Metalworking (rec.crafts.metalworking) Discuss various aspects of working with metal, such as machining, welding, metal joining, screwing, casting, hardening/tempering, blacksmithing/forging, spinning and hammer work, sheet metal work.

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Default Onan fuel tank.

On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 02:20:38 -0800, Ron wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:

Id actually LOVE to convert it to propane. How?

Gunner



Check out this link:

http://www.propane-generators.com/onan.htm

The only thing is that you will find that it will cost more
than you paid for the generator.

Even so, these generators are really rugged and run things
like air conditioners or pumps very nicely. They are not
like all those ultra cheap things with wishful thinking type
specs being sold in all the stores these days. You are lucky
to get through your first power outage with some of those
things that seem to have the same specs as yours.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of these manufacturers learned
about specs from Sears by looking at air compressor ads.

First, I would talk to the folks at Cummins. Onan made
factory conversions for some of their motors.

By the way, I use the portable plastic five gallon boat gas
tanks with integral fuel gauge and quick connect fuel line
to run my Onan. With two of these tanks, you can run pretty
much non stop in an emergency. No waiting for a generator to
cool down for refueling.

Ron



Thanks Ron. Are these really that thirsty? A gallon an hour? Or is
that at full load?

Gunner



"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner
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Default Onan fuel tank.

On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 05:00:26 -0800, Ron wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 02:20:38 -0800, Ron wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:

Id actually LOVE to convert it to propane. How?

Gunner

Check out this link:

http://www.propane-generators.com/onan.htm

The only thing is that you will find that it will cost more
than you paid for the generator.

Even so, these generators are really rugged and run things
like air conditioners or pumps very nicely. They are not
like all those ultra cheap things with wishful thinking type
specs being sold in all the stores these days. You are lucky
to get through your first power outage with some of those
things that seem to have the same specs as yours.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of these manufacturers learned
about specs from Sears by looking at air compressor ads.

First, I would talk to the folks at Cummins. Onan made
factory conversions for some of their motors.

By the way, I use the portable plastic five gallon boat gas
tanks with integral fuel gauge and quick connect fuel line
to run my Onan. With two of these tanks, you can run pretty
much non stop in an emergency. No waiting for a generator to
cool down for refueling.

Ron



Thanks Ron. Are these really that thirsty? A gallon an hour? Or is
that at full load?

Gunner

That is at full load. And now that I think about it, it was
my 6.5 KW Honda generator that was a gallon per hour.

The Onan is probably closer to six tenths of a gallon per
hour. But keep in mind that the Onan was made by an American
company when specifications meant something. Unlike the
foreign garbage generators this one will run all day at full
rated output and probably more.

When I was living in the motor home and using it constantly,
it was drawing fuel from a forty gallon tank so I never had
a way to actually measure how much it was using. Since then,
I have not run it enough to measure its usage. I just use
the gallon an hour figure as a worst case guesstimate for
budgeting purposes. Remember that in normal usage, a
generator speeds up and slows down with changes in load. The
published fuel usage is for a constant load which most small
generators never see. I really don't know if they use less
fuel when the average load is less than full load but
changing wildly or when operating at rated capacity with a
constant load. I prefer not to get caught short so I
estimate based on worst case of an engine out of tune etc.

A good comparison would be to look at the increased economy
of hybrid cars vs. a normal gas powered car. Hybrids operate
the engines to charge batteries etc thus maintaining a
fairly constant load on their engines.

Only experience in a given environment will tell you what
reality is in that regard.

Ron



Thanks. I was a bit concerned, as Im installing this critter as a
backup genset for my home, as my ex- who takes care of the place, is
something of an invalid, and doesnt deal well with cold or desert
heat. So it must run the furnace and a swamp cooler, plus the fridge
and some lights. Sizing the gas tank with a view towards a 8-24 hr
power outage was why I asked. Im not sure I can afford a 55 gallon
drum of gas on standbye, and having it go sour is another concern. And
expecting her to pour gas from a jerry can is wishful thinking.

Gunner



"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner
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Default Onan fuel tank.

On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 15:23:20 -0800, Ron wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:


Thanks. I was a bit concerned, as Im installing this critter as a
backup genset for my home, as my ex- who takes care of the place, is
something of an invalid, and doesnt deal well with cold or desert
heat.


That is one of those situations where propane or natural gas
conversion would make a lot of sense.

With the price of gasoline going out of site, having a large
supply on hand for a generator is an invitation to theives
these days unless properly protected.

Ron



Ayup. I hunted around for a propane genset for quite some time, but
was unable to find anything under $2k..least of all far enough under
$2k for me to be able to afford.

Gunner



"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner
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Default Onan fuel tank.

