Greetings All,

Just sharing some pictures and a short video of the 22hp ChangFa
diesel engine & 15KW generator head that arrived yesterday. Had a
blast doing the minor engine assembly and starting her up for the
first time.

Surprinsingly, the noisest part of the engine is the air intake. It
makes a very loud "Whoomph" on each intake stroke. I think a little
creative engineering here could provide signifant noise redcution.

Anyway, here's a link to the pictures and short video:

http://lerch.no-ip.com/ChangFa



Take Care,
James Lerch
http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm (My telescope construction, Testing, and Coating site)

Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Calvin Coolidge

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:10:11 GMT,
(James Lerch) wrote:

Anyway, here's a link to the pictures and short video:

http://lerch.no-ip.com/ChangFa

Arghhhhhh.. Ok here's the real link...

http://lerch.no-ip.com/ChangFa_Gen/



Take Care,
James Lerch
http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm (My telescope construction, Testing, and Coating site)

Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Calvin Coolidge

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:57:15 GMT, Ignoramus30369
wrote:

A very cool video. I am wondering, why in the middle of the video
there is a brief very sharp loud noise noise like someone is shooting
a full auto Kalashnikov into the air?

After startup, about 12 seconds into the video, I pulled the
"Throttle" closed.

At 14 seconds into the video I "Revved" it back up to half throttle,
which is where I believe your hearing the machine gun sound.

At 16 seconds into the video I went to full throttle, held it for a
moment and then shut her down.

Of interest, while I'm starting the engine, did you notice the steel
welding table move? While the table is on casters, it's pretty
difficult to push around with that 500lb engine on it. However the
engine produces so much torque during startup, it moved itself and the
table!

One somewhat funny / scary event was later in the day when I had the
engine on the shop floor and started it at half throttle. With the
engine still bolted to the floor of its wooded shipping container, as
the first several power strokes happened the whole engine hopped
around on the shop floor doing little "Wheelies". For several moments
I was rather confident the engine was going to do a back flip!


Second, is it true that the engine is shut down by interrupting flow
of fuel to the low pressure pump? I thought so because it took a while
to stop.

Nope. The throttle and shut off are all the same mechanism, which are
part of the diesel fuel injector governor. Basically, the throttle
handle you saw on Jeff's ChangFa pictures, pulls on a spring. The
spring pulls on the governor lever arm. As RPM's increase the force
needed to hold the lever in position increases, and this whole system
works as the governor.

When you put the throttle in the "Stop" position, all that is
happening is your not pulling on the spring loaded governor, thus the
diesel fuel injector aims for "zero" rpms (or something like that).
BTW, there is no electronic shut off, the engine can be ran without
any electrical system, that is if your man enough to start it with the
hand crank!

The reason it took so long for the engine to come to a stop is the
100+ pound fly wheel! The motor will coast to stop even longer if the
compression release handle is opened at shut down.

One thing that sort of scares me is, when you have the engine at "Full
Throttle", you can reach back behind the cover and manually pull the
fuel injector lever, which will over rev the engine.

The whole setup reminds me of a typical lawn mower engine governor
that uses the airflow off the fly wheel to govern engine RPM. As a
kid, I knew I could get the ridding lawn mower really moving if I
reached down and manually opened the carb butterfly I won't be
experimenting with this on the Diesel!!!!!

All in all, sounds like a very interesting project. I am particularly
interested if you are going to give this system a load test.

I will once I get her assembled, Current plan is to hook the
generator up to both my powder coat oven and the Tig Welder.

The powder coat oven pulls a steady 30amps @ 220vac, or 6.6Kw

I'll use the Tig welder as a variable source to see how much I can
pull out of the generator system. I know the TIG will pop a 50amp
breaker, so it should be enough to push the generator up to its rated
15Kw.

The diesel engine claims that it will do 16.2Kw for 1 hour @ 2200 rpm.
I don't expect that much out of it however since I'll be running it at
1800 rpm, but we'll see what we see


Take Care,
James Lerch
http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm (My telescope construction, Testing, and Coating site)

Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Calvin Coolidge

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 01:35:05 GMT, the opaque Ignoramus30369
spake:

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:09:42 GMT, James Lerch wrote:
On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:57:15 GMT, Ignoramus30369
wrote:

A very cool video. I am wondering, why in the middle of the video
there is a brief very sharp loud noise noise like someone is shooting
a full auto Kalashnikov into the air?

Listen to the next semi at an intersection when the rev it. You'll
hear the same thing, albeit more rapid (more cylinders) and less
pronounced (more steel between it and your ears.)


After startup, about 12 seconds into the video, I pulled the
"Throttle" closed.

At 14 seconds into the video I "Revved" it back up to half throttle,
which is where I believe your hearing the machine gun sound.

Aha. You told us what happened, but I am not sure why the sound was
what it was.

