| Home -> Lister 4 |
|
Regular Rocket
stuff Please send your Accolades/Flames to:
Copyright
© 2002, 2003 by
|
What's
New!
|
||
|
The Lister Generator Project Page 4
So here hurricane Frances has blown thru my yard and is finally leaving the state.
About 09:30 in the morning the
wind was blowing with gusts up to 45 mph. The power gave one last surge and
boom...lights out for the duration. The Listeroid was already prepped and my
fingers were crossed hoping it would stay running as long as needed. By now,
the genset had about 25 hours on it and had been very reliable, yet I still
wondered how it would hold up to 24/7 operation. Not having much choice, I
cranked it up and threw the transfer breaker and on came the lights. As
expected, it easily ran the air conditioning and many other items. The
genset was known to produce about 10,000 watts, but limited to a bout 9700
watts continuously due to the radiator being a tad too small. Fortunately,
the normal load for us was around 7,000 watts so life went on normally as we
finished prepping the house and yard for the ensuing storm. Almost immediately, the neighbors started to visit as they discovered their toilets no longer flushed due to a lack of power for their wells. We welcomed them and had plenty of ice to give away as well. Throughout the next three days, we had plenty to visitors seeking hot showers , warm food, and cold beer. Sometime just wanting to get short reprieve from the heat and humidity as they toiled in their yards clearing away the destruction from Frances. I decided to shut the generator down for about 4 hours every night to let me sleep without worry of the thing catching fire and torching my shop. I never finished installing any sort of low oil pressure or overheat protection and just couldn't bear the thought of my home made creation incinerating my home. This short break also gave me time to check the oil and tighten any loose fasteners etc. As it was, it used no oil, and nothing came loose. The only oddity of fact was small oil leaks around the TRB housings. These listeroid engines are not exactly built to Toyota standards and as such tend to let their oil escape a bit too easily. The engineers dealt with this problem long ago by placing a reed valve in the crankcase breather. It allows pressure pulses to escape, but pressure can't get back in, the result is the case operates with less internal pressure than ambient (slight vacuum). This serves to suck escape minded oil into the engine. It works pretty well, but on my engine, the reed was gummed up with green paint. I spent some time cleaning it up and bending the reed a bit to get it too lay flay. This help dramatically. I've since stopped all the other leaks by resealing the nut/studs that were allowing oil to sneak past them. The engine now runs pretty cleanly. Amazingly, nothing else went wrong during the 65 hours it ran. It consumed about 21 gallons of diesel, no oil, and we lived quite nicely during the whole miserable event. Even the belt didn't need tightening. At our home, we experienced winds around 100 mph. The house received damage to roof shingles, gutters torn free and endless trees that snapped and fell, some of them against the house. After 35 hours of chainsaw cutting and hauling debris, I feel I'm about half way done with the cleanup. The roof is old and will need to be replaced as well as the gutters, but in all, We feel pretty darn lucky. I could have been much worse. Operationally, here are the details...:
2 ton A/C 10 amps (or pool pump
10 amps)
The ST generator head worked flawlessly. It uses harmonic regulation and hold the
voltage amazingly steady without needing expensive circuit boards and
controllers. I couldn't be happier with the unit.
I've started collecting parts
to add low oil pressure and overheat protection. I will use a standard
automotive oil pressure switch and a Toyota coolant temperature switch that
closes at 220 deg F. When either of these switches closes, it will activate
a solenoid which will release the cutoff lever to it spring loaded cutoff
position. As soon as it's working, I'll add another page here for your
entertainment.
Here's a short video of the
hanger about hours before the eye wall hit us. I might seem windy, but not
yet!. The roar during the eye wall was incredible, sounding like a Boeing
737 on approach, yet stationary over the house at an altitude of 50 feet.
REALLY loud! You can't even hear the thump-thump-thump of the
listeroid due to the screaming winds.... Video 5.4 MB |
|||
|
"Sadly,
artificial intelligence will probably never be a match for natural
stupidity." |