On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 23:57:29 -0800, Bruce L. Bergman
wrote:

On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:17:07 +0530, Gunner Asch
wrote:

Sizing the gas tank with a view towards a 8-24 hr
power outage was why I asked. Im not sure I can afford a 55 gallon
drum of gas on standbye, and having it go sour is another concern. And
expecting her to pour gas from a jerry can is wishful thinking.


K&W Products, "Stor-X". Available at NAPA, 1-gallon bottles, 4
gallons per case. (You may have to buy the whole case.)

Same stuff as "Sta-Bil" but available in bulk at a very reasonable
price. 1 ounce per gallon of gasoline, pour into drum before fill and
it'll mix itself.

-- Bruce --


Good stuff?

Gunner



"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner


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Default Onan fuel tank.

Fuel tank for A genny.

You should be able to find A tank at your local bone yard. A plastic
tank should be easy to procure.
My 79 Dodge Power Wagon has 2. both of my Broncos ('84 and '95) have
36 gallon plastic tanks and my '95 F-150 has 2 .
How about converting it to propane?

H.R.

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Ron Ron is offline
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Default Onan fuel tank.

Gunner Asch wrote:

Id actually LOVE to convert it to propane. How?

Gunner



Check out this link:

http://www.propane-generators.com/onan.htm

The only thing is that you will find that it will cost more
than you paid for the generator.

Even so, these generators are really rugged and run things
like air conditioners or pumps very nicely. They are not
like all those ultra cheap things with wishful thinking type
specs being sold in all the stores these days. You are lucky
to get through your first power outage with some of those
things that seem to have the same specs as yours.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of these manufacturers learned
about specs from Sears by looking at air compressor ads.

First, I would talk to the folks at Cummins. Onan made
factory conversions for some of their motors.

By the way, I use the portable plastic five gallon boat gas
tanks with integral fuel gauge and quick connect fuel line
to run my Onan. With two of these tanks, you can run pretty
much non stop in an emergency. No waiting for a generator to
cool down for refueling.

Ron
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Default Onan fuel tank.

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 02:20:38 -0800, Ron wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:

Id actually LOVE to convert it to propane. How?

Gunner


Check out this link:

http://www.propane-generators.com/onan.htm

The only thing is that you will find that it will cost more
than you paid for the generator.

Even so, these generators are really rugged and run things
like air conditioners or pumps very nicely. They are not
like all those ultra cheap things with wishful thinking type
specs being sold in all the stores these days. You are lucky
to get through your first power outage with some of those
things that seem to have the same specs as yours.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of these manufacturers learned
about specs from Sears by looking at air compressor ads.

First, I would talk to the folks at Cummins. Onan made
factory conversions for some of their motors.

By the way, I use the portable plastic five gallon boat gas
tanks with integral fuel gauge and quick connect fuel line
to run my Onan. With two of these tanks, you can run pretty
much non stop in an emergency. No waiting for a generator to
cool down for refueling.

Ron



Thanks Ron. Are these really that thirsty? A gallon an hour? Or is
that at full load?

Gunner

That is at full load. And now that I think about it, it was
my 6.5 KW Honda generator that was a gallon per hour.

The Onan is probably closer to six tenths of a gallon per
hour. But keep in mind that the Onan was made by an American
company when specifications meant something. Unlike the
foreign garbage generators this one will run all day at full
rated output and probably more.

When I was living in the motor home and using it constantly,
it was drawing fuel from a forty gallon tank so I never had
a way to actually measure how much it was using. Since then,
I have not run it enough to measure its usage. I just use
the gallon an hour figure as a worst case guesstimate for
budgeting purposes. Remember that in normal usage, a
generator speeds up and slows down with changes in load. The
published fuel usage is for a constant load which most small
generators never see. I really don't know if they use less
fuel when the average load is less than full load but
changing wildly or when operating at rated capacity with a
constant load. I prefer not to get caught short so I
estimate based on worst case of an engine out of tune etc.

A good comparison would be to look at the increased economy
of hybrid cars vs. a normal gas powered car. Hybrids operate
the engines to charge batteries etc thus maintaining a
fairly constant load on their engines.

Only experience in a given environment will tell you what
reality is in that regard.

Ron

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Default Onan fuel tank.

Ron fired this volley in news:47A70C6A.2010902
@yahoo.com:
... Remember that in normal usage, a
generator speeds up and slows down with changes in load.


Uh... no, Ron; not if the governor is working properly. It increases or
decreases torque by throttling, but does not change speed. If it did,
the frequency of the output would change.

There are some fairly exotic "writable field" gensets out there that will
output a fixed frequency regardless of speed, and some that feed an
inverter from the genny, rather than feeding the load directly. Neither
of those is the case with an "ordinary" genset like the Onans.

My 4.5KW Emerald was a good set, but I used to HATE Onan everything back
when I was on Swifts. On any given day, you could figure the one thing
that would always break was that nasty little 3KW diesel Onan in the
engine compartment. I don't think I ever saw one run for more than eight
or ten continuous hours without something going wrong.