Diesels rattle and knock like a SOB when they're accelerating.


--------------------------------------------
-- I'm in touch with my Inner Curmudgeon. --
http://diversify.com Comprehensive Website Development
================================================== ==========

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:46:19 +0000, James Lerch wrote:



On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:10:11 GMT,
(James Lerch) wrote:

Anyway, here's a link to the pictures and short video:

http://lerch.no-ip.com/ChangFa

Arghhhhhh.. Ok here's the real link...

http://lerch.no-ip.com/ChangFa_Gen/



Take Care,
James Lerch
http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm (My telescope construction, Testing, and
Coating site)

Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Calvin Coolidge

James,

I've just looked over your ChangFa photos, nice! I did notice that your
has a engine driven water pump? My does not have this feature.

I did start my by hand a few times so far, not really that difficult. I
press and hold (moved towards the right, when turning the hand crank)the
compression release valve, locate just behind the air-intake manifold,
Spun the handle vigorously, released the compression release valve and
spun it a few more time, to carry it through the compression stroke.
Engine starts and kicks out the handle. It was kind of scary , thinking
about, "What if this thing breaks my friggin arm?", So I had a neighbor,
who is a muscle bound youngster, turn it and start it the first time! Ah!,
it's surprising what a little reverse physiology can to do a youthful mind!

Did your brand of ChangFa engine come with a key switch installed?

Good luck and enjoy the new toy?

Jeff
(Spring Hill, Florida)

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

--
A7N8X-Deluxe, AMD XP2500+ (Un-locked)
2x256mb Crucial PC3200 DDR ram
Palit-Daytona Ti4200/64M AGP

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 01:35:05 GMT, Ignoramus30369
wrote:


Aha. You told us what happened, but I am not sure why the sound was
what it was.

The camera's cheap microphone may have exaggerated the sound, along
with the fact it was recorded in a large metal building. In person it
sounds like any other diesel under acceleration.

I am curious as to the cause of the sound, best guess is either

A) Shock waves inside the combustion chamber or
B) piston slapping around inside the cylinder.


The reason it took so long for the engine to come to a stop is the
100+ pound fly wheel! The motor will coast to stop even longer if the
compression release handle is opened at shut down.

I would like to see a picture of the engine with something that is of
familiar size, superimposed. Such as a milk jug.

I'll see what I can get some additional pictures today at the shop.
In the mean time, the first set of images of the motor include a pack
of cigarettes as a reference. The pack of cigarettes measure 4" x
2.25" x 7/8".


Also, is it the kind of design when you must constantly add water to
the hopper?

It is at the moment, but I plan on getting rid of the hopper cooling
system and replacing it with a radiator / fan assembly.

One interesting item in the Chinglish manual is the comment "Boiling
of cooling water is usual while in operation"


Take Care,
James Lerch
http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm (My telescope construction, Testing, and Coating site)

Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Calvin Coolidge

James Lerch wrote:

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 01:35:05 GMT, Ignoramus30369
wrote:




Aha. You told us what happened, but I am not sure why the sound was
what it was.



The camera's cheap microphone may have exaggerated the sound, along
with the fact it was recorded in a large metal building. In person it
sounds like any other diesel under acceleration.

I am curious as to the cause of the sound, best guess is either

A) Shock waves inside the combustion chamber or

At least with air-cooled Diesels, it is A, definitely! I had a
trailer-mounted, 2-cyl
aluminum air-cooled diesel generator on a project many years ago. I was
able
to isolate the racket as coming from the ignition of fuel in the
cylinders, as
I could cut off fuel flow at the governor, or cut out the compression with
the emergency shutoff (locked open an exhaust valve). It only made the
racket
when fuel was burning in the cylinders.

B) piston slapping around inside the cylinder.


So, it wasn't the pistons, it wasn't the intake valves, it wasn't the
fuel pump,
etc.

Jon

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 15:51:17 GMT, SomeBody
wrote:

James,

I've just looked over your ChangFa photos, nice! I did notice that your
has a engine driven water pump? My does not have this feature.

It does have a belt driven water pump. I also noticed that while our
engines are the same, they are rather different.

A) Your block doesn't have a casting location for the water pump

B) Your starter is in a much easier to reach position, is there
something mounted in between the coolant box and fuel tank on your
engine?

C) My Flywheel is different than yours

D) I didn't get any neat "ChangFa" stickers on my fuel tank :0

I did start my by hand a few times so far, not really that difficult. I
press and hold (moved towards the right, when turning the hand crank)the
compression release valve, locate just behind the air-intake manifold,
Spun the handle vigorously, released the compression release valve and
spun it a few more time, to carry it through the compression stroke.

Myself and three other shop rats tried hand cranking mine with NO
LUCK. I even put $20 on the table if someone could hand start it, I
still have the $20..

