
It works fine for the ocasional location welding I need to do.
It only has to power my inverter.

My only problem is the noise.
It has this tiny little spark arrestor, and no real muffler.

I am hoping that one of you guys has successfully added some kind of
muffler from a moped of small motorcycle.

The engine is a 10 hp Tecumsa Sno-King engine as used on
snowblowers.

http://www.colemanpowermate.com/gene...45004_17.shtml

I am looking for a simple cheap solution, but I don't know enough
about
small engines to know if the muffler provides some kind of back
pressure to the engine.

Instead of tube,one could use sewer pipe.The mass really cuts noise.

wws

Someone needs to just send me a pc of steam pipe flex or any Hi temp
flex about 1 to 1-1/2 dia with flanges. I'm getting too old to care
that much anymore. This may work out in the long run, couple more
years I may not be able to hear the damn thing.

Just a thought.

JohnF

On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 04:12:38 -0700, Ernie Leimkuhler wrote:
I bought a Coleman Powermate 5000 a few months back.
It works fine for the ocasional location welding I need to do.
It only has to power my inverter.

My only problem is the noise.

Yep, and a better muffler won't help that much. The engine
itself radiates huge amounts of noise. Even if you were to
put a Cadilac muffler on that Tecumseh, it would still be
noisy.

A good Honda or Yamaha generator will be much quieter,
because they thought about noise control when they designed
them. Briggs also makes a "Quiet Power" package which is
much quieter than a normal Briggs. The differences aren't
mainly in the muffler on any of them. It is better sound
dampening designed into the block, head, and shroud.

Gary

NASA sent this out in their weekly: NASA Tech Briefs INSIDER 08/12/03
Looks like hope yet for these small portable engines. Wonder why they
were ever designed that way in the first place, but 2 stroke must be
tough to design or re-design. Looks neat - retrofit as well!
www at the bottom.
Take care,
Martin

TWO-STROKE ENGINE
Researchers at the DOE's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental
Laboratory (INEEL) have developed and patented a device that reduces
exhaust emissions from two-stroke engines. The engines are used in
chain saws, gas-powered lawn trimmers, hand-held power tools, mopeds,
street motorcycles, and even low-cost automobiles.

Two-stroke engines require oil mixed with gas for internal lubrication.
During operation, the intake and exhaust ports are momentarily open at
the same time, thereby pulling some of the intake stream (containing
fuel and oil) out into the exhaust port. This results in inefficiency
and smoky exhaust emissions.

The INEEL' s small separator will remove unburned oil and gas from the
two-
cycle engine exhaust by spinning it at a high rate, thereby
centrifugally
separating the fuel from the lighter gaseous combustion products. The
heavy
constituents will be burned in an afterburner or captured and removed
for
recycling or disposal.

The uniqueness of the INEEL technology is the separator and its
location.
The separator is predicated on an innovative design. The separator will
be
located in the exhaust system, the muffler exhaust area, or a
combination
of both. The technology can be implemented in new vehicles and
retrofitted
to existing ones.

Visit http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20030812A2 for more information.

--
Martin Eastburn, Barbara Eastburn
@ home at Lion's Lair with our computer
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

My airplane had a side hanging muffler.

It attached maybe 1/3 down from the front.

It was a long tube and down the center was a threaded rod.
Spaced here and there - tuning ? were disks with holes.

Some put SS wire - like SOS pads but SS - most of us just
had air. - OH - the back end had a pipe out the side - 1/4 of the
larger tube.

Martin
--
Martin Eastburn, Barbara Eastburn
@ home at Lion's Lair with our computer
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

In article ,
Ernie Leimkuhler wrote:

I am looking for a simple cheap solution, but I don't know enough about
small engines to know if the muffler provides some kind of back
pressure to the engine.

For a simple cheap solution consider a water muffler. The big problem
with big mufflers is you need a flex joint between the engine &
muffler. OTOH, if you just put a small perforated pipe on the outlet
and put that into a water tank the engine is only holding up the sm all
pipe, with no actual mechanical connection to the water tank. You can
still have a small gap between pipe & tank. Just be sure you have at
least one small hole in the pipe that never gets covered with water or
water may get sucked back into the engine when you shut down (in
addition to hard starting from back pressure).

--
free men own guns - slaves don't
www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5357/

I have made a few mufflers for small engines just for fun. I have one on
my 125 Honda that is so quiet you can hear the valves operating. It is a
tube within a tube.
Go to a camping supply place and buy a camp fuel bottle. Very nice spun
aluminum with threaded neck I believe those small mufflers have a pipe
thread so find a piece that fits the motor and the neck of the fuel
bottle. Drill about 30 holes in the pipe and slip it into the bottle.
Drill one small hole on bottle near the end about half the size of
exhaust port.
You need to make a plug that fits inside the pipe so you can attach it
to the wide end of the bottle with a small screw.
That's it. If seems like too much back pressure drill a few more smal
holes.
Total cost about 6 bucks

Eastburn wrote: ...
TWO-STROKE ENGINE
Researchers at the DOE's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental
Laboratory (INEEL) have developed and patented a device that reduces
exhaust emissions from two-stroke engines. ...

"... and per unit retail cost under $400, are realistic." Or
"unrealistic", depending upon your point of view.

Bob

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003 09:21:41 -0400, Bob Engelhardt
pixelated:

Eastburn wrote: ...
TWO-STROKE ENGINE
Researchers at the DOE's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental
Laboratory (INEEL) have developed and patented a device that reduces
exhaust emissions from two-stroke engines. ...

"... and per unit retail cost under $400, are realistic." Or
"unrealistic", depending upon your point of view.

A $400 "muffler" on a $79 weedeater? Sure, why not?
Who ARE these people who make statements like that?
;-\


-
Press HERE to arm. (Release to detonate.)
-----------
http://diversify.com Website Application Programming

What only that much ? - there are several versions - but here in Calif.
-
I mean Ca. - that is just above lunch with the new taxes.

Martin
--
Martin Eastburn, Barbara Eastburn
@ home at Lion's Lair with our computer
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

"Ernie Leimkuhler" wrote in message
...
I bought a Coleman Powermate 5000 a few months back.
It works fine for the ocasional location welding I need to do.
It only has to power my inverter.

....inverter - would that be the Maxstar 140 you reviewed here a while back,
or have you upgraded?

StaticsJason

In article , Statics
wrote:

"Ernie Leimkuhler" wrote in message
...
I bought a Coleman Powermate 5000 a few months back.
It works fine for the ocasional location welding I need to do.
It only has to power my inverter.

...inverter - would that be the Maxstar 140 you reviewed here a while back,
or have you upgraded?

StaticsJason



Maxstar 200DX, from which I either TIG weld or run my Readywelder
spoolgun for MIG welding.

I upgraded 2 years ago.

Well it works.
I bought a Geo Metro muffler and made up a flex hose asembly for the
engine.
It now is only as loud as a normal lawnmower.
Much better than itr was.

There really is quite a bit of noise coming from the outside of the
engine as well, but it is way better than it was.

A lot of the noise from B&S etc. engines is on the intake. I have an 8
horse B&S on a log splitter that has a "silencer" on the air cleaner.

--


Don Thompson

Ex ROMAD


"Ernie Leimkuhler" wrote in message
...
Well it works.
I bought a Geo Metro muffler and made up a flex hose asembly for the
engine.
It now is only as loud as a normal lawnmower.
Much better than itr was.

There really is quite a bit of noise coming from the outside of the
engine as well, but it is way better than it was.