LLoyd

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Default Onan fuel tank.

We used to make a lot of propane parts for Onan gensets. One issue is
the need to preheat the propane for cold weather operations. That meant
a 1/4" stainless steel tube wrapped around the exhaust manifold for the
propane feed line.

Ron wrote:
Gunner Asch wrote:

Id actually LOVE to convert it to propane. How?

Gunner



Check out this link:

http://www.propane-generators.com/onan.htm

The only thing is that you will find that it will cost more than you
paid for the generator.

Even so, these generators are really rugged and run things like air
conditioners or pumps very nicely. They are not like all those ultra
cheap things with wishful thinking type specs being sold in all the
stores these days. You are lucky to get through your first power outage
with some of those things that seem to have the same specs as yours.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of these manufacturers learned about specs
from Sears by looking at air compressor ads.

First, I would talk to the folks at Cummins. Onan made factory
conversions for some of their motors.

By the way, I use the portable plastic five gallon boat gas tanks with
integral fuel gauge and quick connect fuel line to run my Onan. With two
of these tanks, you can run pretty much non stop in an emergency. No
waiting for a generator to cool down for refueling.

Ron



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Default Onan fuel tank.

Lloyd E. Sponenburgh wrote:

Uh... no, Ron; not if the governor is working properly. It increases or
decreases torque by throttling, but does not change speed. If it did,
the frequency of the output would change.




Oops, you are of course correct. I should not write when I
am very tired.

That was a very poor choice of wording.

I did indeed mean to say that the throttle position changes
with load not the engine speed. On some of the generators,
there is the equivalent functionality to the accelerator
pump found on automobile engines so that they can respond to
sudden changes in power requirements for just that reason.

Some loads get very unhappy if the speed of the engine and
thus the frequency of the power changes too much.

But, of course, I have seen some of the really cheap
generators that do not track load changes very well at all.
You hear them surging away constantly. I have never had the
Onan do that.

I must admit, I am a little biased. I like the old Onan
generators.

I must admit that I have no experience with the Onan
diesels. Some of the auxiliary power units that we used on
the flight line may have been Onans but it was not my job to
deal with them.

Ron
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Default Onan fuel tank.

Gunner Asch wrote:

Id actually LOVE to convert it to propane. How?


For the adventurous:

http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower...e_convert.html

Kevin Gallimore
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Default Onan fuel tank.

Gunner Asch wrote:


Thanks. I was a bit concerned, as Im installing this critter as a
backup genset for my home, as my ex- who takes care of the place, is
something of an invalid, and doesnt deal well with cold or desert
heat.


That is one of those situations where propane or natural gas
conversion would make a lot of sense.

With the price of gasoline going out of site, having a large
supply on hand for a generator is an invitation to theives
these days unless properly protected.

Ron
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Default Onan fuel tank.

On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:21:00 -0500, axolotl
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:

Id actually LOVE to convert it to propane. How?


For the adventurous:

http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower...e_convert.html

Kevin Gallimore


Note: I have no connection to this site but came across it in looking
for information about LPG conversions.

http://www.propanecarbs.com/

As aside, here in Bangkok nearly all the taxi's use LPG as fuel but
their conversions are a bit more complex then this site shows. They
use an imported conversion that incorporates a "boilers", a heated
device to ensure that the LPG is vaporized and (from what I read) the
units shown on the mentioned site do not.

Bruce-in-Bangkok
(Note:remove underscores
from address for reply)
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Default Onan fuel tank.

On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:17:07 +0530, Gunner Asch
wrote:

Sizing the gas tank with a view towards a 8-24 hr
power outage was why I asked. Im not sure I can afford a 55 gallon
drum of gas on standbye, and having it go sour is another concern. And
expecting her to pour gas from a jerry can is wishful thinking.


K&W Products, "Stor-X". Available at NAPA, 1-gallon bottles, 4
gallons per case. (You may have to buy the whole case.)

Same stuff as "Sta-Bil" but available in bulk at a very reasonable
price. 1 ounce per gallon of gasoline, pour into drum before fill and
it'll mix itself.

-- Bruce --



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Default Onan fuel tank.

On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 09:13:59 +0530, Gunner Asch
wrote:
On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 23:57:29 -0800, Bruce L. Bergman
wrote:


K&W Products, "Stor-X". Available at NAPA, 1-gallon bottles, 4
gallons per case. (You may have to buy the whole case.)

Same stuff as "Sta-Bil" but available in bulk at a very reasonable
price. 1 ounce per gallon of gasoline, pour into drum before fill and
it'll mix itself.


Good stuff?


Far as I can tell - Never had a problem. I have a drum on hand for
emergencies, and every year or two I cycle it out into a vehicle and
go get fresh.

(And with gasoline prices dipping a bit, I should go do it now.)

-- Bruce --

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