With one person cranking like mad, and another running the compression
release valve, it's easy enough to get the flywheel up to speed, but
it's impossible to get enough inertia to carry it thru one real
compression stroke.. We even tried putting the throttle in the "Stop"
position, just to see if we could get one compression stroke out of
our effort with no luck. As soon as compression is allowed to build,
it just kick backs and rips the hand crank out of the poor fellow
trying to spin the motor over.

Did your brand of ChangFa engine come with a key switch installed?

It did, and it also came with what appears to be a voltage regulator /
rectifier that I'm guessing would attach to the non existent belt
driven alternator (the motor did come with two belts, one of which
runs the water pump)

I'm still debating if I want to add an automotive 12vdc alternator, or
just run a 110vac battery charger....

Good luck and enjoy the new toy?

Like wise, I kind of hope we don't need them anytime soon, but at the
same time I think it would be kind of neat to offer hot showers and
air conditioned rooms for the neighbors and family


Take Care,
James Lerch
http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm (My telescope construction, Testing, and Coating site)

Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Calvin Coolidge

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 19:59:50 GMT, Ignoramus13822
wrote:


I have a question about hopper cooling. Actually a few.

1. Would constant boiling off of water lead to mineral deposits inside
the engine?

Indeed, the manual warns about this and requires the use of "Soft
Water". It also says if "Soft Water" is unavailable, to first boil
the water and then filter it. How boiling mineral laden water and
filtering it is going to do any good is beyond me. Perhaps what they
meant was to distill the water.....

2. Do your engines have a safety shutdown system in case you forgot to
refill the hopper.

There is absolutely no safety shutdown mechanism on this engine from
the factory. It will do one of four things:

A) Run till its out of fuel

B) Melt itself down to a blob of cast iron because it ran out of water

C) Turn itself into a pile of metal shavings or chunks after running
out of oil

D) Some combination of the above three items.

However, it does have some indicators available. A pop up oil
pressure indicator on the cylinder head, and a floating water level
indicator on the cooling tank.

I get this mental picture of this engine running next to a river in
China, with a dedicated "Employee" who's sole job is keeping an eye on
the engine, while feeding it fuel and water....

3. How often do these hoppers need to be refilled at, say, 60%
generator load.

No Idea, and the manual doesn't say either. The only comment the
manual says is if the water level indicator drops below the level of
the tank, water should be added. Which then brings forth the mental
image of some guy pouring ice cold river water into the nearly empty
hopper of boiling water!

This thing definitely needs a radiator and a larger fuel tank, as well
as a water temp and oil sensing system with automated shutdown, as
I'm a lazy American and can't spend all day babysitting a generator.
I'd much rather be inside enjoying an ice cold beer, after taking a
hot shower, and relaxing behind the TV in an air conditioned house!


Take Care,
James Lerch
http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm (My telescope construction, Testing, and Coating site)

Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Calvin Coolidge

On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 03:36:15 GMT, Ignoramus13822
wrote:


Anyway, your plan is to fit a radiator to this system. Is that right?

Correct, all I have to do is figure out how large the radiator should
be, and if it should have a 12vdc, 120vac, or belt driven fan. I'm
kind of favoring the 120vac fan, as would require less work and
perhaps be more reliable than the belt driven fan, and not require a
dedicated 12vdc supply from the engine..

I guess it can be deduced from the fuel usage numbers, keeping in mind
that 1/3 goes into electricity, 1/3 into exhaust and 1/3 is consumed
in the cooling system (source: alt.energy.homepower).


Interesting, I'll bring the manual home tomorrow and try and decipher
the fuel consumption values while I scan it into the computer.
Take Care,
James Lerch
http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm (My telescope construction, Testing, and Coating site)

Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Calvin Coolidge

[quote=James Lerch]On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 03:36:15 GMT, Ignoramus13822
lid wrote:


Anyway, your plan is to fit a radiator to this system. Is that right?

Correct, all I have to do is figure out how large the radiator should
be, and if it should have a 12vdc, 120vac, or belt driven fan. I'm
kind of favoring the 120vac fan, as would require less work and
perhaps be more reliable than the belt driven fan, and not require a
dedicated 12vdc supply from the engine..

I guess it can be deduced from the fuel usage numbers, keeping in mind
that 1/3 goes into electricity, 1/3 into exhaust and 1/3 is consumed
in the cooling system (source: alt.energy.homepower).


Interesting, I'll bring the manual home tomorrow and try and decipher
the fuel consumption values while I scan it into the computer.
Take Care,
James Lerch
http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm (My telescope construction, Testing, and Coating site)

James,
I know this post is a year old , but just discovered it. I just bought a 22 HP Changfa engine & it has a very loud knock. Watching the video of your engine, I noticed it does the same on acceleration, but mine does it all the time it's running. Sounds almost like loose rod bearings. Is this normal for these engines? Hate to think I got a new lemon.